Looking back, Laima admits that at the time she knew too little about gambling addiction. Since her husband earned the money himself, she thought she had no right to control how he spent it.
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“I used to say: if you think you have enough money for it, do whatever you want – you earn it yourself and decide what to do with it. I thought it was just entertainment, meant to make watching the games more fun, more excitement. Now I deeply regret not taking it seriously and never asking what sums were involved. It never occurred to me that everything could get out of control,” the woman recalls.
She was convinced that dangerous gambling happened in casinos, while sports betting was much more innocent: “Probably, in general, I had too little information. I thought real gambling was in casinos, and I didn’t consider betting on sports matches something serious.”
However, her husband’s behavior while watching sports was changing. Laima could even tell from his face whether money had been bet on the game.
“Watching was completely different – tension on his face, a different look. Now I think he very rarely watched matches without placing a bet. Maybe there were no such matches at all,” the woman reflects.
Always with the phone during dinner
In everyday life, the man increasingly distanced himself from the family. He explained constantly checking his phone as work-related, so Laima did not suspect for a long time that betting apps might be open on the screen.
“I asked him to at least put the phone down during dinner and talk with us, but it never worked. It was always ‘work.’ I felt as if the person’s body was here, but he himself was not. To ask something, I had to repeat it five times for him to finally hear,” she says sadly.
In the evenings, the man did not sleep long because he watched sports matches happening in various countries. The next morning, fatigue and a bad mood affected the whole family.
“His frequent mood swings were exhausting, but I attributed them to work stress. Now I understand that most of the tension, both at work and at home, was caused by financial problems arising from gambling,” Laima admits.
I joked that maybe he was texting other women.
It was also worrying how the man behaved when asked to lend his phone. Before handing it over to his wife, he hurried to close the open apps.
“I joked that maybe he was texting other women. Then he would show all the chat apps, but I never saw anything suspicious in them. I kept saying: ‘I don’t understand why you hide your phone like that, you have no secrets there.’ Unfortunately, the secrets were not what I feared at the time,” the interviewee reveals.
“It felt like the ground was slipping from under my feet”
Gradually, unexplained things increased in the family finances. Although the man worked a lot, unpaid bills began to accumulate.
He insisted that he had already made one payment or another, but soon the family received notices about overdue debts. Laima saw that her husband was lying but still did not understand what he was hiding.
“Everything was explained by difficulties at the company, problems with colleagues, someone not repaying a debt to him, or other reasons. He always had an explanation, so I didn’t see the real problem for a long time,” the woman recalls.
The truth came out one day when the man, who was working abroad at the time, called her and confessed to having lost a very large amount of the family’s joint money gambling.
I started having panic attacks, I couldn’t get out of bed, I stared at the wall and tried to understand what was happening.
“It felt like the ground was slipping from under my feet, but at the same time everything fell into place in one minute. Suddenly it became clear what had been going on all along. I started having panic attacks, I couldn’t get out of bed, I stared at the wall and tried to understand what was happening,” Laima admits.
At that time, she was alone at home taking care of three small children. Due to the accumulated debt to a private kindergarten, they could no longer attend there, so despite her condition, she had to take care of the family’s daily life: “I had to pull myself together and get through it all. I couldn’t just lie in bed because there were three children nearby who needed care.”
He did not keep his promise
The man who confessed insisted that this was a one-time incident. He promised never to bet such sums again and not to repeat the same mistake.
Laima believed him, but after a while it became clear that the gambling had not stopped. “He swore by everything he could that it was a one-time case, that the amount was so large and it would never happen again. But unfortunately, it happened again – and again, and again,” the woman reveals.
Only after several new confessions did she realize that her husband could no longer control his behavior: “Admitting it was probably the hardest part. You always think it won’t happen to you, your family won’t have such problems, that it’s just a bad dream. That’s exactly how I felt – sometimes I even slapped myself to wake up.”
Every conversation causes fear
The husband’s addiction affected not only the family finances but also the wife’s emotional state. Even now, she feels anxiety when he calls or says he wants to have a serious talk.
“Every topic related to money causes me distrust. I never believed that a person could lie so much. I consciously try not to delve too much and not to think about that period because then I realize how much lying there was. That person was not with us then – there was only a physical body,” Laima confesses.
It was especially painful for the woman to realize how little she knew about the true family financial situation: “Being married, we trust the person, manage joint finances, and the other person can take loans or borrow money without you knowing. Then you don’t know how it might end. That was one of the scariest parts of this experience for me.”
Set one condition
Realizing that it was not a one-time mistake but an addiction, Laima told her husband she could not save him on her own. She demanded that he seek help from Gamblers Anonymous and start individual psychotherapy.
“That was my ultimatum. I said I didn’t feel able to help him myself, so he must turn to people who know how to work with addiction,” she says.
The first visit to the mutual support group was hesitant. The man was skeptical about such help, but when he came home, he thanked his wife: “He told me: ‘Thank you very much for making me go there.’ He felt no longer alone in the group, understood that he could speak openly and be heard by people who truly know what he is going through.”
Laima is glad that her husband did not limit himself to group meetings. In psychotherapy, he tries to understand the reasons why gambling took such a large part of his life.
“The reasons can be different for each person. Only by recognizing and naming them can you start to fundamentally change yourself,” the woman is convinced.
Did not pay off husband’s debts
Laima chose not to take on all the consequences of her husband’s gambling. She did not cover his debts, but when the family lacked money for essential expenses, the couple looked for a joint solution.
The woman also separated her finances. To feel safer, she has access to the main account, and her husband sends statements about those financial actions she cannot check herself.
“Only by seeing the main money flows can I feel calmer. He knows I worry, so he sends the necessary statements himself. I really hope that in the future I won’t feel the need to check everything,” Laima says.
However, financial control has not yet restored trust. She understands that the relationship will never be the same as before the truth came out.
Currently, the spouses live separately because the husband works abroad. “Supporting the family is very difficult. We are still a family, we support each other, but my constant anxiety and many fears greatly spoil our relationship. I realize it will never be the same. I won’t be able to trust blindly and probably will never feel one hundred percent calm, no matter how many years pass,” the woman admits.
Her sense of security is strongly linked to whether her husband continues on the path to recovery: “This problem is for life. As far as I understand, the only way to control it is to constantly attend groups and work on oneself. If he stopped going to meetings and psychotherapy, my anxiety would grow even more.”
She needed help too
Through Gamblers Anonymous, Laima learned about KALA – a mutual support group for relatives of addicted people. Although going to the first meeting was scary, she felt she could no longer keep everything inside.
“I wanted to tell at least someone about all this. Talking to people who have not faced addiction is both embarrassing and sometimes pointless. They might start judging, pitying, or giving advice without understanding what is really going on. And I don’t need pity,” the woman emphasizes.
I want to know that I am not alone.
In the group, she found what she most lacked – the opportunity not to hide and not to feel like the only one in such a situation.
“I want to know that I am not alone. To see success stories, to have hope that it will get better and that this problem can at least be controlled. It’s very nice to rejoice together with other families when they pay off their last debts. It shows that there is light at the end of the tunnel,” Laima rejoices.
Because of the three children, Laima could only attend group meetings a few times. In the evenings, she has no one to leave them with, although she says she would like to have such an opportunity every week: “Every time I left a meeting, I felt lighter, freer, and more convinced that everything would be fine.”
Answering questions about her family experience for the 15min portal, Laima admitted that some of them she asked herself for the first time. Reading her answers aloud, she felt she could look at it all as if from the outside. “I feel like after therapy,” the woman smiles.
SPECIALIST COMMENT
We asked psychologist Gabrielė Glušauskaitė from the Gambling Supervision Service under the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Lithuania to comment on Laima’s story.
– Why do relatives often not see sports betting as dangerous as casinos? What signs can relatives look for to understand that it is no longer just entertainment?
– First of all, I want to thank the interviewee for sharing; testimonies from relatives are very important and help reduce the stigma of gambling problems, and show others facing this problem that they are not alone.
It is often harder to recognize the problem in sports betting because many people believe that their gambling outcome depends on knowledge of sports, not chance. This belief is, of course, wrong because the gambling result is always random. Also, among relatives and friends, betting may be accepted as a natural part of watching sports events, although unfortunately, this belief is misguided and increases the risk of addiction.
Generally, this addiction is invisible compared to, for example, alcohol addiction, which is noticeable from certain physical signs. However, certain signs can be noticed and they relate to change – mood swings may appear, loss of interest in previously enjoyed activities, longer time spent on the computer/phone, coming home late from work, need to borrow money.
It is important to emphasize that these signs may all appear together, or none of them may be visible, or these signs may appear for completely different reasons than gambling. Therefore, it is important for relatives not to jump to conclusions but rather to ask openly: “I notice changes in your life, you started spending more time on the phone, borrowing money… what is this about? Could it be that you are gambling?”
– Even when Laima’s husband started treatment, she still says she checks accounts and worries. After such experiences, is it possible to restore trust, and how to understand when control still helps and when it starts to burden the relative?
– After such an experience, anxiety and the desire to check accounts are completely understandable because not only financial but also emotional security and trust collapse. It is restored not through promises but over time, consistent treatment, openness, and daily actions that allow feeling safer again.
Of course, the relative must also take steps to restore their security and inner peace. For example, seek help from psychologists/psychotherapists, attend mutual support groups for relatives, engage in favorite activities, communicate with loved ones, exercise, sleep well, and eat healthily.
Control can help at first if it is mutually agreed upon and its goal is relapse prevention. However, if checking becomes a constant need and anxiety does not go away even when there are no objective signs of danger, it may be a sign that control burdens the relative more than it helps. Then it is important to focus on self-care.
In my opinion, it is very important to understand that relatives cannot remove another person’s problematic gambling urges by their efforts – the gambler himself must seek and want this.
Funded by the State Public Health Promotion Fund (state budget) resources.
