Shelly, I’m afraid I will not be able to provide you with any advice, but I want you to know that I know exactly how you feel.
I found out two weeks ago that my husband of 15 years is also a gambler. About 6 years ago, we really hit a rough spot in our marriage. I found out then that he started gambling. I took over the finances, we went to marriage counseling (but we only went 3 times before he felt we no longer needed it) and we moved on.
Things were great. Gradually, I gave home more and more control over our finances until he took them back over. Then, two weeks ago, I randomly logged in to one of our credit cards account and saw that he was taking out cash advances. My stomach dropped.
It has been the worst two weeks of my life. I’ve taken the finances back and what we owe is crippling. He has taken out 13 credit cards and loans behind my back, this is on top of he debt we were still paying off from 6 years ago.
I feel like the stress has be shifted from his shoulders to mine.
When I read through your post, I thought I could have written it. I know it is very scary to file for separation (I have not yet done that). But if you are absolutely certain this is what you want to do, you need to be sure to follow through with it. Don’t let him guilt you into staying with him if you’re not happy. You deserve to be happy Shelly. He will probably tell you that he will stop gambling and that he needs you. He is going to say whatever he thinks you want to hear to get you to stay. There’s a good chance that if he hasn’t taken the initiative to recover by now, he probably won’t after he’s convinced you to stay.
Would you take him back if he got better? If he started counseling and was willing to stop gambling? Maybe that’s what you focus on when you talk to him?
I’m sure this wasn’t very helpful and this wasn’t the advice you were hoping to hear… I really just wanted to let you know that you’re not alone. And by reading your post, I realize I’m not alone either. We may be on opposite ends of the world, but I will be praying for you to have strength today.
Please continue to post so we know how it goes.
Deb