Permanent marks

My thoughts often return to you. I wonder where you are and if you think of me as often as I think of you. I dont think you will ever know how badly and deeply you hurt me. Today i wish I could say I am happy... I am married to a wonderful woman who I love very much, but.. Due to her mental illness I will never be able to make her as happy as I made you and that makes me very sad. When I was deployed I know I wasn't allowed to contact you often, and only through conventional mail, I knew my long letters would never be enough to keep you. Not over those three years. I am sure that we would have stayed with each other until the day we died had I been at home with you during that time, but you changed in so many ways while I was gone. So many ways that were not possible to see from so far away. I guess I was blind to what I didn't want to see. I noticed that you stopped signing your letters with "I love you" but I ignored that I noticed it. It shouldn't have been such a surprise to see you had found another man.. But you will never understand how the ground fell out from beneath my feet when that native girl asked your name so she could find you on Facebook and show me a picture of you kissing some stranger asking me, "Is this her?" I nearly threw up. How could I be the last person to know about this? your perfect lips on another man's face. I could never forget the way I felt in that moment. I asked you about it and you accused me of trying to make you feel bad. Not even an apology. You will never be able to say I treated you poorly. Not once in all the years we had been together. A year later you informed me that you were going to marry this man. All of the hopes and dreams we had built together were going to be given to him, I had been pushed out of our life. You married him on the day before I returned. A bitter slap in the face. I have always wondered if you were afraid youd change your mind if I had gotten home before you married him... I ran into you once. In the grocery store. My mind went completely blank. You hugged me and asked how I was doing.... How life was.. small talk. it was as if you were completely oblivious to how badly a permanently you scarred me. You seemed happy to see me, but I had to go sit down for a while because it was so exhausting for me. All of the feelings I had spent years trying to forget came flooding back, the love I had for you, the excruciating pain and feelings of betrayal... I thought I was over it, but I guess I wasn't. But what more was there to say? I was feeling too much to have any words. There's nothing that I or she could have said to make anything better or different. She belonged to someone else. Years passed and I fell in love with a woman who treated me far better than she ever did.. We got married and had two children. I deal with the regular pains of life and my marriage isn't perfect, it suffers from my wife's illness but we've always been there for each other. I don't want out of my situation, but still some nights I lay awake and wonder... what life must have been life had I stayed... I feel terrible thinking it because I'm sure things wouldn't be perfect but.. am I had for thinking that maybe I would have been happier had I ended up with you? Maybe it's better not to know.