[heatherly]

Hi I just signed up and in real need of support. My husband is a compulsive gambler and is not getting help. I don’t know what if anything more I can do. I have looked up GA meetings, counselling and offered to make him appointments. He will say he will think about it then does not go thru with anything. He is gambling his entire paycheck and had gambled £3000 of a home loan we took out for remodelling. I took control of that loan money and moved it to my bank account. I am living in misery, so lonely, walking on eggshells around him never knowing when he will fly into a rage. On top of all this, I’m an American living in Glasgow. I feel stuck now and don’t have the family/friends support or ability to go spend the weekend away. I have been here 2.5 years and married 2 years. No kids. Husband works the night shift which puts us in a situation where we don’t see each other much. When we do, it usually ends up in a fight. Just want to communicate with others in the situation where your spouse is not/will not get help. I don’t need more people telling me “he needs treatment”. I can’t make him go and I fear I may have to leave him. But in my case I’d have to leave the country and that’s not the same as just “moving out” or to take a break as if we were both from the area. The situation has another layer of complication, he manages a ménage with his coworkers. A menage is a scheme whereby everyone pays in an amount every week and takes turns at getting the whole amount. This is allowing him free access to funds and he will not loosen his grip on this. He will gamble the cash his coworkers give him then turn around and take that money out of our bank account to pay them back. Our account is in the negative needless to say. He has been in anti depressants for a year which seemed to work briefly but not seem to be helping his mood much anymore. He also has a problem with smoking pot several times a day. I feel there are so many things working against us. So many vices I find myself lately just keeping quiet as to not cause an argument. I am so tired of everything but paralysed with fear to leave.

[velvet]

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Hello Heatherly

Thanks for starting a thread in the Gambling Therapy friends and family forum. This forum will provide you with warmth and understanding from your peers.

Feel free to use the friends and family group, you’ll find the times for these if you click on the “Group times” box on our Home page. Now that you have introduced yourself you’ll find that many of the people you meet here have already read your initial introduction and they’ll welcome you in like an old friend 🙂

If you’re the friend or family member of someone who is either in, or has been through, the GMA residential programme please take extra care to make sure that nothing you say in groups, or on our forums, inadvertently identifies that person. Even if your loved one isn’t connected with GMA, please don’t identify them either directly or indirectly just in case they decide to use the site themselves.

You’ll find a lot of advice on this site, some of which you’ll follow, some you won’t…but that’s ok because only you fully understand your
situation and what’s best for you and the people you love. So, take the support you need and leave the advice you don’t because it all comes from a caring, nurturing place 🙂

We look forward to hearing all about you!

Take care

The Gambling Therapy Team

PS: Let me just remind you to take a look at our

privacy policy and terms and conditions so you know how it all works!

[velvet]

Hi Heatherly
Just a quick follow up to our official welcome post – I wanted to tell you that I understood your post completely and I would never tell you to leave or to stay with your husband. Hopefully exchanging posts with you and maybe meeting you in our F&F group next Tuesday, between 8 and 9pm, where we can communicate in real time, you will find the answers that you need to help you cope.
Unfortunately it is late and I am just off to bed and possibly unable to write to you again tomorrow but I will write again soon.
In the meantime, although I cannot tell you what to do because all decisions must be yours, it would good if you could open an account, that your husband had no access to, (and hopefully no knowledge of) in which you could save monies to protect yourself. How did he get access to the home loan money that you had saved?
Perhaps you could look up Gamanon meetings – Gamanon is the sister group of GA and is for family and friends of CGs (compulsive gamblers). I feel this would be particularly useful for you as you are feeling so lonely. To sit in a room and have physical contact with those who understand you is very powerful. I found my salvation in Gamanon. Always remember that groups are made up of individuals and if the first group you try is not right, don’t give up – try another.
I will leave my first post to you there but please be assured you are being heard and understood – you are not alone. I am no longer in the same position as you but I had many years of living with the addiction to gamble and I will gladly use my experience and knowledge to support you.
Avoid arguments which get you nowhere and I will explain why and how you can cope in my next post.
I have brought up my thread entitled ‘The F&F Cycle’ for you – I hope it will help you know that you are understood
Well done writing what must have been a difficult post – the first one is the hardest.
Velvet

[twilight16]

Hi Heatherly,

Hope you are still hanging around the forums reading. Reading the threads of others will start the healing process, seeing how many suffer like you, so you can start your own recovery.
Fear can be quite paralyzing as you have written, making one want to jump out of our skins, yet once it is faced head on with utter conviction, you’ll be amazed how empowering it is, and how you underestimated yourself. It is also an important part of recovery, showing that you are not alright with the addiction calling the shots anymore and standing firm against it.
This takes me to you as a person, living in another person’s rage and moodiness, regardless of addiction is no way to live. There is no reason for you to be walking on eggshells around anyone, regardless if you are seas away from family or just a block away. That is a clear sign that you are not being yourself and that the relationship is not healthy.
Your husband’s refusal of treatment, makes it very important that you seek your own. If not, your dire situation will only get worst, as your husband’s addiction will grow stronger, clouding his mind whispering sweet nothings in his ear so he can gamble more. Start protecting your join accounts, how about splitting them for now?
I felt all the emotions, you described years ago with my cg father. It was when I started my journey here on GT, that was I able to find myself, then trust and love myself again. I was a wreak torn many times of what to do, however I learned quick not to enable. This was my biggest shield against the addiction.
There is no easy fix here, trail and error were my friends. But their lessons were what eventually made me steadfast and in the end I blew my father’s addiction out of the water and start living a life that I once only dreamed about. There is now priceless peace and normacly in my life that let’s me sleep at night and my heart no longer beats like mad when I receive an unknown call.
Start looking after you, do what you can. Start small, don’t worry about your husband. Do things that make you happy, it is time you start living for you.

Twilight

Twilight

[Author]

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