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ex and would be ex-gamblers support thread
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mimar - i find weekends tough as well. i take the kids to see my dad and he always shows me his betting slip for the weekend football!! a couple of tips for your OH, dont buy a paper until after 3pm on saturday or not at all. or if he does then why not take the racing pages out its these pages that have the odds on them. that way he wont know the odds and his interest may eventually go.
what you need to remember that this wont happen overnight.
its been 7 weeks for me and i still get urges.
if he goes into town, does he have to go past the bookies? can he find another route so he cant see the odds in the window, this works for me.
if he likes football why not go and watch his local; team doesnt have to be a league club. he may be surpised at how much he would enjoy amateur semi pro football.
i do a lot with the kids (admittedly they are only 6 and 3) but it keeps us all occupied, fit and happy
take the dog for a walk0 -
I'd like to add my story if I may. I will also be showing my OH this thread later on as he too is a member of MSE. I'll apologise to him now if anything I say upsets him
My OH always like to put money in the fruit machines but I never imagined it was a problem until we got together as a couple. I then realised that he only ever put a couple of quid in before because that was everything left in his pocket. I've since worked out he's the sort of person that will have 10p but gamble 11p.
I don't know how much he has gambled since we have been together because I'm too scared to add it up. I would end up hating him totally but I guess it is in the region of £15,000. At the moment we are only in debt of about £5,000 but we coud've had so much more. A much happier and fruitful existence instead of scrimping and scraping.
The thing that I hated the most was the selfishness of him. Even if he gambled I always tried to find him the money so he could go and do a hobby that he enjoys while I suffered with nothing.
Our DS comes first, he came second and I didn't exist. I would borrow from my family to make ends meet and although they never said no I began to feel I was pushing my luck and the money help would dry up.
I had got myself out of my own debt and had made a start of repairing my credit rating with the view of us bettering ourselves in the future. But I'm back to square one thanks to him. He used my bank cards and even opened accounts in my name using my dob and security passwords.
That was until I finally snapped a few weeks ago. Every month I would beg him to stop, he would make that promise and I would warn him it was his last chance. Then he went out for a free night of bingo that Mecca so kindly sent him. He went and when he came home drunk I knew he had spent some of his wages that were meant to pay bills and my family back.
I kicked him out of the house (this bit has been cut very short) his Dad put him up. It was three weeks that he stayed there before I let him come home. He is home but there are now rules and a lot of changes and there will be for a long time. One was he went to GA and he started that before he came home. I took him to the first meeting but am trusting him to go on his own now.
Things are not the same between us and I don't think they ever will. I want to trust him but am scared at the moment to let my guard down. I told him before he came home that I love him but I do not like him and while he continues to be selfish and put himself before considering his family I will not ever like him. This is his last chance if I ever have to kick him out again that will be it for us. I will never stop him from seeing our DS but I will never forgive him for gambling my family happiness.
Thanks for listening0 -
If that post doesn't help your OH TB, i hope it helped you.
Getting out out there can be theraputic and i'm glad you were able to give him another chance. Hopefully he'll be able to break free and you will regain the trust and bond you had.
The one thing i noticed with gamblers, there are those who are truly sorry for what they've done and try to change, but sometimes fail - then there are those that have become totally self absorbed and getting money for gambling is the only thing that matters. I hope OH is not the latter but if he has already used your cards for gambling he may be facing a huge battle to overcome the urge.
I think the worst thing he could do is look back on what he has done and how to fix that. He will need to focus on looking forward and not worry about the losses - this is often what gamblers get caught up with. It's gone so hopefully he can move past that and just work towards a better future with his family.
I wish i had some advice or hope to give you TB, but it's all down to him. I knew i had a problem and didn't learn from it - thought i might be able to fix it, but i was not strong enough to resist the temptation. I might never be and i need to live with that.
If your OH can work out the reasons he gambles (i used gambling as a crutch if i was stressed or depressed) then he may have a better chance so that he can see a possible situation arising before it is upon him. He needs to channel those feelings into something else.
I hope both of you make it.
Good luck.After falling off the gambling wagon (twice): £33,600 (24,000+ 9,600) - Original CC Debt: £7,885.91
Dad Gift 6k ¦ Savings & Inv Tst: £2,500
Loan 10k: £0 ¦ Dad 5.5k: £2,270 ¦ LTSB: £0 ¦ RBS: £0 ¦ Virgin £0 ¦ Egg £0
Total Owed: £2,270 (+6k) 11/08/20110 -
TB - good luck with everything, you did the right thing showing him the door you had to draw the line somewhere and hopefully it can be rescued. it was tough reading it from your perspective as you repeated what my OH told me 7 weeks ago. to be honest it upset me a little but reminded me of the hurt ive caused so in a way its helped me to stay strong.
george is right the money has gone and not coming back, he wont win it back even if he wins half of it back its only a matter of time before that goes and some more.
let me repeat what george said "It's gone so hopefully he can move past that and just work towards a better future with his family" TB - tell your husband that it is possible, he needs to put things in place that makes him unable to gamble, occupies himself, takes away the urge to do it and thinks about the reasons why he does it.
come back let us know how you get on, theres always someone supportive and understanding about0 -
Thank you to you both.
I totally agree with you the money has gone. I certainly don't throw it in his face now although I admit I did before. When we went shopping and he would put things in the trolley I would take them out and say I can't afford them because you gambled £xyz yesterday/last week.
I don't do that now because I don't have the energy to. He knows why we can't afford things and I no longer take him shopping. I just get on with it.
He has agreed to give me his wages once the cheque has cleared so I can distribute it between essential bills and towards some of the people and companies that we owe. The test will be next weekend if that happens.
If it doesn't then I can not afford to pay the mortgage on my house as well as bills as I do not earn enough on my own. So the house will have to be sold and DS and I will have to move in with my parents.
That will be the second that any love I have for OH will turn into hate and any chance of forgiving or forgetting will be missed for good. I will not stop him from seeing DS but I will have no respect or forgiveness for him.
Thanks again from one very Numb TotallyBroke person.0 -
TB I could have written your posts myself. I don't have any advice, I think it's too close to my own situation to be able to be detached enough, I just wanted to say you have my hugs and thoughts.Unless I say otherwise 'you' means the general you not you specifically.0
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TB - Really feeling for you, this is such a hard time. Your priority is you and your son's wellbeing. I nearly threw my OH out when he admitted how much debt he was in, only reason I didn't there was a Gamblers' Anonymous meeting that night near us and I was determined he should go. You did the right thing. I have read that by wives (and it is usually wives) taking out loans, making sacrifices, sorting out credit problems and keeping to a budget just makes it worse, as it makes it easier for the gambler to carry on gambling. I think it was the GamAnon website that said they have to face up to it themselves and sort out their own mess. Very hard though when you see your grocery money go down the pan.
George is right - there are two kinds of gamblers, the ones that realise they have a problem and who are determined to do something about it and the ones who don't and still think they can 'win it all back'. If your OH is going to GA then they will put him on the right track. You can never ever win it back, that is just not going to happen.
Another thing GA say is that it is no good thinking about the money - it has gone and that's that. I found this bit really hard, as it wasn't me who had gambled all the money away, and if I feel too tired to cook and OH suggests a takeaway 'to help me out' I really have to bite my tongue from saying 'we can't afford it because you gambled away all our money'. From now on he is going to take up some advice from someone else on this thread and learn how to cook...
Another thing that is really hard to get your head round, but what GA insist is a fact, is that when your hubby puts himself and his gambling first it isn't personal. He isn't dissing you or your son, he isn't trying to escape from you or your relationship it isn't that he wants to hurt you or deceive you or make thngs hard for you, it is just that he has an illness and can't help it. I still find this bit hard to accept sometimes, but my OH insists it is true. It might make his behaviour a bit easier to accept, even if you don't understand it.
The most important thing to find out is if he knows he has a problem and is ready to sort it out. If he doesn't think he has, or if he thinks he can keep it under control himself then he is still in denial and you are better off out of there.
Keep checking in and let us know how you are getting on. Really feel for you Hon, but you aren't alone.
xxxx0 -
Many thanks you guys for the tips on how to get through the weekend when everywhere you turn everyone seems to be persuading you to have a bet. Instead of Racing Post my OH bought a comic for our little girl and just read the sports section out of the other papers, in the evening when all the matches were over. Amazing how everywhere you turn people are offering you tips or talking about betting, there is a new advert on TV with a load of poeple zorbing down a street in great big balls and it is for Littelwoods pools or bingo I think. And they even give out racing tips on Radio 4 in the morning, I would have thought it was too highbrow for that.
It is weird how much spare time my OH seems to have now though, which just shows how much he was glued to the laptop before, I never realised how much it affected our family life. He is playing with the children much more which they are loving.
He's gone over three weeks without a bet now, something I wouldn't have thought possible before.
Hope you guys are all hanging on in there, one day at a time.0 -
I started off playing poker for fun and making the odd bet and began to build up a nice amount of money through playing but then I lost my job and it all went down hill from there I thought playing poker could become my new source of income but with the pressure I put on myself to win X amount of money by the week it turned into a disaster quickly I lost and deposited and lost more..
I quickly found my self over my overdraft (still am) I took out a loan to fund my gambling and saw that go down the drain.. I've just gone back into education to start my degree and still haven't got a job and still find myself in financial crisis.. I don't know what to do? where to start? no money, no benefits, no nothing apart from the stack of letters from the bank telling me i'm over my overdraft limit.0 -
You gotta stop gambling now Lifeiswar. You gotta take control. Check out your nearest Gamblers Anonymous meeting and make a vow to go - they will give you more support and advice than you could hope for. My OH also had mad ideas that he could fund his retirement with gambling and set himself set amounts to win each week - then lost even more cash chasing what he had lost. You will NEVER win it back, you have lost it and it ain't never coming back. You must accept that.
As for the debts, that's the vicious bloody legacy that gambling leaves. You ned professional help and quick. Get onto a few websites this afternoon - CCCS and National Debtline are a good place to start. You could speak to someone today, find out where you stand with benefits, what to tell your bank, how to manage the loan.
You've done he right thing to realise there is problem, and to do something about it, you don't want this hanging over you while you do your degree, you don't want to be leading a secret life.
This is your chance for a fresh start, you'll get a lot of support if you look for it, especially from this thread.
Sending you 'be strong' vibes!0
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