I’m not sure why I’m writing this here now….I was in an 11 year relationship with a gambler who became a pathological gambler with the help of my money. (When he left I had £20 left in my account and no savings!!! If I’d never met him I would probably have a decent pension and £100,000 in savings, paid off mortgage) I became his enabler but the money ( my cash, payday loans, bank loans) was mostly coerced out of me via verbal abuse, damage to property, threats, fear etc I walked on eggshells most of the time, could not use the living room when he was in a gambling cycle, so when I was at home, spent most of the time in my bedroom. To cut a long story short, it came to the point where my mental health was deteriorating and affecting my work. Earlier in the year I thought the only way out of this relationship was’ one of us is going to die’ and that’s not what I wanted to happen. I’d been dissociating for the last year or so as being in a toxic gambling environment (online) So I had to call a domestic abuse helpline and explained my full situation. My case was referred to various organisations as it was a high risk domestic abuse situation. Everything came to a head and I made a police report. I finally realised two things: my enabling and not being able to stand up to him when he wanted money was making him worse and keeping him in a depressive spiral; If I wanted a future, I had to protect myself and protect him from me. He has been gone for a month now. I still can’t believe he’s not here. There’s no shouting, screaming, slamming doors, no racing, football on tv…I’m in therapy now and hope he is too. Obviously there is much more to this story. I felt like a traitor going to the police but it was probably the best decision I made for the both of us.

Gambling does not have sentiment or human emotion, it just needs to be constantly fed, it does not hear no, it does not care if you can’t pay the mortgage, can’t get to work, can’t eat, can’t go the dentist, can’t go to the optician, wear the same clothes for 10 years,

It doesn’t help either when your own psychological make up is one of the rescuer!!

One thing I’m interested in is how prevalent is domestic abuse (you do not need to be hit) – verbal abuse, mental abuse, psychological abuse in other families / partnerships where gambling is the addiction. Has anyone else experienced domestic abuse directly connected to gambling?