4 ms·
I don't regret a lot for long, I find it to be an incredibly depressing feeling and I try to make short business of any regrets I do have. I've found most of th
by mstade 10y ago
I don't regret a lot for long, I find it to be an incredibly depressing feeling and I try to make short business of any regrets I do have. I've found most of the time, actions (or inactions) that have lead to me regret can be reversed by sincere apologies, shifting your stance, or otherwise try to undo the thing causing you regret. In the case of inaction, if the train hasn't left the station...
But there is one thing I can't shake.
I met a girl a little over a decade ago, and fell madly in love. We became a couple, but due to various events our relationship ended. Not least because at one point years ago, I was put on the spot and asked where our relationship was headed, a thinly veiled attempt to get me to commit. I loved the girl – still do – but I wasn't ready to settle down and marry. I wanted to focus on my career and build a business and do all of these other things and I just couldn't commit. Not long thereafter, our relationship ended and I relocated to a different country.
It's cheesy and unoriginal, but it's the one thing I regret: not marrying that woman.
Before anyone comments to that effect: I don't have a particularly hard time dating, and have plenty of experience both before and after this woman. But I've never connected with anyone like that before, and it genuinely feels as though I've lost someone hugely important, like family. It's a very sad feeling and cheesy as it may be, it's my only real regret.
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- personlurking 10y agoI've been there (even the relocation to another country part). Only the woman in my life at the time wasn't asking me to commit, but she would have committed to me - that is, taken me seriously for the long-term - if I had had my shit together professionally (to have been someone with goals, a trajectory of sorts). It's been almost a decade now since then and I don't think of her anymore but it was hands-down the best, most exciting relationship I've had til now. On the other hand, in the breakup, she treated me really badly/poorly, so it remains like a song where the first 90% was great then someone decided to run their fingernails down a chalkboard for the finale. I heard through the grapevine that the next guy she dated, she stayed with and eventually married.
- ladytron 10y agoWhy not take a vacation and go find her now? Maybe she still feels the same way.
- artmageddon 10y agoIt's quite possible that the door on that opportunity may have closed, sadly.
- nstj 10y agoQuick phone call might be a little less stalkerish / cheaper on a risk adjusted basis.
- ak39 10y ago... add to that quick phone call some probing DD questions about her suboptimal existing relationship, and you could find some profitable arbritrage opportunities. :-)
- Tactic 10y agoI had a similar situation of the one that got away. For decades I told people that I regretted not pursuing our relationship further. After 20 someodd years we were both available and rekindled our relationship. Things were going well for months until I found out that she had cheated on her husband for years with a man and was continuing to see him while we were together. Honestly, I was happier with the dream of what I thought we would have been but I lost than the reality. I'm not claiming your experience would be the same at all, just saying to appreciate the what-if you can hold on to.
- emodendroket 10y agoI think we're all so conditioned to think about what we give up by marrying that it's easy to forget what you give up by not marrying.