Just wanted some general feedback as to whether there is a clear sign that a WS is never going to give up their pre-A habits.

I have a hunch my XWH would have fallen into this category. He despised people knowing about his doings because he liked to operate in an arena of secrecy. He wasn't a serial cheat but he was financially cheating me. That isn't why I dumped him though, I felt my time was too valuable to wait for his remorse either way.

When I am advising people about WW's with a history of cheating or secrecy I feel there is an added complication. BW's are told to hold out for visible remorse but BH's don't need to see remorse in their wives.

Their wives do however need to give up any SSL that led to the A. So is there any sign of it being a lost cause that a BH should look out for? A visible sign that their wife is and always will be dedicated to their SSL? I know some people just never want to give that up.

For my purposes I never looked into it too deeply, but I know some of you are more familiar with serial cheats and secret lives.

My XH started his affairs and being secretive in other areas of his life at more or less exactly the same time. By the time I discovered his affairs, he was on the third of the ones that he eventually admitted to and had been cheating pretty much continuously for 16 years.

He was lying and cheating in other areas of his life too. That seems to be pretty classic. Serial cheaters have to be very good at hiding their tracks and leading double lives. This behaviour is not just confined to what they do with their trousers.

Despite that I tried recovery. The one that got found out was a sad, fat, single woman in her mid 40s, no competition at all. Our recovery came to a screeching halt six months into the mission when he decided that sneaking off for 'just lunch' would be ok when he thought I would be in the UK. Old habits die hard.

At that lightbulb moment I knew that the rest of my life would be spent wondering where he was every time he was late for dinner and I would never be able to be away from him for a single night again. Honestly, he was just not amazing enough to pay that price.

I can understand not recovering with a serial cheat. That sounds like hard work to me too.

However did you know that Dr Harley does not encourage travelling or nights apart even when there is no history of infidelity?

Yes and I can totally see why Dr Harley says that. In our case he would have needed to give up his job or I would have had to travel with him. He is on a plane all week (investment banker) so no life at all for me. He met most of the women in the first class seats of transatlantic flights. You pay a high price for that lifestyle as I expect Cherie Blair is now realising.

Yes!!

For some reason the most important red flag did not make it into my answer so let me add it here.

We counselled with Jennifer Chalmers who helped us through our first ever POJA. (He had a history of buying houses, forging my signature on the mortgage and then announcing the happy news afterwards. At one point we owned 6. This was yet another house that he wanted to buy.) We were not able to come to a resolution so the default of do nothing kicked in.

He went right off and started house hunting. Secret second lifers cannot manage POJA because RH is impossible for them so being incapable of following this is probably the best red flag of all.