Living with the monster

TwoUpTwoDown

HampshireH said:

"I have both a daughter and a son so we could choose either. I presume you chose daughter as it's somehow more emotive?"

I read it as if the poster was suggesting you look at it from a different view point i.e. a dad of a daughter..... Aka your wife's position viewed by perhaps her father.

Then applying it to seeing your daughter have such financial decisions kept from the man she choose to commit to a build a life/ have children with. A woman who has commited to someone to get less commitment back in the form of honesty.

Most dad's would be horrified to find their daughter in this situation.

Good luck in your battle. As a complete outsider it really does sound like you aren't fully committed to change. An online, anonymous log is one thing, a step, as there is nobody who is impacted holding you accountable.

You have already said that your relationship would change if you told her so you know she would be devestated at having been lied to.

Telling her needs to be part of the bigger picture or your relationship is built on a foundation of dishonesty and when she does find out she will feel humiliated and like you couldn't trust her - that's the worst thing.

Thank you for wish of good luck. I respect your thoughts on this but I really am committed to change on this one so just going to have to take a leap of faith! You're right that this log is a step and that can lead on to other things but I'm glad i made a step. I could be 3 months back, not having made a decision to make a change and still be losing my savings - for me that is already such a big step and one i didnt think i could do before.

CookieMonster

TwoUpTwoDown said:

...This is my diary of recovery and hope for the days and years to come.
I've followed many of your stories over the years which has given me great comfort. I hope i can offer that too in a positive, forward looking return to a life without addiction.

Best of luck to you, and I am sure that others will find solace in your diary.
I would suggest that you ignore the self-righteous individuals who are lambasting you thus far but, as that would be "advice" that you didn't actually ask for, I shalln't suggest it. 
Have a nice day.

TwoUpTwoDown

CookieMonster said:

TwoUpTwoDown said:

...This is my diary of recovery and hope for the days and years to come.
I've followed many of your stories over the years which has given me great comfort. I hope i can offer that too in a positive, forward looking return to a life without addiction.

Best of luck to you, and I am sure that others will find solace in your diary.
I would suggest that you ignore the self-righteous individuals who are lambasting you thus far but, as that would be "advice" that you didn't actually ask for, I shalln't suggest it. 
Have a nice day.

Hahaha... Thanks. 

Retireby40

CookieMonster said:

TwoUpTwoDown said:

...This is my diary of recovery and hope for the days and years to come.
I've followed many of your stories over the years which has given me great comfort. I hope i can offer that too in a positive, forward looking return to a life without addiction.

Best of luck to you, and I am sure that others will find solace in your diary.
I would suggest that you ignore the self-righteous individuals who are lambasting you thus far but, as that would be "advice" that you didn't actually ask for, I shalln't suggest it. 
Have a nice day.

Theres nothing self righteous with believing that if someone really loved and cared for someone, and planned to spend their days with them building a life together, telling them about their gambling addiction is the right thing to do. Especially when there are 2 young kids involved. That's putting them and the kids above and beyond their fears of the consequence. 

Not only is it the right thing to do but it's also potentially the change that will produce long term success in the battle. Addicts require accountability and support. Its widely known.

pjcox2005

Retireby40 - It appears to be a very emotive subject for you, but reading it cold I think you have overstepped the mark with some comments. Fine to post once, but you've made your point and are continuing to be a bit strong personally to OP. That said it is a public forum so you have to accept any answer and it seems like you mean well.

Couple of thoughts:
- Do you have to tell your wife the whole history or just say you felt gambling was getting out of hand recently so have taken action to block and reassess. I expect she'll have noted a change in behavior/free time as you won't be on your phone/laptop as much. Perhaps just say that if she sees things going back to old ways then to give you a prompt as an extra safety net and being a bit more open. 
- Accept the point savings are separate - your wife may also have bad habits like wanting a new car each year which she uses her savings on at the expense of kids. I guess the difference is your habit is a more common addiction where it can all go wrong. Is not touching any of the "family accounts" through will power and clear lines in the sand or simply you haven't had to due to the level of personal wealth.
- On savings, I expect you do already for returns, but I'd try to keep them away from easy access cash accounts. If in locked accounts, ones where you have to go to building society or in shares where you may see an opportunity cost of selling (and delay) then it may just be another barrier to gambling.
- Support charities are still worth a talking to even if you think your will power when kicking habits is fairly decent.
- This is probably a naïve point, but get a new hobby that fills the time and means you want to be focused on that rather than time on betting.

ratechaser

I'm afraid you are compartmentalising here. Your attitude seems to be that yes, you've messed up, but it's just 'opportunity cost', it's not really hurt anyone and it's not going to, and I just need to do 'something', so here I am, doing 'something' by posting anonymously on a forum. Yay, go you.

You've not hit anywhere like 'rock bottom', but if you got yourself down to a GA meeting - which I assume you haven't done - you will hear plenty of personal stories of people that were at your point, but DID NOT STOP. Bankruptcies, divorces, attempted suicides, prison - you name it, it has happened to addicts like yourself that could have taken actual practical steps to prevent it going that far, but were too immersed and/or in denial about their addiction.

I do, by the way, also feel that your partner has a right to know, but as that's clearly a sore point for you, I'll just say for now, get to a GA meeting - tonight if possible. 

And if that sounds harsh, tough. I speak from a position of some knowledge about the effects this particular addiction can have on families, and I make no apology for giving you a damn good metaphorical shake here. Head out of sand please - take action NOW!

Good Luck - and please don't end up as another depressing statistic.

Savvy_Sue

Gambling isn't an addiction I have much familiarity with so any 'evidence' I could find about the need for honesty would be more likely to relate to substance abuse, which you might not find relevant. However, if you google something like 'honesty in addiction' I think you'll find quite a bit of evidence for the importance of being honest - with yourself, with those around you. 

But I like the suggestions from pjcox and hope you find them supportive as a starting point. 

And I can't recall seeing links to Gamblers Anonymous or similar, so here they are: 
https://www.gamblersanonymous.org.uk/
https://www.begambleaware.org/ might be more 'user friendly' for you at your current stage. 

When your wife finds out, whether through you telling her or some other means, she might find Gam Anon very useful. 

Takmon

TwoUpTwoDown said:

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. 

Well personally i couldn't imagine not telling my partner something like that because we naturally talk about everything and there is nothing we hide from each other, this has nothing to do with keeping track of each other it's just natural to talk to your life partner about stuff like that and keeping something as big as that a secret is a massive no no in my opinion. You seem to think that if you spend thousands of pounds on gambling it doesn't effect your family because it's your own savings but i disagree. If you own your house outright and it's big enough and in the right location that you want to live there for the rest of your life and you are already retired with enough money in the bank to never need to work again then your gambling thousands probably doesn't matter. But every time you spend some of your personal savings your potentially losing out on paying more off your house, buying a bigger house or retiring early. Keeping secrets from each other may not be a problem if your that type of couple but even at best it will lead to inefficient use of personal savings if you don't know what each other is doing with their money or have a master plan.

Verix

I just want to say well done for realising the problem you have and taking steps to deal with it. I'm sure it hasn't been easy.

In regards to telling you partner, I wonder if it would help to consider how you would feel if she had a similar problem but didn't tell you? How would you feel if you discovered that your wife has been a habitual drug user for the last 5 years or had thousands of pounds of credit card debt she didn't tell you about? 

I don't ask this from a point of judgement, I can imagine if i was in your position it would be very difficult to tell my wife, but if I found out that she had been keeping something like this from me i'd be extremely upset. Of course I would still be upset if she revealed it to me herself, but i think the lack of faith in me and the damage to the trust in our relationship would be very difficult to overcome. Admitting it will undoubtedly change the relationship you have in some way but it isn't likely to destroy it. Facing the rest of your life living with the temptation of this monster will be easier as a couple rather than solo and asking for help and telling the truth will be a show of strength you have over the thing, not a weakness.

Whatever happens, i truly hope everything works out for you.

carefullycautious

I would like you to make an appointment with Gamblers Anonymous and tell them exactly what you have told us and then come back and let us know what their response was. Only then will you be able to move forward.
I agree with all that Retireby40 has said.