After twenty years of marriage, I made the difficult decision to leave my ex-husband after discovering he had been unfaithful. Not long after our separation, he married the woman he had been seeing during our marriage. I moved forward with my life, eventually becoming a mother to a daughter, and chose not to respond to the occasional messages he sent me over the years.

Tragically, a few months later, he died in a car accident. The unexpected event took a surprising turn when I was contacted by his lawyer. To my shock, I learned that he had left his entire estate—valued at $700,000—to me. His current wife was furious and insisted the money rightfully belonged to her, but the will was legally binding and left no room for dispute.

Along with the will, the lawyer handed me a personal letter he had written before his death. In it, he confessed that leaving me had been the greatest mistake of his life. He expressed that he never stopped loving me and had tried to reconnect. He explained that the inheritance was his way of ensuring that I—and especially our daughter—would be provided for.

Reading his words triggered a complex mix of emotions. I felt anger, sorrow, and numbness all at once. His betrayal still stung, and while his letter was sincere, it came too late to change the past or undo the pain he had caused.

Despite his wife’s attempts to challenge the will, the court upheld it. In the end, I used the inheritance to build a secure future for my daughter. The money didn’t mean forgiveness, nor did it erase the years of hurt.

But his final gesture served as a sobering reminder: regret often arrives too late to repair the damage already done.