When it Actually sinks In

Sunday 9^th June 2019

We had friends over in the afternoon; they had been to look at new house. My wife is wildly in love with their 9 week old baby. Her eyes light up every time he moves, she coos over him lovingly for a good hour when he comes to visit.. She looks at me lovingly and smiles, I simply answer, NO! One of each is plenty and head off to brew up. My son is engrossed in his tablet, until the baby arrives, he then decides that it is a better use of his time and energy to be as noisy and annoying a possible.

We talk over their potential new house (it’s a No) and their other options. We look over the internet together to scout new available homes in and around the area. Much tea is consumed and several snacks as is the fashion when we have any guests over.

My son is now outside kicking and throwing a ball at his basketball net, garage door and the pebble dashed wall. There is now more pebble dashing at the bottom of my stairs and in my kitchen than there is on the wall outside.

Question! Do all children have food detectors in their brains?

No sooner had the pack of biscuits been brought into the living room had my son abandoned the 2 footballs, bike, scooter, hula hoop, and skateboard he had dragged out of the garage, and was BBOORREEEDDDD rolling around on the floor, coincidentally  at the exact moment the biscuits were open he was STARVING.

Monday 10^th June 2019

A day off for me means one thing on a school day. Run around like a headless chicken to try and alleviate some of the pressure that my wife has to endure on a far more frequent basis.

Its 7:30 am and both children are fed, (I fear there is more cereal and milk on the kitchen table than has physically been consumed) They are also both fully dressed, luckily for me the wife had the foresight to leave 2 neat piles of clothes ready for them the evening before. My step daughter is brushing her hair and my son is upside down on the sofa moaning that he is hungry again.

So far so good for a Monday morning, I head off into the kitchen to make my wife a cup of tea before heading up to shout at her to get out of bed as she has to go to work. She is most definitely not a morning person but a cup of tea usually sweetens the deal and she agrees to get out of bed and get ready. Just as I reach the top of the stairs the bickering starts. “She’s thrown something at me” followed by “he hit me first” the children are clearly incapable of being in close proximity to each other alone for even the shortest amount of time.

8:30am off to school we go. The wife heads off to work and me and the kids head off to school. Not a bad morning so far. Only a normal amount of falling out and we are all ready and away mostly on time. I drop the kids off and head back home for the 6 hours peace and quiet to slob and watch TV and inevitably fall asleep on the sofa for an hour about 1pm.

I receive a message from my wife on my way back home it reads

“I know you don’t like doing it but can we look at our finances and start to plan for the future looking at house yesterday got me thinking”

This wasn’t the first time a message of this sort had been received. 3 years ago my wife had discovered I had a large loan and it had all come out but over those 3 years she had mentioned it on the odd occasion and told her things were in hand and everything was fine. The reality was that everything wasn’t fine. My answer to her was simply “I don’t feel like it”

Over the next 6 hours whilst she was at work I paced back and forth around the house i laid on the bed sulking and getting more and more frustrated at my wife for pushing and pushing to look at the finances. It got to the inevitable point that an ultimatum was coming and i knew at that moment that I would need to come clean, I had 2 options. Tell her the truth and she may leave me or don’t tell her anything and she would leave me.

I had a plan in place I knew what I was going to say, I had already thought of every conceivable excuse for the current financial situation I was in and in the end I knew that excuses just weren’t going to cut it anymore.  I had to be honest. I resigned myself to the fact that tonight may be the end but there was sense of relief that my secret would be out.

The plan was this; my wife finishes work and heads off to go pick my son up as my step daughter goes to her dads. They would return around 6pm we would mess about for an hour and then he would go to bed and I would tell her. My wife on the other hand had other plans. She arrived home a little after 4pm and I went into panic mode.

She asked me, “what is going on then” my reply “I thought you were off to get the kids”

“You need to tell me”

I stood there in silence gazing out of the bedroom window, the Fear the dread had washed over me. I turned to her and my eyes started to tear. I slid down the wall and sat on the floor. She looked at me and I at her. She was just as petrified as I was. It was now or never. And then it came out.

“I HAVE A GAMBLING PROBLEM and I now owe more than I did 3 years ago”

You could see her heart sink, it was at that moment that I cried, I was so overwhelmed with fear at that single moment. Fear of her leaving, of her taking my son and my step daughter away from me.

Then she asked. “How much” I paused for a moment and said I don’t know. The fact was I didn’t really know not exactly but I had a rough idea. She asked again “How much”

My Reply “About £xxx” her heart sank again. She stood up and I begged. “Don’t leave me don’t take my children away” she looked at me and said. “I am not leaving and I would never not let you see the kids”, “I need to go get the kids now I’ll see you in a bit”

I sat and cried. I was so emotional, the relief was overpowering but the fear remained.

The whole evening was cold. We sat and chatted and my wife asked me what I intended to do and how it all happened. I had No idea how much I had in terms of debt and credit and promised to sort that out the following day. Along with putting things in place to stop gambling My promises meant nothing to her at that moment and I could tell.

She was still there though, in the same room as me. That was reason enough to not let this destroy me. If anything I was determined for it to make me stronger.