As always. Feel welcome to disagree with me again. I've been missing it lately.
Of course he didn't have that family. And not only because of his actions, they were not sacrifices to his power. He lost his parents - it's the worst of tragedies, that no love of ours can make them live forever! And of course this inevitable loss is a thing that makes people feel pain always, even many years later. He lost Sonny - It's the business they've chosen. But of course he must have loved him more than any of his siblings. There was Carlo - what a tragedy it is that he ever got there, and met Connie! But he deserved what he got, and the only regret Michael could feel about him - is that this f--king traitor ever came to their home to destroy the happy family, ruin his sister's happiness and his beloved brother's life. Same goes to Tessio. He is a part of good old days, of many remembrances, but who could tell then that he will betray Michael and set him up?
Connie finally understood something in this life, she is with him, as must be her children.
And Fredo. Sure Michael never enjoyed the fact that he killed his father's son. But we know that he had to, it was a law - traitor can't be forgiven. He could not really repent that he did it - and even in GF3 he says that he doesn't repent anything he's done in his life. It was his duty, he was protecting his family.
What he regrets remembering old times is not his own actions, but the whole course of destiny, and really, when people have lost and suffered much, it's only natural to return to early remembrances of youth as a time of purer happiness, which they, usually, represent in almost every life. But noone can return their youth, as well as the bright ideals and maximalism they had then, and that's not the worst thing about it.
Years and dears are gone, but it's not a cause to be desperate, because it's inevitable.

But I hope you really don't think that Michael, the most powerful crime lord, who had to govern his empire and handle thousands of knotty problems every day for benefit of hundreds of people depending on him one way or another, could have much time for loneliness? You don't really suppose that if we are shown a moment when he sits musing on the fresh air, it is nearly possible that he spent hours after hours sitting there in useless reflection? He simply could not afford it!
I believe that he would be quite as lonely as any other person in the world, and we are all lonely, you know. No family can replace the one we grew in, and when you've lost even that, sure you would feel lonely. But that's exactly why he would never give his children away. Because they are his true family.
Beg to disagree.
1. Even GF3 states that he doesn't repent, so there's no chance for repentive man.
2. Whom did he hurt? Why does he have to seek forgiveness from Kay? It's he who must be forgiven, because it's he who betrayed.
3. He doesn't seek forgiveness from God, in fact even in GF3 the confession is forced on him. As to himself - by that time he must have actually come to terms with himself, one way or another. I don't see how he wronged his children, unless by sending them to Kay, who made them weak, stupid and shallow degenerates (what else could be expected from such person's breeding?)instead of leaving them at home and giving them normal education.
Of course there was Fredo, but as I wrote, Michael could regret having killed him, could regret that it had to be Fredo to betray him, but such feelings pass with time, and even if he still could sigh in darkness at night, he would never allow such sentiments interfere in other things he had to do, and of course it would not make him so desperately remorseful as it might make me, and you, and other good law-abiding people who never killed anyone at all.
I'll explain.
Here's a quote from my post in another debate, with you or not with you, I don't remember.
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"After all that we see and read, especially after the stare he gives her when he catches her visiting children, we must be convinced that he would never let her even approach them. That by killing his child she made him feel such pain, disappointment an even hatred, that it killed all his love and respect for her, whatever it could be, and killed forever. She could have no illusions about that, she wished to do it, she said “there would be no way Michael, no way you could ever forgive me.” And there is no way. Even if he didn’t kill her, that never means that he could forgive. And certainly, he is not an idiot to send his children to the only person in the world who would most surely teach them to hate him.
And of course, he would never say "I love you…Forgive me everything..." And he was not the man to dream every night about losing her, and children he is supposed to have given up himself.
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To that I have to add the following. He is a Sicilian. He can never forgive such a thing as killing his child. And the way it was done, intentionally, just to give him pain, to make him suffer - leaves no chance for Kay. This betrayal is the worst and meanest one compared to most ones in the trilogy. Look at his stare, look how he closes the door on her, how can you suppose that he will ever wish to see her??? And that he will not do everything in his power not to let her have any slightest influence with HIS children?
To be guided by SUCH a woman - what a benefit indeed!

As to children themselves, I'll share a thought with you. It makes the GF3 impossible, but I always had such impression. When Michael and Kay are having things out, we are shown the hotel corridor. Mary, who is too small to understand what was going on, is running around. Anthony, who must be at this time old enough to understand what they were saying, stands opposite the door, looking in front of himself, and listening intently. Words of the ongoing quarrell, shouted by Kay, are perfectly clear. If so, he heard everything. And of course, Kay's words "I killed your child, I didn't want to bring him into the world" etc could make no slight impression on a child's mind. He knows that she initiated the divorce, and that she killed his unborn brother. That's why it's Kay, not Michael ought to have problems with Anthony. And that is the explanation to the visit scene, when Kay is hugging Mary, but her son sits apart, and then she cries, begs even, "Anthony, please, kiss me once!" - and he doesn't move. Only after Connie's order he gets up unwillingly.
He's only 60 by GF3. Too early age for marasmus...
I believe that family, even in earlier years, was of great importance to Michael. And that's why he would never send his children away, to stupid and selfish bitch that he hates and despises.

If he would really control the strings all those years he would have taken care of it. It's really difficult for me to imagine what had to happen between GF2 and GF3 to make him a weak-willed helpless moron, bleatingly apologizing all the time. That's why I, personally, find GF3 quite as credible as GFR.