On the verge of losing everything.
My wife found out about my gambling. My initial reaction was to lie & say it was only little bets every now & then.
She didn’t believe me & checked my accounts. There she found out the true amount of what I had spent & lost.
She has been furious with me since. I cannot blame her. I started doing it with the intention of making extra money as I was self employed & had lost a day a week of work so thought I could make it up by gambling online doing sports bets, mainly football. I had had some reasonable success before & thought I could replicate that more frequently, how wrong I was.
Every so often I would win some but that would soon be followed by loses. I would then try & chase those by trying to take longer odds spending more money than I had already lost.
I was so ashamed when she found out which was why I lied to her which made it all much worse.
I am desperate not to lose her & my children. I have been bet free for 4 months but still catch myself hearing people talking about a bet or I see some odds & think to myself ‘that is a good bet’.
I haven’t put anything on & as soon as I catch myself in that mindset I remind myself that my family is everything& they deserve better than I have given them so far.
I am determined not to go backwards & to keep fighting for my family. I believe being on here will be a positive step by reading about other people’s fights against the addiction so we can try & help each other.
I have self excluded from all online betting sites using Gamstop.
Dear EAM19,
We are glad that you are engaging in the forum. You sound very determined to overcome your problem gambling. Unfortunately, relationships are sometimes affected and emotions can run high. However, it is better that this is all out in the open. Hopefully, over time you will be able to build the trust.
Just so you are aware Gamban are offering free gambling specific blocking software for 12 months on up to 3 devices- if you want to know more just get in touch with an adviser on our helpline or netline. As the more protection you put in place to restrict your access to gambling the better. So feel free to talk to us about this and anything else on your mind.
Best Wishes,
Forum Admin
I'm same I'm 22 days gf so embarrassed of what I've spent I also am a secret gambler what haven't been found out yet that's why I'm giving up now I also come on here which seems to help I no it's hard I'm trying so hard to give up as I really can't gamble again I've to much to loose family keep going we will get support from each other
Well done on going 22 days. I hope you can keep going & stop gambling completely.
It is such a horrible feeling doing it secretly knowing your family would not be happy about it.
It might be worth letting your other half know as they may want to support you with quitting.
I believe if I had told my wife she would have supported me in trying to give up. She was more upset at the lies & broken trust than she was about the money.
It will be a hard conversation but it could well help moving forward.
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