After twenty years of marriage, I left my ex-husband upon discovering his infidelity. Not long after our separation, he married the woman he’d been seeing. I moved on, became a mother to a daughter, and chose not to respond to the occasional messages he sent over the years.
A few months later, he died in a car accident. To my shock, his lawyer informed me that he’d left his entire $700,000 estate to me. His wife was furious, but the will was clear and legally binding.
The lawyer also handed me a letter he’d written before his death. In it, he confessed that leaving me had been the greatest mistake of his life. He never stopped loving me and wanted to ensure I—and especially our daughter—were provided for.
Reading it stirred a storm of emotions: sorrow, anger, numbness. His betrayal still lingered. The money didn’t mean forgiveness.
But his final gesture was a sobering reminder: regret often comes too late to heal what’s already been broken.