Actually spending addiction is a recognised addiction, not yet widely so in the Uk but it is.
One of my addict relatives this is their addiction and they get regular counselling and their partner is in charge of finances
@Terriblecreature without wishing to make you feel worse I think it's important to acknowledge - as you do - that your behaviour was unacceptable and that you need to address it as an addiction imo
@kavalkada I was hoping someone with your experience would come on, excellent post
and thinking he can do this without any professional help and no slip ups is just naive.
I would and do regularly say on here that this is true for all addicts.
All the addicts I know the ones who have achieved and maintained long term sobriety have done so by accessing support - how that support is provided varies but all have made their gps aware, and all use support groups and in the first stages had professional therapy. The ones who haven't achieved long term sobriety and are either active addicts or regularly relapse have tried to do it alone - this ime signifies that they're actually not ready and willing to attempt to achieve sobriety. One has by circumstance had sobriety forced on them (their addiction has physically incapacitated them to the point that they cannot access their addiction) and that's a whole other ball game! "Dry drunk" syndrome - something you may care to research op as it doesn't just apply to alcoholics, just as "sobriety" in this context doesn't.
He says that now I have control of everything he cant gamble even if he wanted to as I could question any anomaly in his account.
You appear to have not been reading your own thread!
He could:
1 Use the card on that account to buy scratchcards/lottery tickets at the supermarket or indeed simply request cash back and use that money to gamble. It would only show on the account as the supermarket name
2 He could borrow from others as you've already said he's been doing, and that could well include loan sharks
3 He could ask his boss to pay overtime or bonuses in cash
4 He could sell things or plain con people
5 He could open accounts and get credit cards and loans you know nothing about. Indeed if he knows you're keeping a close eye on things this could well tempt him into the borrowing from loan sharks
6 He could steal and sell those items.
7 He could steal from work (plenty of news articles on gamblers who've done this)
8 He could write bad cheques/alter cheques paid to him - old fashioned but still possible, some companies when you transfer to a different supplier eg for energy will send any outstanding credits out in the form of cheques, he could switch your suppliers without you knowing and run up debt with new suppliers etc
And that's just off the top of my head!
But I just dont know what to believe anymore as I cant trust a word he says right now
that's more sensible thinking
@Iminaglasscaseofemotion Why on Earth are you still with him and putting up with this and putting dc through it?!
@sunsalutations I don't think 10 years of lies, theft and conning the op means advising Ltb is too strong or too hasty here - indeed I've yet to see an example of this claim on mn and when posters like you are asked to provide them they either go silent or make ridiculous suggestions! In most cases by the time ops are posting on mn things are already pretty bad!