Can you have your IM send it? Can you do the secret IM like I suggested before?

Would the insurance company be willing to contact WH to reactivate the insurance?

Try this trick (taught to me by my yoga teacher). Write down your three top fears on a little piece of paper and put it into your pocket. Carry it around for a few days and take it out periodically, looking at the words.

Suppose your top fear is 'loss of a child'. You are not going to dwell on 'the worst possible way for a child to die', you are doing to look at those words and bring yourself to a point of peace and acceptance. Life is full of joy. The fears that we hide from ourselves steal that from us.

Thanks BrainHurts. In all the drama of moving and OC going, I had forgotten about the secret IM idea. I have now set up a separate email address that my IM will log into once a day and she will communicate with WH through that, not alerting him that it is her and not me. I hope we can do it right this time. Thank you for continuing to push me back to the right path when i veer off into the wilderness!

Thanks Goody2Shoes. They won't even speak to me so I can't ask them to do anything. But my IM will email him later today though the new email I set up so I don't get drawn into any discussions with him. I feel much better with this arrangement already. I just need to stop seeing his messages and then I won't be tempted to respond.

Thanks Living Well. I'll try that. I think that might work for me. I live in a place where tragedies that seem unimaginable to my family in England, thousands of miles away, happen every single day. Just watching the news makes you shockingly numb to the horror of what human beings are capable of doing to each other with (what seems to me) minimal provocation, and the disasters that people can live through and come out the other side. The country WH is from is even worse in some respects: a real Hobbsian nightmare. But somehow the understanding that everything I value in life is precarious, and that the risk of loss is ever present, which something I didn't really feel when I lived in England, has given me a resilience and ability to find happiness after pain that I am very grateful for. Now more than ever.

Everything strangely calm now. That IM email address is great. I wish I had got my act together before now. Although maybe I wasn't in the right frame of mind to do so before lawyers had properly started on the divorce and maintenance paperwork. I feel as though I now have a network of people (lawyers, social worker/mediator, and IM) that can deal with the essentials that require interaction with WH without having to do it myself - and since I have released the money from the house, I don't have the stress of worrying every day how to make him pay what he is supposed to.

Now I can just sit back and focus on me and the kids. I received their acceptance letters for their new school this morning. They will be starting on August 9 - and I think that will be a great new start for all of us.

Good job for getting into a dark Plan B and filling those holes. Now try and schedule some self-care for yourself and the kids. Any ideas?

HI BrainHurts, I am already on it ! Fixed up swimming and karate classes for the kids, we are planning weekends of fun up to August already, and I am really enjoying the process of decorating my new place the way I want it (and it makes me smile to know that spending our family money to make MY environment nice is some compensation for all the money WH has siphoned off for OWs). We joined the gym 5 mins from our house last week - it has a lovely kids' program and play area, so everyone is very happy at the moment! The kids are excited about preparing for the new school year, choosing new bags, stationary, lunch boxes, etc, so all good so far. I got myself a nice new hair cut and clothes shopping will be on the agenda for next month (i've maxed out on house decor this month, so I think I should be a little bit careful before I burn through this mortgage money....)

I had a call from my MIL last night. It was quite interesting to talk to her. WH has reduced by half the amount of money he is sending to his parents (they totally depend on him/us to cover living costs), claiming that I am taking all his money. I was happy to reveal that that is not true AT ALL, and that he has in fact just got a 50% pay rise and is refusing to give me anywhere near the amount he was formerly contributing to our joint household. I know she and FIL will now be putting major pressure on WH to be honest about his money.

They REALLY want WH to change - but I don't think they know what to do. They keep on calling him and shouting at him, but he just lies to them - and they don't see it.

Anyway, I know nothing anybody says to WH will make a difference. He a hedonist. He lives for the moment. And will do what makes him feel good regardless of anyone or anything else. The only way to change how he behaves is to change how he feels about what he is doing. That will only happen if he suddenly has no money, and feels the loss of the freedom and power money gives him. So I will take his money (at least most of it). And then we will see a different person.

At least it seems the in-laws are back on my side, after their freak out over exposure. Maybe logic does win out in the end. Why wouldn't they support the mother of their four grandchildren who has done NOTHING wrong if they want the best for their son who is obviously incapable of controlling his self-destructive tendencies?

I'm betting there is something that they know about which has given your WH such an intense feeling of entitlement. Generally children model the behaviour of their same sex parent.

Don't use contact with them as a way to break your plan B. If they start to talk about WH, ask them not to.

Thanks Living Well. Yes, there has definitely been a LOT of betrayal in WH's parents marriage, and they have given WH the idea that married love means women struggling through pain in order to keep the family together. They also believe that we (women) have to endure the bad side of men in order to "win" in the end (the definition of winning being the last one standing with home and family 'intact' at the end of life) and that, since no other woman actually replaces the wife, she is held in some kind of high esteem, despite being treated like rubbish for decades. It is not an uncommon attitude in Africa. Although I think MIL is quite supportive of fighting against conventions and just wishes she had had some kind of power to do so herself.

I don't think she will phone me again. I made it pretty clear there isn't anything here that can be resolved by talking in the absence of action and demonstrable change by WH. And I am enjoying plan B too much already

So his father cheated on his mother their entire marriage?

Yes, that is what his sister - and MIL herself - have implied. MIL believes he still does it now, at 74 years old. She came to stay with us for a year to help care for my brother in law who had just been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She was convinced that FIL, who lives on a large plantation in the middle of the forest in central Africa, had brought another woman into the house while she was gone. WH thought she was just paranoid, but a woman who has been married for 45 years will know her husband. She doesn't want him to behave like that (she doesn't want WH to behave like that either), but is resigned to the fact that she believes there is nothing she can do.

The father of my WXH was still chasing the girls at 74 years old. He was not just cheating on MIL, he was also cheating on his long term girlfriend. MIL said nothing so WXH (who of course knew, they always know) thought that was what you were entitled to do once things started to get tough in the marriage. I wish I had known.

This jumped out at me. It sounds as if you still think you can change him by going after the money. I think you will be continually disappointed if this is your goal. You can't change him. Serial cheaters seem to be ingenious at figuring out how to continue their lifestyle with or without money.
Let the courts sort out what his responsibilities are and enforce it as they see fit. As long as you are on the other end pulling he's going to try to jerk you around and continue to use up your life and put you on the edge. Can you budget your life on your income and leave whatever the courts might secure you from his income as unexpected extra?

Hi Buildsherhouse, yes, that is what I meant. I can't do anything to make him change. People only change when they have to - when it becomes their interest to do so because of external circumstances. But they do change. I have changed many times in my life in response to changes in external circumstances. But I don't think I have ever changed because someone else wanted me to.

My social worker has a nice mantra "it is really hard for people to change when they want to; impossible when they don't".

I can support the children by myself, but I can't reduce my expenses before the divorce because that will impact on the maintenance. I need to be able to provide bills to show how much it costs to maintain the children's current lifestyle. If I reduce their cost of living voluntarily, I am just freeing up WH's money for him!

Don't worry, I am not holding out hope for him to change. I am really happy with my new life with the kids and will be fine no matter what. But I am also committed to making him feel the consequences of his actions. If there are actions I can take that will make him feel the real extent of financial and opportunity loss of his wife and family, then why not? I'm not just going to shrug and say "Be free! Enjoy your single life!" But at least it is through lawyers so it doesn't occupy my mind like it used to.

Sometimes you just have to wonder how people accept so much WRONG in the world!!

I had to go back to our former country yesterday to agree the date for the hearing for OW's assault charges. The hearing is now scheduled for 24th Oct. WH spoke to the kids on skype last night in my absence demanding to know where I was (after the told him my nanny cooked dinner for them) and when he heard I was back in the other country, sent aggressive messages asking why I am going there and if I have a boyfriend there.

I am at a loss to understand how he seems to have totally wiped the events of the past 6 months tortuous treatment of me from his mind. I guess he must not be in contact with OW at all if he was not aware of this court date. Is this amnesia the fog?! I am starting to wonder whether he actually needs psychiatric help.

I feel like I am living in a parallel reality. Did everything only happen to me?! These other two people who caused all this trouble seem not to acknowledge that their actions created this.