I am a 31F married to 33M; we have a 4 year old. I recently found out that my husband of 8 years lost 540k trading options. He apparently started trading last spring. It seems to have become a gambling addiction. He spent all our savings and his 401K. He took out personal loans, maxed out his credit cards, and used a heloc on our house (we had taken it out to buy an investment property. It didn’t work out and we agreed to not touch the heloc). I know I should have been monitoring things closer, but I had no idea he was capable of this.

After 8 months of hiding it, he finally came clean because he couldn’t make payments on the loans. We had to sell our home and move in with our parents. We had spent 4 years doing a huge renovation on this home. I am not exaggerating when I say we have spent thousands and thousands of hours working on it; it caused so much stress in our lives and in our marriage. We didn’t make any money off it after paying off the debts. Feeling like it was all for nothing has been a really tough pill to swallow.

I am not sure what to do. I have a decent job but would still be in a better financial situation staying with him. Luckily, we are not in debt after selling the house. If we stayed together, I would control the finances. However, I am not sure if I will be able to work through the betrayal. How will I not be angry about this huge financial setback? Will I always wonder if he is telling me the truth? Will I always wonder if he will do something impulsive and destructive? I would love any advice or insight.