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Since your divorce has regret been your roommate, if not your conjoined twin. It’s a difficult companion, prone to accusatory comments and dark moods and it changes you, leaving you both tougher and more tender. You get to decide, however, whether your toughness will look unreachable bitterness or unstoppable resilience; your tenderness the raw vulnerability of a never-healing wound, or a kindness so deep it heals every wound it touches. Regret can be your worst enemy or your best friend. You get to decide which.

There are two time zones in your life now – married and divorced. Both zones have regrets laced through them. But your choice is make regret either a powerful energy of healing rather than a powerfully destructive energy; one is in the past which you can’t change and the other is in the future which you can have a say.

Put the Past in it's Place

Let’s start by putting the past in its rightful place. The past exists as a memory, a mental story and though you can’t change it you can change how you choose to reflect upon it. You can act now on how you tell the story of your married life and your divorce. Are you adjectives honest, and do they honor the “good” that was in your past life. And even if your divorce was horrible can see what you have learned from that experience? And don’t forget that if you have children the story you tell directly affects them.

Don't get Stuck in Denial

As long as you are stuck in denial and repeating to yourself and others how much this or that “shouldn’t have happened” you are locked in a struggle against your reality. Many people pour year’s energy and time into useless “shouldn’t haves.” You know what I am saying – he shouldn’t have had an affair, he should have paid me more, my parents shouldn’t have gotten divorced or your boss shouldn’t have and the list goes on. This list also runs into the “if only” which don’t do you anymore good than the “shouldn’t have.” They go something like these; if only I had married someone else, or if only I had cleaned the house more, or if only I had not gotten sick and missed work.

No Future in "Should Haves"

This is unproductive regret – period. Divorced people often use it to avoid the scary and difficult action of being responsible for their own lives. I know that hurts to hear but you I want growth for you and sometimes that comes with some cold hard truths. Instead of telling your past story in a useful productive way your use it as an excuse. Please hear this – I wish you would have gotten this and that and I hate that life has hurt but I cannot nor can you change what happened has happened. We only have the power to change the future. If you enjoy being miserable, then by all means continue to rail against this fact. If you’d rather be happy, prune the “shouldn’t haves and if only” from your story and move on.

Regret is a mixture of both sad and mad emotions. You must not deny either of these emotions to truly move on for that will only leave you stuck in bitterness and unproductive regret. Think of your sadness and anger and how you feel those in your life. In the following sentence put in your situation, “I’m sad about _____.” “I am mad about ______.” Whether this is God, your ex, yourself – name it my friend – all of them. The writing down of your feelings allows you to know where you need healing to allow you to move forward in healthiest way.Grieve my friend. This is a natural and much needed process. It doesn’t feel good at the time but the cleansing and healing it offers is irreplaceable to your future. It will at first seem like the biggest mountain to climb, then it becomes a hill, then it becomes steps and then it becomes a part of your story to be told.

Reclaiming your Life

You can’t change the fact that you are now divorced. But you can reclaim your life. Resolve today to reclaim the life you dreamed of living with or without a spouse. So the ultimate lesson of regret, the one that will guide you into a rich and satisfying future, is this: Every time life brings you to a crossroad, from the tiniest bump to the tallest mountain, know that these are a part of life. You can either avoid living life to the fullest or risk that you will have regrets. But they don’t have to stop you from moving on. Fear of the future and unknowns will most powerfully leave you with the biggest regrets of all. Ultimately if you allow fear to remain in the driver’s seat you will stay in the only “known” place and that is in the past. Honestly, that isn’t the life you want to live be it? You don’t want to end your days God gives you saying, “I regret I didn’t go here, do this and that.”

If you have grieved your losses, reclaimed your dreams, and articulated your anger, regret will have made you the right kind of tough-and-tender: dauntless of spirit, soft of heart, convinced by experience that nothing based on fear will allow you to move forward you will be ready to not allow divorce to rob you of an unfinished life.

Live my friend!