Fiancé told me he has gambling addiction.. now what?

[sosrol]

Hi, desperately looking for advice / support please.

I'm 28 and my fiancé is 27, we live with his parents at the moment while we are saving for a house deposit (hoping to have saved enough by the summer)

He has always been careless with money and never seems to have a penny left by the end of the month so always asks me to lend him money, but will never miss a night out with his friends - even if he has no money, he would rather borrow money off someone than not go out.

He regularly gambles on slot games on his phone, I have no idea how these work and he has always told me that it's not gambling and that he is playing with fake money (I feel stupid now)

Last night he has admitted to me that he has a problem and has deleted all of these apps from his phone, he is spending hundreds on these games hence why he is always skint! It has only hit home for him when he recently got declined for a loan from the bank because of his habit.

My question is, what now? Where do we go from here? I support him through all of his problems but am now feeling deflated like it's one thing after another. Will he ever change and am I being selfish for considering ending the relationship over this when I should be supporting him? I feel awful.

Can I ask how much fun this has been?

It always amazes me how much shit people are willing to take in relationships. They are supposed to be nice, fun, enjoyable, of course there is life stresses but this is not just usual life stress.

Yoi saying he’s not in thousands of dept but ‘just a couple of hundred a month’ you know what I would think if that was my DH…that is a couple of hundred we could have used to go for a meal, go on holiday, buy something nice, etc….instead he’s given it to BetFred etc.

Listen to the wise women on this thread….leave him now. Do not for the love of God have children with this man.

@Newestname002

Thanks for the kind words. I stuck with him you see, hoping it would get better until I was too far in to find a way out. Once you hit skid row you don't realise how far you are falling. I am in a better place now but sadly I will never be able to rebuilt what I had before.

We are saving to buy a house, where I live we'll need around a £15,000 deposit which we are not far off.

Apart from the issues that I have mentioned everything is great, but obviously this is quite a big issue at the moment

OP gamblers never stop. you need to read some of the threads on here by mumsnetters left without a penny due to gambling spouse's. this can include losing their house and being in debt themselves as the gambler takes out loans in their name! often children are involved and things get extremely dire. you can't change him or help him. walk away while you can

You are saving for a house and are not far off, he is out on the piss with his mates and spaffing money on apps rather than building a future with you. Think very carefully before you proceed, how does this go if you have kids and take maternity leave, or go to part time because of childcare, do you always want to be the only adult in the relationship, always worrying about your financial security, you always saving and scrimping so he can piss it up with his mates?

Why on earth would he need to borrow money from you? I’m afraid his problems are a lot greater than you think. He’s already treating you as his parent and every time you bail him out you reinforce that assumed role.

I doubt very much he has any savings.

Don’t make the mistake in thinking the responsible version of him is waiting around the corner.

You aren’t on the same page and I suggest you have a long talk about said page and make concrete plans I.e agree to save a percentage of your earnings for the house deposit.

While living at his parents you have the opportunity to but I’d be very careful about assuming any responsibility for sorting his messes.

The stats are something like 90% of gamblers relapse.

50% of gamblers also develop another addiction, usually alcohol, but often drugs, sex, porn etc.

Those most likely to recover are gamblers started after a trigger event - stress, marraige breakdown, bereavement. It's a reaction to something. Those who don't have a trigger event, tend to struggle with recovery the most.

Spouses and employers are most likely to have a negative financial impact as a result of an addicts gambling.

Leave him.

He's trying to get his hands on that deposit.

The 'loan call' could easily have been faked or he knew he wouldn't get it and it's always going to be 'oh, the car needs repairs or I can't get to work' rather than 'I've already maxed out the credit cards you don't know about, had as much as I can from my parents, my accounts are empty because I've done £500 whilst you were in the toilet earlier and I'm missing the opportunity to win really big if I don't get back on right now'.

Please could I ask where your fact came from about gamblers being less likely to recover if they weren’t triggered by an event? I’m interested (in every sense, unfortunately)

I heard it at a wellbeing/staff awareness/people management event some years ago.

I still have the information pack and I'll check tomorrow if there's anything in slide deck that provides a source or study.

In general and I'm going from memory only so open to correction - some people are pre desposed to addiction based on childhood experiences or personality type , low impulse control, trill seekers etc- their personality puts them in a higher risk category.

Other people end up going it as a distraction from something else, sort of like a coping mechanism or something and if the trigger issue is addresses they don't need to do it as much.

'He's just ...'

Stop justifying his behaviour.

Leave. Dump him. Be upset for a few months and move on

Thanks lots, that’d be fab if you have a source. I’ve heard some of the other stats you quoted, but hadn’t heard that about initial cause affecting recovery outcome.

Just reflecting on this thread that it’s easy to just think about this solely in terms of cash values.

My husband owes more in gambling debt than we owe on our mortgage. But while I’d say that the money is a practical inconvenience, an annoyance and many other things, the real problem is that addicts are so selfish and there’s a huge emotional toll on the people around them.

Trust is more valuable than any amount of money in a relationship. Don’t underestimate the emotional cost, and even the outcomes that can have on physical health. You’re worth someone who nurtures you, rather than costing you in terms of emotions as well as cash.

(I say this from the lofty position of someone who found out about smaller time gambling years ago, believed it had gone away and then found out recently that It Really Hadn’t Gone Away. And I now have no simple way to leave without impacting massively on my kids. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. If people can learn from my mistakes that’ll be one good thing…)

A couple of hundred short a month = £4-600 of normal wages plus another £200.

Two years at £200 a month = £4,800

Two years at £400 a month = £9,600

Two years at £800 a month = £19,200.

There's your deposit.

Even if he's on minimum wage, that's around £21k a year gross and, as there isn't any rent, council tax, gas, electricity, household insurance, childcare, child maintenance, dog food, dog insurance, the majority of that £1700 a month take home is available for gambling. And yet, he's spending £200 (and the rest) on his phone, slot machines, drinking (and more slotties), etc, etc, etc.

Get rid 🚩🚩🚩

I would walk away.

You will
Be setting yourself up for a lifetime of drama.

so to be clear

you aren’t going to move out in to your parents? but just crack on and hope for the best?

Huge red flag. At the very least please postpone the wedding. And set yourself a personal deadline for him to sort this out. I've watched too many friends waste their lives waiting for someone to change who has no intention of doing so. Good luck.

Have I misread? In one of your last posts you said you needed £15k and you weren't far off that, but in an earlier post you say you've saved £2k ?

Another one here advising to head back to your parents and focus on your own savings and probably a future without him.

If he turns things around quickly, starts saving and reduces the drinking sessions, then you might be able to rescue this, but gambling addiction is a serious problem and there were posts on the thread that a pp poster mentioned about the £130 k debt and savings being wiped out (sounds like a huge amount) from women whose partners had repeatedly fallen back into gambling after promising to never do it again. I couldn’t face that uncertainty, to be honest. I couldn’t live with a man whose behaviour I needed to monitor and who I could never really feel secure with.

Dump him asap, move back to parents.
Tell him you dont see a future with him.

@Nots453 hi, you've definitely misread. I have not said anywhere on this thread that we've saved 2k? We have saved a lot more then that.

Please walk away now.
Take what is yours of the savings and leave.
Living with an addict is hell, whatever the addiction. It rules their life , he may have deleted those apps but he’ll download others or move on to casinos, horses, whatever.
The more entangled your finances become due to mortgage, marriage, maybe children the more he will drag you down with his addiction.

Tbh you did say a couple of grand! I wouldn't trust him

Act with caution. I had the same revelation with my kids father when I was pregnant with the first that he had a slight online gambling addiction. We were saving for the new baby and he gambled it all. We were together for two years prior to getting pregnant, and I’d had no clue he had an addiction.
He is still very much a loser 10 years later. Multiple great opportunities have come his way and has squandered them. He is for the first time about to enter into a facility to attempt at getting better. These type of addictions just get worse. This man has put me through so much turmoil but I stayed and even had a second child because he convinced me each time that he’d turn his life around.
Although I love our children, I feel guilty for not giving them a better father. Their father has never measured up to what a good father is worth because ultimately the gambling comes first and all that has been left for us has been misery!

Some people can break the shackles of addiction but some can’t. You should really consider what the chances are if him really beating this addiction. If he has another slip up after saying he will stop, then I’d advise you to get rid of him. You’re young enough to find someone else who is more mature, less self centred and destructive. Good luck