I am a wayward spouse, now divorced. I have 3 young kids.

I had an affair and it destroyed my marriage and my life. We divorced in April 2011 after three years of trying to work through the affair but I kept contacting the OW.

I broke it off with the OW about 2 months ago and just found out she is dating someone else. It has devestated me but also has brought me back to reality.

I can't believe what has happened and what I have done. My ex has no desire to reconcile especially since I have a track record of going back to the OW.

I finally see what that affair did. Now I am reaping the consequences.

I don't know what to do. Do I try to win her back or do I just move on. Not even sure if she would want to try again and I can't blame her.

Hi bob,

are you trying to get back with your ex-wife because OW dumped you, or would you want her back because you love her?

What is it you've done? Can you tell in your words how you have hurt your family and wife?

What are you doing to prevent this from happening again?

Good Questions.

I do love my wife although we have been apart for over a year now and I do not have feelings for her as I'm pretty sure she does not have feelings for me.

I do believe I am coming out of the fog and still have feelings for the OW and I know as Dr. Harley says it usually takes 6 months.

I have destroyed everything we had. We did have a good marriage and a great family. We had our ups and downs but the affair just messed me up big time.

I know I have devestated her and the kids. I know it has been very painful but I'm sure I don't totally know how bad it has been.

I have been incredibly selfish and I just wasn't thinking straight. I was definitely in a fog and I believe I am coming out of it.

I can't say I have a plan to prevent it from happening again because I'm not sure there is even a chance to get her back.

If we did get back together, I would want to move out of state to get as far away from this OW as possible.

This pretty much says it all. Your first priority was OW. Your xwife and children didn't figure into the equation until OW dumped you and started dating someone else. That clearly shows that they are a fall-back plan to you. If I can see that, your xwife can, too.

I wouldn't blame her, either. She has probably made peace with her life at this point. She and your children have begun their new, post-intact-family life. Your reappearance may well disturb their healing. That's up to her, of course. Have you spoken with her about your interest in recovering your marriage? What does SHE say?

More info, please: you say you broke it off with OW 2 months ago. When is the last time you actually spoke with her? Do you still have her phone number in your address book? Can you access her Facebook page? When is the last time you tried to have contact with her - with or without her knowledge? By that I mean driving by her house, snooping on her Facebook page, etc.

How long were you in the affair with OW? How did you hook up with her? Do you work together?

I exchanged emails with her this past week for the first time in 2 months. She told me she was dating someone.

I met her at church.

The affair details:
Started 9-2007
revealed it to my wife: 9-2008
Wife and I reconciled twice: 6-2009 and 12-2009
Started emailing OW again 5-2010
Confessed to wife of contact 10-2010
Divorced: 4-2011

You sound less than lukewarm about your wife, and I'm sure she senses this. Why would she want to get back with you? what inventive is there? That's a serious question; can you please try and answer it?

Does your wife have any interest in reconciling?

You are still eyeball-deep in this affair. I suggest that you say NOTHING to your ex about reconciliation at this point.

That might be something for you to consider after a year or so of complete NC with OW.

I would also suggest that you track down her boyfriend and make sure he understands that he is dating someone who has no qualms about dating a married man.

And you went back to her this week when you emailed her again. You are dangerous to your wife.

You are only thinking of reconciling now that you can see OW for what she is - a woman with her knickers attached to a piece of elastic which any man can tweak.

You should leave your wife alone. You are bad and cruel to her. She is only your second best, and a long way behind OW at that. She can do better than being a poor second.

You threw her way, and now she's a catch for someone else. Leave her alone to find someone among the many millions of men who are better for her and the kids than you. Don't guilt-trip her into getting back with you by talking about the kids, please. That would be below the belt.

ooooooooooh, so you are still in touch with the OW? For real?

Does your family know why you got divorced? Do your kids know why their family has busted up? [their dad was chasing some twat from church]

A 3-year affair. That in itself is vicious. I've been through my H's 3.5-year PA, which involved about 6 false recoveries. You cannot begin to understand what you have done to your wife.

2 false recoveries, in which it sounds as if you moved out of the home and your wife let you move back in because you made promises to stop and become a proper husband and father. Those false recoveries would have broken her heart worse than the original affair.

You are still contacting OW and are still in love with her. Hearing this makes me feel sick. Still being in contact with her and tailing about reconciliation is just evil.

Leave your wife alone. What you have done to her is behind cruel and she needs to be free of you.

I agree with this. You are toxic to her. Reconciliation is not in her best interest.

I see everyone's point. I know I am still in love with the OW but I know it will never work out with her. Trust me, I wish I could go back and change what I did. I never wanted this.

I think you all are right that I should not mention reconciliation. I would like to reconcile down the road but I know it will be a long time before she might even consider it and when I have proven I am completely done with OW.

What would it take for you all to take your husband's back if they came back and asked to reconcile. Assuming, they had not contacted the OW for some time. What time frame would that be, etc?

Bob, clearly you did want "this". You wanted your pleasure with OW more than you wanted to be a proper husband and father. You wanted it more than you wanted to honour and cherish your wife.

I'm not your wife, so my answer would mean little. I DO know that, based on the history of the affair, I would not consider reconcilition with you at this point into the forseeable future.

However, your actions going forward would mean a lot to me. For example, I might sit up and take notice if the following were to occur:

- You confess the affair to your church
- Close all avenues of access to OW
- Contact OW's bf and explain the affair to him, so he knows he's dating an adulterer
- Send a NC letter to OW

If I saw a year or two go by AFTER all this has been done, and saw that you have dated no one else, I would have to look hard to see if reconciliation would be an option for myself and my family. Heck, by then I might be involved with someone else. You have to remember that your xW has her own life now.

You were heartbroken to hear this news and for the first time, you realise how alone and lonely you will be from now on. You are in pain, but it is clear that OW doesn't care about you ay longer, and probably never did. She has moved on. She wasn't waiting for you to get a divorce and go to her - that much is clear.

You are devastated to hear this news - far more than you were ever upset at the breakdown of your marriage - and you want the hurt to stop. You are thinking of reconciling with your wife because you want someone to kiss the pain and make it better. The news of your OW shank's real nature is the motivation for your thinking about reconciliation now, not love for your wife.

Your wife is no fall back anymore, but people here can help you recover for you, and perhaps, in years down the road, you will be the man you once were, and your wife *may* fall in love with you again. It is not impossible in the future, but not like this, you are maybe beginning to become aware of what you have done, pursuing a selfish phantasy at the cost of your wife and children's well-being, but you currently are not an emotionally safe person to be around for them.

As I have said, I DID "take my husband back" after a long affair and false recoveries, and did so again this year after discovering that there had been intermittent contact between my H and his OW for the five years since they last met.

Looking at it analytically now, I would say that the reason why I took him back each time was that, despite its length, and despite his falling in love and treating me and the children horribly, I could see that my H's was a cake-eating affair. That made it different from yours.

My H never left the home. He never made it seem as if a life with OW was a serious possibility for him. He never appeared to be in a dilemma about which one of us he wanted to be with - he always chose to stay with me, and threw OW under the bus on each of my discoveries. He never show me signs of his withdrawal, and never told me that he loved her - I found this out by reading their text messages. Certainly he didn't behave in a loving way towards OW when he dumped her many times (but the fact that he risked losing his family over and over again by allowing contact to continue when the fuss died down wasn't loving towards me either). Basically, my H broke down and begged me to take him back, several times. Somewhere, I suppose, that made a difference, because he had OW waiting for him and didn't want to go to her.

Mine is a very ugly story and I am not trying to paint it as a love story. I think my H was one of the most cruel cake-eaters that I have ever come across, because he hurt me again and again and didn't care while he was doing so. But somewhere I could see that there was a hope for us if he could stop contacting OW. I could see that he didn't love her more than he loved me, I suppose, and that made a difference. It gave me some hope, if dimly.

If I ever get to the point of actually giving upon the marriage, divorcing him and making a life of my own, I don't think I would go back. To get to the point of divorce I would have to have seen that he had no love for me worth having, and that he had no character or backbone enough to do the right thing for his children. I would not go back to someone for whom I knew I was second best, and by a long way at that.

But, do you understand WHY it would never work out?
Do you understand why adultery is so destructive?
Do you understand why people who begin their relationships as co-adulterers make very risky partners?

It's not just that OW is the wrong woman for you.

It's YOU.
It's who you became in order to become an adulterer.
It would never work out with OW because of YOU.