Mental Health: Let Go of Regret, Resentment to Focus on Your Future
It doesn’t matter whether it was you or your ex who initiated ending your marriage. Going through a divorce can be a painful experience. You may be feeling a mixture of emotions. Perhaps relief is combined with residual anger and sadness or grief. Any feelings that come up for you are okay and natural.
It’s what you choose to do with those feelings that make the difference. Do you want this divorce to negatively hanging on in your life? Or would you like to move through the process and on to a happier life?
Joan and Jack had been married for about 18 years before divorcing. Their marriage ended quite bitterly with Joan’s alcohol abuse and Jack’s affair taking center stage. To make matters worse, Joan, who was granted primary custody of their four children, feels that the final agreement was not fair financially. After investing all of her family inheritance in Jack’s medical education during their marriage, she wanted more compensation.
Flash forward about 15 years and the bitterness is still raging for this former couple especially for Joan. They’ve both moved on and enjoy long-term relationships, but there is palpable tension when they have to be in the same space at weddings or other family gatherings. Their children bear much of the brunt of the unresolved feelings as visits are peppered with Joan’s jealousy and gossiping about her ex.
Unfortunately, the story of Joan and Jack is not uncommon. If you are going through a divorce, ask yourself if you want to still carry around the hurt and angry feelings you may have today 15 or even five years from now?
If your answer is “no,” you’ll need to deal with the two R’s, Regret and Resentment. Here are a few ideas to help
1. Regret:
When any relationship ends, there are probably some things (or maybe even lists of things) you wish had gone differently. Regret tends to become stuck, however, when you fixate on that list of “what ifs.” Soon you can only see (and feel) the “what ifs” and find yourself looking backward at your past rather than forward to your future. There is nothing wrong with learning from the past and using previous relationships to create a future one that is what you want. The key here is to recognize what you want to experience differently in your next relationship and make that your focus, not the regret.
2. Resentment:
Joan felt a lot of resentment after she gave all of her inheritance money to fund Jack’s medical degrees and then was short-changed in the divorce agreement. And this was just one source of anger and pain for Joan.It may make sense that Joan would feel this way. But does she really want to continue to feel resentment 15 (and more) years later?
It is important to allow yourself to feel whatever comes up for you as you go through a divorce. At the same time, however, if you continue to replay in your mind the hurtful events and situations, you will probably continue to feel the resentment through many relationships and throughout your life. Make the choice to make peace with what happened, even if it wasn’t “fair,” and start focusing on what you want in your life your future life.
