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    • #1957
      rce
      Participant

      I have been with my boyfriend for two years and he has always been open about being a compulsive gambler. Over our relationship he has lost thousands of pounds and I’ve lent him thousands (and have been paid back.) He was two months gamble free until yesterday. I told him at the beginning of the year that if he gambled again I would walk away, but now it’s happened I dont know what to do. I dont think I can walk away despite the way he’s treated me but I’m tired of being taken for granted and for him to see me as a pushover to who he can do anything he likes and I’ll still be around. How do you cope with relapsing partners?

    • #1958
      velvet
      Moderator

       
      Hi R
      I cannot tell you what to do and I am not judging but threatening a CG is never good unless you mean and ‘know’ 100% that you are going to carry out that threat.   The addiction your boyfriend owns, even though he neither asked for it nor wanted it, is the master of manipulation with lies and threats as two of its greatest weapons.  
      If you don’t think you can walk away, I really do understand but never make the threat again unless you mean it. His addiction will possibly see you falling back on your threat as a green light and you will have to be doubly careful.
      In my opinion, lending money to an active CG is to enable his addiction. We have a topic on enablement in the Friends and Family Topic forum below this one.   Giving money to a CG is the same as giving a drink to an ********* and you wouldn’t do that.
      Compulsive gambling has nothing to do with money. Money is the thing that we, as non-CGs, see as the problem for a long time because we cannot understand what it is like to own the addiction.   Money is a tool – it is not the goal – the goal is the ‘gamble’.  A CG can also gamble with relationships, pushing them to their limits and sometimes destroying the person who loves them.
      It is important that you do not allow this addiction to take you down with it. Realise that ‘you’ matter and your self-worth matters.   Feeling like a push-over is what the addiction wants you to feel – don’t give the addiction what it wants. Do the things in life that please you and that you want to do – when we allow the addiction to control us we become like puppets, dancing to its tune.  
      I would never tell anyone to leave anyone or to stay – that is not for me to do.   The more knowledge you have of your boyfriend’s addiction the greater you will be able to cope and then you can make your own informed decision.  
      Unfortunately Gambling Therapy is not funded to cover the UK. I am not rejecting you, I am re-directing you. I know how hard the first post is to write but if you can do so, please cut and paste it on the gamcare.co.uk who cover the UK.   If your boyfriend accepts he has a problem and is willing to go in to the Gordon House programme you will both be welcome on this site. Details of the programme can be found lower down on this page under GMA residential treatment Q&A.  
      You have done well realising that you it would be better for you to seek help.   Your boyfriend does need treatment and he can find it in GA, dedicated addiction counselling, Gamcare and in the Gordon House programme. They are all able to support you boyfriend as you and I could not.
       wouldn’t be writing to you if I didn’t know that this addiction can be controlled and decent wonderful lives lived as a result.
      I wish you well
      Velvet

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