He used to spend quite a lot of hours in Leicester Square when we went out in the shops they used to have there at the time with all the machines in that you just popped the money into the Jackpot machines and even on our evenings out, that could have taken up an hour, an hour and a half of our time with me just standing there, but because it was a completely different environment to anything I’d ever witnessed or seen before, I didn’t see it as being anything wrong… Looking back now, there were flags. But ones that if you weren’t aware, you wouldn’t have noticed.

He was arrested on common assault, I think it was. They knew about his gambling because I’d talked a lot about his gambling in the police interviews because I kept saying that I wanted him to get help but all the time I tried to get him help, he threw it back in my face. Because he just said it was my fault. I was the reason. He wouldn’t take any help from me.

He used [our daughter] like he used me. Because he couldn’t get to me, he was bouncing all his mind business off of her, trying to get her to pass it on, so he’ll be telling her, “I love her, I really love her, I can’t live without way, she’s got to let me back home, I promise I won’t do anything,” to, “If you don’t tell your mum to let me back in that house, I’ll make sure she gets something– she will never go back in that house again,” you know, threats and things.

He’d become exceptionally paranoid, it just built up into a frenzy where he knew I was threatened, and he knew I didn’t want to be there. But then every time he left to go out, he sort of threatened me, that you’d better be there when I come back because if you’re not– And I was too scared and I didn’t know where to go and I had nowhere else to go and I didn’t want to go and tell people about this thing that was happening, because as far as everyone was concerned, we were having a nice marriage… He’d left after dragging me out of bed to get me to give him my bank card, which was the only card that was left in the house.

He had his own self-employed company, he borrowed, took out a £10,000 Lloyds loan for something to do with the car and he just took it and gambled it.

[Son] had to wait quite a long time for his counselling. … I think he’s gone about five or six weeks now, again a year after the event, but he finishes next week because it’s the youth programme and he’s 18 next Friday. So they won’t give him any further than next Tuesday…They’re not sure at the moment or haven’t been told if they’re going to refer him over to an adult version of a trauma counselling session.

All of a sudden, I just saw the triggers, just saw them again… Thought it was me because with the first time, he told me that everything was my fault, and he only did everything because I was such a poor mother and I was such a poor wife and I was the reason this is all happening.

He was always a little bit coercive and quite controlling but again, I don’t mind pleading all innocence because I think it’s why a lot of people, men and women don’t speak up, because they feel they’ve been so stupid. But it’s not being stupid, it’s not knowing, it’s not being educated, it’s not being around that world.

If you don’t see those things and know exactly what they’re for, or you know those feelings and those behaviours and you know why they’re happening, you can’t blame yourself for being stupid. That’s one thing I spent a long time doing. I have to say now because I wasn’t stupid, I was unaware, but his coercive and quite controlling personality then put constraints on our relationship.

Since the gambling issue came up, his family wouldn’t help us, because obviously, they are Muslim. They know that he gambled. He’d taken money off of them too. So they knew he gambled, but when I asked his brother and sister for help on two different occasions, because I knew how bad things were and because how I needed help with him, I was just told either I was too needy and too lazy and need to get up and get a job myself, or please remember how much he loves you, he’s only just letting off steam.

Sometimes really frightening, sometimes just really sad conversations. He did talk about suicide on a number of occasions.

And now, when I said before, he would never do it, he’s not brave enough, no, he’ll never do it, he’s not brave enough, but he’s done it knowing he’s taken us– knowing my son had to see and hear and knowing that I had to go and tell his daughter he’s done his job, he did what he said he’d do and he may not physically have taken us with him, but mentally, there will never ever be a time– and I hope there will for the kids because they’re doing so well.

After he committed suicide, about seven months later I got solicitor’s letter from one of his personal friends who he’d borrowed £20,000 from, no signed paperwork, no formal agreement, no nothing but he wants it off me, this man. He wants his £20,000 back from me for his gambling debt…So the stress for one letter because then I just kept thinking, my God, who else–? They’re all going to come now. They’re all going to come for the house. Because all I do was doing was working four jobs to try and keep the mortgage going, to keep the house for the kids. Then to have complete strangers wanting £20,000 pounds because of him? He’s been dead nearly a year.

But it got to a point that, I think he had got himself in such a mess, he needed me to get him out of the mess he’d got into. It all come out in the open with the big arguments and the tears and the everything that it causes, and I helped him get five credit cards and put various different totals of debt onto each credit card… That was exhausting in itself.

Without him knowing, we got the ticket home… He had this lovely evening for his 40th birthday. When he opened the ticket, oh my God, it was the probably the most emotional evening ever… On my 40th birthday, because he’d done a massive amount of gambling and we were in a really bad place and it was horrible so I had no money and had a really, really bad 40th birthday.

We’d had a lockdown of listening to him shouting at me for various issues– he’d been gambling all the way through the lockdown. There were another few family arguments over money and what was going to happen.

When he was of his good mind and he didn’t gamble and everything was fine, he absolutely loved and adored his kids like crazily, probably too much actually. But the more his mental health and the gambling took his mental health, the more you knew he wasn’t the same person because his kids… There was no point in me saying, “Well, what about the kids?” or “What about this?” because nothing– He got to a point where nothing mattered anymore.

They know that he gambled. But when I asked his brother and sister for help on two different occasions, because I knew how bad things were and because how I needed help with him, I was just told either I was too needy and too lazy and need to get up and get a job myself, or please remember how much he loves you, he’s only just letting off steam.

To the outside world, probably at least three-quarters of our friends, maybe more, he was such an easy-going and quite a strong opinionated person but he was also quite kind. He always paid for stuff, they never, not hardly any of them really knew what he was properly like. And obviously, when they did, I don’t know what happened, maybe they took too much money off him, too many drinks off him, too many parties off him, I don’t know but when it all happened, they all disappeared on me.

I have to move from this house. Even had to warn my silly parents who would hate it if I lived any further away from now. But I’ve said, “I can’t stay here much longer because it’s just everyday, I’ll walk out of the front door, I pull in everyday, same thing. It doesn’t change.” I don’t think anything else above pulling round that corner and seeing the same thing I saw.

I lost so many friends… I’ve even had a couple of women drop me a message to say that they’ve not been in contact because obviously after my trauma, I just want to leave the past behind. Does that mean I have to have my brains out? I can’t talk to anybody I spoke to the day before he did that, and they were friends again of 10 years. It brought out the weirdest– I honestly just felt like I should have been giving them all therapy. It was really difficult because all I wanted was people to say, are you all right? But they all seem to be struggling with it.

I applied to a care home, a dementia care home a mile away from here for a job… I started doing 12-hour shifts. We had dementia patients that hadn’t seen their families for weeks because of COVID, maybe not be able to remember their families next time they see them, some of them passing away and you are the only person there to hold their hand because their family can’t see them. So I went from a very emotional, difficult home life to a job that probably was the worst possible job I could have chosen in my current mental state, but it earned me money and I could do it, so I just did it.

My 51st birthday wasn’t with him, but it was ruined by him because somehow he got into a joint bank account that was not supposed to be a joint bank account anymore. I took Nationwide to an ombudsman and that took me 10 months of hell and pain, but I got myself £700 back there in my bank account. They gave me £200 pound for him getting it out in the first place.

He went to prison for that time, came out and then COVID meant the court case would’ve taken until the end of August, and both myself and my son sat down and said, we can’t do that. We cannot live like this, waiting from January to August for this in court, we need to start working out how our lives are going to move forward. Anyway, we made an arrangement in court that he wasn’t going to be tried, but he had a band on his ankle, he couldn’t come into [county], he couldn’t contact us.

[My neighbour] called the police and that was the first time that he was arrested on what– common assault, I think it was. I can’t remember then. They knew about his gambling because I’d talked a lot about his gambling in the police interviews because I kept saying that I wanted him to get help but all the time I tried to get him help, he threw it back in my face.

The police, sadly– I won’t say stupidly because they have been good to me, bailed my husband back to this address on that occasion so I couldn’t come home with the kids because that’s where he was. It took a real couple of weeks with a free women’s help solicitor to get him out of the house so we could get back in again so the kids could go back to school. That was the main concern because my parents live 25 miles away so we couldn’t get the kids to school.

[Son] he had to wait quite a long time for his counselling. We never really have had any issues. We were quite good at chatting, quite open, but there was, I knew he had stuff. I knew that stuff wasn’t my right to poke at. So he has been having, I think he’s gone [to counselling] about five or six weeks now… He seems to have, although he’s come back quite upset and quite angry on a couple of occasions, he seems to have worked through some stuff that I feel it has been of benefit to him.

I’d given him loads of leaflets for GamCare, everybody, so many over the years. Got so much stuff in place and he wouldn’t admit he had a problem with gambling, and he would never, ever admit he had a mental health problem. I used to make him so angry and he just used to say it was me, I was mental. That’s all he used to say. To think he could have got help.

I am now working for two different gambling awareness charities. From a lot of things that I have experienced and learned over the last probably five, six years, I’m now hopefully using as a positive and giving back from where I have been able to help my family.

I do quite a bit on Twitter and stuff because I think if I can just help one person, and I know it’s all cliché… I like doing those little posts because I do get some people who genuinely, genuinely say, “Thank you so much because just seeing your smile and reading that sentence of positivity makes my morning,” and the fact they say that they don’t have to say that it’s those kind of things are really important to me now.

I’m coming to a new point now that I finally, I was doing four jobs and it was taking up probably 90% of my time. Then otherwise, I was just sleeping or fitting things in. Things have changed now. I’ve got a nice full-time job, which again I’m really enjoying, but I’ve got more thinking time for me now.

You’ve got to look for professional help. There are plenty of people out there, don’t be ashamed to say, “I can’t do this anymore,” or, “I can’t be with this person anymore,” or, “This person needs help,” because there are so many and with more lived experienced people out there to help you. You’re really missing out on something that could make your life a lot happier.

Someone did warn me don’t be surprised if you really feel quite a low after the initial wave of relief has gone over certain things because you’ve held yourself so tight for so long, it’s like I might have had COVID ten times, but I only let it get me three. But when it does get me, it gets me bad. I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s just there’s always been a case of, “Well, who else is going to do it if I don’t?” So I did have days, I did take days I did not get out of bed and I just hid from everything and then the following day, I could get up again and carry on.

Although my heart equally goes out to any person in any addiction that is in recovery, because recovery is a long day-to-day journey, I still don’t believe that there is half enough out there that needs to be to look after the people who are affected by those people with addiction… I have a lot of friends in recovery that I’m extremely proud of. But I just sometimes feel that we go through all of that with them and then just, “You’re all right now. Because they’re all right now, you should be all right now”.

I saw a domestic abuse advert that was out during the football… It was very short, very football-fied but not slogans on it about the woman at home getting the abuse, more domestic abuse during England football competitions because of the betting and the excitement and everything. Even tonight when I saw it, it was quite scary for me to look at, because I was like, “Wow, this actually really is what it is.” Nobody really looks at the fact that sport, plus gambling, plus sometimes alcohol and drugs equals a lot of pain. It’s so easy to see, yet people are choosing not to see it. That’s why we need to keep talking about it.

I am not ashamed of my story anymore. I don’t feel stupid about my story. I now understand it. When I call it a story, it’s not a story, it’s real life…. My life needs to be told. My children’s life needs to be told, my husband’s life need to be told, otherwise, people just sweep it under the carpet and believe it doesn’t happen. It does happen, and it’s happening more and more.

If there’s something I could say or something I could give somebody to maybe just think a little bit differently about various things. Maybe it’s an addiction, maybe it’s general advertising, maybe it’s their own mental health, just all different things. If we don’t keep talking, it’s not going to be a good place. We need to keep being open and we need to kill the stigma off it all really, really quickly.