weird ifstream problem

When I use ifstream to open a file then close it and then open the file again when i check the file pointer to see if it exists it always returns false. Here is an example: ifstream myfilehandle; myfilehandle.open("myfile.txt"); if(!myfilehandle) { return false; <-------- doesnt return false if the file exists } // do stuff with the file myfilehandle.close(); myfilehandle.open("myfile.txt"); <--------- open the same file a second time if(!myfilehandle) { return false; <---------- always returns false here }