Good to know you'll be tightening up your Plan B. I figured you had direct contact with him because your usual calm demeanour seemed shaken. I feel for your Sister to have to deal with your WH, but can she handle it now? Can she act as a spam filter? Do you need to try and find another IM?

Thanks Brain Hurts. Yes, he REALLY disturbs me! Just seeing his name or reading his wayward logic makes it so hard for me to deal with the rest of life. I am so thankful for the advice of this forum to go into Plan B back in February. Even though I had trouble cutting off all contact, it made such a huge difference to my ability to be able to keep the family routines for the kids and do my work (at least a little bit, work has really suffered to be honest).

Now that WH has left the country, he has calmed down from peak crazy, so I think my sister will be fine with him now. She is a strong person who doesn't take rubbish from people, so she didn't hold back in telling WH what she thought of him - and when he went through several weeks of messing around with time for visits to the kids (saying he would come at 10am, not turning up until 3 hours later, refusing to give another time, etc) she lost patience. But I've told her to be on her best behaviour and ignore everything apart from facts we need from him, so I think we can reestablish the communication in a more controlled way now.

Better day today. I met with the PI and he says he can definitely get phone records for both WH and OW going back 3 years by the end of the week, and will work on the other info I have asked for.

I also reported our car - which WH has hidden somewhere - to the police as stolen (its in my name and now that WH is out of the country there is no way anyone else can justify hiding it from me). I know a doctor friend of WH knows where it is, but he was really evasive on the phone this morning when I asked him directly, so I think it is better if the police deal with it.

Perfect :-)

I'm learning.....:D

You are doing really, really well. I had a full time job with three tiny children too. I was the breadwinner because XH was involved in a start-up. It was so hard. My XH probably started his first affair when my youngest was a newborn, at least that was the first one he admitted to. I knew there was something wrong but life was so tough that I just did not go there. My error led to many more affairs.

I hugely admire the way you are handling this.

Hi Living Well, Thank you very much for the encouraging words. Your experience sounds so much like my situation. WH was a student when we got together and we got married when he was just starting out as a consultant so had insecure income. I was already established in my career and quite successful, and then had to juggle increasingly senior positions, tiny children and travelling between countries all the time as WH's short term contracts kept him moving. The OC was conceived when my oldest son was 2 months old.

The fact that I have been able to provide the security for the family alone all along, and got used to being the one holding everything together, gave WH the freedom to use his money and success as he became established in his career to create a pleasure-seeking SSL for himself while I just carried on working full-time, producing children, cooking, looking after him constantly and trying to sleep when I could. I think because I was so used to things being hard, I just got used to it - and I hadn't really woken up to the fact that WH has been enjoying life and money a whole lot more than I have until just now. I now see how many mistakes I made to get to where we are now. My errors also allowed WH to have many more affairs, and get much better at hiding them from me. But I was just too busy and tired to look more than 2 steps in front of me.

Oh yes, that resonates. My WXH had Admiration as his top emotional need. Looking back on it, by holding everything together alone, I failed to meet that need. That of course left him vulnerable to getting that need met outside the marriage where he looked hugely successful.

On reflection, it would have been better for him if I had done less.

That being said, for both of you, your WH's did not fall into affairs because they had their unmet needs met by another person. They are both serial cheaters who actively pursued affairs. Even if you met every need 100% they still would have had affairs.

Just don't want you to shoulder any blame livingwell

Thank you

Unwritten you bring up a great point, however, I wonder if there is a pattern here? I also provided nearly all the security and financial stability in our marriage/family/home, where my WW never had to worry about a thing. Her & the kids' present & future financial needs were always taken care of, period. I did most of the work in and around the house. This seems to have given WW the freedom to live a life of IB, then later a SSL.

Does Dr. Harley write about anything like this? Could it be that in the effort to provide 100% for spouse/family/home, by removing any struggle or risk or motivation to contribute for your spouse, that it serves to enable IB and later a SSL?

I would say it is very short sited of you to think that a person who is provided for financially, is removed from any struggle, risk, or motivation, and that we never have to worry about a thing

I do not believe Dr Harley has done research on this. The bottom line is, serial cheaters who are actively searching for affairs, regardless of their family situation and how their needs are being met, will find affairs. We have seen serial cheaters who were the providers, and SAHM serial cheaters. IMO and experience it is about the mindset and not the financial situation. And likewise, *anyone* has the opportunity for an affair if they let someone else meet their needs. Again, we have seen affairs in professional people as well as non working people. The common denominator is allowing someone else to meet your needs.

Unless you had strict EP's in place, YOU also had the freedom to live a life of IB, and a SSL. You also could have allowed someone else to meet your needs and you also could developed a SSL to protect your affair.

I am just saying, you providing financially for your WW was not the catalyst that led to her affair. It was a lack of boundaries and EP's.

Sorry we are thread jacking here chalkncheese...

I agree with livingwell that you have shown incredible strength through this. The fact that you are raising and are currently protecting not only your own biological children but also an OC from a previous affair, is downright amazing. That boy is so lucky to have you in his life. You are one strong woman!

^^^^ and with class the whole time!!

And it all comes down to this (I like how markos and Prisca write it down).

Ditto. I am more than impressed with the strength and resolve you have shown! You inspire me and many others, I'm sure.

Thanks Unwritten and Living Well. I can really see that behaviour pattern so clearly now that all of you at MB have opened my eyes. I have been behaving as though I was married to someone like me - someone who chose a partner for life when they got married, and understood that that choice meant no other partners - while never realising that my husband had no intention whatsoever of limiting himself to one woman. Now I understand his approach to marriage, i also understand how my approach enabled him.

Hi Abrrba, I just think I dropped the ball in my marriage. If I had been paying attention to really understanding the kind of person my husband is I would have behaved differently. But I didn't have that knowledge and would never have guessed when I was younger and more innocent than I am now that a person could get married intending to behave as my husband has. I have been living as though I had a marriage to a person who thought like me, rather than understanding that I was living with a serial cheater who needs extra extra precautions in order to be faithful.

I think people who want to maintain SSLs and lots of IB will find a way to do it. The fact that I was occupying myself with raising children, working full time and managing the household and finances probably just made it easier for him to maintain.

This point of Unwritten's is so true. It reminds me of an old post Sugar Cane wrote years ago (I have done a lot of reading of this site!) about "modern marriages" where the spouses do not conform to traditional stereotypes and tend to allow each other the freedom to live independent lives. When I started out in my adult life (I am also from the UK like Sugar Cane) I believed that one of the great benefits of two educated professional people being married to each other was that you could both take an equal share of the responsibilities and give each other equal freedoms, and that your love would be deeper and more respectful because of that equality. I have now learnt through hard experience that people - and especially men, it seems - need responsibility and restrictions in order to act responsibly. If we all have the freedom to do whatever we want knowing that no one is watching, we would certainly not be living in a society of angels.

I really really wish I had known that 8 years ago!!!