Affected others describe how gambling damaged and distorted relationships.
Children take on a caring role for their parent. They have to take on tasks helping to manage family finances or try and stop parents gambling. They must grow up too quickly. This creates a sense of abandonment because the person who should be there to support them is not.
Partners and sibling express distress and in some cases resentment because of having to behave more like a parent to the person. They describe having to check the person’s phones, control what money they have, monitor banking transactions and make sure that the person regularly attends treatment or support services such as Gamblers Anonymous. The person who gambles can be left feeling like they are being treated like a child by their partner or sibling and sometimes become defensive and resentful.
There can be conflict in the family and friend network as people respond differently to the person’s gambling.
One affected other who was a child described how they would take on the responsibility of making sure that their parent was taking their medicine.
My job to make sure that he had the right medicines for his work because he’d be working 12-hour shifts. He needed to have the right medicines for that long shift, and he would also need to be reminded to take medicines at home as well. At home, my dad would call me his doctor as well. And that’s when he was being nice.
One child described how the gambling had been hidden from them as they were growing up, but they saw the impact on their parents’ relationship and step-mum.
Another person described how they were a retired midwife and had to look after their partner as though they were their patient.
The police asked if I would take him home. He had nowhere else to go at that point. I did take him off that night and spent the whole night watching him, watching what he was doing. I think the nurse in me, as well because I am a retired nurse midwife, and suddenly this guy’s here who’s not well really, he’s really mentally unstable. I’m like, I almost was treating him like a patient really. In the end, it was like he’d gone from being my husband to being my client almost because he wasn’t operating like a husband at that point. He was more of a patient really.
As partners took over responsibilities, they describe their relationship as turning into a parent and child or going from a partnership to a being like a manager.
Every time he made a purchase, I got a notification straight to my phone. The idea was then he couldn’t be withdrawing cash and he couldn’t be gambling on websites because I would know. That then became a very toxic thing, as you can imagine, where it’s not an intimate relationship. It becomes a managerial where I’m monitoring him very, very closely. Then the arguments that will come from that. I think that real damage to your ability to have a healthy, trusting relationship.
One person described how it was important for them to put measures in place to try to not distort the relationship roles, such as having open communication and being allowed to check each other’s phones. They wanted to protect their partner, rather than feeling like they were controlling their behaviour.
I thought this is going to be really hard. This man is a 6-foot ex-rugby player and the man of my dreams. One of the things I love about him is his masculinity. I’m, “Okay, so I will take control of all of these things, but I don’t like the word control. I’m not doing this to you, I’m doing this for you. To keep your masculinity, we’re going to do it this way and nobody’s ever– This is just what I’ve come up with. This is what I want to tell the world that this transparency from the start has to be a two-way street.” He can pick up my phone and go through it anytime he likes. I control the money, but I do it so transparently. He knows everything we’ve got, where it is. He just can’t get to it. I said, “I will never be able to make it impossible for you to gamble. All I can do is make it really bloody difficult.”