The Regret Of Having Fallen In Love
The regret of having fallen in love is a fairly common experience. Many people have experienced events in their emotional history that they prefer to forget and people of whom they have unpleasant memories.
How did I fall in love with him or her? How could I not have known who he really was before? Why did I do so many things for someone who deserved nothing?
These questions are often found in our minds. They feed discomfort, frustration and the memory of bad memories. We often hear that bad relationships are rich in learning.
This is not always true, however. It is difficult to learn something when we experience traumatic pain, and even more difficult when we have a negative view of ourselves. From being in a non-rewarding bond for so long… What can we do about these situations?
The keys to dealing with the regret of having fallen in love
The regret of having fallen in love is a reality that science has studied for years. Most of us often think about things we should or shouldn’t have done. As well as the links they should have avoided.
Studies, like those conducted at the University of Illinois, for example, show us that this phenomenon is more common than we think. This type of reverie is referred to in this work as counterfactual thoughts. It is interesting to know that both men and women suffer from regret that they started certain relationships.
Moreover, if the psychological field is interested in this series of experiences, this is due to a very concrete and important fact. Regret and counterfactual thinking have a major impact on emotional well-being, decision-making, behavior regulation, and mental health.
Therefore, it is useless to say to someone “don’t worry, we always learn from bad relationships”. Seeing certain learning while experiencing great suffering is not easy. Let’s see how to handle this type of experience.
Clarify in detail what you regret
The regret for falling in love doesn’t just come from feeling frustrated at having invested time and emotions in someone who just didn’t deserve it. It is something deeper and more complex.
One can feel bad for having given up on the dreams of this ex-partner. Also for not having realized before that they were deceptive.
The person may even regret not fighting enough for this relationship, neglecting the other, or making mistakes. Repentance has many forms and languages. Therefore, it is essential to clarify what really hurts us and what specific dimensions are the ones that make us suffer.
Learn to deal with all emotions
Do you really know what the emotion of repentance “is made of? Some people point out that it is a useless psychological reality because it blocks us, because nothing follows from it.
However, this emotional construction hides the heaviness of sadness which should encourage us to reflect on what happened. It also incorporates rage and anger, emotions that push us to react, to face what hurts or disturbs.
Regret also contains the mark of disappointment. Another dimension is to understand that, to live, it is also to suffer disappointments, to then concentrate on oneself and understand that one deserves better.
Free yourself from the guilt: you didn’t know what was going to happen
The lived relationship has not brought you happiness. You feel regret and even anger that you put high hopes into something that went nowhere. Now the last thing to do in these situations is to fuel the guilt or shame.
You didn’t know what was going to happen, you don’t have a magic crystal ball that reveals everything that is going to happen in the near future. Falling in love and entering into a relationship is an act we do with the heart. Doing the unspeakable to someone is the norm in any relationship.
Because to love is to fight, it is to work for what you want. We cannot regret it, because each of these dimensions makes us precious and noble. We can never predict what will happen next.
The regret of having fallen in love is one more phase of mourning
The regret of having fallen in love is one dimension of the grief over a breakup. When we end the emotional bond with someone, it is common for the sting of regret to appear. However, the last thing to do is to “freeze” the grief at this point, to stay with that pain that does not progress, with the discomfort that does not resolve.
It is essential to accept what has happened, to free yourself from guilt, to trust yourself and to have confidence in the future. If later on we manage to learn from it, that is ideal. In the meantime, there are experiences that require only that, to be lived, accepted, and then overcome.
Our thoughts Confused grief is an extremely complicated loss management process because the person does not know why they have been left.
