By Ox Drover
“The Road Not Taken” is always out there beckoning to us. I should, I could ”¦ Why did I do that? Why didn’t I do that? Regrets!
Having been involved with a psychopath, and reeling from the devastation in the wake of the relationship, leads us to ask ourselves what might have happened if we had made other choices.
I question myself—if I had chosen differently, would the relationship have been a success? If I had dated John or Frank instead of the psychopath, would I now be happily married in a solid relationship? If I had just done things differently, like I started to, would it have been better? If I had just gotten out of the relationship sooner, or later, would I now be better off?
With our regrets, we beat ourselves up for being so stupid to put up with the abuse. We saw the red flags of suspicion early on, felt the sting and pain of his words, his disrespect, yet, now we regret not paying attention to ourselves back then. How much better our lives would have been if we had only listened to our own intuition, to the things we really knew, really saw, but brushed aside, thought we could fix.
We searched for the words, the perfect words, to explain to him how he was hurting us. Why couldn’t we find those perfect words, the ones we were so sure would make him treat us better?
Regret is normal
Regret in the past choices we have made in life: Go to work and get married, or go to college and get an education. Have children, or wait. According to those who study regrets, having regrets as we mature is a normal, natural and a universal human emotion. Neal Roese, Ph.D., a psychology professor at the University of Illinois says, “Regret is a very complicated emotion that involves all these things (pain and fear) coming together—it’s raw feeling plus all the complicated imaginings of future possibility.”
Another psychology professor, Carsten Wrosch, Ph. D., at Concordia University in Montreal, has linked regrets to many physical and social problems, which include sleeping problems, headaches, migraines, panic disorder and even skin conditions.
Henry David Thoreau said, “To regret deeply is to live afresh.”
Letting go
If we continually dwell on our past mistakes and missed opportunities, this consumes our ability to live and enjoy the present. Letting go of regrets though, is not a one-time event; it is a process of disentangling ourselves from them.
One of the ways suggested to start to let go of our regrets over past decisions is to consider it final. I find that when I have a decision to make, once I finally decide that decision is final, anxiety about making that decision seems to go away. Looking at that decision later, whether it turned out to be good or bad, I am more able to accept it.
People who study regrets and decision making also note that if we can “fix” a past mistake or correct it, our regrets tend to hang on longer and be stronger, but if we accept the fact that we made a bad decision that can’t be fixed, we tend to let go of it more easily.
Having regrets for past decisions, and especially regrets related to our relationship with the psychopath(s) in our lives, is normal and natural. As long as we hang on to those regrets and try to second guess ourselves, though, it impedes our healing and moving on.
Letting go of those regrets, the self-recrimination for our part in the relationship, for not finding the perfect solution, for not leaving sooner, or any of a thousand other choices we made, will be an ongoing process. But it will lead us, if we let it, to using those choices to make a better life for ourselves now and in the future.
Dearest Oxy, thank you so much! Im OK today! Looking forward to seeing my new “KIDs” tomorrow.God is so good to me to give me a brand new set of adult kids! Its a bit like the story of Job, he lost everything, but God gave him back everything he lost, his health, his wealth, his livestock, a new wife and a new set of Kids!! And 7 fold what he had before!
{i presume he got a new wife, his old one sounded like a P! “Curse god and die! what kind of encouragement is that?} I hope he left her, or she died, LOL!!
Thanks again dearest OXY!! and Love, Gem.XX
Well, Gem, if she wasn’t a new wife, she at least had to have 10 more kids! LOL That in itself (another ten pregnancies) was a pretty big punishment to my way of thinking! LOL
I know what you mean though, I feel that way about my adopted son, D…God gave him to me to replace the son I lost and he is a jewel of high price! I literally owe my life to him!
I am glad that you have your new family of love! Because that is what FAMILY is all about—LOVE—not blood.
This post hits home. I find myself frequently wondering “what would my life be like now if I had married a long term boyfriend I had in highschool?” I know it would be better, the boyfriend had so much character and was a good person. The guy I chose to marry seemed so much like my brothers and ‘fit’ so well with my dysfunctional family. THAT is my biggest regret in my life, marrying someone who even set the red flags off when we were dating, and I STILL married him!
Great article. I regret everything with the S and I have to stop it. Everyone please wish me luck. I am going to try and petition the court for my ex to have supervised visits with our 3 year old. I heard it is very hard though to do.
I am trying to get my argument together. He is inconsistent. He has received 2 DUI’s. I don’t know where he lives and with whom. He doesn’t use common sense. She has asthma but and has been to the er but he doesn’t care.
There is so much physical, sexual and emotional abuse in the world that I am just scared. Why do I have to wait until something happens. I believe he is living with his mistress and 4 kids ranging in ages from 2-13. There are cruel kids in the world and I don’t know how her kids are. I don’t even know who she is but judging by her character from having a child with my husband during the marriage she is a low life scumbag.
He is supposed to get our daughter tomorrow but I don’t want her to go. It is halloween and he “doesn’t celebrate” it. I want my daughter to enjoy it. Plus lately this may seem far off but I have been thinking about the flu and swine flu. My ex is so stupid and dumb that if one of those kids had it he wouldn’t care to subject my child to it. He wouldn’t use common sense and not have his daughter around it. One day it was freezing cold and he didn’t know her coat was in her backpack. He brought her home at night with no coat and I was mad. He said “what”. I grabbed her and slammed the door in his face. Any other reasonable person would have given her a sweater and just rolled up the sleeves.
I can’t stand my ex and I want him out of our life. It has taken me awhile to realize it but I now know. He is not a good person and he can’t help it.
Thank you for this post, very timely for me as this is something that is causing me a lot of pain.
Oxy – Very well said! I almost want to puke when I say this, but here goes. I guess (HE) was what it took to wake me up, to make me respect myself, to make me see my flaws, to make me untangle the mess. The one thing I have not been able to overcome or stop thinking about is ‘ maybe he is happy now and really in love and in a good relationship’ and I was at fault. But I would never in a million years want to live with such evil again.
henry,
(HE) is never really in love. (HE) has always been an illusion, and will continue to be an illusion, no matter what appearence of happiness is portrayed. With this in mind, (HE) will never be in a good relationship.
You, are at fault for nothing.
I second what Isabell says. Amen to that!
Of course I have a problem with shaking the thought that the p is now happy and all too so I understandingly and gently say Oxy needs to chase you (henry) down with the skillet! Not me though this is about you and your thoughts! Love, hugs, and prayers!
nic,
Be extremely careful in how you present your concerns. Read up on Parental Alienation Syndrom. If the court percieves you as wanting to punish your ex, control and alienate his relationship as a parent, embarrass and humiliate him through supervised visits, etc., YOU will lose custody.
Focus on your concern for the best interest of your child, as it relates to the unsafe choices your ex has made resulting in him getting 2 DUI’s. This is a real safety concern. Now, if the DUI’s were 10 years ago, and has had a spotless record since. If you have no evidence that he’s a heavy drinker, you will be perceived of attempting to alienate him from your child’s life.
Leave your concerns about the things you fear could happen, as well as your worries about cruel children, and the fact that your child didn’t have a coat on, etc….at home. If you have no proof of abusive behavior, you cannot speculate that their will be abusive behavior. And, trying to cut the father out of the child’s life, just because he is a jerk, and you realize this now, will serve to discredit YOU in court. It sucks, I know. The system is perverted, in my opinion. But it is, what it is, and you must learn to function within the system.
One last thing… DON’T EVER express directly, or indirectly that you want him out of your children’s lives. To do so is a guaruntee that it will be YOU that is legally cut out of your child’s life.
Focus on the real and factual danger, the DUI’s; especially if he received them, when your child was with him. This is considered child endangerment. Make sure you have documented proof of whatever it is you are going to present as your argument to the court. If you don’t have facutal, reliable, credible proof of what you are alledging, you could be setting yourself up.
Be wise, my dear… Be very wise.
Its wierd.,if they really{narcs and Ps } cant help the way they behave,its tempting to feel a tiny bit sorry for them, like the are wired all wrong, have something missing in their DNA, wiring, whatever. But its not something like colour blindness, or being tone deaf.They are malignant, psychotic, dangerous, treacherous, envious. I mean if a blind person bumped into you, they say” sorry,I didnt mean to hurt you, I just cant see you.”Are Ps blind like that? Or are they deliberately mean, hateful scheming, treacherous? Or are they just blind?A friend of mind said of my daughter,{then aged about 13,} “Theres something wrong with her. I cant place it, but shes emotionally flat.” I was offended at the time ,but she was right. Even my daughters ex said years ago, when he was playing around with the kids, and she was looking on, blank face. he said,”Its called fun, Deb!!”And one day when Holly, then 3, and I were scuffing in the Autumn {Fall} leaves, looking for pixies, her Mum said,”Come on, Holly!” “Mummy, Granny and I are looking for fairies!” D .just glared at her, and yanked her away.Of course, she would never be able to play pretend with her little girl, all she saw were leaves. Its sad, but the only thing that helps me feel not too sorry for her,is,if shes emotionally flat, presumably shes not capable of feeling acute emotional suffering and pain. I really hope this is true, as shes still my daughter and i dont want her to suffer. I should,but I dont. I feel sorry for her, but sorrier for me for being suckerd by her for 30 years! No longer, God give me strength!Love gem,XX