I've posted here before. Some may remember me (particularly JL). Anyway, this is my story is brief:<P>I've been with my fiance for 7 years. We met in college. We were engaged to be married 2 years ago and about 2 months ago I found out that she was having an affair with a co worker. All the signs were there for 2 and a half months, and I was in denial, and she watched me decend into depression. She decided to end it (after discovery) but was stuck in that fog. I tried Plan A for a month but with her living with a friend, it was almost impossible. About 1 month ago I ended our relationship, and she was the one crying. She clings to the engagement ring, refusing to give it back and constantly drops hints about 'maybe someday we'll be back together'....<P>We've split up our possessions and we are getting our own places. She has since gone back to the OM. I fully expect that someday in the future (probably in the 6 month period that Steve Harley talks about), she will dissolve the relationship with the OM and come crawling home.<P>Why would I take her back? Why would anyone in this situation take the WS back? I realize that I am not married to her, but the time we've spent together makes it seem like we have the same committment. Why would I want to go back to dealing with the pain of her affair? Why should I work through the trust issues? Does taking the WS spouse back not open the door to future affairs (demonstrating a lack of consequences)? How could the WS respect you for taking them back after something like that? When does the point come that the damage done to the relationship is too great to fix and that starting over is the best alternative?<P>I often hear of 'success' stories on this board where the WS sees the errors of their ways and comes home, but that is only the start. I don't think a full recovery is possible, because that person we once knew and loved has changed.... it is impossible to change the past.<P>What drives the desire to win back the WS? Is it the desire to 'win'? Is it the path of least resistance compared to starting over? Can a marriage be truly happy in the wake of an affair, many years after the fact? I know that I will never see my (ex) fiance the same again. Comments would be welcome.

In the end, only you can answer the question: do I want to start over, or do I want to spend my life with this person?<P>I give my 2 cents worth having been on both sides of the fence: as a BS and now as a recovering WS (so, I guess a penny's worth for each side).<P>Having a girlfriend (and then fiancee) is not the same as being married. Particularly when there are children involved. In a marriage, one has made the commitment to spend a lifetime with someone and has invested emotional, physical, spiritual and financial capital to that end.<P>Yes, you have invested time, etc. Especially with 2 years of engagement ... you had made the downpayment in investing toward a lifetime goal. Is it worth it? How much do you believe in your investment? What is the depth of your love; your emotional, spiritual and physical ties? If it is sufficient, then you shall have your answer. If it is not, you shall have the other answer.<P>Fortunately, my W has given me the opportunity to further deposit capital into our lifetime's investment. To answer a specific question: I know full well the consequences of my actions, and I knew what led me there. With counseling, full implementation of Dr. Harley's rules, and the aid of many on this site, we are on the road to recovery. I do not for one instance believe that should I err again, that the result would be anything less than divorce. That is an ultimate price I am not willing to finance.<P>From her standpoint, the rule of honesty lets me know where I stand; the rules of protection and care let her express her feelings in a manner that is considerate of me, but yet conveys her convictions. The rule of time gives her the opportunity to observe me closely.<P>From my standpoint, the rule of honesty provides me an opportunity to earn back her trust; the rules of protection and care help me find ways to show that I have seen the light and that my total goal is to protect her and care for her; and the rule of time is providing the foundation upon which I can meet her emotional needs.<P>It is not a one-way street: she is striving to meet my emotional needs as well. It is not a case of me having to give and her having to take. We are both giving. One day at a time, one step at a time, we are moving beyond my folly.<P>In the end, our ultimate reward as it were, is that we will have built a much better, more fulfilling relationship. But I would not recommend this road to anyone.<P>Godspeed and good luck,<BR>STL<p>[This message has been edited by SeenTheLight (edited May 30, 2001).]

You ask some good questions here so I’ll answer them from my perspective… good food for thought. I have written a lot here because yours are not short-answer questions. I wanted to do them justice. (By the way, I am SeenTheLight’s wife.)<P>I think that my situation has some similarities to yours. We became engaged in 3/1999 and married in 6/2000. So our relationship is relatively new. <BR>However there are also many things about our situation that are not similar. This is the third marriage for both of us. We both have children from our previous marriages that live with us. In our previous marriages, we were the BS.<P>You ask… “Why would I want to go back to dealing with the pain of her affair? Why should I work through the trust issues?”<P>I don’t think anyone “wants” have to deal with the pain of a spouse’s affairs. I would have to deal with the pain of my husband’s affairs if I stayed with him or not. Leaving him would not make that go away. If we divorce we will also have to deal with the pain this will cause our children. Our children have already been hurt by their other parents' affairs and irresponsible behavior. In most marriages the BS feels that the ultimate reward is worth the effort. My decision to take him back was not made lightly and was based on several things.<P>The first is, of course, that I married him because I love him deeply. When I first found out about my husband’s affairs I felt that I’d married a man I did not know. But over the 10 weeks since D-day I have found that he is the man I thought he was. But there were things going on with him that I was not aware of. (A violation of the rule of honesty) I think of his actions as those of a man who fell from grace with himself. My husband is not a habitual cheater. He was married to his ex wife for 14 years and did not cheat on her. She left him and their children for the OM after her string of affairs. When I met him he was still struggling with the hurt from his previous marriage. After much reflection we have come to believe that this struggle bled over into the beginning of our relationship. Basically we got involved too early in his divorce recovery period. So I believe both of us understand the unusual circumstances that lead to his affairs.<P>The second is that after some reflection and a lot of praying, I realized that he is only human. We all are capable of making wrong, impulsive choices. I contemplated on how I would like to be treated if I had been the WS. When I married him, I promised to stay with him “in sickness and in health, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, until death do us part” (or something like that). I take those vows very seriously. I consider his affairs and the emotional state he was in at the time to be a form of sickness. I would like to think that if I were to ever do anything like he did, that he’d love me enough to help me return to our marriage. So I feel that I have to give our marriage and the man I love this one chance. <BR>And finally, the third is that I found the book “Surviving an Affair”. For the first time in my life I found a source that answered a question I’ve had for so long. I know that marriage is hard work, this is my third marriage. But I have never been able to find anyone who could tell me exactly what work I was supposed to be doing. That is not until I read the SAA book. After reading that book, other’s by Dr. Harley and finding this web site both my husband and I feel that we have been give a gift that will enable us to not only recover from the affairs but to have the kind of marriage both of us have always dreamt of. The fact that my husband not only embraces the MB philosophy as adamantly as I do, but that he is the one in our relationship who has been leading us in the recovery effort show me that he is committed. <P>So based on the above I decided to “take him back”. Actually to “keep him” since he never left. But not unconditionally. We agreed to follow the MB’s concepts to rebuild our relationship and marriage. <BR>As far as rebuilding trust goes. My husband gets it on this one. He tells me that he knows that it is his responsibility to rebuild my trust in him. He is doing exactly that in so many ways. Using the MB rules of protect, care and honesty, he has done some very concrete things to assure me that he is serious about rebuilding my trust in him. Some examples are that his first action was to voluntarily stop all communications with all of his Internet “friends”. After some initial vacillation about telling the truth he as been willing to answer my questions and discuss all aspects of his affairs and our marriage. He has been loving and supportive of my pain as I have been of his. He gave me the passwords to all of his email accounts, screen names and computers. He has installed monitoring software on all of our computers. His forthrightness about these things has helped. <P>At first I thought I’d never be able to trust him again. But my trust is returning. Do I worry that he could still be doing the same thing behind my back? Sometimes I do. There have been times when these worries really eat at me. But I am arriving at a peace about this. I know that if he does cheat again, I will find out. And he knows that if that ever happens there will be no second chance. <P>You ask …. “Does taking the WS spouse back not open the door to future affairs (demonstrating a lack of consequences)? How could the WS respect you for taking them back after something like that?”<BR>I do not believe that taking the WS back opens the door for future affairs. I’ve seen so many people I know go through this. Once a person has an affair, they are not necessarily transformed into an affair glutton. If you read the material by Dr. Harley (and books by many other experts on the subject) you will find that people have affairs because their emotional needs are not being met. They have affairs because there is a problem with their marriage (or relationship). There is no such thing as an affair proof marriage. Statistics show that 60% of all marriages experience at least one affair and 98% of those stay together. One interesting statistic my counselor told me is that once the first spouse has an affair, there is at least a 60% chance that the other spouse will have one.<P>Will my husband interpret my taking him back and forgiving him his affairs as an open door for future affairs? Will he no longer respect me because I took him back? These are possibilities. But I am not a victim. If he does take this point of view at anytime he already knows my response. He is free to leave. As a matter of fact I’ll pack his bags.<P>You say…… “I often hear of 'success' stories on this board where the WS sees the errors of their ways and comes home, but that is only the start. I don't think a full recovery is possible, because that person we once knew and loved has changed.... it is impossible to change the past. “<BR>You are right, full recovery would not be possible if we expect that either of us will be the same after the affairs. Our hope is that we will be better after the affairs. Recovery means that we grow from the experience and that we improve our relationship, that we rebuild it to affair proof it in the future.<P>One thing that I have found about marriage is that it is art in the making. It is never static just as the people in it are never static. Affairs are not the only things in life that can cause your spouse to always be the person we first fell in love with and to never change. The trick in marriage is to grow together with that changes. Other things that can change your spouse and you are: the birth of children, the death of children, serious illness – mental or physical, financial difficulty, one partner trying to reach a dream at the expense of the other….. the list could go on and on. These are things that I have lived through in my previous marriages. They changed my husbands and me.<P>You ask….“What drives the desire to win back the WS? Is it the desire to 'win'? Is it the path of least resistance compared to starting over?“<P>I am sure that each case is different so each of these might be valid in different circumstances. I do believe that the reasons for wanting to “win back the WS” are as varied as the people involved. I know that in my case I never felt that I had to “win him back”. I know it is hard to understand but I now believe him when he tells me that he loved me all the while. That the affairs had nothing to do with me but were instead manifestations of where he was in his life. For me the desire to remain married is based on my love for him, the vows I took, and the feeling that we now have the tools needed to build a very good marriage. <P>I do believe, however, that a thread that runs through most situations is that the marriage is an entity in and of itself. For people who believe in marriage and in family there is a great need to preserve that entity. So much love, work and resources have gone into building it. It is not an easy thing to throw away even when one’s spouse seems to be trying to do so.<BR>You ask…..“Can a marriage be truly happy in the wake of an affair, many years after the fact? <P>In my case it’s only been 10 weeks since d-day. So I do not know how we will fair in “years after the fact”. But I can tell you that today we have a much stronger relationship then we had before. The affairs and MB have brought us to a place where we have opened up to each other on levels we never thought possible. We have spent hours discussing the affairs, our emotional needs, what we want this marriage to be, what we want our family to be, and a thousand other things. We have become each other’s best friends and confidants through this. My husband was the source of my pain but he has also been the source of my comfort and recovery. I have to say that I love him more today then I did the day I married him. And it is largely due to the character and strength I have seen in him in dealing with the pain he has caused me, the damage he caused to our marriage and then the effort he is putting into our recovery.<P>Each of us has to decide for ourselves the point at which the damage done to the relationship is too great. For me the point would be if my husband ever had another affair. We now know that we must be very vigilant to prevent affairs. MB’s is giving us to tools to do this.<p>[This message has been edited by zorweb (edited May 30, 2001).]

>>> I tried Plan A for a month but with her living with a friend, it was almost impossible. >>><P>Plan A is really hard, it's definitely not for everyone. A month is very, very little time for Plan A. My Plan A didn't even really start working until he moved out and moved in with the OW. You just have to be a little more creative sometimes.<P><BR><<Why would I take her back? Why would anyone in this situation take the WS back? I realize that I am not married to her, but the time we've spent together makes it seem like we have the same committment.>>><P>I have to respectfully say that IMO marriage is a much different ballgame. I see where you are coming from. I lived with someone for over 5 years before I met my H. I would have told you at the time that it was "just like a marriage" but I really had nothing to compare it to, I'd never been married. If he would have cheated he would have been history.<P>>> Why would I want to go back to dealing with the pain of her affair? Why should I work through the trust issues?>><P>And you don't have to. That is an individual choice we all make. I made vows for better or worse and I want to keep them, even if my husband didn't. I love him enough to give him one more chance.<P>>> Does taking the WS spouse back not open the door to future affairs (demonstrating a lack of consequences)? How could the WS respect you for taking them back after something like that?>>><P>My H has more respect for me now than he ever did before. He realizes the true depth of my love for him. There are always consequences, even if loss of the relationship isn't one of them. He knows that if there were another affair there would be no more chances.<P>>>When does the point come that the damage done to the relationship is too great to fix and that starting over is the best alternative?>><P>Once again, that has to be your own choice. For me it would be a second affair.<P>>>I often hear of 'success' stories on this board where the WS sees the errors of their ways and comes home, but that is only the start.>>><P>And it can often be the start of soemthing wonderful. Better communication, greater appreciation of each other etc. We will never take each other for granted again. Ours is not a revamped old realtionship. It is something new and wonderful rebuilt on an old foundation.<P>>>I don't think a full recovery is possible, because that person we once knew and loved has changed.... it is impossible to change the past.>>><P>When an affair happens the betrayed spouse usually changes too. We are after all the sum of our life experiences. Sometimes horrible things can teach us valuable lessons that we can put to use to make a better future. Not everyone can get over a betrayal and in any case it takes a long time. I've had friends admit that if they were in my position they would never be able to not throw the A in their husband's face every chance they got. If you are that type of person then it won't work. Only you know whether you can handle MB principles or not and what you really want in life. Good luck in what ever you decide.<P>What drives the desire to win back the WS? Is it the desire to 'win'? Is it the path of least resistance compared to starting over? Can a marriage be truly happy in the wake of an affair, many years after the fact? I know that I will never see my (ex) fiance the same again. Comments would be welcome.[/B][/QUOTE]<P>

Redon,<P>Well you knew I would respond to your questions. As everyone has said they are the essence of what makes a relationship,forgiveness, responsibility, and consequences.<P>But I have a different slant on things. You will never "take her back". It really cannot happen. Why? You are not married, you were engaged and that engagement is over. If you were married and she had an affair the marriage is still in place you have to address the issue of "taking her back". Because there is something for her to come back to. <P>There is nothing for your GF to come back to. The engagement is over, she is living with OM, and you are free to do as you chose. No legal documents to file, no children to deal with, and no vows to address.<P>You and GF may get back together, but a whole new relationship must be forged. If you decide to forgive her it will be for your peace of mind, not hers. She doesn't need your forgiveness. Yes, she ran around on you, but she had taken no vows to you before family, friends, and God.<P>You are now seeing the difference between marriage, engaged, and living together. I am not trying to make a point other than there is a difference.<P>I realize that your pain at ending a 7 year relationship where marriage was on the near horizon is very very difficult and painful. I am not trying to diminish that at all. In fact you may have been more in love than some couples married for that length of time. These events, especially the lying and cheating are extremely painful.<P>However, as I sit here I would say count yourself lucky. You found this out "before" you married and started a family. I know you don't feel very lucky right now and certainly if you had been really lucky you would not be in this situation. However, as these things go, you are blessed to find out these things out now.<P>So what to do? I would recommend that you move on with life. Perhaps your GF will see the light of day and your paths will cross again and a new relationship can be developed. However, I would not count on it. My advice is move on, develop your life as you would like. Meet new people enjoy your life.<P>You see Time, life, and growing will answer all of your questions Redon. They will be answered and you will know the right answer when it is presented.<P>So take the time to heal, take the time to grow, and most of all take the time to enjoy your life.<P>God Bless,<P>JL

Redon - very simply, ditto JL.<P>WAT

Hello all, I just wanted to say thanks. I don't want to end the comments coming from others, but I wanted to thank everyone that has replied to my questions so far. STL, Zorweb, fairydust and JL, you all have posted truly amazing comments here, thank god for this site. I'd just like to take a moment and address each one of you, as you took the time to write back.<P>STL, you said:<BR>"Yes, you have invested time, etc. Especially with 2 years of engagement ... you had made the downpayment in investing toward a lifetime goal. Is it worth it? How much do you believe in your investment? What is the depth of your love; your emotional, spiritual and physical ties? If it is sufficient, then you shall have your answer. If it is not, you shall have the other answer."<P>I had very strong bonds with my fiance. Our lives were woven so tightly together. I've been through a lot in my life, more than most for my young years (27), and I always considered myself to be a very strong person. But the affair just brought me to my knees, probably because of the way I felt about her. And now, in the aftermath, I've learned to live with both sides of the coin. On one hand, I can't seem to rid myself of my love for her, even though it's causing me pain. On the other hand, I hate her for what she's done. The added salt in the wound is that she watched me spiral down into a depression and all she could think about was herself. This is not the person I know. So to answer your question, yes, the depth of my love for her wants to try and work things out, but I feel that she can't return that love so I have to move on.<P>Zorweb... you shared so much, I'll only talk about a couple of things. You really did do my questions justice, thank you.<P>I guess I'm just in a different stage than you are. You are on the road to recovery. I could never achieve that with my fiance. She was just stuck in that 'fog'. She was unwilling to put in the effort that it would take to start that process. I see the efforts that the both of you have put into it and it's remarkable. From my own standpoint, as my own love for her decays, and she has gone back to him, I feel that I would have a tough time working on things in the future, if and when her new relationship fails. I would feel like the 'backup' guy. That she tried something else out and could come back to me. Talk about a doormat. A few days after d-day, I talked with her. She had been sending me flowers, calling, wanting to come back. I opened that door that night, something she didn't expect. As soon as she knew that I would try and work on it with her, she did a 180... then she wasn't sure what she wanted. I asked her to come live with me, and she wouldn't. It was like that for a month. She just couldn't decide what she wanted, and thus couldn't put the effort into recovery. That was when I ended it between us. Perhaps one day she will be willing to put in that effort, but will I? Should I? Rhetorical question, that last one... I know it's something only I can answer.<P>Fairydust:<P>"Plan A is really hard, it's definitely not for everyone. A month is very, very little time for Plan A. My Plan A didn't even really start working until he moved out and moved in with the OW. "<P>My understanding of Plan A is to meet the emotional needs of the WS. How could I do that without her around, how could you do that when he was living with the OW? When I found Plan A to be nearly impossible (due to the separation) I opted to cease contact. Even plan B is a little wishy-washy. We talk every now and then to make arrangements for the possessions and house, etc. I also see her at work. I sometimes think that this type of contact is like turning me into the OM. And that everytime there is contact, it resets the recovery period for her and drains on the new relationship she has. Suddenly, she seems to have let go of her resentment towards me and constantly drops comments about us being together again someday. Almost like she's turning herself into the victim in that I dumped her. Now, the OM can live with my ghost.<P>Your final comments give me hope about a new relationship built on an old foundation. They make the path I am taking harder, second guessing what I'm doing. But it keeps my mind open to possiblities. I have grow tremendously from this, and I am the type of person now who could refrain from throwing it her face, although I never thought I could refrain from doing it. I've bit my tongue so many times...<P>And JL, I was expecting you!<P>Just to clarify, she's not living with the OM. I asked her once if she was going to move in, and her reply was, 'you figured wrong'.<P>I've heard that comment before so many times from so many different people, that I'm better off to have found out now. Yes, I guess there is always a good side to something bad.<P>You said:<BR>"So what to do? I would recommend that you move on with life. Perhaps your GF will see the light of day and your paths will cross again and a new relationship can be developed. However, I would not count on it. My advice is move on, develop your life as you would like. Meet new people enjoy your life.<P>You see Time, life, and growing will answer all of your questions Redon. They will be answered and you will know the right answer when it is presented.<P>So take the time to heal, take the time to grow, and most of all take the time to enjoy your life."<P>You'll be happy to hear that that is what I'm trying to do. Good advice by any standard. I'll look forward to the day that these questions will be answered and I want to thank you for the inspiration.<P>Take care, all

>>>My understanding of Plan A is to meet the emotional needs of the WS. How could I do that without her around, how could you do that when he was living with the OW? When I found Plan A to be nearly impossible (due to the separation) I opted to cease contact.>>> <P>I started Plan A when my H suddenly started acting really weird. This was of course when his A started (though I didn't know it). I'm an avid reader and always look to books for answers so I ran to the bookstore and got a bunch of marriage books. It wasn't official "Plan A" since I hadn't found MB yet, but it was the same basic principle. At first my Plan A made him angry. The better I treated him the more mad he got (guilt). One night I made him a really nice romantic dinner and he was fuming. Much later he admitted that the nicer I wa to him the more slimy he flet about himself. Anyway, after about a month he announced he wanted a divorce and was moving out (he never did admit to the OW until after it was all over). At first I saw him about once a week (he never took more than a weeks worth of clothes). I would be as pleasant as possible (though he knew how I was feeling) and I always made it clear that the door was still open and I would welcome him home. I would send him little "Miss you" cards at work. Sometimes at night I would call and say "Good night and I love you" on his voicemail. Things like that. He never mentioned any of it. Eventually (post EMR) he told me how much all of those things meant to him. In our case he couldn't start missing me until he was gone. But he always knew that we weren't goign to end up as "buddies" it was going to be all or nothing. I was a failure myself at Plan B. I tried to institute it after he had come back and was ready to leave again for the 3rd time. He basically went into a panic. so there only ended up being about 3 days of no contact. His whole attitude changed after that and within less than a month he was home for good. You can still do Plan A if you want to as long as you have some contact. Personally I found it easier to do when he wasn't living here. <p>[This message has been edited by fairydust (edited May 30, 2001).]

Fairydust... wow, some similarities there! When I started to feel my fiance pulling away from me, I went all out. I would make her lunches and dinners, spend every moment with her to the detriment of other things, took her on little trips, left notes in her lunchbag. And I can see that she resented that too, which probably made the affair easier in a way.<P>When I do see her, I make an effort not to say what's on my mind and LB, big time. We generally get along fine. But like JL has said, I'm moving on with my life. Maybe someday she will want back bad enough to do what it takes, but she's not there yet, and if that day did come, I can't say with any certainty what I'd do. Take care, and keep up the good work. All the best to you.

Redon:<P>You are into your Plan B. The choice is hers now, my friend. At 27, I too despaired, couldn't see how I was going to make it past the bog and fog into which I had sunk.<P>I reached out to my God. (We haven't discussed faith, but it plays a major part in our lives.) The answers I received were mostly answers I least expected. But in every instance, my prayers were met, and in every instance they met my NEEDS (and not specifically prayed-for WANTS). Hindsight is 20-20 (unless we revise history in our minds, in which case it is myopically 20-20); when it seems most grim, step back, open your eyes: the answer will be there, you just have to see it from a different perspective.<P>Godspeed and good luck,<BR>STL

JL, I recently attended my first wedding as a groomsman this past weekend. I'm not a religious man, but I'm beginning to see the difference you are talking about. As a spectator, I took the vows very seriously. I just couldn't picture my ex fiance standing in a white dress in a church with me and reciting those lines. To me, the whole thing would seem like such a sham. I think she has a lot to learn about what love is all about. Too bad she had to take me along for the ride.

Redon,<P>You have been blessed my friend. You are learning about marriage and what it takes. This weekends marriage was probably pretty traumatic given what you have been through. However, in your sensitized situation I do suspect many things are becoming clearer.<P>You see you will have a much better appreciation of what you are embarking on when you do marry. If your exGF does come around, then she too will have grown and finally be ready to marry. Perhaps to you, perhaps to someone else.<P>I am glad you are handling this very difficult situation so well. You have a long life ahead of you and I am sure the best is yet to come. So learn, heal, and enjoy.<P>God Bless,<P>JL

Boy, this is a really tough question because I had a terrible break-up with a fiance in college for doing exactly what my husband has done to me. I ditched him, and it was hard. I suffered for months after because I really loved this guy. He loved me, too. He called constantly, asking for fogiveness (which, by the way, is something that my husband has never done) after he was married (he got someone else pregnant while he and I were dating and married the girl--one of them, anyway.) Nevertheless, I shook the dust off my feet and I was outta there, very scarred over it. I look back now and I am so glad I left him.<P>But now--my husband has done the same thing to me, and here I am still with the guy. Does the little piece of paper that says "Married" make a difference? The kid that we both love? I guess that's what's it. I keep wondering, if we didn't have the little guy, would I still be here? Don't get me wrong, I do love my husband, but he's struck out of the ballgame. He's sitting in the dug-out in my book. But he's still part of the team. So, I guess I have to keep on going and try to make the best of things.

<B>Why take the WS back?</B><BR>“For better or for worse...”<BR> <A HREF="http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5025_qa.html" TARGET=_blank>http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5025_qa.html</A> <P>------------------<BR>Prayers & God Bless!<BR>Chris<BR>For relationship info check out <A HREF="http://www.pcisys.net/~chriscal1/resources.html" TARGET=_blank>Marriage & Relationship Resources</A>

Redon,<P>I had a similar experience with a man I was engaged to before I married H. It too was a long-term relationship, and while we didn't officially "live together,'" he had so many things over at my apartment and stayed over so often (even paid some of the bills), it was almost as though we were living together. He left me for another woman. However, when he left me, he was no longer cheating on me. That's the big difference between being married and being engaged, living together, or dating. You cannot cheat on someone you are no longer having a relationship with, or with whom you have no marital bond; if you *do* take her back one day, it will be a completely new relationship. Can you handle the break in continuity, knowing that she broke up with you to see someone else and then got back together with you? I think that's more important with respect to your particular issue. <P>Be thankful that she left you *before* you actually made a lifetime commitment to each other. The pain I felt when my fiance broke up with me to date another woman is nothing, nada, zero, zilch, compared to my H leaving me, moving in with another woman, and cheating on me in plain sight. I know it might not feel like it to you right now, but you are luckier than you think.<P>belld