A husband demanded his unfaithful wife sell her €50,000 car and drive a 1995 Opel Corsa as part of his conditions for moving back into the family home, writes Gordon Deegan.

At a provincial family law court, the mother said her husband moved out after he discovered she was having an affair with a local married man.

The eight-week affair ended and the woman said her husband made three demands for him to return to the family home: That she see a psychiatrist; that she give him €65,000 of her redundancy money; and that she sell her top-of-the-range car and drive a 1995 Opel Corsa instead.

She said: “They were the three conditions that I had to agree to, but I didn’t agree to them. I did give him €20,000 in cash.”

He then moved back in.

In the court, the woman laid bare the breakdown of her marriage in the aftermath of her affair during an unsuccessful safety order application against her former husband.

She said: “The pillar that my safety order application stands on is the fact that my kids are being affected and I am being emotionally and psychologically tortured for four years. He is a man who can’t let go and accept that our marriage is over.”

She said the fallout from the breakup of their marriage has affected the children emotionally and psychologically. “I actually feel that the damage is irreparable,” she said.

Recalling the night her husband found out about the affair four years ago, she said:

“It is a time I am not proud of and it still eats me today.” She told the court: “I would nearly give a man that because I saw his heart break in front of me.”

The woman said that, a year after the affair, she recommenced contact with the “other man”. She bought two mobile phones to keep in contact.

After the husband learned she was back in contact with the other man, she arrived home to find he had packed up her belongings. She said: “I unpacked my stuff and he packed his stuff.”

He left the family home.

The woman claimed her husband threatened violence in one flashpoint.

In 2013, he was charged with assault and a court date was fixed for the case. However, the case was struck out. The accusation of assault was denied and would have been contested, the court heard.

The husband did not give evidence in the case and the judge ruled the threshold for a safety order had not been met and refused the application.

This story first appeared in the Irish Examiner .