Huge Gambling debt from OH. Sell house

D_M_E

Think you need to open a separate savings account in your name only with another bank and keep it secret and put say £50 a month or whatever you can afford in it and keep its existence secret, known only to yourself and, if possible, tell the bank you don't want any communication about the account in writing, everything by email only.

I'm sorry to say but think if he does not or will not accept that he has a problem then things will only get worse - he needs badly help with his addiction for both his and your - and your daughter's - futures and if he will not seek help or believes he is in control or that raising more funds by any means, then he is deluding himself and heading down the slippery slope to bankruptcy.

Once he is bankrupt then all joint debts, such as joint mortgage, joint loans, overdraft on joint bank account, etc etc become payable by you.
Therefore, to protect yourself, you need to, if possible, dissassociate yourself from any joint liabilities IF POSSIBLE, though this will prove difficult - try on the grounds of coercion, you never know unless you try.

Also write to the bank and ask that the joint account has any overdaft facility removed and state in your letter that you do not authorise any future overdraft applied for and will not be resposible for any such facility granted with your express acceptance.

dawyldthing

The other thing is to possibly get internet with TalkTalk as they have a filter that you can put on to stop all gambling. You can’t stop it from his mobile unfortunately.

But until he realises he has a prob,em he wont change and it will get worse

ChasingButterflies

Hi,

It sounds like you are trying to “fix” your husbands addiction and when that doesn’t work you try and solve the financial problems he has created... that is what happens when someone you love has a gambling addiction. All of you efforts are completely futile until he seeks help, as previously mentioned, Gamcare are great. I called up on behalf of my mum. They were able to give me a number she could contact for counselling. Which she did and it did help her. They also offered me help, which was really kind.

Supporting someone who has a gambling addiction really can take a toll, both financially and emotionally, no wonder you are feeling unhappy.

It has taken 10years from when I first realised my mum had a serious gambling problem (a phone call for help because her house was being repossessed) Her compulsion lost her, her home, her very well paid job, her self respect and it pretty much destroyed our relationship in the process. She is now settled, she rents a nice house and has a job, I think she slips every now and again, but I can’t take responsibility for that. A lot of the things I tried to do to help her actually enabled her to continue to hide from her problems, perhaps she would have reached this point sooner if I had left her to deal with it on her own.

I would second the point of you getting your own bank account, my mum used to have my kids for visits. My son aged 4 took his wallet with all of his birthday money with him and didn’t come back with it. Mum swore blind it wasn’t at her house, I assumed he had lost it. When I was packing up her house I found the wallet minus the money. Gambling makes people blind to right or wrong, and the shame makes them gamble more.

Mums gambling was mostly online, her email address was obviously on some sort of gamblers mailing list. Although she had self excluded she still got emails from places that had her email address. I would recommend, once your husband recognises he has a problem closing down his old account and starting a new one.

Best wishes for the future x

CRANKY40

Do you really need to ask why he won't pay his wages into your joint account? It's so he still has access to funds for gambling.

Pixie5740

You've already released equity from your home to pay off his gambling debts and here you are, less than a year later, talking about selling your home to release more equity to repay another £25k gambling debt he has accrued. I don't think it will help either of you and in fact will just enable his addiction.

You say, "our bills and debt are £3397 pm," but how much of that is joint debt and how much is in your name?

Does he ever look at the joint account or access it other than just paying in what he thinks is needed to cover the bills and living expenses?

DFiAD

Register him with GamStop. This will exclude him from ALL UK online gaming sites

tlc678910

Hi Kellyoak,
Your husband is obviously in the grip of a very powerful addiction and that is very frightening for you.

You need to accept that he can’t help himself at the moment and cannot be trusted so you need to take steps to protect yourself and your kids from the effects of this.

Do you earn enough to pay your mortgage and essential bill? Can you take these over from your bank account so you know they are paid. Ask your husband for his direct debit towards them to be set up straight after payday but try to be ready to cope if/when no money comes from him.

Don’t take any cards/loans in your name to help resolve the problem (it won’t it will just provide more credit to feed the addiction). Don’t help him with the payments of his cards and loans. He might start to face his addiction when the money runs out and when his cards default and are cancelled at least it will be more difficult for him to get into further debt.

Get copies of your credit reports regularly so you know he has not taken debt out in your name. You can ask the land registry for an alert if anyone tries to sell or further mortgage your house https://www.gov.uk/protect-land-property-from-fraud You might think that is over the top but better safe than sorry.

I think you could do with information, support and advice about gambling addiction yourself. I don’t mean that to be patronising at all, just that you sound lovely and forgiving but without some tough love your husband is going to lose you your home. You joke about nagging him but no amount of nagging is going to stop him gambling. You need to be brave enough and strong enough to say me and our kids are not going to suffer to enable you to gamble and I will support you to get clean of it but I will not support you with one single penny to gamble. That will probably mean his finances collapsing at some point and you letting them. People on here can help you with what to do then.

Don’t give up your home. You mention restarting with a new property and more expensive mortgage but you won’t get a mortgage when the bank sees your husband building up rapid gambling debt in his statements and if your husband has access to your deposit it will be gone. Even if your plan to get a new home worked unless he stops gambling the cycle will begin again.

Tlc

secretdebt

Hi,

Sorry to hear about this.

Coming at this from the other side. I have been the gambler. Hiding things from my partner. The reason for this? Because I hadn’t stopped. I was ashamed. It wasn’t easy admitting it in the first place, even when being caught. Inside we know we have messed up bad. People who don’t have the illness don’t understand how hard it really is to stop.

My opinion though, is that he is still gambling. He is still upset at the losses he already has, and wants them back.

I’m sure you love him, and I was lucky I had such a loving partner too. For the sake of you and your kids, give him an ultimatum. He needs to know that you’re not a soft touch.
If he loves his family, he will accept the shame and hand over control. If he is embarrassed about what’s on it, get him to open up a fresh bank account, close the old one and let him shred the closing statement. This way he can start from fresh and you can see what happens.

I think having one “all out” discussion helps, there may be tears from both sides. But he needs to realise that we never win, because we have no idea how to stop once we start. Therefore I do my best to make sure I never start again, and the only way I can do that is by putting as many barriers in the way as possible.

I know I would do anything to not have ever started gambling, and I wish you all the best in this, because I’m sure it’s going to be a bumpy ride unfortunately.

Thanks

micky2phones

Hi, just a thought if you do more things signed together and they come after both of you the debt, he can just leave

You then have the house so they will chase you not him for the debt because you have the house

tlc678910

Hi, on BBC one this morning "a matter of life and debt" a man talks about the development of his gambling problem. It would be well worth a watch. If you can find it on the iPlayer the info says it is episode 4 of 15. Still on at the mo)
Tlc