The court date for the suit my husband filed against me for access to the kids was today. I sent my lawyer along on my behalf but the magistrate has said I need to be there in person. The hearing is now postponed to tomorrow at 2pm. WH last night told the kids he was travelling today, so I guess that changes his plans. We are all totally confused as to how he can be persuing a case for access to the kids when there has never been a time when he was denied access - and he has just come back from a three-day mini holiday with them!!

I wish it was all over so WH would leave the country again. Why is he here?!!!?

It is access to you that he wants. He is a child who has been told he cannot have chocolate cake until he puts his toys away.

Is there a way that the judge can allow you to attend the hearing without him seeing you? At least that way he would not be rewarded.

Hi Living Well, we had the court hearing today and my husband had nothing to say at all. He wanted the judge to tell me that I should have phoned the French teacher he gave me the number for, and that I shouldn't tell him he has to respect the appointment times for seeing the children. So it was fairly uneventful. Apart from the fact that the judge said that I must communicate with him directly from now on (for the next two weeks at least, until we leave this court's jurisdiction). He is totally focused on trying to get me to give him the address we will be moving to. I am so grateful for this restraining order!!! I just hope no judge in the neighbouring country will force me to give him our address. I really couldn't deal with the worry of him turning up on the doorstep harassing me for years to come.

Before we went into the session, he was obviously very frustrated and agitated about the idea of me and the kids moving and him not knowing our new address. He was threatening to apply for a court order to stop me leaving the country. He also seems to care a huge amount about what I have told other people. He wanted the judge to order me to tell him the details of the conversations I have had with people. He seems to think that my definition of "affair" is wrong......

WH told the court yesterday that he is leaving the country today. He said he will bring back the other car (my toyota that I swapped with him when I took back the land rover at the weekend) and park it outside the house before going to the airport. He said his flight is at 11 (2 hours from now). No sign of him or the car yet.....but since everything he says is lies, I don't put too much weight on what he tells people anymore.

He seems to be devoting all his energies into countering what he perceives as me "destroying his reputation", meaning me revealing that the "reputation" he enjoyed was a fantasy image that did not correspond to the person he actually is. He interprets everything that has happened - the exposure, the separation, the restraining order, me refusing to contact him directly, the car issue, the mediation through the social worker, etc - as a series of planned actions done by me solely for the purpose of hurting him. He honestly believes I am maliciously trying to "destroy him". It is so bizarre to see how he spins everything in the way he explains it to himself. He absolutely does not believe that I am genuinely devastated by his infidelity and subsequent behaviour. He doesn't believe it.

Hmmm. The flight time has passed and no car. So I suspect WH has not left the country....AGAIN.

This uncertainty about whether he is here or not, what he is plotting, how he is going to harass me more, is so stressful. I just want to move and be confident he doesn't know our address. I'm exhausted.

He can't go there, it is too painful for him.

CnC, I've been reading your story again and it's striking the efforts WH makes to circumvent your plan B and to try to regain control of you. Your strength to endure this inspires me, but it is understandable that it would be exhausting, please be sure to take care of yourself. I continue to pray for the safety of you and your children

Living well, I'm curious about your comment. Does a wayward really experience pain from the pain they cause spouses? It would seem that their actions would dictate otherwise, but I am curious if it is indeed painful for them.

Do people ever have the courage to take responsibility for what they have done after so many years of lying and selfishness? My dad was never able to face the mess he had made of his life through alcoholism, and drank himself to death at age 56. I don't want the father of my children to do the same thing to them, regardless of whether he wants to be married or not.

Thanks Abrrba. Yes, his controlling behaviour has become more and more marked over the months since I threw him out. I honestly had no idea he was like that! I guess all the years we have been together he thought he was controlling me and that I was submitting to that control....while I thought we were jointly agreeing things and that my doing all the cooking/household stuff and supporting him in his plans/career/whatever was just because I like doing those things and I wanted him to be happy and fulfilled. So I guess there was just a whole big misunderstanding between us. I obviously gave him the mistaken impression (through my generally nice, kind and accommodating nature - or perhaps because I accepted the OC?) that I was not capable of exerting power in our relationship. He has had a big shock now because the rules have suddenly changed.

He is desperate to try to regain the control he has lost by trying to force subjugation on me, as opposed to just saying he is sorry and asking for forgiveness (which would permanently change the power dynamics and would mean he actually had to change, which he doesn't want to do at all). Surely there must be a point in the future where he begins to realise that he can't impose his will on me? Rationally i know that must be the case. But I don't see any sign of that realisation yet.

I would love to get Dr Harley's opinion on whether serial adulterers are different in this respect, they might be.

My WXH has brought 14 different court actions against me since our divorce (which itself he strung out over 5 years). As he has lost every single case, I can only conclude that he is doing this to maintain the fiction to himself of being the injured party. Easier for him to deal with than the pain of acknowledging what he did.

Yes, I would be interested in the same. I know that once I understood my LBs of AO/DJ, it hurt me terribly knowing that I had caused my wife such pain. Though it doesn't excuse her A, I am remorseful of my own culpability of the state of the M, pre-affair. I wonder if waywards, caught in their addiction, are incapable of that. I would think serial adulterers especially.


That is really amazing, that WXH would go to such lengths to harass you.

I've got the car back and WH has definitely left the country! Hurrah! Plus his company emailed me to say they will deal with me directly about the move so that WH does not find out our new address. Phew

That's wonderful news, I'm so relieved for you!!

So, just to recap on the plan ("Operation Journey to Rock Bottom"):

1) End the affair - exposure, separation, pressure on WH and OW through employment, nursing council, police and courts (in response to their suits), etc. DONE

2) Clear the fog - make sure WH stays out of the country, get rid of all excuses/ways for him to return here, promote conflict between him and OW. DONE (with some loose ends to tie up)

3) Create conditions for maximum discomfort in his new life - secure all family money and assets so that he is totally on his own with no savings to fall back on, ensure that maintenance payments take a substantial portion of his regular salary income, ensure frequent visitation of kids, cut off all contact directly. <---- this is where we are now

4) Be the lighthouse - be consistent and loving with very high boundaries. Never be angry, eliminate LBs. Plan B. Ongoing....

The overriding philosophy of this plan is to ensure that WH experiences ALL the consequences of his actions. Nothing I am doing is intended to punish or hurt him. I am just taking all opportunities that are presented to me to report his behaviour to relevant people (the more official the better), to document everything for use in reports/employer interactions/court cases, and to make sure as much of his money as possible comes to the children and I. Since he has just moved to a very insecure country where the political situation is deteriorating right now, the environment he is in will also help to reinforce the feelings of loss of the nice life he previously had, distance from his family, and, most importantly, loss of the freedom that came with having the financial benefits of a dual-income household. For a guy who loves nothing more than throwing money around and being a "big man" in town, not having money to burn or a big expensive car to drive around/show off in will hit him extremely hard.

Thank you! At least I will be able to relax a bit now that he's actually gone.

I do not think he doesn't want to take responsibility because it is too painful. I think people are just wired differently and it is likely he is wired to not be able to see your perspective or feel empathy for his actions. He may truly not be able to ever see how he has hurt you or how this is his fault.

Dr Harley says that everyone will have an affair in the right circumstances, but serial cheaters fall into an entirely different category because they are actively looking for affairs all the time. People are wired differently, some are actually wired to not feel compassion or empathy. It would be interesting to see if there is a correlation between these narcissistic behaviors and serial cheaters, I would not be surprised if there is. This seems to be why Dr Harley focuses on changing behavior and not personality. You can control behavior and habits but you can't re wire someone.

Hi Unwritten, I think you are absolutely right about this. My WH doesn't (and probably won't ever) get that what he does affects me. He doesn't understand the concept of truth, and seems to think that a plausible-sounding explanation for something is just as good as the truth - it is about him being able to explain away what he has done, not about me needing to know what has actually happened in my life. In his head, my pointing out how hurt/betrayed/angry I am at his behaviour is solely for the purpose of unjustly punishing him (he considers it unjust if he doesn't agree that I have sufficient evidence to "convict" him of whatever I am accusing him of). He is so self-focused he does not consider that I am actually trying to get him to understand how I feel and why I can't accept his behaviour. He thinks my wanting to change his behaviour is all about stopping him living a life he believes all men live - not that I need fidelity and emotional security in order to be happy and fulfilled in life and marriage.

I don't know if my WH is typical of serial cheaters, I suspect he might be on the extreme side, but I think there are only a very strict set of circumstances under which WH would not be having an affair. It is like trying to keep water in a sieve. His normal is to be with multiple women and to have many different lives depending on who he is interacting with. I believe it was his travelling between countries for studying and then for work that enabled him to grow into this type of person. He never had to finish a relationship with anyone because he always knew he would be leaving to move somewhere else, which meant when we started dating I had to contend with a worldwide network of exes who all believed they would still be together with him had he not moved. The extent of this network only became clear to me years later. He liked keeping all these "options" open by sending them explicit messages reminiscing about past encounters every so often and looking them up whenever he was in their part of the world. He stopped doing that so much when I made him give me his facebook password in 2012, but whatsapping replaced facebooking from around 2015 onwards.

I say this with all kindness, I don't think this is a healthy Plan B approach for you.

Yes, you are going to be holding your WH's feet to the fire in the D process and you are focused on safety and Plan D life for you and your children and how your WH is going to fit into that picture...but for the most part, you need to be moving towards a place of peace and lessening these thoughts about your WH, how to change his behavior, what drives it, etc. That's not what Plan B is about.

I think that is a probably moreso a challenge for any BS who is going through simultaneous Plan B and Plan D but try to redirect your thoughts when they start trending this way. Don't allow yourself to get bogged down in thoughts about your WH, that won't help you get to where you need to be.