Dh has been stealing from me to gamble

[Questioneverythingtwice]

he has lost £1,800 in the last month. We have always kept our finances separate and I pay all the bills. But he has been using my cash card without my knowledge. We've been married 8 years and have a one-year old. I've also found out he has borrowings with about 7 payday loan companies and other dodgy loans. I had no idea before today.

Anyone been through anything similar?

btw my father forged my mother's signature to get a remortgage on the house. It worked. The house, which had been paid off, was repossessed and even back then emergency council housing was grim.

I hope I am wrong and I hope you will all be fine but I would really suggest you do things like check credit reports and keep checking. It is important to protect your daughter.

Regardless, I hope we are all really wrong but if further problems show, please keep posting. There is a lot of practical advice on here.

I think tribpot puts it brilliantly.

I appreciate that OPs vows mean a lot to her but hasn't her DH broken his? I don't see much love and honour in his actions.

I'm sorry OP but I would have called the police when I found that he had stolen from my bank account.
Where are the cosequences to his appalling behaviour.
(My Exh stole from my bank account, I gave him the option police or pack a bag and go)
I couldn't live with such dishonesty, being a gambling addict is no excuse.
Tough love is required, because once he has got over his tears at being discovered he will be plotting and planning new ways to keep it from you.

If the husband really owns the problem and the OP really locks everything financial down - and I mean everything - then it may work out.

It's the full disclosure of finances that would be needed first, I think. I think the credit check by Experian and the others is a good counterbalance for the honesty of an addict. Sorry, but that is the effects of addiction.

Really wishing you good luck.

There is no way to lock everything financial down when you are dealing with a thief.

"I think I can close this down if I have his salary and give him pocket money"

Now you are treating him like a child as well as enabling him. Where are the real consequences for his actions here?. This is your gambling dependent H you are writing about. He has a very serious problem and I think you are underestimating his capacity to lie and keep lying to you about the actual state of the finances. Do you actually know how much he has lost and may well continue to lose?.

Your religious convictions to keep this marriage together may well go onto cost you dearly. He has completely wreaked your marriage by his actions. You did not cause this, you cannot control this and you cannot cure this.

Further enabling him as you are doing will just drag you even further into the mire of co-dependency.

Is this really the model of a relationship you want to be showing your child?.

Put you and your child first. You are too close to the situation to be able to help him, not that he wants your help in any case.

Thank you LisaMed that is exactly the approach we are taking.

Others have been slightly hysterical on here about the money involved but dh takes home more than twice what he lost gambling last month and I get about a grand more than him so we really can sort this out very quickly now everything is out in the open.

I really do believe he won't ever do this again too. He knows what it means for our marriage and he really cares about that the same way as I do.

I went through a very similar thing with my ex. Gamblers (imho) are incredibly successful liars. They need to be able to lie to themselves everyday to continue living their separate lives (gambling and reality).

My ex was incapable of changing, and eventually the stress, lies and constant worry about how we were going to buy food this week led to a massive breakdown, and he beat seven shades of crap out of me for refusing to give him any money to gamble with.

I'm so so much happier since I kicked him out, and my daughter is much better off without the lying, sneaky, immature bastard.

I didn't ask for all of your opinions. I asked for anyone who had been through something similar to let me know how it had worked. Throw your judgeypants in the wash!

Sorry cross post with I think

He needs to work out exactly why he gambles in the first place, he may well have told you in the past that he will stop gambling when he wins big. This goes very deep within his own psyche.

I do not think you will ever know the full extent of his losses; they must be massive.

What is he really doing to solve his gambling problem, do you think he would even attend a GA meeting?. You cannot ever take full ownership of this nor should you. Words are cheap after all, its actions you need to start looking at.

He cannot even scratch the surface of his gambling problem without seeking - and sticking with professional assistance. You need outside support as well and Gamcare help family members.

He has to want to do this for his own self and take full responsibility, not just because you have finally discovered what you have. You cannot do this by yourselves. You both have a hard road ahead of you and he could well relapse again.

You can get post-nup agreements you know.

I have a relative whose a divorce barrister and he arranges them for clients.

It's a way of ring fencing your assets.

You will read posts you do not like but to write things like "throw your judgypants in the wash" just further shows you in a poor light. This defensive stance does not help you.

Oh I hadn't heard of a post-nup before. That might be worth investigating. I know the law has moved on a lot in the last 8 years. Are you able to pm me his details? If I organised something like that it would really show dh some consequences.

Sorry I wasn't trying to be defensive Attila but humorous.

I think most family law specialists do post nups now, depressing as that is.

It did not come across as humorous though and this is why I replied as I did.

If you really want to help your DH, you have to help your own self first. You and your child are really your number 1 priority here; not him, nor your firm religious convictions or marriage vows come to that.

"Others have been slightly hysterical on here about the money involved but dh takes home more than twice what he lost gambling last month and I get about a grand more than him so we really can sort this out very quickly now everything is out in the open.

So if he takes home £4K a month and is only gambling a piffling half of that amount, why did he need to steal from you and take out all those loans?

You think everything is out in the open now?

Dude, you know as much as he felt he needed to tell you to get you to overlook the fact that he is still lying about money.

The fact that you seem relieved to find out he is a gambling addict shoes that you have no fucking clue what you are dealing with.

And two good salaries makes no difference. As has already been pointed out, there is no limit to what can be gambled.

Far richer families than yours have ended up with nothing because of gambling addiction.

Pearlywhite, the fact that he is not spending it a woman doesn't make the ops problem any less of a problem.

Yes it's a compulsion and addiction. Which is why she needs to protect herself and their child should it all go wrong and she spend the rest of her life trying to rebuild her wealth. She has already been taken in once so she would be very foolish indeed to do so again.

She can still support him, but first she needs to ensure finances etc are tied up and he can't get at them by any means. She is not his keeper and her life and that of her child should not be tainted by having to police her dh for ever more, have her credit affected etc.

I think OP you are in big denial here. I have been in your shoes and my marriage has survived so you can get through this. Both DH and I had counselling - me primarily to deal with codependency and building my self esteem so that I would not tolerate any of these behaviours from my DH, putting appropriate boundaries in etc.

You really cannot comprehend how bad his gambling can possibly be. My DH put over £25,000 over the counter at the local bookies alone. He bet online, he did spread betting, he bet on anything, football, golf, tennis, the horses, literally anything. When he should have been working, he was studying form - you can imagine the dire straits the business was in. I had 4 young DCs, 2 with special needs, at home. The final straw was that he had an affair with a woman who worked at the local bookies (you couldn't make it up ). As much as I hate to say it, his affair was the thing that saved him and our marriage, as far as he was concerned that was his rock bottom due to the type of woman she was.

He has had many months of counselling to understand his need to test himself and self destruct. He had a need to put himself in perilous positions to see if he could extract himself from them. It wasn't gambling as such that he needed to reach a high but the adrealine of getting into a tight spot, trying to find the money to gamble, so many different facets to the whole thing. He has really struggled with himself during recovery, episodes of depression etc. It has been far from easy.

He has found better ways of dealing with stress now, getting "highs" from other areas eg running, tennis etc. Giving himself targets in that way.

You really need to step right back now, protect yourself financially, maybe get some counselling yourself to understand codependency etc.

Only your DH can cure this and control this, not you.

Pocket money- is that money for gambling? As in my experience that is how gamblers will see it, and find it very hard to change.

Money he can do what he likes with. When you go for lunch, or on holiday, or for your daughters birthday, or christmas. will you be ok with him having no pocket money saved up?

If you both agree to that, then make sure he is aware its for his clothes, petrol, odd bits, not for squandering on gambling.

Btw that £25,000 at the bookies was in less than 12 months alone.

OP - you cannot fix this by 'managing' him. With my ex, when I locked down access to money the secret credit cards and things disappearing from the house started.

My ex was a compulsive and accomplished liar. There were all sorts of other manipulative and abusive behaviours going on, and I suspect at least two affairs that I couldn't prove.

I didn't go into marriage lightly and took my vows seriously. Not wanting to give up on this saw me barely hold onto my home for me and DD, and paying off debts of £50k. It also destroyed my self esteem.

That's nearly two thousand pounds he has lost in one month. That is only what he has admitted to. If he earns so much money, why does he need payday loans? FWIW, I live in a low wage area and £2k is more than the average household monthly wage here. That is £24k a year and in my book is a fuck of a lot of money.

I am not saying LTB, but please look after yourself and DD. Above all else, get both of your credit reference reports now to find out the full extent of
this and see what damage has already been done.

That's nearly twas lost. I couldn't