I'm not going to beat up on the LW, because like her I'm a woman who has never wanted to be a mother. As a child I never wanted to play with baby dolls (they usually ended up with their fake hair ripped out and missing limbs after a few days), and that feeling only compounded as an adult. My own mother likes to joke that I have the maternal instinct of a rattle snake, but facts are facts. I don't want to be a mother, have no interest or desire to raise children. So when I date, and I am of the age where the vast majority of the men I date are divorced. So as a rule, I chose not to date men with children because I'm very well aware that if the relationship does become serious, those children will be a huge factor in my life.

Cary's advise is ok as a stop gap measure, but I don't think it's going to help her sustain her marriage. Like it or not, the LW's husband is a father and those children are going to be the single most important factor in his life. As his wife, the LW had knowingly accepted this fact and by marrying her husband she had to accept these children are going to be a major part of her life. Divorcees with kids are a package deal and you cannot have one without the other. For her now to claim that she just cannot enjoy having them in her life is a bit childish.

Finding time for her own space is all well and good, but I'm going to give a little tough love here - just because the LW is married to their father does not give her the right to make these kids feel unwanted in his home because of her issues. That is without question the absolute worst thing that any step parent can do to a kid. My uncle's second wife pulled that stunt with my cousin shortly after the wedding, all but throwing out of the house a young man in his teens. Not only did my cousin have to deal with losing his mother to cancer and having his father remarry relatively quickly, but he had to feel like an outcast in what should have been his own home. Not surprisingly, the marriage failed in less than two years, but by then the damage had been done - the relationship between my uncle and cousin was badly fractured and never completely healed. They were barely on speaking terms to the day my uncle passed away. The LW has absolutely no right to damage the relationship between her husband and his children because she has now realized that she has no desire to be a parent.

So what to do? Have a real heart to heart with her husband is a start, but in the end there really are only two solutions to this problem. Either the LW gets over herself and her own issues and accepts with some grace that she needs to treat these children as her own, or she should end the marriage so that she doesn't poison the relationship they have with their father. Their needs to a stable and loving home superceeds her right to a relationship with their father. Either love and accept them, or bow out.

Women really don't like being dumped. No one likes to have a relationship fall apart, but it's a different story when things have run their course and neither of you are interested in pursing things any longer. That is not the case, however, with what occured between you and this young woman. You made the decision to end your relationship without her imput and apparently without concern for her feelings when the relationship no longer fit into your life. When she tried to convince you to stay with her, you refused.

So she did what most women do. We cry a bit, we mope and feel sorry for ourselves and eat too much ice cream. And then we realize what assholes you men can be sometimes, pick ourselves up and move on with our lives. That is exactly what your ex-girlfriend did. She focused on her work, found a new romance and moved halfway across the world. As for you, the dream job that you threw her over for didn't work out. You're alone, but that doesn't mean she's free for you to pick up where you left off.

Her having posted a sad picture on Facebook does not constitute an undying love for you. She has clearly gotten over you and your little journey to Asia wasn't a grand romantic gesture - it was stalking. She gave you a chance to say what you wanted, told you in no uncertain terms that she no longer wanted any contact with you. So how about being a real gentleman for the first time in all of this and just conceed to her wishes. Just because she is no longer with the man she was dating after you broke up with her does not mean by any strech that she wants you back.

Keep in mind that as far as she's concerned, she was clearly never as important to you and you had been to her at the time. She was willing to stick with you, and you threw her over for a job. So suck it up that you blew a good thing and take a lesson from your ex. Time for move on with your life and stop harping on what might have been.