Hi Elania, Thanks a lot. I am going to the police station this morning with a friend of mine to do the report and then go and get a restraining order. There were quite a few witnesses so I will get them to confirm the report too. I don't know why I haven't been reporting it before. I guess I have just been so used to protecting him from the consequences of his actions - but i don't know why I started doing that in the first place. Anyway, not anymore! Its no good for anyone (him, me, the family) if I cover things up.

Police report done. Filed for restraining order. Obtained copy of police report about OW's assault on me and sent it to their employer as requested. I will also send a copy of the restraining order when it is ready. Thanks for the motivation everyone!

Now that WH has left the country, the next thing on the list is to prevent him from coming back.

He booked a return ticket that his work paid for, but I have spoken to the country office here and established there is no legitimate work reason for him to come back and that the return was supposed to enable him to move his family out of the country.

Since I have now informed them I will be moving with the kids on my own, I think I will ask them to cancel his return ticket when I send them a copy of the restraining order. Surely if a wife tells you one of your employees is abusive and threatening towards her and her children (with evidence of a restraining order), and requests that you don't finance him to come back to the place where he is likely to repeat the abuse, they will listen, won't they? No company would want to take responsibility for enabling domestic abuse if it could easily be avoided.

He has left his clothes and our car at a friend's house. Should I go and reclaim that stuff so that he can't come into the country to collect those things without me knowing about it? I think he might have taken the car key with him, but I could get a tow truck to bring it home.

Or maybe I should just wait until I have the restraining order. I don't want his friend to alert him to my plans to keep him out of the country.

Today I sent a copy of the restraining order to WH's employer, asking them to cancel his return flight back here and cancel his resident's permit. If he wants to come back into the country he is going to have to apply for a visa and get an invitation letter from OW.

I have also spoken to my lawyer about hiring a PI. I suspect WH has been channeling money to OW and I want to find it so that I can claim suitable damages in my alienation of affection counter-case against her defamation suit.

Things are moving forward.....

How are you doing with all this? And the kids?

Hi Brain Hurts, thanks very much for asking. I am OK when I am actively doing things and planning how to take things forward, but when things get quiet it is really tough. My nanny, who lives with us, has gone away for the weekend and it has really made me realise how much I have been depending on her for companionship and emotional support. I feel so alone right now with four kids and no one to talk to. I have some friends, but there's only so much of this continuously exploding drama that i feel i can offload onto them. After the first incident with the police, then I found that people started to react to me as if I had officially exceeded the bounds of "normal" and stopped being able to relate to my experience.

I also struggle with the fact that everyone seems to think I am totally crazy to be fighting so hard. I don't know what they think they would do in my position - maybe they don't imagine they would ever be in my position. But I find it a bit addictive: now that I have started uncovering lies and seeing opportunities for damaging the affair and WH's SSL, I want to keep on going until ALL the lies are exposed. I want to know what has really happened in my life during the past 10 years. If it takes court cases, private investigators, subpoenas of financial information and forensic accountants, then I will do all that and I won't stop until I know the truth. Luckily, I have been gifted this opportunity of OW suing me, which will enable me to pass my costs on to her and bring out information about WH that I might not have had access to otherwise.

Once you have spent a few months obsessively reading threads on this forum, and educating yourself about affairs and the wayward mindset, you begin to see how ignorant most people are of the situations they are in in their marriages. And how little we all know about how to truly take control of our lives and relationships. I am so grateful for this knowledge and I am doing everything possible to put it into action. I just wish I could help other people to open their eyes too. But I don't seem to be able to do that yet.

The kids are doing totally fine - amazing even. They were a bit upset when WH was so aggressive and threatening last weekend, but they have bounced back right away. I thank my patchy plan B for that and, of course, exposing to them. Getting him out of the house when I did was the best thing possible for shielding the kids from conflict and drama. As a result, they have just carried on with their normal routines - school, playdates, normal family meals, bathtime, bedtime, etc - and because i have been insulated from drama too, I've been able to be pretty normal with them as well.

They don't even ask if he is coming home anymore. They accept that he has got a girlfriend and that he doesn't live with us. I don't know why we are all so reluctant to expose to children. It makes everything so much easier and less confusing for them and us as parents.

You should add this and your experience to the Exposing to Children thread to help others when they aren't sure.

I also found that there are some friends/family that haven't been through what we've been through and they have a difficult time on what to say or do for us. To me it shows that until you've been through it there really is a lot of ignorance out there when it comes to infidelity and what to do to protect our marriages. Make sure you're taking care of yourself, my Friend.

Thanks Brain Hurts, I'll do that. I am so thankful to have this forum to turn to for advice. There is no way I would have been able to maintain strength and focus for this fight without it. Thank you to everyone.

Back in court this morning for OW's remand hearing. Apparently they will set a date for the full hearing later on today.

She has launched a suit against the police for unlawful arrest. The investigating officers came and told me while laughing to themselves. Apparently her aunt is a suspended police officer, so there is some background between her family and the police. They keep saying she is "naughty", giving the impression they have known her and seen her behaviour before. But haven't provided details.

Meeting a PI this afternoon. Will get him to investigate OW's background and find any evidence of financial support from my WH so that I can use that in my counter suit to calculate damages for alienation of affection/dissipation of marital assets. I am learning so much through this process!

My landlord emailed last night to say WH has not paid the rent since February. Since his company pays him a housing allowance, I have made him aware that not paying the rent is FRAUD and I will report him to his employer (again) if he does not pay. I am really beginning to understand this idea of letting WSs experience the consequences of their actions....

My WH served me with ANOTHER summons today! For apparently refusing him access to the kids. But I have never refused. He just doesn't turn up. And since he left the country he hasn't even mentioned them. Oh well. What's another court case.....now i have three....

If I were you I would report him to the company rather sooner than later. Just google "stalking through the courts" and you will know that you are not alone.
Sadly, court cases can be misused in this way.

Thanks Happy Heart. I hadn't even thought of telling the company about this one - but yes, it makes sense because it shows the escalating harassment though legal channels. Thanks for the advice.

My landlord just told me WH has paid at least some of the outstanding rent now. Phew! So I guess he does understand that not-paying makes him look really bad.

It seems as though WH has been thinking that the time between me throwing him out on Feb 21, and him leaving the country to start his new job on April 29, was some kind of holiday where he got the freedom to continue his affair without the inconvenience of my snooping and having to face my trauma. Ultimate hall pass. I wish I had understood the wayward mindset better at the start.

He is now out of the country and trying to contact me, requesting that I behave "like an adult", that we "need to discuss" the family move, and that we should make decisions "in the best interests of the family".

He left the country with one suitcase. Expecting that he would come back and take sofas, beds, a TV, etc from the family home apparently. He has also hidden the car somewhere, believing that he would come back and use it. So I have now told him no. He doesn't get to take anything from the family home. I have a restraining order preventing him from coming to the house anyway. And I am not going to help him leave his family and establish a new life alone - why would i?!

My next job is getting a maintenance order sorted out so he understands his new life will not be all fun and games rolling in money, and using a private investigator here to find evidence to justify a court order to freeze marital assets and access financial information from WH and OW so that I can track down how much of our family money has been used to fund this affair (which I will subsequently claim in damages in the alienation of affection lawsuit).

One thing I have recently learned through these court dramas is that while court cases take forever to come to resolution, in the short term you can use urgent court orders and subpoenas very effectively to access information about finances to provide evidence for negotiation of maintenance and/or divorce settlements and prevent marital assets being used for affairs/hidden by your spouse. At least you can in my context here in Southern Africa. But it requires you to do the thinking yourself and suggest these options to your lawyer because they will probably not be thinking of the big picture on your behalf.

How do you know this? How are getting this information? Are you using your IM?

my plan B is still patchy. WH contacted me directly on Friday using a new number to discuss access to the children, the day after I was served with the summons for access. I corresponded with him over whatsapp for 2 hours during which he told me everything is my fault and that I have spent the past 8 years not respecting him and not showing the world that I am proud of him. He told me I should have been randomly turning up to bars when he is out drinking with his male friends to show everyone that "he is my man". Conveniently ignoring the fact that I have been pregnant or breast feeding for most of the past 8 years. I just didn't respond to any of it - no AOs, no DJs. Its all rubbish anyway. He suddenly seems very keen on sending me to a counsellor. I think he believes he will find someone to tell me I am wrong.

My IM is my sister, but she got really angry with him a couple of weeks ago because of his ridiculous fogbabble and blaming me for everything. She is still willing to do the role, but wanted to have a break from him so that he could calm down a bit. He did seem a bit less crazy yesterday than at any time during the past few months, so maybe distance from OW is having an effect, although it has only been two weeks since he left the country. The court date for the summons he served me last week is May 25. But I am doing everything I can to prevent him from returning to the country so that he can keep a distance from OW. My lawyer is going to request a postponement.

We have now agreed that he will Skype the children every evening at 7:30pm, so I will go back to zero contact now that I cannot be accused of preventing him from talking to the kids and have the whatsapp conversation to demonstrate the arrangement.

Thank you for keeping me on track with Plan B. It will be so much easier when we move and all the current loose ends are tied up.

He is trying to talk to me about taking furniture from the house (which I won't allow), the kids visiting him in his new country (which I also won't allow due to security concerns - my government warns against travel to his country), and the ongoing mediation we are engaged in to sort out maintenance. He is refusing to meet with the mediator because I got a restraining order against him (he emailed the mediator to say so, cc'ing me). He says he will not meet with her unless I retract the restraining order. I won't do that - and refusing to meet with the mediator just makes him look bad anyway. If he doesn't engage with the mediation process, I will just go to the maintenance court to get a maintenance order directly without his input.