It’s quite devastating when it happens. Obviously, I’ll never fully trust him, which is hard and I’m always worrying about money, but I get to the point where I get a bit complacent. I start to feel comfortable and start to feel like our relationship is back on track. If I’m not happy with him, I distance myself but when I am we do stuff together, we spend time together, we’re happy but then when he relapses, it’s like a punch in the stomach. It’s a bit like you knew it could always happen but at the same time he’s doing it again and I’ve not had a clue. It doesn’t matter how many times it happens, it never gets any easier.

It is like a roller coaster because you get with a person because there’s a lot you love about them and that’s still there but this addiction when it takes over, it takes that person away from you. One minute they’re up and they’re happy and they’re doing everything that they would normally do and then the next they are down and withdrawn. They don’t want to talk to you, they get angry at the smallest little things, like they do get a temper and then they just turn into a complete stranger. There’s no way of it ending because you have a need to think you’re strong enough to carry on or do you just get off the ride and that’s it. It’s all or nothing. You’ve got to find strength in you somewhere to deal with it.

When he is not gambling, he’s a good guy. I’m not saying he’s a bad guy when he is gambling, but he’s very selfish when he is gambling. It’s about his needs, what he wants if he’s struggling.

His mood had changed a little bit, and he was quite withdrawn or quite down in the dumps and I couldn’t work out what it was. I kept asking him and he was like, nothing, nothing, it’s all right, it’s all right. Then the night he was due to go on his work do, a day just before he went, he told me that he’d been gambling and he’d gambled a couple of hundred pounds. At the time, obviously, it was a shock. It was a lot of money, but we had no commitments and I didn’t realise this was going to be an issue going forward.

I asked him about it. He was quite ashamed but I didn’t know enough about it and I don’t think he realised that it was a problem at the time…I just thought it was one of them things. I was a bit shocked, a bit taken back, but I didn’t know enough about it.

He’s always had it around him from being a kid. His mum used to go bingo, his sister went bingo, his brother-in-law, who was part of his life from a young age used to go and play on the slots.

He started working with his brother-in-law and one of his best mates and it’s something that they did. When we did have rainy days, and they were meant to be doing landscaping, they just sat in the van all day and they’d just be on their smartphones gambling all day…It was a bit of everyone else was doing it, I’ll give it a go, and then boom, I’ve got some money and then that was it. It just spiralled from there.

Not having stuff to do and just sitting around bored. He’s not smoking anymore so the times that he’d go outside for a cigarette, he [00:43:00] wasn’t doing that anymore. If it was raining, they all sat in the van all day, there was nothing else to do, so boredom really and not having something to occupy him. He’s not someone that can sit still. If he’s not got something to do, then he’ll find something and his thing was gambling.

It’s a difficult one because how long can you put up with it, but at the same time, because I’ve known him for years before, I know he is not a bad person. Then I get withdrawn about being able to talk to people because I think they’re judging me because like some comments that people make of is, “Just leave him. I don’t know why you’re still with him.” It’s like but there’s a lot more to it. He’s got this addiction.

It was when I started to find things. One of the very rare times that he actually told me something was wrong. It was when I started to find letters from loan companies, not understanding what that was. I questioned him about it, and he lied to me and say, even with like the letters in front of me showing him saying, what’s this loan, what’s it, and he was like, “Oh, nothing, nothing.” It’s like, but there’s a letter here. He would just get defensive that it was, “Why are you looking at my stuff? Why are you snooping?”… Even when I did challenge him with the evidence in front of me, he would turn it around, so I’d be the bad person, because I was snooping, or I was the issue. It took a while for him to admit to what was actually going on.

Over the years, if there’s things going on with his friends, he would open up and talk to me about it and vice versa, but he was lying to me now. He was hiding things from me, and then he was trying to turn it around to blame me for it. It’d be my fault that he’s gambled or I shouldn’t be snooping or whatever.

It’s been an on-and-off thing over the last couple of years that we’ve been struggling with it. We’ll go through phases where he’s free of it, he’s doing everything he can to stop himself going back into it and then he’ll have a relapse. It’s been a bit of a vicious cycle over the years. Then when it’s come to this latest bout, it’s been a bit more of a struggle to just forgive it and move on like I have over the years, because there’s a lot more that we’ve got now than we did in the beginning. We’ve got the commitment of a mortgage and we’ve got a nearly three-year-old son together.

I think it was like an American site he went on. I only found out about this after the fact. I think you just put your phone number in and they’ll charge it to your phone bill. Rather than you actually having to have your bank account, that’s another way you can do it because obviously, if he doesn’t have access to his card details or his bank, that’s another way around it because he has a contract phone. You just give the phone number and it charges it to your bill.

He was quite ashamed but I didn’t know enough about it and I don’t think he realized that it was a problem at the time. We thought he just got carried away… I just thought it was one of them things. I was a bit shocked, a bit taken back, but I didn’t know enough about it, because obviously you hear about alcoholics and drug addicts, and there’s a lot around them. You recognize if there’s a problem, because you can physically see them doing something.

When he first told his sister, his sister was like, “Well, everybody, gambles,” that was her response. His mum was similar. She didn’t get that it was– she still really doesn’t now. She would enable it, his mum, because if he couldn’t get money from me, it would’ve been his mum and his mum would send him some money, but not question why he needed it or anything.

There was different feelings from my side. It was like, “Well, if I let him do this, is it my fault, because I haven’t picked it up?” If I drove him to it, because sometimes he’d say it was me, if something was happening in our relationship at the time.

He wouldn’t want me to talk to people because he’d feel a bit ashamed about it. That’s when I started to realize there was a problem, because of all the people that he could talk to, I was always the friend that he would come to before we got together and I would go to him and we’d tell each other everything.

He hasn’t got the support from his family, but I have, but then he doesn’t want me to talk to my family because he’s worried about how he’s being judged.

Mum will be annoyed, and my mum’s one of these that she sometimes says things that she shouldn’t say. She’ll vent or she’ll put a status on Facebook or something, that’ll be aimed at him or whatever. It’d be very difficult because it doesn’t just affect his relationship with them, it affects mine as well. I’m stuck in the middle of that. I want to talk to my mum, but I don’t want her to say something she shouldn’t say to cause issues with [partner], but then I don’t want [partner] to avoid them, because I don’t want him to not be able to go to events, especially we’ve got our son now.

I get withdrawn about being able to talk to people because I think they’re judging me because like some comments that people make of is, “Just leave him. I don’t know why you’re still with him.” It’s like but there’s a lot more to it. He’s got this addiction. If it was an alcoholic or someone who’s dependent on drugs, you would try and help them because you want that person back that you know is there. When he is not gambling, he’s a good guy.

It has a big effect, and with me and his family, I don’t have anything to do with them because I resent them for not being there and causing the issues we have with him over the years…Then they’ve painted me as a bad person over the years, and that means I have next to no relationship with them.

I don’t do a lot of things, I’m not as outgoing as I used to be. I’m stressed all the time. I’m worrying about money constantly. When we have it, I’m worried that he is going to gamble it. When we don’t have it, I am worried about where it’s going to come from.

My mum’s one of these that she sometimes says things that she shouldn’t say. She’ll vent or she’ll put a status on Facebook or something, that’ll be aimed at him or whatever. It’d be very difficult because it doesn’t just affect his relationship with them, it affects mine as well. I’m stuck in the middle of that. I want to talk to my mum, but I don’t want her to say something she shouldn’t say] to cause issues with [partner], but then I don’t want [partner] to avoid them, because I don’t want him to not be able to go to events, especially we’ve got our son now. I want [son] to be happy and comfortable and not feel like there’s an atmosphere just because we’re going round for a brew or whatever.

It has a big effect, and with me and his family, I don’t have anything to do with them because I resent them for not being there and causing the issues we have with him over the years, that has strained his relationship with his mum, which was the only person he ever really spoke to. He’s got all these brothers and a sister and not one of them has made the effort with him. Then they’ve painted me as a bad person over the years, and that means I have next to no relationship with them, and he doesn’t really know. We just speak to his mum a couple of times a week.

He told [his family] that everything was okay when it wasn’t okay. Then all of a sudden, he was angry all the time, he was kicking off all the time. The only thing that they could think of is me because he’s changed since he’s been with me, but he hadn’t for years, he was still the same [partner]. It was literally when this gambling started and they don’t understand it. I think they think that because I’m looking after the finances, I’m controlling him and they seem to think that I’m controlling him, but if it was easy to control him, he wouldn’t gamble. I wouldn’t be in this situation, I wouldn’t be the one that’s always upset and hurting because I’m the one that does everything for him, but they don’t see that.

It’s more my family that it’s affected. Obviously, they’ve seen me breakdown. I had a point where I stayed at mum’s for the week, which is something you don’t expect to do when you are older and it strained that relationship a little… but his family should be getting involved as well. It shouldn’t always be them picking up the pieces, but his family are very much oblivious to it and they’re not really bothered unless they’re getting something out of it.

I ended up having time off work last year so I’ve got signed off sick because of the work that I do, my job is very demanding…It’s a really fast-paced environment, really pressurized environment but then I’m coming home and I’m having to deal with all the stuff with [partner] with his gambling, worrying about money, worrying whether he’s done it again. If he has done it, what do we need to do today? Who do we need to speak to today to try and resolve it? You never get that break, so it’s constant. I’ve got a three-year-old to look after, nearly three-year-old and then it’s like I’m mothering my husband as well. I just felt like take take take take take from all angles, until it just got to the point where I couldn’t cope anymore, and I had a bit of a breakdown. I got signed off sick and I was off sick for like nine weeks. I’ve never struggled as much as I have since his addiction because I don’t have that person.

He’s having to work all the hours to try and recoup money to pay off his debt so he’s still not around. Even now I obviously went back to work after that when things were a bit better, he was not gambling anymore, so our financial situation was a little bit better. Even now, it’s still having an impact because he’s working overtime constantly. Like he’s working Saturday and Sunday this week as well as the days in the week that he works, but he doesn’t see that as an issue… But he’s not around and all you ever want when you’re married to someone is to have a partnership. Someone to be there, that’s all we need, that’s what my son needs. It’s not all about buying him lots of presents, he doesn’t need lots of presents. He just wants to days out, he wants to go to the park, he wants to play in the garden.

We stopped going [to Gamblers Anonymous] and then he relapsed. Then COVID hit, so we didn’t have sessions for a bit. Last year, for example, one of his triggers was that he had to have emergency hernia operation. That would be an excuse for him to gamble, but he’d say it as though it was justifying him gambling… Our communication would breakdown then. It was communication was the only thing that was helping him as we went along. As soon as he stopped communicating, that was normally because he’d had it in his head he was going to gamble.

We had marriage counselling about three years ago. I think it was. I got referred to Beacon counselling, which was aimed at the fact that I was an affected other because, and I’ve had counselling through work as well when it’s got a bit much because it’s not just the trust side of it. It’s all that responsibility you have with the funds and trying to make sure money’s okay and that he’s not gambling, and when he does gamble, it was always left to me to pick up the pieces.

It’s that being able to open up and not be judged but having people in similar situations and see that you can get there. There’s people that go that one of them’s 40 odd years where they’ve not gambled, but they still go [to GA], they go religiously to the meetings. Knowing that he can get help, he can talk to people without being judged.

Marriage counselling made him see my side. Me never being put first and things like that. Just to see it as me, that’d be my problem and he didn’t realize what he was doing. Gamblers Anonymous was probably the best thing he ever did was because he’s got people going through it, people that actually understand. A lot of counsellors aren’t equipped to deal with gambling, so it’s not really something that they’ll focus on, or understand… He’d go and he’d never really address that issue, never really explained to him where the addiction comes from, how it happens, how to deal with it sort of thing.

There is help available for you. You don’t have to be responsible for that person. They have to be responsible for themselves… You need to look after yourself in the meantime. There’s help for you as well… There are people out there that you can talk to, and they can give you advice. And don’t feel like you have to deal with it alone.

Don’t be afraid to tell people. If you’re getting judged, they’re not the people that you want to talk to, but there are people out there that you can speak to that won’t judge you. You don’t have to be strong all the time. You need support just as much as they do. If you want to stick by them, then that’s great because that will help them. If you don’t, it’s not selfish to walk away either.

There should be more restrictions. The difficult thing is what I’ve seen is things like when you want to self-exclude yourself from a gambling site so you can’t use it. They’ll ask you why, and then they’ll give you a chance to say how long you want to exclude for. They can see if somebody’s gambling too much. I know they do the whole when the Fun Stops Stop. When you’re a compulsive gambler, you don’t realize that it’s not fun anymore… If they realize that somebody’s gambling a lot, there should be something that flags up, and then they should be able to cut them off.

I just want doctors to be able to know where to send them. Not necessarily doctors need to treat them but being able to point them in the right direction. Them having an awareness of it being an addiction… Not just throw tablets at it, maybe give them the tablets in the short term, but be able to point them in the right direction.

With counsellors too, if they’re not aware of it, be trained in addiction, but not just for alcoholics and people that are drug dependent… If you go to the doctors and them being able to recognize that you have got an issue and where to point you. If you’ve been referred for counselling that the counsellor has some knowledge around addiction and specifically gambling. Be able to pick up the signs.

I’ve always had problems with my mental health, but I’ve never struggled with it as much as I have since [partner’s] addiction has come to light because he’s the one person that you think in a marriage that you can talk to, and you can go to. When you’ve not got trust in that person, and if that person’s going through it at the time, and they’re snapping at everything, they’re blaming you for everything, you feel alone. I don’t do a lot of things, I’m not as outgoing as I used to be. I’m stressed all the time. I’m worrying about money constantly.