I would agree with the sweeping concensus that LW should sustaind the information she has without contacting the widow. There are several reasons:

I believe LW's impulse is not truly driven by a desire to "help" the widow "piece together" the mosaic of a dissocaited life that Peter lead, but rather to expiate her own guilt via "confession." It won't work, it is the wrong place, and it will only have several ways of backfiring. In addition, if Peter's widow is at all cogent, she has more than enough "information" to help her "process" Peter's suicide.....

I doubt that LW actually has a real grasp on what drove Peter. From the gist of it, I would hazard a guess that Peter was a victim of childhood sexual trauma, and that his increasingly obsessive sexual behaviors, including incestuous thoughts and fantasies, were driven by that trauma via "re-enactment" or "behavioral memory." I can hardly speak to that with certainty, but the generalized behavior of Peter suggests that - the dissociation, the secrecy, the repetitive sexual behaviors, the increasing focus on pain-based and incest-based scenarios.............. leads me to hazard that guess. I note that I am a survivor of childhood sexual trauma, and that, in the support rooms that I have sat in, Peter;'s story would have "fit". I would go so far as to hazard a thought that Peter's suicide was motivated by extreme self-anger and a deep sense of worthlessness, both easy byproducts of a traumatic childhood.

I also believe LW is motivated by a hope that a conversation with the wife might actually help LW come to terms with Peter's suicide, which is not articulated in her letter, but seems to be a potent emotional possibility. That is, of course, the last thing that the grieving and angry widow needs to have on her hands just now as she pieces together a more sane life post-Peter.

Cary's comment on both anger and sympathy for the villain and victim of suicide is apt; my brother, raised in the same toxic household as me, chose suicide at the age of 49. My feelings of guilt, anger and grief were, for a time, seemingly insurmountable. Ultimately, I came to a vaguely Zen-like conclusion, that the true reasons for my brother's successful suicide died with him. Second-guessing, assuming guilt, assuming anger, are all useful to experince in depth, then release. My brother made his decision, my decision is to heal my life from both childhood and adult traumas, and move forward.

So, LW deserves kudos for turning her life around.... nurturing a fragile sense of self-worth until she can participate as an equal partner in what sounds like a healthy and rewarding life-relationship. In doing so, she can continue tolook at her own behaviors with Peter as "lessons learned",. privately mourn his loss, and move on.

It may be appropriate for LW to think of some way to memorialize Peter...... a contribution to , for example, Survivors of Incest Anonymous, or Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous......The latter, certainly, a program that Peter could have made use of with some depth, had he found his way to their doors...... If that does not speak to her, perhaps she can set aside a time to meditate, in some appropriate setting, on Peter and his life - a private, very private, memorial service of one. But - speak to the wife out of some misguided sense of "helping the wife come to terms"....... absolutely not. She has nothing to bring to the widow save more pain and anguish and - potentially, more confusion.