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A woman seeks financial advice after discovering her husband's $30,000 gambling debt. The advisor provides a blunt reality check on the nature of addiction, emphasizing that recovery requires immediate, drastic action, total financial transparency, and the removal of all triggers to save the marriage and protect the family's future.
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I'm Marian here, and I just learned about my husband's gambling problem.
And as far as I know, and I don't know the best solution, I do.
I have intercepted the mail and seen the debt on the credit cards.
I want to say it's close to $30,000.
So I don't know if filing for bankruptcy, trying to do the debt snowball,
or getting with a debt management program is the best solution.
How old are you guys?
44.
What's he gambling on?
I think it's slot machine apps and sports.
Did you say 44?
Correct.
And what does he make?
Somewhere around $70,000.
What do you make?
I'm a stay-at-home mom.
We don't share finances, so I'm completely dependent
on whatever he gives me.
You've been married two years, so you have a two-year-old?
We do have a two-year-old, but we have only been married just over a year.
Oh, I see.
And we have other children not together.
Okay.
So you have kids.
How many kids do you have other than this child?
I have a 19-year-old.
And what were you doing for a living before you got married a year ago and
became a stay-at-home mom with no access to money?
I was in manufacturing.
Oh, Sarah, I'm so sorry.
Nowhere in this story so far have you said how repentant he is and that he's
going to counseling and he's joined Gamblers Anonymous and he's turning over
all the spending to you and he's giving up all rights to all money, which is
what an addict has to do if they want to stay married.
So far, I've not heard any of that.
We have discussed putting, making his direct deposit go into an account with
just my name.
He has been in contact with somebody from our church who runs the men's
meeting that is addiction-based.
They haven't got together yet, but they have been in conversation.
Okay.
There's talk.
I don't know.
Yeah, there's talk.
So, um, let me, let me give you some harsh realities that you guys have to
work through and I hope you can work through them.
All right.
But I'm not an expert on addictions, but I have worked with addicts for 35
years because 100% of addicts have financial trouble.
Okay.
100% of addicts also lie and manipulate.
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100% of addicts also lie and manipulate.
It is the nature of the beast.
And so you cannot trust a thing that's being said.
The only thing you can trust are the actual actions.
And so he's got two and a half minutes to get plugged into the next gambler's
anonymous meeting and two and a half minutes to have the pastor at your
doorstep, sitting in your living room, coaching the two of you on whether or
not this marriage is going to survive.
Not two and a half weeks, two and a half minutes.
And he needs to turn over 100% of all debt and all finances over to you.
He has zero control of anything as a starting point.
Otherwise he's a lying manipulative addict and you're an enabler and your
life is going to go down the toilet.
There's no middle ground with this folks.
The fastest growing addiction right now in America is online porn.
The second fastest growing addiction that's tearing families apart is online
gambling and sports betting has gone from 5 billion to 150 billion and it's
men, 25 to 45 years old.
It's completely gutted the male portion of our population and we think it's
cute with some guy holding a balloon at draft Kings or MGM.
It's not cute.
It's screwing America over and you're sitting in the middle of it with a baby.
So darling, I want you to get really angrier than you are right now and
tougher than you are right now for the survival of yourself and your children.
And this guy has got to regain trust over the next many years that he stays
completely sober from gambling sites of any kind and any other addictive
behaviors because he's plugged into a good therapist, into a good church and
into gamblers anonymous, all three.
And he has no control over anything except to work all the time and bring
you the checks.
And then I think you can walk out of this with the baby steps.
But if you don't do all of that exactly that way, if he hedges on anything,
he's electing to exit the marriage because that's what's going to happen.
Eventually, eventually you're going to get tired of this.
The third time you pay off all the debts because he lies.
If I had him on the phone, I would call him a liar because a hundred percent of
addicts lie following me here.
Yeah.
I'm worried about you, honey.
Does he still have access to his smartphone?
Cause you need to get rid of that thing today and get him a dumb phone that has
no apps on it.
All he can do is make phone calls, phone calls and texts to you saying how much
I'm working and pulling up this mess.
I made, you need to pull both of your credit reports tonight, go to annual
credit report.com.
Pull them for both of you from all three bureaus to get a full picture of what
this mess is before we can begin cleaning it up.
Because if you treat this like it's a sweet little boy that made a 13 year old
mistake and he's just really sorry, you're going to be broke the rest of your
life because this is nothing sweet about this.
This is evil to its core and you're going to have to, you're going to have,
you guys are going to have, he's going to have to treat it.
He just had an affair and he never sees the old girlfriend again or we're done
because I don't need another girlfriend in here.
And that's what this gambling is.
It's just, it's his mistress.
You've got to treat it that way.
Okay.
Are you hearing me?
I must do it.
Do I sound like I'm over the top to you?
I hope I do.
Yeah, I understand why.
Yeah.
Cause I really want you to hear this because I've worked with these folks for
years and these guys that sort of kind of, Oh, I'm just going to quit.
I don't need anybody's help.
I'm just going to quit.
I can quit anytime I want, says every addict.
Everybody's ever done cocaine.
I can quit whenever I want.
Right?
Not a chance.
Unbelievable.
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