My wife passed away in 1999 after a long battle with colon cancer. My sons were 10 and 14 years old. Shortly after that I met a woman with whom I fell madly in love. I was so in love that I neglected to take care of what’s most important, my two sons, and then my career. This woman became abusive toward my sons and then toward me. I should have pulled the plug on the relationship sooner than the 5 years we were together. I eventually did, but it was too late.

My sons lives and their schooling were adversely impacted, my career was damaged, relationships were severed with my own family and in-laws which meant my sons not only lost their mom but also lost the rest of the family, and I lost valuable and prime years of my life to find someone who would have been good to my sons and to me, and take the role of a mother figure to my sons.

There isn’t a week that goes by without me thinking about the “what if” and the regrets I have for the choices and decisions I made, and I hurt thinking about the pain I caused my sons and what they went through. I have not been able to Fully Forgive Myself for those choices and decisions I made many years ago. But I’ve been trying to correct things and hope I will succeed, especially for my sons, and hope it’s not too late to correct things.