I'd like to resume contact and apologise.

[mckenzie]

I'll try and make this as concise as possible.

Years and years ago I did an endurance event with 2 friends (husband and wife, lets called them Mr and Mrs) and 2 of their friends. Before the event, I was good friends with the couple, primarily with Mrs but I think I had a special father/brother type of relationship Mr, with Mrs's blessing (they were both that bit older than me). We socialised as well as doing our sport together.
At the end of this particular event, Mrs and I had finished some way in front of Mr and the other three. I decided to go back to the hotel without waiting for the others to finish (we had our back up team at the finish, I went home with my partner and Mrs stayed with the three other members of the back up team to wait for Mr and the other two competitors. It had been a hell of a long day (it was by now actually the early hours of the next day hence my desire for my bed).

I have always regretted not staying. Hugely. From the moment I woke up the following morning until now, some 20 years later, I have regretted my actions.

After this incident I felt that the relationship between me and Mr changed and I sensed that he was, quite rightly, disappointed in me for not having waited for the rest of the team.

Since then, the couple have moved away. A few hours away to start with and we maintained contact and visited them in their new home but it was never quite right with Mr, although lovely as ever with Mrs. Since we have started our family and they have moved further away, the relationship have dwindled down to infrequent e mails and birthday/christmas cards between Mrs and me.

This last year, i have been seeing a counselor as it seems that finally, after 40 years, I realised that losing my dad when i was so young (he died suddenly when i was a 5) was a big deal and I was ready to mourn.

In today's session we discussed endings as we have agreed that we are probably ready for me to stop the counselling. The ending that i have described above came up and i realised that it was so important to me, Mr was important to me, (as was Mrs, very much so but I feel that i lost her friendship because she moved so far away as to be unsubstainable as it was whereas i lost Mr's friendship because of my actions that day).

So, here's the wwyd bit.

Can I make contact with Mr directly and try and talk to him about the old situation, apologise and rekindle the friendship, albeit long distance (they now live in another country)?

Shall I make contact via Mrs, perhaps ask her to be the middle man?
Should I leave well alone, accept I made a mistake and get over myself?

Sorry guys, very long and quite convoluted but if you've got to the end, thank you.
And if you recognise me from this post, oops .

TBH i don't think you should, as you said yourself the friendship has changed and they have also moved away.

If you bring this up now, the Mr will probably get embarrassed and not know what to say.

You made a mistake and I understand where you're coming from but i think too much time has passed and everyone has moved on. HTH

thanks aluvss.

They probably haven't placed so much importance on you leaving as you have. I would leave the relationship as it is as anything else might be strange to them after so much time.

I would leave well alone, as it sounds like your lives diverged for a lot of reasons, I find it hard to believe that the events of the endurance sport could have caused the friendship to drift, but then I am unfamiliar with sport etiquette.

He would have to be pretty petty to end a friendship with you over you needing to get back to the hotel after such a knackering day (although i don't understand also and there may be some etiquette here as chaos says). And to hold it against you for years.

I suspect you have just drifted apart an dwould have done anyway.

I can understand how the counselling has maybe reopened wounds for you and maybe it is worth trying to see them again, as a couple - but in a more light-hearted and relaxed way. Just happen to be 'passing through' the town for example.

What sort of relationship do you want from them?

I don't think the friendship ended because of my actions that night but I think it changed it. In our training sessions we always were a team, the front runner would always wait at various stages for the back runner. On occasions, I was the back runner and I always appreciated the fact that i knew someone would come back for me or wait for me.

But that night, I didn't wait for the last ones. I do appreciate that I might be making more of this than is necessary/real.

Mr also wasn't keen on children and didn't hide the fact that when i had children he wouldn't be around (please don't think harshly of him for this, it was his choice to not be a dad, he was never unkind to children, he just didn't get any enjoyment from them). The last time I saw him I was heavily pregnant with DC1 and he jokingly (or semi-jokingly anyway) said "goodbye, see you in 16 years time!".

I do think you are right that we would have drifted apart because of our lifestyles , logistics etc. I really appreciate all your replies. Thank you very much.

So it's ok for Mr to have the hump with you not waiting for him, but you should take his "jokes" about not wanting to be around any children you might have.

Doesn't sound like much of a friend, to me.