Living with the monster

Retireby40

NBLondon said:

Retireby40 said:

So you believe that his partner doesnt have a right to know that the man she is planning to spend her life with or a big part of it is gambling 15-20k (that was only 3 months ago).

Didn't say that - I'm asking exactly what this "right" is and where it comes from?  What else does a partner have a "right" to know about someone - all their sexual fantasies, deepest fears, name of childhood imaginary friend...

You appear to have decided on the basis of your family experience that the OP will inevitably follow the same pattern.  That's a negative approach.   Remind them where to get that extra help.   The partner may be able to help and support - that's a positive reason to tell them what's happening.

Look at the relapse rates of addicts. The odds are stacked in the favour of a relapse. I take my thoughts from not only experience but evidence. If you have no knowledge on gambling addiction, you havent studied it or seen it first hand then trust me when I say. I know more than you.

She has a right to know that the household income is being gambled away. That at some point in her life there will b compromise. It may be the difference between benidorm and Blackpool. It may be that they have to make do rather than thrive as a family.

It also has a huge psychological impact. Would you want to be involved with a person who was spending hours a day gambling? Hours a day thinking about gambling? Spending time away from the family to gamble? 

She has a right to know as his behaviour can and will have an outcome on her. Put yourself in his partners shoes. Would you want to know that your partner gambled 15k away and only he won on that occasion would have been in debt? Which would have impacted the family.

Relationships are built on honesty and trust would you not agree? The OP is being dishonest and not trustworthy. Hence breaking those codes of conduct in a relationship.

NBLondon

I don't doubt you have more experience.  I'm challenging your unhelpful assumption that TwoUp is definitely going to fail.  We don't know if he has tried and failed before.  You're also projecting your definitions of "household income", "thrive" and how this family works.  Then assuming your definitions of "dishonest" and "trustworthy" are universal.

Your suggestions are posed negatively.   The OP is commending the support they have had before and building on it.

Retireby40

NBLondon said:

I don't doubt you have more experience.  I'm challenging your unhelpful assumption that TwoUp is definitely going to fail.  We don't know if he has tried and failed before.  You're also projecting your definitions of "household income", "thrive" and how this family works.  Then assuming your definitions of "dishonest" and "trustworthy" are universal.

Your suggestions are posed negatively.   The OP is commending the support they have had before and building on it.

So you honestly believe that the OP shouldnt tell his partner to gain support and to let her know who she is actually with? And to protect herself from any possible problems?

He has stated he has been gambling for 15 years. He has only stopped 3 months. Subsequently after a huge spree where he almost lost 15-20k. Maybe that was a wake up call and scared them. But when that feeling wears off there will be a void left. The void of the buzz.

I call it like I see it.

Takmon

TwoUpTwoDown said:

Retireby40 said:

Does your partner know about your gambling? If no then it's time to come clean.

Basically you are cheating them out of a better life and lying to them by not telling them. Your also robbing your kids as you said of opportunities.

Come clean, tell your partner and hand over debit cards and forms of money. Take whatever you need to work. Be it a tenner for lunch or a packet of faigs.

Self exclude yourself from all betting apps and websites. 

3 months is a good start but you can quickly get back into it and as you know it only takes one day gambling to do 1 years worth of damage.

Come clean, fess up and work with your partner going forward. Otherwise you will get found on and they will leave you if they find out you've been lying to them for so long. Your gambling will start back again if you've been at it 15 years and it will get worse without open dialogue and help. 

My partner does not know and to be honest I'm terrified of telling her because there is no doubt that things will never be the same again to the extent that i don't think she could live with it. I'm not willing to put my family at risk to be honest. Of course, it's easy to say that by gambling i have done exactly that and i wouldn't disagree for one second.
I know this is not a likebale answer and i expect to get negative reactions but that is where things stand.
I work hard, show my family love and don't drink, smoke etc... I know this doesnt outweigh a lie but if i can manage to stay on the clear and narrow then apart from money that has been lost, there are no other issues.
What i will say is that if i do gamble again then i will come clean to my partner. I just need to do this for myself for a while as i dont think that the disruption in telling her will help my recovery emotionally at the moment.
I hope to never gamble again and this diary is for me to focus on the good points in life and share stories of my family and our future ups and downs. 

The only reason to not tell your partner would be if deep down your planning on doing it again. You really should have told your partner this before you get serious enough to have kids together, how would you like it if they have massive secrets that they were not telling you?. Also if your living together then how can they not see this massive amount of money your spending? If you relationship is serious enough to have kids then why don't you both discuss your finances together and budget together? Secrets are never good for a relationship and if you don't feel like you should tell your partner this and are also not open about your finances then all these secrets are only going to end up causing problems in the future.

TwoUpTwoDown

NBLondon said:

Retireby40 said:

Your partner has a right to know. Simple as. 

Do they actually have a "right"?  If the gambling was being funded by savings and funds earned before partner was on the scene; why do they have a "right"?  If they have lost out, then there's an issue. There's no indication that the family have gone short, only that they could have had things financially better.  Which the OP clearly acknowledges.

As the OP obviously realises, discussing it at the start of this relationship might have meant the end of the relationship.  Bringing it up now has the same risk.   Being more positive, it might give the OP some extra support in keeping the control they have now got back.  

You've (Retireby40)  apparently decided TwoUpTwoDown is going to relapse; I wish them all the best in not doing so.

The gambling was funded by savings yes - my savings. Arguably those savings could have gone on other things and that's the remorse that i have to carry. I have ambitions of my own and gambling has set those back.
That being said, aside from my savings (and hers) we discuss all money matters together. We have a joint account that all money goes in to and is then divided up in to pots for food, clothing, dentist, insurance, house repairs, nursery etc which we both have visibilty of. No money has ever been taken from these accounts.
I made quite a bit of money by investing in bitcoin a few years back which i why i have some good savings and so does my partner. I don't ask her how she spends her money and she doesn't ask me - although she may question why i need another star wars lego model! This savings money is the money i lost. I still have a reasonbale amount in there so I've not frittered it all away.

At the weekends i may have had a flutter in the past but instead today i have gone out and bought some ingredients to cook my family a nice saturday morning family breakfast. Not half as much money and part of what i would have spent has gone towards something i can do for them.

Retireby40 - please don't think for one second that i am being dimissive of my actions because i'm fully aware that gambling can ruin lives beyond reprehension. I guess I'm lucky that i've been able to play with money without jeapordising my family. When i stopped 3 months ago i installed blocks on all my devices and self excluded on the sites i was with. I've also closed my paypal account which is annoying for convenience but could be a temptation and have put the remiander of my savings in premium bonds and long term investments which are not so instant to liquidate. I've done as much as i can to protect my temptations.
I'm under no illusion that i will suffer from temptation for the rest of my life but i've found that if you let the temptation come and ride it out, it normally subsides after a couple of minutes. Just one day at a time.
I also respect you opinion that i should talk to my partner and i would not hesitate if i was having to tell her we were defaulting on council tax etc... but that is not the case. 
I fully accept that some will take a dim view and i understand that entirely. Ultimately it's up to me and my bed to lie in but as i've tried to say before, I am a good person with one bad aflliction that I'm trying to beat. I work hard, make my kids laugh and treat my partner and family with respect and love.  
I don't mind discussing the morals of the situation but this diary is about recovery and about having a safe place to talk to others and perhaps offer some interesting insights in how i progress and aim to ultimately succeed in my move away from gambling. 
I've tackled addiction before and overcome it - when i was a teenager i went through a phase of eating up to 12 weetabix a day. I really could not stop eating the stuff much to my mum's dismay. It;s only when i went to the dentist at the age of 16 and he told me i needed a filling that i had to confess to putting a healthy layer of sugar on the cereal. He told me that i wanted to keep my teeth i had to stop putting sugar on. I couldn't imagine eating weetabix without it so gave them up entirely instead!  

TwoUpTwoDown

Takmon said:

TwoUpTwoDown said:

Retireby40 said:

Does your partner know about your gambling? If no then it's time to come clean.

Basically you are cheating them out of a better life and lying to them by not telling them. Your also robbing your kids as you said of opportunities.

Come clean, tell your partner and hand over debit cards and forms of money. Take whatever you need to work. Be it a tenner for lunch or a packet of faigs.

Self exclude yourself from all betting apps and websites. 

3 months is a good start but you can quickly get back into it and as you know it only takes one day gambling to do 1 years worth of damage.

Come clean, fess up and work with your partner going forward. Otherwise you will get found on and they will leave you if they find out you've been lying to them for so long. Your gambling will start back again if you've been at it 15 years and it will get worse without open dialogue and help. 

My partner does not know and to be honest I'm terrified of telling her because there is no doubt that things will never be the same again to the extent that i don't think she could live with it. I'm not willing to put my family at risk to be honest. Of course, it's easy to say that by gambling i have done exactly that and i wouldn't disagree for one second.
I know this is not a likebale answer and i expect to get negative reactions but that is where things stand.
I work hard, show my family love and don't drink, smoke etc... I know this doesnt outweigh a lie but if i can manage to stay on the clear and narrow then apart from money that has been lost, there are no other issues.
What i will say is that if i do gamble again then i will come clean to my partner. I just need to do this for myself for a while as i dont think that the disruption in telling her will help my recovery emotionally at the moment.
I hope to never gamble again and this diary is for me to focus on the good points in life and share stories of my family and our future ups and downs. 

The only reason to not tell your partner would be if deep down your planning on doing it again. You really should have told your partner this before you get serious enough to have kids together, how would you like it if they have massive secrets that they were not telling you?. Also if your living together then how can they not see this massive amount of money your spending? If you relationship is serious enough to have kids then why don't you both discuss your finances together and budget together? Secrets are never good for a relationship and if you don't feel like you should tell your partner this and are also not open about your finances then all these secrets are only going to end up causing problems in the future.

'The only reason to not tell your partner would be if deep down your planning on doing it again'
Wrong. You can't possibly know that as you don't know me. As i mentioned, we do budget together and the only accounts we don't see are our individual savings as we also use them to buy gifts for each other etc... Other than this she has full transparency to any of our household and kids accounts. We control the books together and such are entirely open with each other.
Funnily enough my partner does have this strange secret obsession with buying the kids toys depsite our lack of space but she does it from her money. She also tends to buy lots of clothes and i have no idea how much they cost. That's up to her, it's her money to spend on what she wants. 

Mojisola

TwoUpTwoDown said:

'The only reason to not tell your partner would be if deep down your planning on doing it again'
Wrong. You can't possibly know that as you don't know me.
Funnily enough my partner does have this strange secret obsession with buying the kids toys depsite our lack of space but she does it from her money. She also tends to buy lots of clothes and i have no idea how much they cost. That's up to her, it's her money to spend on what she wants. 

But it's not a secret obsession because you know about it.

You won't see it this way but you're looking through an addict's eyes when you keep saying that she doesn't need to know.

You're lying by omission, keeping this secret, and risking her financial status as well as your own because you have a joint account.

If things spiral out of control (and there are very, very few addicts who don't relapse several times before stopping completely) and she does learn about your addiction, she will feel betrayed that you couldn't share the truth with her much earlier and you will seriously damage her trust in you. 

TwoUpTwoDown

Mojisola said:

But it's not a secret obsession because you know about it.

You won't see it this way but you're looking through an addict's eyes when you keep saying that she doesn't need to know.

You're lying by omission, keeping this secret, and risking her financial status as well as your own because you have a joint account.

If things spiral out of control (and there are very, very few addicts who don't relapse several times before stopping completely) and she does learn about your addiction, she will feel betrayed that you couldn't share the truth with her much earlier and you will seriously damage her trust in you. 

'But it's not a secret obsession because you know about it.'
Thanks for responding and good point. I need to remind myself to check my grammar!  
How do you think i am risking our financial status if I'm playing with money that i have and not incurring any debt? I get where you're coming from but having gambled for so long, i have never borrowed or got in to debt because of it so i would say if i was going to have done that i would have done so by now. I've just never liked being in debt generally and gambling falls within that dislike. 

Retireby40

TwoUpTwoDown said:

Mojisola said:

But it's not a secret obsession because you know about it.

You won't see it this way but you're looking through an addict's eyes when you keep saying that she doesn't need to know.

You're lying by omission, keeping this secret, and risking her financial status as well as your own because you have a joint account.

If things spiral out of control (and there are very, very few addicts who don't relapse several times before stopping completely) and she does learn about your addiction, she will feel betrayed that you couldn't share the truth with her much earlier and you will seriously damage her trust in you. 

'But it's not a secret obsession because you know about it.'
Thanks for responding and good point. I need to remind myself to check my grammar!  
How do you think i am risking our financial status if I'm playing with money that i have and not incurring any debt? I get where you're coming from but having gambled for so long, i have never borrowed or got in to debt because of it so i would say if i was going to have done that i would have done so by now. I've just never liked being in debt generally and gambling falls within that dislike. 

You say you deposited 20 x £1000 amounts via paypal when you had £50 in your account. If that is not desperation and playing with money you dont have and taking advantage of the delay then I dont know what is.

Sorry to break it to you. But gamblers believe their own lies and stories. And your displaying every single one of the common features a gambler has.

Everything you focus on is about you. You spend YOUR savings. It's a journal for YOUR life. You build up savings with YOUR investments. It isnt impacting YOUR PARTNER etc etc. You said you have gambled some 60k. Some of that will have been in the last 4 years (god knows your level of gambling you bet 20k and won 15 a few months ago). To go from that level to 0 cold turkey is impossible. I'm not saying that because I want you to fail. I'm saying it because the evidence and statistics would indicate that.

Could your kids not benefit from the time you weren't gambling? Does your partner not deserve a random weekend away with the money you blew on online roulette?

Every night you go to bed thinking it's only affecting you is a night you are lying to yourself. Its selfish. And il ask you one question and if you can answer me this honestly it will tell me all I need to know.

If your daughter (maybe you have one maybe you dont, hopefully you do for context) was with a man working hard to bring up a family and her partner was spending hours a week gambling, was lying to her when discussing finances (if your not being honest your lying), was gambling 1,2, 15k in splurges and was so worried about their gambling that came to a public forum and they describe it as "living with a monster" would you want that person to be honest with your daughter. Or would you be happy they continued with that behaviour?

TwoUpTwoDown

Retireby40 said:

TwoUpTwoDown said:

Mojisola said:

But it's not a secret obsession because you know about it.

You won't see it this way but you're looking through an addict's eyes when you keep saying that she doesn't need to know.

You're lying by omission, keeping this secret, and risking her financial status as well as your own because you have a joint account.

If things spiral out of control (and there are very, very few addicts who don't relapse several times before stopping completely) and she does learn about your addiction, she will feel betrayed that you couldn't share the truth with her much earlier and you will seriously damage her trust in you. 

'But it's not a secret obsession because you know about it.'
Thanks for responding and good point. I need to remind myself to check my grammar!  
How do you think i am risking our financial status if I'm playing with money that i have and not incurring any debt? I get where you're coming from but having gambled for so long, i have never borrowed or got in to debt because of it so i would say if i was going to have done that i would have done so by now. I've just never liked being in debt generally and gambling falls within that dislike. 

You say you deposited 20 x £1000 amounts via paypal when you had £50 in your account. If that is not desperation and playing with money you dont have and taking advantage of the delay then I dont know what is.

Sorry to break it to you. But gamblers believe their own lies and stories. And your displaying every single one of the common features a gambler has.

Everything you focus on is about you. You spend YOUR savings. It's a journal for YOUR life. You build up savings with YOUR investments. It isnt impacting YOUR PARTNER etc etc. You said you have gambled some 60k. Some of that will have been in the last 4 years (god knows your level of gambling you bet 20k and won 15 a few months ago). To go from that level to 0 cold turkey is impossible. I'm not saying that because I want you to fail. I'm saying it because the evidence and statistics would indicate that.

Could your kids not benefit from the time you weren't gambling? Does your partner not deserve a random weekend away with the money you blew on online roulette?

Every night you go to bed thinking it's only affecting you is a night you are lying to yourself. Its selfish. And il ask you one question and if you can answer me this honestly it will tell me all I need to know.

If your daughter (maybe you have one maybe you dont, hopefully you do for context) was with a man working hard to bring up a family and her partner was spending hours a week gambling, was lying to her when discussing finances (if your not being honest your lying), was gambling 1,2, 15k in splurges and was so worried about their gambling that came to a public forum and they describe it as "living with a monster" would you want that person to be honest with your daughter. Or would you be happy they continued with that behaviour?

My point about gambling with only £50 pounds in my account was that there is a loophole that allows people to play on 'credit' as it takes 3 days to hit your account. It was an illustration of the way that you can work the system and i don't approve of it being a payment method. I subsequently transferred money from my savings to my current account to cover my spending so no issue there really. I've repeatedly said that i had the money and have never got in to debt through gambling.
Why shouldnt this diary be about me? People keep diaries about themselves all the time! All of your responses have been incredibly presumptive and prescriptive, assuming you know me better than myself. It kinda feels like this is actually about you and your disapproval against me so i'd throw that one straight back at you and ask if this diary has become about you?

'To go from that level to 0 cold turkey is impossible... I'm saying it because the evidence and statistics would indicate that.' 

Which evidence please? I'd be keen for references. I'm a reasearcher for a living so more than happy to read any peer reviewed articles or journals that give evidence that my efforts are an impossibility. I already said i went from 12 weetabix a day to none overnight and they were laced with sugar which is also incredibly addictive. Perhaps not quite as strong a dopamine response, but i have demonstrated will power in the past. Of course, I'm being a but flippant here but you see my point that you are throwing prescriptive assumptions on knowledge in with no support.

'Every night you go to bed thinking it's only affecting you is a night you are lying to yourself.'

Some nights i go to bed thinking about who came up with the tog rating system for duvets. What's your point? It does only affect me because it's MY savings and i am free to do with them as i wish.

I have both a daughter and a son so we could choose either. I presume you chose daughter as it's somehow more emotive? In all honesty, yes of course i'd prefer it if he were open about it but you presume he was lying when discussing finances. I don't lie because we don't ever discuss each others savings unless we want to. In every other aspect there is total transparency. 
I presume you would want this to apply to thoughts to then? Should all thoughts be shared? Do you share your thoughts with your partner when you are both walking down the street and you pass an attractive member of the public that catches your eye? I hope you do because otherwise you're lying to them irrespective of the fact that they may disapprove or it's nothing to do with them. How do i know you can stop this terrible behaviour and that one day you won't just up and leave and have an affair? 
If that man was kind and good and kept his family safe then although being open is of course best, he is free to do whatever he wants with his own money and that's between them. People can still remain kind and responsible when tacking a problem and we all have to work through things in our own way.

'Could your kids not benefit from the time you weren't gambling? Does your partner not deserve a random weekend away with the money you blew on online roulette?'

I hate roulette. I've already stated that i feel bad for time lost. My partner gets lots of treats from me including random weekends away already so not clear on your point here?  She'd probably benefit more if i stopped eating so many sausage rollls (paid for from my spending money) but they are so nice. If only i could stop, she'd probably be driving around in a ferrari by now..