Aren't people usually drawn to the path of least resistance. Right now OW makes him feel really good. Why come back to a W who you thought was controlling?
Hi KitCat, even though my situation did not involve an AP, I dated someone when my girlfriend and I were separated. I agree if ALL his problems were yours and his AP has few shortcomings, you're toast.
The reality is that your ex has issues that will follow him. Does a healthy man cheat, yell, and call his spouse names? Does a healthy woman seeking commitment date a cheater? When he goes no-contact and sees the same issues repeating, when they're together enough she lets her guard down, he may look back.
Back on December 10th I wrote about my situation: "She'd tricked me and wouldn't do it because I'd pushed.. I'm going to.. try to get us to HONESTLY discuss our issues in MC (we're both open to that). My recourse if this goes nowhere is going single. It's not as scary as I thought! In those two weeks spinning dropped from 2hrs/day to 20min/day, freeing up enough time excel at work, enjoy time with my kids, read a book, etc. and already two single ladies showed real interest in me! "
What did I discover? After a few weeks, I was trying to push NewLady to meet different expectations and spending hours worrying about it. (Granted--NewLady called me on it and said "No".. instead of agreeing, not doing it, then pretending it was never agreed to. My GF wasn't blameless.)
The big change that I needed was inside, after stepping off the rollercoaster and getting therapy.
