lido78 - the kids are a very big part of the issue, although I haven't mentioned them much here. My wife and I both believe that the best thing for them is to have their parents together in a stable relationship. Right now they are both very angry with me. They are 16 and 14, plenty old enough to understand what I did wrong by leaving them and their mother and our home for another woman. My wife says she has not spoken badly of me to them. What I am doing is to leave them alone and not force myself on them. I talk to them when I see them about school and their activities and other commonplace things, but I don't mention anything about what I did. They don't want or need me trying to justify myself to them. I am giving them their space and the time to make up their own minds. If they ask me questions about what happened, I will answer, but they haven't yet. In time they will decide for themselves what their relationship with me should be like. If I don't happen to like what they decide, that's just another of the consequences of my choices and actions and I'll have to live with it.