No apology will ever atone for what I did to you. No flowers, no cards or presents can ever let you forgive me. But I didn't just do it to you, I did it to us, and for that I can never forgive myself.

One decision, one stupid decision was all it took. A blindness borne of the desire to do "the right thing". Not looking at the real consequences and forging ahead without really thinking it through. Even when you let me know that the decision I made would mean that we could never be together as lovers again, I still believed I was doing "the right thing". But the right thing was to never have gone through with my decision. I did not heed your advice where you have advised me so well and so often in the past.

I thought that going back to her was right for the children, even though they are not biologically my own. I suppose that having been separated from her for so long, she had become less unpalatable in her ways. How wrong could I have been! So quickly "the right thing" became so utterly wrong.

Two months past without you even contacting me. Two months where the tree of my decision bore bitter fruit.

You were always my best friend as well as my lover. You were truly what I had always described as a soul mate. I felt your pain and worries as keenly as if they were my own. Your delight filled me with joy and we were as one. I had never felt so close to anyone in my life excepting my parents. We could talk, at length, about anything, anywhere. There were no taboos. There was always honesty until I destroyed this joining of souls with my own careless duplicity.

Now we are friends, we still talk and still laugh together but the magic has gone. There is a divide that cannot be breached. I still feel as I did but I cannot express those feelings. Indeed I dare not express them for fear that I would lose you friendship, and that would be too much for me to bear. I sit across from you at tables and I want so much to let you see how much my decision has destroyed me. I hear the unspoken hints of other relationships in you conversations and each one rips my heart apart.

But I need this to happen. I need to feel the pain of what I have done. You may not forgive me, but I can never forgive myself. Each day without you is a reminder that I can never be dishonest again. I could kid myself and say that I will never see anyone again but that is ridiculous. What I can say with absolute certainty is that I can never have what I had with you again.

You were my all, and I threw it away. I will always be your friend and if you ever need me, for anything, I will always be there.

Marc