Hi, I have been lurking around this forum for quite some time now, my husband is a compulsive gambler and I am broken. I have been with this man for 5 years, three before we were married, two after. When we were dating, I knew he gambled but never thought anything of it. It was not until we were married that I discovered the level of his addiction.
My Husband started first with credit card bills and cash advances, later he would vanish for hours at a time. I am no stranger to compulsive gambling. My mother is a CG. When I was very young she would do the same exact things and sneak around from my father, even use me and my siblings as an excuse to gamble. She used to take me to the movies and leave me and my siblings there while she gambled. She lost the house we lived in and the family business. She went to rehab, and GA meetings (and still on occasion does) to help her cope with her addiction.Today she is reformed, she has a new business which is doing better than the one she had lost and has not sat down at a card table in almost 15 years. I very much believe that GA works and can really help people who want to be helped. I am so proud of her.
When I saw the same kind of behavior in my husband, I took action and confronted him with his gambling. At first he did not want to believe he had and addiction. He would lose a few hundred here and there and we would fight, but I let him slide because I was not sure if he was really a CG and I loved him so much. I saw the signs but my denial stopped me, I could not believe that I married a man like my mother.
It was only when I discovered he wasn’t going to work and that he owed bookies and frequented illegal gambling dens that it hit me, he lost $10,000 of my money (in one day!).It was officially confirmed he was a compulsive gambler. Now I am not proud to admit this but on this day he lost my money I punched him in the face. The anger and hurt got to me and it resulted to physical violence, he didn’t even fight back. I hit him so hard and yelled at him so loudly that the police came and arrested us. (In NYS, when one spouse hits another you both get arrested). We were both out of denial
when we were ordered restraining orders and forced to go to jail. I was forced into court ordered anger management, and he GA.
Being the daughter of a compulsive gambler, I helped him go to meetings and tried to support him. I understand the sickness as well as any loved one can, and forced him to surrender all of his finances to me. We started going to church together, and he day by day started to recover. He was going to meetings once a week, and it really looked as if things were looking up. Everything seemed to be working out and he was on the road to a slow and steady recovery.
After 1 year of me handling the finances and therapy I had slowly started to forgive him and he started to regain my trust. He stopped going to GA and pronounced he was cured. A few days ago however, he” fell off the wagon”. I am a landlord and he informed all the tenants in one of my buildings that they needed to write the rent checks out to him. He took the money for the mortgage of my building and gambled it. He admitted he has been gambling the meager allowance I have allowed him and taken up buying rolls of lottery tickets. I am so hurt and angry.
He says that I pushed him to gamble because he does not make as much money as me, and I handle all our finances. Told me he hates that I am more successful than him and wanted to gamble so he can have extra money, apparently my allowance is not enough. He actually told me he believes he is so good at gambling that he wants to be a professional! He says he feels like he is “no longer a man” since I took over, and that since I do not let him hold any credit cards and give him a weekly allowance I do not trust him even though he has changed.
He has not changed, since he went back to gambling. I’m not sure if this is a relapse, or he has been hiding more from me I have not yet discovered. He lied, stole and has betrayed the trust we were rebuilding. I gave him an ultimatum and told him he needs to go back to GA, but he said no and I threw him out. I told him to get out of my house, we need to separate. He refuses going back to GA, and refuses to seek marriage counseling. He tells me that it may have worked for Mom but it will not work for him. He can do it on his own, it is his own willpower.
I am at a loss. I did everything that the GA advises of a spouse, I even asked my father who knows exactly what it feels like for advice. Dad says that if he and my mother did not have children he would have left her when she lost the house, he tells me that if the person will not seek help, they are hopeless. Mother says I should stand by him like Dad did for her.
I am so tired and angry , filled with hopelessness and I’m back to square one. I’m in about $10,000.00 in debt AGAIN after I finished helping pay off the previous $30,000+ before. He on the other had is currently living at a shelter. We have no children, and he is not entitled to any of my holdings. I love him so much, but I think that he cannot do this on his own, and if he refuses help.
I don’t know what to do or how to handle the situation. I cannot believe that he feels “less manly” about my effort to help him. I hope that by posting my story, I can gain some support from others who know what it is to love a compulsive gambler. Ask other spouses how they handle this pain and anger. I feel so stupid for believing he was getting better, but I remember from childhood, when a CG is triggered, they always find a way.
I don’t even know if I can take him back, but I believe that he is not without hope.
I don’t know how I will ever be able to forgive him, or if I should even try.
— 8/28/2012 11:06:21 AM: post edited by Schew05.– 8/28/2012 11:15:31 AM: post edited by Schew05.
