The best way to write an apology letter to your loved ones should be handwritten. A handwritten letter makes it personal. Emailing or typing apology letters is very impersonal – family is never a business transaction.
Handwritten version of this letter
January 14, 2009
I want to apologize to everyone in my family and Colleen’s for the affair I had which started back in March 2003, one year before Colleen asked me for a divorce. I would like to apologize to Colleen for blaming her for it unjustly. Colleen never did anything to deserve my having an affair. After I was caught, Colleen reacted due to the stress and insecurity of my continued affair and the lies I told her to cover up more lies, my own selfishness. She was blindsided by my lies and affair and especially hurt because I brought Gisele around my affair partner. I had told people that I thought Colleen was bipolar because of how she had reacted. In truth, she has been diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder which was caused by my affair and constant lying. My behavior was abusive towards her. Her negative but justified reactions to my continued affair made it easy for me to justify my having the affair. I laid the blame on her and our life at home. Sure, things were hard due to me being at school and work more than I was at home. Colleen was already depressed due to me always being gone and I felt that I was not appreciated for the hard work I was doing. I used this to play the martyr and actually believed I was right for feeling that way. I used this excuse again and again to justify having my affair and the more I told it , the more I believed it. Colleen tried everything to help our marriage that she could think of including marriage counseling which I went to reluctantly. I used all the little problems in our marriage to excuse myself for what I was doing, which went back and forth for several years. It ended March 2nd, 2007 when Colleen caught me living at my affair partner’s house, after I had moved out and told Colleen I was living with my friend Tony. During all this time, I continued to tell Colleen that I love her and wanted to stay married and work on our problems. We were in Christian marriage counseling at the time when she caught me again. Colleen had enough of my selfishness and filed for divorce. When family would ask me about what was happening, I would explain my side of the story to defend my actions and lied to you all by many omissions. It was much easier to blame someone else for what I was doing than to have to accept my own wrong doing. Colleen had left me several times to go and be with family for security and safety. She never left the kids with anyone except Lou and Terri who watched Gisele for about a month. Gisele and I stayed at Monica’s for 3 days during Thanksgiving 2004, not 3 months as rumored. This happened just two weeks after Colleen confronted me about my affair. During all of this, Colleen broke down many times and became severely depressed because of what I was doing to her. I was telling her one thing and doing the opposite. Even when things were at their worst, she still made sure Jon, Gisele and Louie were cared for. Colleen never had a drug problem or used drugs. Colleen never took vacations other than to stay with family, but I took several vacations with out her. She has never been a bad mother or wife. Having an affair is the worst solution to marriage problems and is one that sneaks up out of nowhere. I never talked to Colleen about our problems. Soon you are in so deep, you feel that it is probably easier to just give up than to try to go back and fix it. I am grateful that Colleen did not give up so easy. My actions have caused a lot of damage to Colleen and our family and will take a long time to repair. This is not a behavior that I learned from my family and I have no more excuses. The only person I can blame for all of this is myself. I am back in christian counseling and working through the causes of my problems. I hope everyone will forgive me and trust me again, especially Colleen.
Love, Jimmy
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