I have read through your thread this evening and just wanted to offer you some words from someone “on the other side”.
Quick history of me: I’m 26 and have been gabling since I was about 20. Online slots are my thing, I got hooked six years ago and whilst I have gone through periods of being “clean”, throughout the illness I have racked up thousands in debt. I finally made the decision to quit for good only a couple of weeks ago, mainly due to the fact that I’ve been with my fella for 18 months now and really want to concentrate on a future with him. One that involves marriage and kids some day which will be impossible if I carried on gambling.
I have never told my fella of my addiction. I was clean when I met him and started on the slots again about a year into our relationship, why I have no idea. I don’t want to tell him as he thinks the world of me, I am his princess in every way. For him to make me feel gives me hope that i’m not a bad person, I make him so so happy. And he makes me happy too. I feel so loved and never want that to change. I am lucky in that I get paid quite well from my job and can, in time, repair the financial damage I have caused.
I have always promised myself that if ever my addiction affected my relationship with my amazing fella, I would come clean (my hope is that I beat this demon and he will never need to know – some people don’t agree that I should keep it from him regardless, but I cannot fess up). From the sounds of it, your fella is letting his addiction affect the way he treats you and it is clearly having a negative impact on your quality of life and your relationship.
Perhaps you can sit down with him and ask him to be frankly honest about how much gambling forms part of his life. Tell him to make a diary of how much money and time he spends on it daily/weekly. It may surprise him to see it written down in black and white. You must tell him how much this is affecting you though, I would be mortified if ever my addiction started to impact on my fella. Perhaps a little bit of tough love would make him wake up and smell the coffee!! this is s progressive illness, so more often than not it will get worse until help is sought!
Ultimately you need to take care of yourself and do what’s best for you. Its understandable that you don’t want to abandon him and I commend you for that. many would find it very appealing to just get up and leave. But you do need to concentrate on your own happiness, so whatever you need to do to achieve that, go for it.
Keep posting and look after yourself. x