Mourning Breath
I was engaged to a woman 20 years ago. We were in college and in our mid-20s. I realized that I wasn't ready to get married and called off the engagement. I loved her and wanted to stay with her, but she broke off the relationship. I've had relationships since then, but I still regret not marrying her. She's married now, and I shouldn't even be thinking about her so many years later, but I can't seem to shake the loss of her. How do I get her -- and, moreover, the regret -- out of my head?
--Stuck
The reality is, you're the envy of a number of people -- like those who ran up $80,000 in legal fees battling for joint custody of the suede sectional and are now working as a manservant for their divorce lawyer while living in a tent in his backyard.
You've got a bad case of the "coulda shouldas," which, in psychology, is called "counterfactual thinking," as in thinking "counter" to the actual "facts" of what happened. It's basically a mental redo of the past -- imagining what could have been. There's healthy counterfactual thinking -- using how things turned out as a reminder to act differently in the future. Also healthy is recognizing that things could have turned out worse, like with all the divorcey fun above, plus having to borrow your kids like library books on alternate weekends.
The unhealthy kind of counterfactual thinking is what you're doing -- setting aside the now to obsess over how great things surely would have been, "if only..." Never mind how pointless this is, considering that the closest thing you own to a working time machine is probably a battery-operated cuckoo clock your grandma gave you. And never mind how this woman is forever 24 in your head -- preserved like a bug in amber at the peak of her hotitude -- and never does things those pesky real women do, like nagging you to fix that broken thingie until your head is about to explode all over the kitchen wallpaper.
You can get out of Regretsville. You just need to have a funeral for your relationship. And yes, I know this sounds like a ridiculously hokey stunt, but more and more, researchers are finding that the physical is tied to the psychological -- like that physical acts of "closure" lead to psychological closure and that treating thoughts as physical objects makes them as disposable as objects. In a study by psychologist Pablo Brinol, participants who wrote down troubling thoughts and then ripped them up were found to have "mentally discarded them" and actually experienced relief. Following their lead, put this behind you psychologically by doing it physically: Write down what happened. Burn the paper in a dish. Maybe do a little ceremony. And then scatter the ashes as you would those from Fluffy's urn.
And, finally, have a little compassion for yourself. Okay, so it's best not to follow up "Will you marry me?" with "Uh...take-back!" But you were young and probably immature, and you realized that you'd gotten yourself in over your head. And to your credit, you had the guts to admit that you weren't ready, unlike all the people who come to the realization that they aren't but go through with the wedding anyway. ("Who'll join me in a toast to 'miserably ever after!'?")
That's happened to me, to look back on a regretful relationship, when I had nothing better in my life right now. Now that I've been happily married for 22 years, those moments haven't happened in a long time.
Bill at August 25, 2015 5:53 PM
Two thoughts:
My mom told me that my aunt, her big sister, had told her that on her wedding day she knew it was all a terrible mistake, but she couldn't bear to tell all those nice people who had come for the wedding that she was calling it off. Three kids later, she divorced the schmuck. He never paid a cent in child support, she went through several years of dangerous drinking, and, while she held a decent job and raise her kids well, she never got over it. I don't think she ever managed to figure out a happy life. So it sounds to me like the LW dodged a bullet.
And re the funeral thing: About 18 months into our relationship, it became clear that the man who has now been my husband for 20 years was holding off on commitment because he had a fantasy girl in his head -- heck, I could *see* her, dancing off on the horizon. I finally confronted him about it (as I recall, I actually said "When are you going to figure out that I'm the best damned thing that ever happened to you?"). He agreed -- and he created a banishing ritual for the fantasy girl.
She hasn't bothered us since. :-)
Dana at August 26, 2015 8:40 AM
I have the perfect closure ritual planned for my marriage. When my wife of 23 years moved out, she left behind the champagne glasses from our wedding, which were engraved with our names and the date. On the day my divorce is final I will, mirroring the Jewish wedding custom, step on those glasses and break them.
Rex Little at August 26, 2015 10:39 AM
REX: before you break them, you have to drink champagne with one/several good friends.
even if you are totally broke then, cheap champagne, that's a celebration.
nico@VER at August 27, 2015 2:27 PM
There are a few might-have-been spouses in my life. As I look at them now, they would have all been disastrous for me.
jefe at August 27, 2015 5:21 PM
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