Help! I'm feeling really deceived by my husband of 8 months. I am a committed Christian and my husband had been in a back slidden state before we married. But he re-dedicated his life to Christ, started going to church with me, men's prayer, took a bible class and even abstained from sexual intercourse before marriage.

One area of agreement had to do with casino and internet gambling. He committed, without my asking him, to stop. He even told the elders who did the pre-marital counseling and our pastors of his decision.

Now, he tells me that his decision about the gambling was not well thought out and secondly, more importantly - that even though he believes in Jesus Christ - he doesn't believe the Bible is true.

Things we talked long and hard about from a biblical perspective - he now says that even though he said "ok" - even during the counseling sessions - he didn't necessarily mean he agreed.

I'm feeling like I was deceived all the way around.

<small>[ November 08, 2004, 05:18 PM: Message edited by: AERM100 ]</small>

AERM100, first welcome to Marriage Builders. I also started my M off as a compulsive gambler unbeknownst to my W. I was able to do a lot of damage before before she finally found out. So there are two concerns here; a)the betrayal or deception as you have said and b)financial ruin. Please tell me which is your biggest concern here. Also what type of gambling ie. race track, casino, sports betting etc. Is it hampering your financial situation or is your bigger concern the deception you mentioned? With a little more info I could better respond.

The deception part. It's basically online internet gambling (which I thought was against the law). It's too soon to tell what type of financial damage - although my husband is very heavy in debt - but he says it's not from gambling.

The other part - and this is the biggie - is the deception on the spirituality.

OK. Heavy debt is certainly a red flag. Even if it's not from gambling (which it is by the way)how is he supposed to get out of debt if he still gambles. In other words there is NO discrentionary income for gambling if he's in heavy debt. I think you need to change your focus on what is the "biggie". This to me is the biggie. You will never get yourself and future family on solid financial footing if he continues to gamble. Obviously it's a problem since he won't give it up. Unless you know something that I'm not privie to, this is your major problem. I think you need to be extremely diligent in sharing the financial responsibilities in your home. I don't mean you pay all the bills and he remains oblivious. I mean you both work closely on all financial issues. You jointly request credit reports to make sure he isn't taking out loans behind your back. Perhaps I'm a bit cynical but don't close your eyes on this part of the problem.

Now to the deception. I'm not really able to be much help here. While I'm Christian I don't really understand what you mean but there are surely others around here that might. You may need to start a seperate post to draw attention to it. ie. Questions on Sprituality or something like that. The way I see it your H came to you with the truth about his desire to continue gambling and that is positive. The negative part is it seems like your feelings are secondary to his desire and therein lies the problem. That type of selfishness is not the way to start of a M.

And while intenet gambling is illigal it gets bigger and bigger everyday. There are people who can play poker, visit the casinos or tracks for the pure entertainment value of these venues. I am not one of them and I suspect that your husband isn't either. The heavy debt is a red flag. That happened somehow.

WOE