Kristen Stewart Shuns Married Director She Cheated On Rob Pattinson With; But Rupert Sanders 'Hasn't Been Able To Get Over Her'

"He fell in love with her a long time before he laid a finger on her, and he's finding it difficult to shake."

After the affair was exposed, Stewart, now 23, and Sanders, 42, made public apologies to their partners and then went their separate ways.

But the source revealed, "They are still in contact,and incredibly, Rupert is still hoping for a future together. But Kristen has come to her senses and doesn't want to damage her image more.

"Rupert definitely lost more in this whole scandal. He's devastated they can't be together."

According to the source, the scandal has caused Sanders trouble in locking down his next feature-film directing job and says the filmmaker -- in recent years, one of the highest paid commercial directors in the world -- has for now returning to the advertising world "to lay low and weigh his options.

Said the source, "He is a student of other directors' careers and knows it's a lot harder to bounce back from a scandal like this if you're not a household name like Kristen is.

"Rupert, against all better judgement, still holds out hope that he and Kristen can get things going again, but he’s completely deluded – she would never put her career on the line like that again,” the source said.