To advise sil to end relationship?

[Instafreak231]

Posting for advice - I am very worried about my sil.
She met a new boyfriend a few years ago who seemed nice enough. He proposed and they are now looking to buy a house together. They found one they both liked. However the mortgage application has just failed. It turns out that her fiancé has huge credit card debts from online gambling. She had absolutely no idea. He says he’s devastated and wants to get better. She says she still wants to buy a house with him and get married.
I think she should run for the hills??

Yes she should but she probably won’t.

Oh god! Yeah she needs to not get financially entangled with someone who has a gambling addiction and has lied to her about it until found out. Don’t know how you’re supposed to stop a grown woman doing what she wants but I’d certainly be making the legal obligations quite clear to her that if he gets into more debt she can lose her home. If nothing else she needs to make sure the house is bought with her deposit ringfenced and an account set up for him to pay his share of the mortgage into (but make sure he doesn’t have the password to take money out of it)

And if he’s serious about stopping she needs to insist he goes to gambling anonymous or similar, and that he agrees to any financial safe guarding she suggests.

Of course she should run but sounds like she is listening to her heart more than her head here. Is his gambling under control now?

You can advise her all you like, but don't expect her to act on your advice or for it to be well-received.

We can all sit here and look at this from a distance with a clear head and/or with the benefit of experience and say 'She should leave him', but it's clearly not going to be that simple for her when she's been happy with him for years and is in love with him. None of us have the emotional bond with him that she does, and ultimately it's her life and not yours.

Rather than advising her to leave him, you could talk to her about keeping her finances entirely separate from his. No joint accounts, no joint mortgage, nothing. Everything needs to be separate and any property needs to be in her name. And he needs to head to Gamblers Anonymous pronto and seek all the professional help he can in dealing with his addiction - he won't beat this on his own.

I think it depends on your relationship with her. If you have the kind of friendship where you feel you can give advice of such a personal nature, do it. Same thing if she asks your opinion. But unless she's already having doubts and places great value in your opinion, I wouldn't expect to sway her, and you risk offending or hurting her, if she doesn't want your advice and you give it anyway.

People usually have to make their own mistakes, unfortunately. Maybe it will work out better than you fear.

Show her this thread - www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4460396-Youngest-Daughter-in-bits-on-phone-advice-please

• & how to highlight just OP's posts.

Then give her this link, which is for families/partners of gamblers -
gamanon.org.uk/?page_id=32

She ought to be very worried - he is already lying to her.

He let her go ahead with the house-buying plan, get her hopes up, even put a mortgage application in - all the while knowing he had far too much debt to have a hope of being accepted.
If she doesn't split with him, this will be her life. Lies, betrayal, let down & constant anxiety.

Thank you everyone. I worry that if I was too strong in my opinions she would push me away. However I feel like I’m letting her down by not saying anything - she’s the one providing most of the deposit (I did wonder why he didn’t have more saved money…) and he’s lied to her. I don’t know what to do! We’re quite close and chat a lot.