I was nine stepped and it meant a lot to me. It was a casual friend, someone who I had worked with, and was more of a friend to my husband, but he was part of "our" group of friends. He had forceably come onto me one day. I had let it go and thought that he would never even remember it. We still remained friends after that, I just made sure that I was never alone with him again.
He had been in and out of AA ,rehab, and SLE for years. He called me about 25 years after this happened to apologize to me. I accepted his apology, and we became better friends. We used to then talk on the phone for at least an hour a week, but only when he was sober. He never called me drunk, and never made any advances towards me.
While we were talking, he told me that he sent his ex-wife a 7 page apology for hurting her. He asked me how I would feel if I received one of those. He was upset because he was afraid that it might upset her more, and he didn't want to do that. But he never got an answer from her as to how she accepted it.
Trying to make a long story short here.
He died 2 years ago. He rented a cabin, got booze, and drank himself to death. Honestly do not believe it was suicide. He lived through 2 of his siblings committing suicide. He felt so much guilt and hurt over that.
Went to his wake. His ex-wife is the one who made all of the arrangements for the wake, even though they were then divorced for 15 years. His current girlfriend was also at the wake with her 23 year old son. They came in from Florida. Wake was in NJ. I was always friends with the ex-wife, but hadn't spoken to her since they divorced. She told me about the letter that he wrote to her. Said that she would treasure that forever, that that was the Jimmy that she knew, she said that she never hated Jimmy, that he always remained in her heart, she just couldn't live with him.
She also told me that she didn't believe it was suicide, and I agreed with her. In the letter Jimmy had also told her that "we" had gotten close and that he talked to me a lot, so I did tell her what he had said to me about his feelings about suicide. She was relieved.
She also had his current girlfriend and her son stay with her and her husband during the wake and the funeral.