Thank you Risingphoenix. I actually read your story before posting this and it did motivate me to try to become gambling free as well. Congratulations on fully paying your debt!
Problem with telling my parents is that they are very religious and gambling is considered as a sin. My dad especially is very conservative and I wouldn’t be surprised if he just blocked me from his life or disowned me for doing such thing.
Reflecting back, I do feel like if I’d be able to openly talk to my dad about this issue at the beginning with my dad, I would’ve probably cut my losses at a few thousand and be done with it. The fear of my parents being disappointed in me and blocking me from their lives is the main reason I kept going back to gambling chasing my losses.
Selling the house would actually allow me to fully pay my debt and be a debt free man tomorrow but my wife would find out about my debt if we’d sell the house and portion of the money would disappear. We also have family/friends living here which makes being a new dad so much easier as we can get help from them when needed.
I’ve done my research and it looks like if I sold my house and wanted to get a new one with the rest of the money, I’d need to move 50km/40mile-ish away from the current location.
I jokingly mentioned about this to my dad that I’d like to move a bit further away to a bigger house (as downtown is expensive) and his response was:
“Are you an idiot? Dont say stupid things. Are you going to travel each day 1 hour to a store? What are you going to do when you need to take your kid somewhere? Stop dreaming about stupid things”
I know I shouldn’t care so much about things he says as this is my and my family’s life but stupid feeling inside of me that is trying to please everyone cares about these kind of things. I want everyone to be happy around me at the expense of my own happiness.