Individual Autonomy Is Imperative For A Healthy Relationship

What circumstances, feelings, thoughts, or beliefs do you need to own? Your ex may send you mixed signals or be undecided about what he wants. Your ex may very well be confused, but he’s also getting his ego rubbed by you sticking around pining for him while he figures out if he wants to be with you or not. No one who loves you for real would do that to you. He may be a master at giving you one glimmer of hope that sooner or later he’ll want to be with you, but in the meantime it’s your heart that is being abused, neglected, and disrespected. It still baffles me to no end when a woman is still sleeping with her ex, and is under the impression that this is the answer to get him back. He’s sleeping with you because you’re willing, not because he’s thinking about getting back together. Most people never get to a place where they are 100 percent unfeeling about their past relationships. But it doesn’t have to mean anything. It doesn’t have to mean that you still want to be with your ex, or still have feelings for that person. It just means that you’re human, you had an emotional, probably intimate, attachment to this person and that’s okay. It’s what you do with those thoughts that counts. But if you still think of this person and have some minor hurt feelings over it, in my opinion, it’s normal.

Feel A Whole Lot Better

Dig deep and get honest with yourself about why you seem to always be in a relationship. It might not be you, but it’s worth looking into. It basically means that you’re addicted to relationships, the person in the relationship, and falling in love. Love addicts can actually get high from this. It’s just that love and relationships are the drug of choice. Individual autonomy is imperative for a healthy relationship. If your relationships keep failing, perhaps it’s time for you to spend some time alone. To get to know yourself without anyone else, to find out what you really want in relationships, your life, your future. Are you in relationships for the sake of being in one? Because being alone is harder? Guuuurl, I’ve been there. Putting yourself first and deciding what you really want outside of your relationship will put you on the path to your best self. Regret can be an awful feeling to live with because 99 percent of the time we can’t go back and change things. A decision has been made, and looking back, it may not have been the best one at the time.

The Inner Voice Is So Urgent

I always tell people that if you learned something from it, it’s not a regret. Take, for instance, a relationship or marriage that ended. A part of you might be bitter and angry. It might feel like those years were wasted and, quite frankly, you’ll probably be pissed about the time gone by and want it back. But in reality, I’m sure there is a long list of things you learned, and if that’s the case, you don’t need to regret it one bit. But that’s easier said than done. Sometimes when I hear, Don’t live life with regrets, I still feel a little panicked. Because in reality I do have regrets, and you probably do, too. After my marriage broke up, I met a guy. It was a completely unhealthy relationship, yet it was what I thought I needed at that time. I had gone back to school to finish my bachelor’s degree and looked into spending a semester abroad in Australia. I had always wanted to visit and this was the perfect opportunity.

Its No Use

I had all the information I needed to sign up, and my student loans would cover it. Unhealthy Relationship didn’t want me to go. To this day, I totally regret this decision. I should have done what my heart was telling me to do. I shouldn’t have chosen him over the trip. But I didn’t go, and since no one has invented time travel yet, there is nothing I can do about it. Sure, I can travel to Australia in the future, but I can never have that time in my life back with that choice in my hands. And to think that I need to have a life with no regrets makes me feel bad about this. Maybe you have an entire list of them. If you do, here are some things to help you get through, and hopefully over, them. Maybe your regret is that you didn’t get to tell someone something so very important before he died. Or you passed up on a job opening that you’re seeing now was a major missed opportunity. Take your time to grieve it. Like it or not, we tend to learn something from difficult situations. In my example, I learned that my intuition was right, and that people pleasing never wins. You might learn the same thing from your regret, or something as simple as I’ll never do that again. Whatever it is, the learning is perfect for you. You may still be beating yourself up for your regret. Thoughts like, I was so stupid! I can’t believe I did that! You already know you can’t change the past, nor can you change your decision. What you can change is how you talk to yourself about it and how to speak about it out loud to others. Give up the dialogue that goes in circles about what happened. Forgive yourself and accept that that outcome can never be different. This is imperative here. If you’re having a lot of trouble with this one, ask yourself what exactly you’re making this regret mean. Are you coming to conclusions about your future because of it? Remember that most, if not all, of us have regrets at the end of our lives. It’s futile to pretend you don’t. I’m sure you’ve done it recently, as we all have in some way or another.