At least he is far away now so that his reactions to my setting boundaries can't lead to violence anymore.

Hi Living Well, do you mean I shouldn't be comforted by him being far away at all? I guess he does only have to hop on a plane to abuse me.

One other observation from this drama is that he suddenly seems like he couldn't care less about visiting this country, so I guess that means OW is out of the picture. I assume he has moved on to others in his new location....

I was terribly upset about the violence. Nobody should ever have to go through that.

I think your assumption is correct. Serial Cheaters are always on to their next "high".

Thank you! I am so grateful for my restraining order.

WH has arrived back in the country to take OC to his home country. They are flying out at 4pm today. OC is really upset. We all are. He said "I think I feel the same as you. I don't want to be near Papa because he has a girlfriend". Apparently the visa could take 6 weeks. I am trying to make my husband buy the return ticket today before they leave, so that at least there is money committed to OC coming back to us in our new location (and money seems to be all important to WH...), but I'm not sure I will win that fight. What is WH going to do with a 6 year old boy living with him for 6 weeks? I really hope OC won't just get passed around between various relatives while WH goes out enjoying his single life. That was the life we took him away from to start with.

Oh I'm so sorry for your precious DS. Has WH committed (not that it will mean anything) to having DS return to you?

I'm so sorry for you and your little boy. Legalities fail the little ones sometimes and this is definitely such a situation. I will pray for him to stay safe and strong and return to you asap.

***EDIT***

***EDIT***

I want to say that I believe it would be good for you to contact Dr. Harley direct (not sure if you have before) for advice on implementing Plan B in your pending move. Your situation IS very
complicated and unusual due to different local laws, the aggressive nature of your WH, and just simply matters of trying to protect your family, so it seems you haven't been able to really implement a Plan at all.

I just wish you the best, and please keep yourself and your family safe as you move and go forward.

Tom

Hi BrainHurts and Unwritten, thanks a lot for your kind words. Yes, WH has committed to sending him back - he bought the return flight (and paid for it!) before he left the country. He even gave me the reciept and e-ticket printout as evidence. We are talking to OC every day on skype and he is desperate to come home. I don't think WH will decide to keep him. He wouldn't be able to explain it to all the kids. And that's quite different from trying to manipulate me.

Thanks Unwritten. WH did the visa application the first day he returned to his home country and then scanned the reciept and sent it to me. So at least I have confirmation of both the return air ticket and the fact that the visa was applied for. Now we just have to wait for the embassy to respond.

The move is finally done! So we are installed in our new place. But waiting for our furniture to arrive. It is really lovely to be starting a new life in a new place without all the baggage and triggers. But with OC not with us and the financial stuff still not sorted out, there are some loose ends.

I met with my lawyer last week and he is intending to serve WH with a new restraining order (for this jurisdiction), an interim maintenance order, and divorce papers when he comes to deliver OC back (since I now have a copy of his e-ticket and know that he will be travelling on August 11).

I just want to get the money sorted out so that I don't have to think about WH anymore.

WH is now travelling for a week for work. So OC is in a flat all day every day with a daytime nanny and nighttime baby sitter (a younger cousin of my husband's) . The country he is in does not really have any public leisure facilities like parks. So he is just in the flat watching TV in a language he doesn't understand. One week gone, five more to go...

I'm getting to the point where i just want WH to be out of my life totally. I am so tired of him now that I can see his lack of effort towards everything and everyone in life. It is suddenly so clear to me how he has always used his amazing powers of charming and manipulation to get everyone around him to be falling over themselves to meet his needs, while he just sits back and laps up the attention. His pathetic attempts to try to get me back simply involve making me aware that, despite all the supposedly terrible things I have done to him (telling people he was having an affair, throwing him out, getting a restraining order, etc), he is "allowing" me to try to make it up to him - if I give up my job, move myself and the kids to his country (with no legal protection for women whatsoever), and don't put any conditions on him for changing his behaviour.

It is absolutely mind boggling how he fails to comprehend (or pretends to fail to comprehend) that I have left him and that me and the children are starting a new life without him. He doesn't even believe I am divorcing him (the summons can't be served until he is physically in the country on Aug 11). He thinks I am on a campaign of hate against him and have fabricated all the stories of violence by paying people to make false statements to the police .

Whilst of course this is not great for OC, it is actually an excellent thing for your settlement as WH is not likely to try to use OC as target practice with this experience so fresh in his memory.



The more disjointed his thinking, the better the outcome will be for you.

Thanks Living Well. That is encouraging to hear!!

With all the drama that has happened over the past few months, I have not really stopped to think about how hurt I am by all of this. Now the kids and I have moved, and this is the first day of work at my new office, I suddenly feel as though I have been hurling around in a whirlwind and have just been dropped down in the middle of nowhere wondering "what on earth just happened?!"

Six months ago, we had a two-parent family unit and were planning a permanent move to my husband's home country to start building the rest of our lives after several years of expatriate positions. Now I am a single mother with four kids trying to work out how I am going to afford to cover all the costs of raising them and trying to save for my future. I started this journey desperate to save my marriage and family. I now can't imagine wanting my husband back unless he had a total personality transplant and came crawling with proof his life is an open book. I have learnt that I don't have to be fearful of putting myself in a situation where I have to rely on my husband to behave properly, beset with anxiety that he will let me down again. Because I simply won't be in such a situation. Why would I put my life and happiness in the hands of a self-focused serial cheater?! Of course I won't!

It now seems totally bizarre that a random woman from southern africa is suing me while also being on bail for assaulting and threatening me. I bet she feels it is a bit bizarre too, given that her ex-boyfriend left the country two months ago and has no intention of coming back.

Despite the fact that it has been a wild ride, this MB forum has guided me through a process that has empowered me in ways I could not have dreamed of at the start. I have taken control of my life, of my children's lives, and have woken up to the fact that at least 50% of the problems in my marriage were caused by me enabling my husband to treat me terribly and facilitating his cheating by giving him a nice home and family to come back to. There is no way I would - or could - go back to being that wife who leaves her entire life up to chance, crying at night and hoping so hard that her husband suddenly decides to just behave better because, you know, that is what a good person would do....

My eyes have been truly opened to the uncomfortable truths about the way human beings behave in relationships. And while it is distressing to have most of your preconceptions shattered to start with, it is also so enlightening to begin to understand that appalling behaviour follows some kind of predictable pattern even if that pattern defies normal logic and moral reasoning.

My re-start of plan B is today. And I am looking forward to all the things I will be doing for myself and the kids and our new house. I have spent the past 8 years commuting between countries, driving 5-6 hours one way several times a month, plus having three children (six pregnancies!!), all because WH demanded that I work abroad in order to provide the family with security while he drove 5 mins to work and back, slept his way through the women in the country, and came home to a happy and welcoming family home with freshly cooked food on the table by 7pm every day, with a wife so tired she was only too grateful to be left to sleep on the sofa while he went out to paint the town red. He had it all. Now I wonder: what was I thinking??!!!

There is a cycle to grief, CS Lewis wrote a wonderful book (A Grief Observed) about it after his wife died. It starts with deep anger that God could do such a terrible thing and he temporarily loses his faith. It ends with an understanding that loss is part of life. That there is a cycle of learning through suffering without which we cannot gain wisdom.

Once you get to the end of this process that you are now going through, you will find rewards that you cannot even yet imagine. Give it five years.

I'm so happy that you'll be able to get into a true, dark Plan B and know that you will continue to become a MB success story. I know you might not be able to save your marriage, but I have a feeling you will be one of our MB personal success stories.

I'm sorry for the stage of grief you're in and I understand that very much. How is your self-care.? Are you doing anything for yourself?