My wh has left the OW, and now he is showing remorse and says he sees the wrong things he did, and how much he hurt me and our kids. I allowed him to move in with me for now. We are in the early stage of trying to rebuild love and trust.

However, divorce proceedings have been going on since Dec 2009,is drawing near to conclusion, and thousands of dollars have been expended by the both of us during the process. I am just not secure enough in the recovery to call off the divorce. My lawyer has advised against reconciling (since he is paid in advance already, he does not have a monetary interest in encouraging us to split.)

His worry is the fact that my husband retired at age 52, directly in response to the divorce and to have freedom to go be with the OW. His income is about 1/3 of his previous income now.

My lawyer said that spousal support is going to be awarded based on his pre-retirement income, and that is going to leave my wh with no real income; in fact, he will have to get another job. However, if the divorce is dropped for now, but filed again later, all the support would be based on his retirement income, and that makes me feel uneasy enough that I am going through with the divorce. My husband has told his lawyer to drop any protests and settle now. He says he understands the drawbacks for him in doing this.

I feel like our original marriage died, and if we can build another relationship, it will be a new one. It will be a long time before I would be willing to remarry him. He needs to work on many things that were destroying our love and marriage. I take ownership for the things that I did wrong, too, but he needs to prove he has changed from the man he was when I filed for divorce.

I give my husband credit for showing good behaviors, and for showing kindness and affection to me. We have just started talking about needs, and how to avoid love busters. He said he is willing to come to this site and learn how to make our relationship satisfying and secure.

So, I am a reconciling spouse going through with a divorce. Has anyone else ever been in this position? Is a recent show of willingness to commit and change make a divorce an insurmountable obstacle?

Go ahead with the divorce. If you reconcile then the money stays in the family. If you don't, you come out with a better support payment.

My SIL and BIL reconcilled after D. It's been 7 years and they never officially remarried. It's a standing joke -- she still gets child support for their three kids even though they live together and say they are married.

Their oldest turns 18 soon -- and SIL will get a smaller check with the difference staying in BILs check. It all balances out in the end as long as they stay together.

So get the divorce. He should know that the money will stay in the marriage if he sticks it out.

Might be just the INCENTIVE to keep him honest!!

What would I do? (Not that I, an anonymous guy on the interwebs matters that much.) I would see if I could put the divorce on hold to see if his revelation is real, or he just got canned by the OW and he's slinking back home. If I could not put the divorce on hold, then I'd tell him I'm letting it go through and if he proves to be marriage material, I'll remarry him. If your husband is still with you, he will still have access to the funds. If he messes up, well, he suffers the consequences.

I can't make the decision for you, so I'm just sharing what I would do. YMMV.

I'd wait until he walks the walk to stop the D process. If I remember right, you didn't do any plan B (right?); he just up and moved. So therefore there is no Plan B letter, an essential piece of information for the WS to know exactly what he/she has to do to regain your respect and eventually earn back your trust. Have you been clear with him about these stipulations? I'm certain you're not just letting him waltz back into your life like nothing ever happened, but are you clear about the path he must walk to be the person you want to spend the rest of your life with? That part is very much up to you, EG. Not doing so leads to A's and false recoveries.

In retrospect, I can now see where I wasn't clear with my WS on boundaries about a lot of things. Your H clearly has boundary issues and you must help him define those; otherwise you could be in for another trip around the merry-go-round.

opt

The practical side of me is saying to go with Holyheart's idea.

Your husband hasn't done anything yet to really win back your trust. He is probably well aware of the benefits of reconciling and refiling as your lawyer has explained later. I would be wary. I'll assume by your age that your kids are grown, but I'd stick with the original plan and use that money to increase your marketability and stabilize your finances.

I would insist on MB counseling - either a MB weekend or phone counseling or something. He needs to work to rebuild your trust. I would monitor his activity too. After being with this woman for 8 years, (emotionally OR physically) I am hard pressed to believe he is fully NC. You can check out the Surviving an Affair forum to find ways to monitor his activity and to deal with this too.

I think i would tell your DH: "DH, I want nothing more than to repair our relationship. I am willing to work with you on that. We can figure out what went wrong, how you failed to enforce good boundaries, how to fall back in love. However, I also need to protect myself if we can't repair the relationship. I propose that we continue the legal aspects of the divorce. We can still live together and use the money jointly as if nothing has changed. Yes, you are going to have to take a risk. If we stay together you are no worse off. If we don't, you would be paying what you were prepared to pay anyway. However, if I drop the charges I am no worse off, but if we don't, I get much less and I am not prepared to do that. What I am prepared to do is work hard at repairing our relationship."