My partner has gambled since we met 4 years ago, I always assumed it was an occasional £5/10 on the football but around 6 months into our relationship I first found out the extent of it. He didn’t have a penny to his name and had taken multiple loans out.
We had this situation back and forth 4 times, with his parents always bailing him out. February 2020, I was 4 months pregnant and found out he had hit rock bottom and the gambling had intensified. I reiterated that this was his last chance as I could not have this with a newborn baby.
I found gambling receipts in his wallet last week and when confronted, he lied but finally admitted he had been gambling when shops were open and transferring money to someone on his football team to place bets. He doesn’t have a penny to his name.
One bet is a mistake but 8 weeks worth of multiple bets every day feels like things have gotten serious again. He wants to change but I feel like the trust has gone.
Any advice? Can I do anything to make this situation better?
Hi CWMummy ,
Thanks for contacting , sorry to hear that you have been affected by your partners gambling . It must be a tough time and especially with a new baby .
It's important at this time that you spend all of your energy on your own self care and on your baby so that you can be at your strongest to deal with this situation and also to protect yourself financially with no bailouts and firm boundaries .
There's lots of support available for you and for your partner should he choose to start the recovery process.
Please feel free to contact the GamCare Helpline on 0808 8020 133 or Netline to explore the additional support available to you. We are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week if you would like to talk to one of the GamCare HelpLine advisers.
Take care and keep posting and stay strong
Kirk
Forum Admin
Hi... to answer your questions, it doesn't look like your partner is ready to stop. Remember that actions speak louder than words. Has he done anything practical to actually stop himself gambling?... eg registering with gamstop, self-exclusions, allow you to manage and control household finances etc.
In a sense you make things better by doing what you have to do to protect the interests of yourself and your child, so that whatever your partner does, it doesn't have a direct impact on you and your baby.
The unfortunate thing, is that you will never know "for sure" whether he is gambling or not and i guess over time you will have to decide whether you are prepared to live with that state of mind or not. Be clear with him what you are prepared to accept and what you are not.
All the best with what ever you decide to do
I’m so sorry to hear how things are. Your number one priority is yourself and your baby. I would suggest having a no holds barred completely honest conversation with him. There are blocks which can be put in place such as gam ban and gam stop and blocks put on bank cards. Also for him to hand over all financial control to you and get some therapy. However the thing is he actually has to want to do this. Sometimes we have to hit rock bottom before we can recover. I hope this was of some help
My partner has gambled since we met 4 years ago, I always assumed it was an occasional £5/10 on the football but around 6 months into our relationship I first found out the extent of it. He didn’t have a penny to his name and had taken multiple loans out.
We had this situation back and forth 4 times, with his parents always bailing him out. February 2020, I was 4 months pregnant and found out he had hit rock bottom and the gambling had intensified. I reiterated that this was his last chance as I could not have this with a newborn baby.
I found gambling receipts in his wallet last week and when confronted, he lied but finally admitted he had been gambling when shops were open and transferring money to someone on his football team to place bets. He doesn’t have a penny to his name.
One bet is a mistake but 8 weeks worth of multiple bets every day feels like things have gotten serious again. He wants to change but I feel like the trust has gone.
Any advice? Can I do anything to make this situation better?
Hello and congratulations on your little one! I'm sure you scared and wondering what the next chapter will look like for your family. When the trust is gone or closer gone, the respect comes next.
Educate him or guide him to the correct places... the best help I am getting is watching videos describing when it does to families preferably the significant other. Many gamblers do not know of the damage they can do to their loved one and it's almost unbearable. It could be similar to the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder could be worse and then your brain will changed to weather the storm. Look up betrayal trauma and addiction find a video that suits you I watched a few often and it's helped actually helped my significant other and because I would play it loud enough for him to hear and they can relate to this man that hurt his wife it tells them not only what to do but what not to do and it's very simple whether he wants to quit or not or whether he thinks he wants to quit or not or whether he wants to try and doesn't know where to start he needs to see a piece of the future the steps will come but he needs to see the penalties creating in the book he's writing for this baby beginning and you're important you need to stay healthy emotionally and physically. I don't know how his best form of communication is so once you know that you can subtly bring it up and just ask him what he thinks of these videos or discussions and they're not demeaning to him and they're not degrading to him if you get to the right ones but it's called betrayal syndrome or betrayal trauma with addiction or just a lot of them come with infidelity and it's kind of the same thing when the lies and deceit come in you feel like your ground is coming out from underneath you and you will be the one to freak out and you won't be able to do anything about it. You can't help it it will show a side of you that you didn't think was possible and it's happened to me, and many many people in the last thing I'm sure you want is to have your baby witness something that can't be controlled. So get ahead of betrayal trauma as fast as you can
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