I'm new to this so please excuse if I am posting on the wrong board. Basically I'm a WW, who is now divorced. Never commited to working on my marriage after my A was discovered. I left my EX husband to be with my AP. I'm now coming out of the fog and having a hard time dealing with what I lost. I made decisions to divorce without a clear head. I'm so remorseful, so upset about the hurt I caused. I want to make ammends to my EX, however has moved on, and has a girlfriend living with him now. I have been in therapy, and have decided that this man I left my husband for was not who I thought he was. he was a liar and a total dead beat. I have gotten him out of my life so I can focus on getting healthy and coparent my two children. I just don't know why I'm still having these feelings for EX husband. Is it because I feel like I didn't have closure, is it because he's moved on and much further along in his journey. I want to reach out to EX, but I know that will just end up badly. I guess I'm feeling a little lost because I'm now alone, faced to go through this pain alone.

Hurting,

Well, we don't have a lot of sympathy for WS's here but I give you credit for being remorseful. Most WS's show no remorse...

Do you know why you had the affair? What did you feel you were missing? If you got your EX back, would this just happen all over again? Do you want him back just because you broke up with your boyfriend?

If he is dating, he may tell you to go to he11 but there is a good chance his relationship will not last if he is recently divorced. He probably is still dealing with the pain of the divorce and he may not even know it.

You could write him a nice letter and show him you are remorseful because we BS's would kill for a sincere apology from our WS's. Don't beg for him to take you back though. Just let him know how truly sorry you are, that you are working on issues and that you want to work on reconcilation. Then leave it at that and leave him alone. He may not respond, he may get angry, but he will remember it. Even if he gets angry, your apology will mean something to him.

I will offer you some support. You made a mistake (a bad mistake), but learn from it. Even if you don't get back together with your X learn from what happened and let it make you a better person.

Work on forgiving yourself....

Welcome, HM2.

BHINWI offered very profound advice. Those of us who have been the BS, would give our right arms and some other vital organs to hear those words of remorse.

My M didn't end during an A, but one happened (that I'm aware of)... we worked through it and I did feel he was remorseful, but depression and behaviours that spawned from that led to our M's demise.

I filed, I followed through, but I still have very deep feelings of love for my XH. He and I both had post-M relationships, mine ended a while back, his just ended (maybe not totally but she moved back to her home state with her kids).

I too want to broach reconcilation with him, but it's too soon for him right now. I've had some months to think, ponder my mistakes, I worked on myself before entering another relationship and it ended because it wasn't "marriage material" but I'd like to think that I had corrected some of my problems (I ended my post M relationship, no A, just because it was what I needed to do).

I've worked on myself some more, worked on my parenting, worked on my great relationship with my kids, and I'm a work in progress but growing as a person.

Thing is - the feelings for XH have never subsided. I squashed them down for a while but they keep coming back.

Now I'm biding my time to see if I can approach him one more time to fix things.

I approached him before the D was final but he'd moved on and he tried to keep a foot in the door with me, but pursue the warm fuzzies with the woman he'd moved on with. Well that was in late '05, and she moved out.

I'd like to think that when he made that choice, he was in a fog of infatuation with what was new, it was more enticing than trying to go back and fix things with the old comfortable shoe.

However, now that he's been burned, I have to wonder of that old comfortable shoe (me) doesn't look a bit more exciting for the long haul?

If he could EVER express to me, the sentiment that is in your post, I'd be over the moon. I own the junk that I caused in the M that led to its destruction, but if he could ever own his and ask me to forgive him, that would be more intoxicating than anything I could put into words.

The snag for you - is that he *has* moved on. If he's truly happy, and you can see that, IMO, let him be. If you truly love him, let him be happy. My XH took up with somebody that was all wrong for him - and I'm not the only one that thought that. He was totally taken advantage of, and IMO when she'd finished using him up and the money tree was bare, she bolted. I think she's still stringing him along with online contact - but there's no future in a relationship where she isn't happy living where he's at, and he won't move out to where she is because he won't leave his kids (thankfully he chose his KIDS over her...).

If I'd thought my XH had moved on and found true happiness and a fruitful relationship, as hard as that would have been, I'd have been the first to wish him well. Instead I spent the last year+ watching him be destroyed a little bit at a time. By then we were divorced - I had no right to interfere, so I didn't. And I suppose I had to let him fall on his face on his own - and that's what's happened.

I don't know if the full fallout has hit him yet, she dropped the bomb on him at the beginning of the month and only left a week ago, and as far as I can tell there's still contact (like cutting the tail off an inch at a time) - so while I'm here on the sidelines watching all this, and feeling pain knowing that he's being hurt so badly, there's not much I can do at this point.

I do plan to approach the subject of reconciliation at some point in the future, not until I'm sure he's over it with the XGF - but hopefully he'll give himself some time and space before he tries again with somebody else and I can let him know my feelings then.

If your XH is in a bad relationship - then offering up your remorse may help bring you back together - but I don't know your situation so I can't tell if it's a good thing or a bad thing to "go there".

I will say that if you can write a letter of apology, own what you did, and ask for forgiveness with no other expectation, that will go a LONG WAY. It's ok to ask to be forgiven, to acknowledge what you did - but IMO it's not OK to interfere in his relationship now.

If the relationship he's in now is temporary, then the time may come for you to talk about reconciliation - but I can tell you firsthand, if he's in love with someone else and it's good for him (perceived, or real), at this point he's not likely to drop that to come back to you.

Good luck on your journey. I applaud you for owning your mistakes. This can be a tough forum for folks on your end of the issue.

In support,

JinGA

Welcome to MB, Hurting.

I agree with the send a letter idea. Your ex is with someone else now. Trying to get him back, which would include stealing him away from his live-in SO, would suggest you're still a little iffy on the santicty of committment.

It can be hard being alone in the beginning. But, if you find stuff to do, you'll soon get to like it. I know I did. BWINWI did too. Once you are comfortable being alone, then you can trust your feelings for someone else. When we're scared, fightened and desperate, we're also often stupid and selfish. BDTD myself. That's partly how I ended up marrying a man 17 years older than me within a year of meeting him.

I know it feels horrible right now. Just remember... all you have to do is stay alive and it will get better. I remember telling myself that the first Christmas night after my separation. B had the kids, and I went home to an empty house. No one to talk to. I was sooooooo lonely. And there wasn't even anyone on this board, thank you very much!

Anyway, I just told myself to get a book and go to bed. Justt live until otomorrow. Lo and behold, I felt a lot better in the morning. One morning you'll start to feel better too.

I know why I had the affair. I was in a low point in my life. I wasn't feeling good about myself. I was looking for someone to notice me. Basically it was all about me being selfish. I've come to terms with that.

In no way to I want to interfere with my XH life. Whether or not he is in a good relationship, I have no idea. We do not discuss his personal, nor do we discuss mine.

Part of it is that I am remorseful, and I am thinking clearly now. Knowing I caused my husband so much pain was/is pure ******. I was too wrapped up in me and my pain that I just couldn't deal with his so I ran. I thought what I was feeling was real at the time, and maybe to some extent it was, but it's no excuse, no reason to do what I did. I became something/someone that I never was.

I just feel at this point we have two children to raise together. I want to learn from this, feel the pain, go through the emotions and something inside of me feels to make ammends will help. I feel that I owe it to him to acknowledge the pain I caused.

I'm working on forgiving myself. i know I'm not a bad person, just made some really horrible choices. It cost me a lot. I focus on the good..I have two healthy children, I have a roof over my head, I have a decent job. Everday I find something about myself that I like, focus on the positive. I have beaten myself up for too long, allowed myself to become a victim. I realize now, I do have control of my future. I have to be a strong woman for my children.

Right now, I think the tensions are too high, to express my remorse to him may do more harm than good. I don't think it will be well received, and it may come across that I'm still playing games. When the time is right (which it may never be) I will be able to tell him. If the time is never right, I'll have to be ok with that too.

Thanks for listening, just needed to get these feelings out.

Takes a big person to make a statment like that... It is very easy to blame others for our problems. It is very hard to blame ourselves.

Think about the letter. He may not respond well to it but he WILL remember it.

Hurting,
It seems as though we have a lot in common. I had an A on my husband, he put up with knowing about it for over a year because he truly loved me and wanted our marriage to work. Well my head was in the clouds, fog, etc. and I just kept pushing him away and out of my life a little at a time. In Feb. he filed for divorce, it will be final (praying it won't be but..) in Aug. Our feelings have flip flopped 180* He started seeing someone else, nothing serious he says and I have (through lots of prayer) lost the "love" I had for the A. But now my H tells me that he doesn't trust me and is afraid I will do this again to him. It's like if only my heart would've changed a month sooner then he wouldn't have filed for D yet. We also have two children, he has moved out and I have never worked outside the home. So we are having many money issues with two households on 1 income. I told him that my job is being a Mom, that is what I have done for a long time and I want to continue to be available for our children and not stuck at a job if they need me. I think that once the D papers are in the process and you are meeting with your attys it kind of makes the reality of it all slap you in the face, hard. I truly feel sorry for women or men out there having Affairs. Nothing good comes from them, only pain and hurt. I watched my husband cry so many times and just beg me to stay and ask me why I didn't love him anymore and now I am in that role and feeling his pain. You don't know what you got until it's gone and if the BS would only put half of their energy that they put into their Affairs into their marriages, they would have awesome marriages. I Pray to God that I get another chance and that we can survive this. I think this pain is a lot like the pain of losing someone to death and something I pray no one ever has to go through. I pray that the Lord will put His hand upon you and your Ex and repair your marriage and rebuild it better than it ever was.
God bless..

Don't get high hopes on the letter - he may not even open it and read it. I didn't - I pitched it straight into the garbage in front of her and told her don't bother to write another one - I'll just pitch it also and I didn't care how she felt or what she wanted anymore.

Honestly - I've never really even wondered what the letter said - don't care. In my opinion, letters like these are for the writer to make themselves feel better. I think they rarely make the reciever feel any better or "explained" to. I wasn't and won't give her that satisfaction.

Notashoped, letters of apology are in part for the writer. Part of forgiving yourself includes apologizing to the parties you harmed. But they also can do good to the harmed people. It's a lot easier to forgive someone if they apologize. When we forgive someone one, we give a gift to that person, but we give a bigger gift to ourselves. Carrying around anger and bitterness takes up a lot of energy.

Notashoped,

I have to agree with GG. If my X apologized sincerely to me now, 2 1/2 years later, it would mean everything. I would feel better about her and myself.

I wrote her a letter about 3 months ago admitting my role in the divorce. (It does take 2). My letter was honest and sincere. She wrote back that and said "She made some mistakes". She never mentioned the boyfriends, the lies, regretting that I sold my Grandfather's farm that I inherited to pay her divorce settlement, nothing.

I encourage Hurting to write the letter and mail it. It may heal some wounds for both parties.