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.
Sarasims,
If you absolutely can not change the numbers then there is another option.
Deleate w/o reading the messages.
Every time he messages you and you read the message you ask the questions again…..
Your sitting there asking if he is working on the failed marriage or if he is with the OW.
THAT IS his control over you. He “feeds” you a little bit of information in a text and you want to know more. That is having power over you in a very negative way. And that power gives him all of the control. Believe it or not he has you right where he wants you.
Sarasims,
He is trying to keep you right were you are.
Involved. Emotionaly invested. Reading his text. Questioning if he might still care. Wondering. Giving him even one split second of your time. And finally lots and lots of space in your head.
Yes….it does make sense. That’s why he wanted to know if I loved him….that would make me emotiionally invested.
I do know this much about his thought process. This is “PROVIDED” what he says about the marriage is true. He wants to “make things right” at home and then have me be the OW. That is…..if no one else is around.
Actually, nothing is as it seems to be….so I probably dont know a damn thing about anything! But what I do know is that I will not answer that text. In the past, I tried to reason with him. Feel sorry for him. Get him to talk to me so that he could feel better. Empathize with his problems. Provide guidance when asked. Just be there!!! But I will not do it again. I could care less if he’s alive or dead. I could care less about his problems. And in reality…I think his problems are hilarious bc he brings them on himself!
And yes…..I do believe you when you say that he has me right where he wants me!
Matt – I did want to ask you about the anger stage. Because I have actually been there. Before….during the last times he came and went. And when he kicked me in the stomach and left he always made me so mad that I would unload on him in an email and tell him what a SORRY ass he was…..I felt so much better. Then about 2 weeks later I would feel guilty and horrible about what I had done. Saying to myself I had no solid proof to blame him for the things I had blamed him for. Is that stupid or what? Of course I had every reason to blame him. I knew what he was up to. But I felt that I didn’t have the right bc I couldn’t prove it in stone. This time he doesn’t seem to want to make me angry. He doesn’t want to push me away. Just keep me at bay……wondering. I’m trying not to let it bother me. I’m trying to say this is the end and mean it. But even now I find myself wondering……if I do this, what will he think. How will he react if I don’t answer, if I don’t respond? And I know I’m playing this game with him just by thinking those thoughts. I don’t want to care….really I don’t.
Sarasims:
We cycle through the various stages of recovery. Like you, I still had my momentary flashes of anger at S’s treatment. But I always stuffed it down — for all the reasons you articulated, and then some. When you finally get to the stage I term “righteous anger” is when you realize that what S has done to you is inexcusable, unacceptable, immoral, etc and that there is no going back. Kathy’s articles on the stages really are illuminating — and when she published her article on the anger stage — boy-oh-boy did we have fun.
Regarding your obsessive thinking about him “what will he think. How will he react if I don’t answer” yada, yada, yada. Here is something that I learned and that most everyone on this site will vouch for. Once an S decides that there is nothing left for him from a source of supply (you) — they move on and don’t give you a single thought. Not a one. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Nyet. Nunca. So, if you really do want him out of your life and stick to your resolve that he is not getting anything further from you, he will move on and you will occupy exactly 0% of his memory and thoughts.
That is not to say that he may not take a run at you in the future. This site is replete with stories from people who years after they drove off their S, that the S slithers back into their lives because they want to see if there’s any supply left from them to parasitically suck out of the victim.
As I said, this fight boils down to a fight for scarce resources. Scarce resources = you (and your life).
sarasims,
Kind of think of it as he has this uncanny ability to know WHEN to do WHAT to keep you within his “reach”.
And he plants all these seeds to keep you thinking about him and his whereabouts while he is on his way continuing to abuse his OW….He keeps his “cycle” evolving this way. In case OW gives him a boot he has another place to go to.
THINK ABOUT it Sara….Think about how this works.
1) He kicks you in the stomach and left.
2) You get angry and email him and tell him off. (RIGHTFULLY so)
3) About 2 weeks later YOU feel guilty and horrible.
What is wrong with this picture?
Everything, because you had nothing to feel guilty about! You have every right to be angry.
Actions speak louder than words……If you think about his actions and refuse to listen to his words you will see this in a different light.
Matt and others who have been NC a long time….Maybe it is because the P/S/N whatever the hell he was kept recontacting me over a 40+ year period that even though it has been 1 year and 10 months since I have heard anything from him or been emailed, etc…..and I made it very clear that if he contacted me again, his family would be told to ask him to please leave me alone, etc., which he doesn’t want to happen…still, I can’t shake this “unresolved” feeling. I have a Plan B for almost every scenario…(hang up without a word if he calls, etc.)…but how do you shake that last little remnant from your mind. I guess I need to reread Louise’s post on NC begins in your mind. But just wonder if others struggle with that YUCKY nagging feeling that it ain’t over yet.
Pardon my off topic post but I wanted to share with you caring and compassionate folks.
I watched a disturbing, shocking yet compelling documentary last night titled, “Crips and Bloods: Made in American”
I’ll be honest, I was thoroughly ignorant of the vast devastation, the continuous violence and tragic fatal losses of young lives on a daily basis in South Central LA.
And also of the heartbreaking despair and anguish festering in the hearts, minds and spirits of this urban war zone community.
I also needed to hear the powerful African-American history lesson offered by the film’s makers. Opened my eyes to the vicious cycle that constant oppression can perpetuate over many generations.
The interviews with current and past gang members were intense, disturbing, enlightening, horrifying and truly heartbreaking.
Many of the young gang members are NOT psychopaths, monsters, animals. They are simply trying to survive with the limited recourses available. No, I’m not a bleeding heart but there is no way I can dismiss the tragic consequences caused by broken families, utter poverty, drugs, deeply rooted rage and self-hatred exhibited by people in the community.
This film affected me like none have in a long time. This war zone isn’t some section in a third world, but occuring in one of the most affluent states in American society. How literally appalling that this soul destroying reality is allowed to fester, day in and day out, for years upon years.
The end of the film is touching, inspiring, and yearning for change as many former gang members have decided to offer their help, experience and guidance to the hurting youths by founding outreach and educational programs.
The older generation is giving back something priceless, and valuable to the younger generation. Hope, genuine care, the chance at recovery and renewal is permeating through the commnunity and is making small, yet promising positive changes.
I look forward to keeping up to date on SC LA. It’s important to me to believe that good things can happen to suffering people when others care deeply.
Janie,
I too worry about our society when 75% of the young people (just read that statistic yesterday) are NOT eligible to join the armed services because of 1) criminal records 2) obesity 3) illiteracy (not in that order) this is the ones from 17 to 27. Pretty pathetic isn’t it.
75% of those same people do NOT have a high school diploma. Of the ones who do have a highschool diploma a vast majority can’t pass the entrance exam into the service. (equivalent to the SAT)
How are you going to motivate a kid to stay in school so he can get a job that requires he ask “Would you like fries with that?” for minimum wage when his neighborhood friends are making hundreds of dollars a day selling drugs on the corner?
I don’t think the “drug culture” is totally at fault for our society today (and the rise of gangs) because it is multi-factoral, but at the same time, many ytimes poverty comes from the fact that the person is not functional in society, and sees no need to work in order to survive. Of course that breeds generations of people “on welfare” and in the “counter culture” making money from drugs and crime.
I have been reading Booker T. Washingtons’ book “Up from Slavery” and this remarkable man founded a school and then a university with hard work and ambition and a desire to see his race become productive members of the society. He knew that only through hard work could any of them succeed.
His school required though, that any student who could not afford tutition go to owork for the school 10 hours a day at things like making bricks and then could have 2 hours of instruction daily. If after two years they were still there, they had money saved up to pay room board and tuition. He said “they were worth educating” and had proven it.
All the buildings on the campus and the furniture, including the bricks were done by student labor. It not only built the buildings but taught the students a trade as well as gave them an education.
The old CCC camps and the WPA programs were along the same lines (for both races) it was WORK-fare, and work as well as education was stressed.
Too many people today are not interested in working for waht they have—I’ve seen too many people with “etitlement” mentalities that neither wanted to work OR educate themselves. How do you motivate these people? That’s a question that no one knows the answer to. Professor Washington was able to motivate his students by stressing that honest work even at “manual” labor was uplifting.
I think one of the reasons we have a huge influx of Mexicans coming to our country is that those people, like Professor Washington’s student were and are willing to LABOR in order to educate their children and get a better life for themselves and their children. I say we keep the Mexicans who come here to work (not the ones who come here to deal drugs and steal) and send an equal number of our own people who don’t want to either work or get an education to oMexico and let them get some life lessons in survival—work or starve.
I think John Smith at Jamestown had the right idea when his uppity colonists were too “good” to work even when they were starving. “Work or starve”—our society is becoming a society of all “white collar” service personnel and a good deal if not most of the manufacturing has gone out of the country to countries who do have people who will work to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
Family values are important, and stressing education is also important, but I know many many people who had no “family values” imparted by their parents, and had little or in some cases NO education (couldn’t write their own names) who some how motivated themselves to not only work so they wouldn’t starve, but to educate their children to follow them and work and also learn and be good citizens.
As long, I think, as football stars, rap and music and movie stars (who live openly dysfunctional and drug ridden lives) are the heroes of our young people, rather than the teachers and the working men and women, I think our society as a whole has a lot of work and change to do. When the Madoffs and all the other crooked politicians and “big wigs” reign supreme, and known crooks are elected to office and high positions, we need to start at the top and work our way down. Also, start at the bottom and work our way up. It also makes me sad, but I don’t think the way things have been going like “throwing money” at schools and yet the quality of education keeps going lower and lower, is the answer. It is WE THE PEOPLE who must make the changes.
I’m off my soap box now.