Hi Jansdad,
I’m in the same boat as well. I don’t have any debt, all the bills are paid for and we lead very good lives. A few grand here and a few grand there didn’t really affect our joint accounts. The problem with this thought process is that I try to gamble to replace the money lost and this single realization has gotten me to gamble time and time again.
I decided that i’m not going to tell my partner, but I am also not going to chase these losses either, because I may win a bit here and there, but I will NEVER get back close to breakeven. My life wouldn’t change much even if I made back the $250,000 that I lose, however, I can still lose a lot more.
More importantly, as you noted, it’s not the money, but it’s the lost time and endless lying. I lie so much I that I can’t even keep all my lies straight. One of my goals now is to always be truthful with everything.
I’ll email you and maybe we can work on some plan. For me, I don’t think I can implement the $20,000, because technically, it’s still a “bet”. I know that if I bet $1, then I’m going to bet $100, and before I know it, I’m going to bet $10,000.