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I vote for a security guard and someone (maybe the same person) who will watch to make sure you're not being followed when you leave. Be safe!

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Chalk, you've heard from others about your inability to plan b. Why would your WH use the IM when you keep having contact? He knows you are not serious about no contact, so until that becomes clear (by you having NO contact), he will assume that you are available to him.

Plan B means not even thinking about the WH. It means redirecting your thoughts when you want to think and talk about him, what he's doing, what he's not doing, etc. etc. You have to stop.

This thread can be a place where you forge ahead and use this space to write about what you are doing to move forward. No more discussion of him or worrying about what he might or might not do. This is serious.

We've had some hard core plan B-ers here on and off over the years. So far, no one's come along to really whip you into shape on this. You must absolutely stop having contact AND stop thinking about him. It takes discipline.

As of now, you have really not begun a real plan B. You've been dilly dallying. It's time to stop.

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Originally Posted by zibbles
Chalk, you've heard from others about your inability to plan b. Why would your WH use the IM when you keep having contact? He knows you are not serious about no contact, so until that becomes clear (by you having NO contact), he will assume that you are available to him.

Plan B means not even thinking about the WH. It means redirecting your thoughts when you want to think and talk about him, what he's doing, what he's not doing, etc. etc. You have to stop.

This thread can be a place where you forge ahead and use this space to write about what you are doing to move forward. No more discussion of him or worrying about what he might or might not do. This is serious.

We've had some hard core plan B-ers here on and off over the years. So far, no one's come along to really whip you into shape on this. You must absolutely stop having contact AND stop thinking about him. It takes discipline.

As of now, you have really not begun a real plan B. You've been dilly dallying. It's time to stop.

Thanks Zibbles. I know. I just need my son back. While WH has him, everything is so hard. The rest of plan B is in place. I have moved, he doesn't know where I live, I have got a secret IM email account, and am poised to close down the email - and I can even change my number again. I don't even want to communicate him. I am not struggling with desire to be in touch or anything like that. I just need my son back first. He is supposed to be flying tomorrow lunch time.


BW (me) 40
WH, serial cheater, 41
Four children:
DS1 8
DS2 7 (from one of WH's previous affairs, lives with me)
DS3 6
DD 2

D-day Jan 4 2017
Plan B (first attempt) Feb 21 2017
Plan D Aug 28 2017
Plan B (properly) Aug 31 2017

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs - and blaming it on you....or being lied about don't deal in lies..." IF, by Rudyard Kipling https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/46473
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So you get your DS today? And then what is your plan to get into a true Plan B?


FWW/BW (me)
WH
2nd M for both
Blended Family with 7 kids between us
Too much hurt and pain on both sides that my brain hurts just thinking about it all.



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Originally Posted by BrainHurts
So you get your DS today? And then what is your plan to get into a true Plan B?

WH changed the flight. I found out by logging into the airline manage booking system. He rebooked for next Wednesday, then changed it again this morning to next Sunday. I don't think he knows I am able to log in and see these changes.

He was supposed to be served with divorce papers at the airport today, so now I have had to come up with another plan.

I think he will definitely be here for my youngest son's birthday (23rd August). He (youngest son) and OC are extremely close. My mother will also be visiting then too. But it is looking increasingly likely that WH wants to use OC to manipulate the situation and may not just hand him over.

This is exactly like the car situation all over again.

But I will manage it. If I can get OC here to the family house, there is no way WH would be able to get him back unless via courts. And once he is here, the courts here have jurisdiction immediately. We live in a security estate with 24 hour guards on the front gate, so WH can't be violent as a way to force himself in. So I will focus on just getting OC here and then, once he is here, I won't take him anywhere until WH has travelled back to his country. Since he has a full time job as the director of a country office, he can't stay here for more than a week, I think.

I can't believe (or actually, I can believe but am still appalled) that WH is now keeping OC out of school, sitting in a flat on his own watching TV all day, missing his brothers and sister like crazy, just to hurt me.






BW (me) 40
WH, serial cheater, 41
Four children:
DS1 8
DS2 7 (from one of WH's previous affairs, lives with me)
DS3 6
DD 2

D-day Jan 4 2017
Plan B (first attempt) Feb 21 2017
Plan D Aug 28 2017
Plan B (properly) Aug 31 2017

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs - and blaming it on you....or being lied about don't deal in lies..." IF, by Rudyard Kipling https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/46473
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The moment the sheriff serves WH with divorce papers, I will switch to a new phone number and close the only email he can get through to me on. Then it is really proper plan B.


BW (me) 40
WH, serial cheater, 41
Four children:
DS1 8
DS2 7 (from one of WH's previous affairs, lives with me)
DS3 6
DD 2

D-day Jan 4 2017
Plan B (first attempt) Feb 21 2017
Plan D Aug 28 2017
Plan B (properly) Aug 31 2017

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs - and blaming it on you....or being lied about don't deal in lies..." IF, by Rudyard Kipling https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/46473
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I am also contacting another lawyer today who was recommended by our parenting plan mediator. She is a specialist in children's issues. I will see if there is some way to file for an emergency parental rights and responsibilities order the moment OC gets here, so that I will effectively be a third parent and my consent (along with his two biological parents) would be required for him to leave the country again.


BW (me) 40
WH, serial cheater, 41
Four children:
DS1 8
DS2 7 (from one of WH's previous affairs, lives with me)
DS3 6
DD 2

D-day Jan 4 2017
Plan B (first attempt) Feb 21 2017
Plan D Aug 28 2017
Plan B (properly) Aug 31 2017

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs - and blaming it on you....or being lied about don't deal in lies..." IF, by Rudyard Kipling https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/46473
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Originally Posted by chalkncheese
But it is looking increasingly likely that WH wants to use OC to manipulate the situation and may not just hand him over.


This is your Achilles heel isn't it? Of course he will use OC to manipulate the situation. He has no shame and does not care. As time goes on he will get angrier and angrier.

You may have to get help from OC's mother. Somehow your WH needs to be convinced that you are doing him a favor by taking the child.

Originally Posted by chalkncheese
I will see if there is some way to file for an emergency parental rights and responsibilities order the moment OC gets here, so that I will effectively be a third parent and my consent (along with his two biological parents) would be required for him to leave the country again.

I am no expert but this feels wrong. Aren't you looking to adopt OC? My sense is that making you a 'third parent' might be going in the wrong direction. Mediators often look for the easiest solution rather than the one that is best over the long term.


3 adult children
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Now remarried, thank you MB
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C&C,

the more you ask OC about when he will be coming etc and the more your husband notices that you want him to come, the more valuable he will be as a leverage.
It would be a lot better actually if your husband was under the impression that it would cause you some trouble (financial, or energy-wise) to have OC.

We understand that you love him like your own child, because you are a kind-hearted person, but your husband has put you in this situation where you have to accommodate a child he sired with another woman and he is showing his true colours in the way he is now using your selfless love for this child, to turn a knife in your back.
If it was the other way around and it was your child of affair, you can be assured, that your husband would drop the child like a hot potatoe and never look back.

He seems to know your weaknesses, so you really have to stop asking and letting on that you care for OC's presence at all, as hard as it is.

Last edited by happyheart; 08/11/17 10:18 AM.

me, DH
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Hi Living Well and Happyheart,

Thank you for your thoughts. You are both right. WH does not care about OC in the slightest and is using him as the only thing he has got to hurt me with.

So, just like when he was using money to frustrate me, I have been applying my mind to how to undermine this power - and yes, HappyHeart, I agree I just have to let OC go and stop WH using him to get to me. He will bring him back eventually. He doesn't really want to be a single dad to one child. He just thinks this is the way to "win" the power game.

Last night (after a week or so of no contact - I am trying to Plan B properly) WH sent a flurry of emails informing me that he will not be sending OC back to me, demanding that I send him OC's clothes, and accusing me of turning the other kids against him and preventing him from seeing them (????!!!!). He also demanded that the kids stop asking him when OC is coming back, and added in some emotional manipulation about wanting the kids to see his sick father.

On the daily skype call, he shouted at all the kids, telling my youngest son he wasn't coming to his birthday next wednesday because he "didn't respect his Papa", told my oldest son he was slow at school because he is in the right class for his age rather than one year ahead, and demanded that OC hang up the phone and stop talking to me "because Mama is upsetting you".

This is like what was happening when he left our previous country all over again. I don't know whether it is because i haven't been communicating with him, or whether he is starting to really worry what divorce will mean, but he is acting totally crazy and damaging the kids. My eldest woke up screaming from a nightmare last night for the first time ever (i don't know whether it was related to the shouting skype call, but I suspect) and my youngest son is starting to really act up as if he has some pent up anger. OC is just confused and sad and desperately trying to be a peacemaker to everyone because he wants to come home.

In amongst all of this, I got a call from MIL who said she was also shocked about WH's behaviour and doesn't understand why he wants to keep OC with him. She wants him to come back and live with me and the other kids.

So, I've decided there is nothing I can do at all. I feel so awful for OC, but I think I will get him back eventually. We will continue to talk to him every day. And I will go ahead with cutting off all communication with WH (by closing the last remaining email account he can send stuff to).

I suspect him claiming he is not coming for my youngest son's birthday is just a bluff. I am still able to log into the airline booking system and see that he has not changed the flight that is currently booked for Sunday - but I don't think he knows I can see that. I suspect he will come but not inform me he is in the country, and then try something to get the kids, maybe even going to their school. So I am planning to talk to the school in advance to make sure he won't be given access to the kids, and we have 24/7 security guards at the entrance of our estate so he can't get to our house either.

The most pressing problem is that if I don't know his plans, it is difficult to serve the divorce papers. But for now I will just wait and see if he really does fly on Sunday and then try to trick him into being somewhere the sheriff can find him by agreeing to bring the kids to him if he asks (although, because I am so concerned that he might snatch them, be violent or threatening as he has been before, I will not actually take them to him, I will just go with the sheriff).



BW (me) 40
WH, serial cheater, 41
Four children:
DS1 8
DS2 7 (from one of WH's previous affairs, lives with me)
DS3 6
DD 2

D-day Jan 4 2017
Plan B (first attempt) Feb 21 2017
Plan D Aug 28 2017
Plan B (properly) Aug 31 2017

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs - and blaming it on you....or being lied about don't deal in lies..." IF, by Rudyard Kipling https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/46473
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My mum is coming to visit for two weeks tomorrow. I think WH still cares about his image to my family so her visit might incentivise him to pretend he is not holding OC hostage in another country.....but he is crazy at the moment, so it's pretty difficult to predict anything about his thought processes or behaviour.


BW (me) 40
WH, serial cheater, 41
Four children:
DS1 8
DS2 7 (from one of WH's previous affairs, lives with me)
DS3 6
DD 2

D-day Jan 4 2017
Plan B (first attempt) Feb 21 2017
Plan D Aug 28 2017
Plan B (properly) Aug 31 2017

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs - and blaming it on you....or being lied about don't deal in lies..." IF, by Rudyard Kipling https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/46473
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Originally Posted by living_well
Originally Posted by chalkncheese
I will see if there is some way to file for an emergency parental rights and responsibilities order the moment OC gets here, so that I will effectively be a third parent and my consent (along with his two biological parents) would be required for him to leave the country again.

I am no expert but this feels wrong. Aren't you looking to adopt OC? My sense is that making you a 'third parent' might be going in the wrong direction. Mediators often look for the easiest solution rather than the one that is best over the long term.

Hi Living Well, this was just the quickest thing I could do to prevent WH from leaving the country with OC without my consent. There is an anti-human-trafficking law that requires any adult travelling with a child to have the written consent of all parents and guardians and travel with the child's original birth certificate. OC's mum is named as a second respondent in my divorce application and I am claiming custody and the right to adopt (which she already consented to in 2014, but it was not completed due to jurisdictional issues). I am also claiming additional child support from her, since she has never contributed a penny to his upbringing.


BW (me) 40
WH, serial cheater, 41
Four children:
DS1 8
DS2 7 (from one of WH's previous affairs, lives with me)
DS3 6
DD 2

D-day Jan 4 2017
Plan B (first attempt) Feb 21 2017
Plan D Aug 28 2017
Plan B (properly) Aug 31 2017

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs - and blaming it on you....or being lied about don't deal in lies..." IF, by Rudyard Kipling https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/46473
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Originally Posted by living_well
This is your Achilles heel isn't it? Of course he will use OC to manipulate the situation. He has no shame and does not care. As time goes on he will get angrier and angrier.

Yup. frown


BW (me) 40
WH, serial cheater, 41
Four children:
DS1 8
DS2 7 (from one of WH's previous affairs, lives with me)
DS3 6
DD 2

D-day Jan 4 2017
Plan B (first attempt) Feb 21 2017
Plan D Aug 28 2017
Plan B (properly) Aug 31 2017

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs - and blaming it on you....or being lied about don't deal in lies..." IF, by Rudyard Kipling https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/46473
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Can you have your IM check his flight details and inform you if things change?

Is he still in the room with OC during when you are skyping?

Is there a reason you read the mails and didn't ask your IM to read them and inform you only if there's any relevant information in it?

I bet you don't eat arsenic because it's toxic. Why read the messages?

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I know it is difficult not to give in to curiosity or the idea of control, it is kind of addictive. Just want to urge you to protect yourself.

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Originally Posted by goody2shoes
Can you have your IM check his flight details and inform you if things change?

Is he still in the room with OC during when you are skyping?

Is there a reason you read the mails and didn't ask your IM to read them and inform you only if there's any relevant information in it?

I bet you don't eat arsenic because it's toxic. Why read the messages?

Thanks Goody2Shoes. That's a good idea actually. I will pass the details on to her. I think she does struggle slightly with identifying what is relevant or not. I think it is a common problem. Now that I am used to all the rubbish he spouts, I can easily see that his professions of desire to reconcile, apologies, expressions of love, wanting his family, threats, manipulations, blah blah blah are all nonsense. But to other people who haven't got used to looking at the gulf between his words and actions, are easily convinced the rubbish means something.

Yes, he still starts the skype calls with OC sitting there on his lap and then after 5 mins or so moves just off camera, but he can hear everything and sometimes interjects. His treatment of the kids - which yesterday was angry and insulting - also affects our family dynamic because I have to deal with the fallout. I find it very difficult to move on with my life properly with this daily ritual, even if there is no other contact. He inserts himself into the family by force.

Last edited by chalkncheese; 08/15/17 07:52 AM.

BW (me) 40
WH, serial cheater, 41
Four children:
DS1 8
DS2 7 (from one of WH's previous affairs, lives with me)
DS3 6
DD 2

D-day Jan 4 2017
Plan B (first attempt) Feb 21 2017
Plan D Aug 28 2017
Plan B (properly) Aug 31 2017

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs - and blaming it on you....or being lied about don't deal in lies..." IF, by Rudyard Kipling https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/46473
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Originally Posted by goody2shoes
I know it is difficult not to give in to curiosity or the idea of control, it is kind of addictive. Just want to urge you to protect yourself.

I think I have got to the point where I am not curious. Nothing he writes is worth reading. It doesn't mean anything. The only thing he is interested in is not paying the school fees for the kids, so he will say and do anything he can think of (including depriving his own child of his family) just to avoid having to pay. It is just better for all of us if I totally step away from this situation and ignore him while lawyers work it out.

There is this limbo feeling this week just because he hasn't been served yet - and that makes him think I don't actually want to divorce him and, therefore, that his manipulation stands a chance of working because I must be emotionally invested.

It's mildly frustrating that I have not managed to dent his enormous ego at all in this process, and he still clearly believes there is no way I actually don't want him (because he is the most desirable person on the planet, obviously), but I can put up with the frustration for a little while if it gives me the element of surprise to arrange for the service.

He's still sitting there in his new country shouting to everyone that will listen that I am refusing to be a wife, that he wants his family next to him and it is ME who is refusing, and that this entire separation is my plan to destroy the kids' future. Sometimes I struggle to keep a grasp on reality with all this gaslighting.


BW (me) 40
WH, serial cheater, 41
Four children:
DS1 8
DS2 7 (from one of WH's previous affairs, lives with me)
DS3 6
DD 2

D-day Jan 4 2017
Plan B (first attempt) Feb 21 2017
Plan D Aug 28 2017
Plan B (properly) Aug 31 2017

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs - and blaming it on you....or being lied about don't deal in lies..." IF, by Rudyard Kipling https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/46473
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Originally Posted by chalkncheese
this was just the quickest thing I could do to prevent WH from leaving the country with OC without my consent. There is an anti-human-trafficking law that requires any adult travelling with a child to have the written consent of all parents and guardians and travel with the child's original birth certificate.

Humm not sure I would rely on that. Wasn't WH able to cross a border that he was not supposed to be able to cross not long ago? But there is not a high risk that he would kidnap OC. If there was, he would not be willingly bringing him back. Single father rearing his illegitimate child? Somehow that does not fit the image.

Originally Posted by chalkncheese
OC's mum is named as a second respondent in my divorce application and I am claiming custody and the right to adopt (which she already consented to in 2014, but it was not completed due to jurisdictional issues). I am also claiming additional child support from her, since she has never contributed a penny to his upbringing.


That is a good idea. Once the adoption is completed, she will no longer be liable for OC's child support so great incentive for her to sign the paperwork.





3 adult children
Divorced - he was a serial adulterer
Now remarried, thank you MB
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Originally Posted by chalkncheese
My mum is coming to visit for two weeks tomorrow. I think WH still cares about his image to my family so her visit might incentivise him to pretend he is not holding OC hostage in another country.....but he is crazy at the moment, so it's pretty difficult to predict anything about his thought processes or behaviour.


Fabulous, God bless Mums eh?

Usually there is logic behind apparent craziness. I'm worried that WH is mucking the OC dates around because he suspects you might hit him with a divorce action. It was a big mistake to tip your hand there. Can you afford to have a process server be on call for the whole day when he arrives?


3 adult children
Divorced - he was a serial adulterer
Now remarried, thank you MB
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Originally Posted by chalkncheese
The moment the sheriff serves WH with divorce papers, I will switch to a new phone number and close the only email he can get through to me on. Then it is really proper plan B.
You continue to not be in Plan B, but Plan C (which is not a plan). When will you truly get into Plan b? You keep coming back and spiralling from what your WH does and doesn't do.

When are you going to get into a true Plan B?


FWW/BW (me)
WH
2nd M for both
Blended Family with 7 kids between us
Too much hurt and pain on both sides that my brain hurts just thinking about it all.



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