Shame and stigma make it very hard for affected others to confide in people or seek help. Affected others are careful about who they talk to. Sometimes, they confide in family or friends, though it may take time to do so. Some felt judged by people’s reactions. Others said that telling others about their situation was very important to their recovery journey.
Although some people do not understand gambling difficulties, affected others report that they are supportive once they know more about it.
We’ve been open pretty much from day one with immediate family. It did take a little while before we told some friends. And that’s partly because I didn’t understand it enough… Now that now I know more, if I talk to people, I try to talk to them in a sort of way that is factual, in a way that’s objective… Once I think those people have known the details behind it and understand it, they have been supportive.
Affected others are careful about who they chose to tell. But having someone they could confide in was very important.
I would always talk to the same friend. It was just too good to have somebody who would just listen. It’s that kind of friendship where they know when you want an opinion, and when you don’t, and the opinion, discussions or the proper discussions would never happen at those hard times. They’d happen at other times where you could explore your own feelings about it because it’s really complex.
I just felt like I needed a bit of somebody to talk to, really. What I did, in the end, was after all the craziness, I had by that time confided in a few people what was happening because you just have to. Otherwise, it’s just you, isn’t it? I did confide in a few people just to have that support network really, which really helped me.
However, not everyone who confided in others had a supportive response. Some were advised to leave the relationship, which made it more difficult for them to open up to other people.
Affected others describe their experience of telling their children about their partners gambling. They want to try and protect them.
People who had a parent who gambled describe the difficulty of telling anyone about what they were experiencing when they were children. This was made worse by nobody asking them what was happening.
I never told anyone about gambling, not teachers, not anyone at the school, not friends… No one asked me if there was anything going on at home. I was always sort of focused… I didn’t want there to be any complaints to give a reason to my dad to go and hit me or cause abuse or anything like that. I made sure that I didn’t cause any trouble at school and if I did have any problems at school, I would beg them not to tell my dad.