Karen's story

Hi all I have just come across this fantastic website and would like to post a letter I wrote to my ex-partner in the hope that other people can identify with the feelings and know they are not alone in this terrible pain that gamblers create in other people's lives.

I had been with my partner for 12 years. Fortunately I did not have children with him – mine were from a previous marriage. I thought he was my absolute soul mate and loved him sooo much. He appeared to love me and appeared kind and gentle but he poisoned our relationship over and over again.

Here is the letter:

'"He, who had done more than any human being to draw her out of the caves of her secret, folded life, now threw her down into deeper recesses of fear and doubt. The fall was greater than she had ever known, because she had ventured so far into emotion and had abandoned herself to it." – Anais Nin. I came across these words and they reflect for me exactly what I feel.

You could never know the courage it took for me to go back into a relationship with you in 2008. To knowingly accept that I would live with fear sitting on my shoulders. But I did because I loved you and believed that if I loved and supported you, you had a chance at being the person I thought I saw in you.

I could not have been more wrong. For you to have watched me go through the most enormous and overwhelming fear and anxiety about money not coming in from the business ... trying not to question and blame you that it could be because you gambled it.

You had told me you were so stressed and depressed (setting the stage!) and I did not want to add to your burden. I was doing my best to support, comfort and listen to you as you spun more and more lies and deceit. You knew all my vulnerabilities and played every single one to save yourself and your love: gambling.

In the background you were busy setting the scene for your next role, that of poor H... so constricted by K... so much so that it led him back to gambling. Always saving your own skin at any cost – you will do anything!

Lies, cheating, stealing, betrayal, deception: those are what you dish out to those around you but so happy to accept from them love, support, honesty and comfort and use it to your own advantage. You know nothing of the pain and heartache you dish out over and over again, if you did you could never be so cruel to another. You are so very clever at knowing people so intimately and then using that information, telling them exactly what they long to hear, all to pull them in and bind them to you closer so you can use them for your own gains ... I feel so conned by you ... so that it was like the wrong was mine for trusting you. You really know how to mess with someone’s head, you are so well practised.

In November 2008 I got back with you ... in November 2008 dad died, the most significant male that I had known in my life, I can see that it was a very vulnerable time for me.

Unfortunately for me you could see it too. I want you to know what you've done to me and know that you will never have the opportunity to do it again. Out of this blackened mess and destruction, there is your family who have listened, comforted and supported me in ways that I will be grateful, and remember for the rest of my life – that is one good thing you have brought to me.

Also know that throughout my years of fear with you I have grown strong in many ways and know that I will heal and my life will get better … But hey for you, you can always blame gambling as a disease when you run out of people to blame for how you treat others.'