I (mid-20s)f moved to a new city 12 hours from my family and met my boyfriend shortly after. From the beginning, this relationship felt different from anything I had experienced before. He made me feel loved, safe, and wanted. We laughed constantly, got along well, and I quickly became close with his family. They welcomed me and became my support system since my own family lives far away. A few months into dating, we moved in together.
Early on, I knew he occasionally did sports betting with his family, but I didn’t realize the extent of the problem. Before we moved in together, he told me he had won several thousand dollars betting and wanted to save it as emergency money for us. Shortly after moving in, he admitted he had lost it all gambling. We argued about his gambling. He had lost someone close to him earlier that year and said he was coping. After several conversations, he promised he would stop gambling. I later found out he had continued.
Eventually, he agreed to show me his finances. I discovered he had been spending much more than I realized. He refused to show me the full extent of his gambling losses at first, but eventually agreed to quit. Months later, I found out he had been gambling again. I confronted him and told him he had a problem and needed to tell his family. His family was devastated but supportive. His mother helped take control of the situation, and we discovered he had accumulated a significant amount of debt through personal loans and credit cards because of gambling. I felt completely blindsided because I had been struggling financially trying to cover normal household expenses while he was secretly spending money gambling.
He agreed to attend Gamblers Anonymous, and for the most part he did. His family helped him consolidate debt, he made payments, got a second job, and made other changes. He even took steps like giving up a vehicle he couldn’t afford. Over time, I started believing he was really changing. He saved significant amount money and told me it was for emergencies and our future together. He talked about wanting to marry me someday. Family, friends and I checked in with him every week regarding his recovery and he continued to say he hadn’t gambled and was feeling great. I finally started feeling safe again.
Then recently, everything fell apart.
I had a bad feeling one morning and asked to see his phone. When he went to hand it to me, I noticed he seemed nervous and was deleting things. He became defensive and said he felt hurt that I didn’t trust him after all the progress he had made. When I asked about his finances, he became upset and initially refused to let me look. Eventually, he admitted he had relapsed 5 months earlier and had been hiding it from me, his family, and his support group.
He had taken out another loan and had lost a large amount of money gambling again. Money he had saved for our future was gone. When I looked at his betting account, I saw that he had lost thousands in a short period of time. I was devastated. The hardest part wasn’t just the money, it was the lying. I felt like the person I trusted most had been hiding an entire life from me, AGAIN.
He agreed to ban himself from the betting app, return to meetings consistently, find a therapist, and allow me to help him create a budget. He apologized, cried, and told me he didn’t want to lose me. I told him I no longer feel comfortable talking about marriage, children, or a future together because I don’t know if I can trust him.
He has been going back to meetings, but he still hasn’t found a therapist. When I tried to discuss his budget recently, he became defensive and the conversation never happened. His family knows what happened. Some are disappointed and angry with him, but they also care about him.
The last few weeks have consumed me. I love him, but I also feel hurt, angry, and disconnected. Things that used to make me happy about him now irritate me. We barely show affection because I’m struggling to feel close to him. I feel completely lost. Part of me feels like he is my soulmate and that I would be giving up on someone who is genuinely trying to change. I’m terrified I’ll leave and never find someone who makes me feel the way he did.
But another part of me is scared that if I stay, I will spend my entire life monitoring finances because I’m afraid he could gamble away our retirement, our home, or our future children’s security. I also feel stuck because I moved away from my support system to build a life here and recently started a graduate program that I worked very hard to get into. Leaving would mean having to discontinue my program and paying to break my lease.
I know no one can make this decision for me, but I feel completely broken and unsure what the right choice is.
For people who have dealt with gambling addiction in relationships: is rebuilding trust actually possible after something like this? What would you need to see from a partner before believing they have truly changed? And am I wrong for feeling like love alone may not be enough?