[Lifestyle] I’m 70 and so full of regret about my husband and career

[BirSaNN]

The dilemma I am a 70-year-old woman and am consumed by regret and disappointment. Outwardly, I am happy, calm and outgoing, with friends and interests, but this facade hides my inner feelings, which I share with no one.

I married too young and chose the wrong man. I said yes when he asked me to marry him, and I felt unable to go back on my word. Throughout our marriage I have not been in love with him. In fact, I am massively ashamed to say that, at times over the decades, I have wished him dead – yet he has never done me harm, which makes it even more shameful. In contrast, he has always been steadfast in his love for me, and this continued even though five years into our marriage I had an affair. I went back to him after three months apart, mainly because I was lonely, and we have been together ever since.

We had our golden wedding anniversary two years ago. We have three children and five precious grandchildren, who bring us an enormous amount of joy. I tell myself on a daily basis that I have much to be thankful for, and I am, but I still regret not having chosen a life partner with whom I could feel better suited and more attracted to.

I feel similarly about my career. On the outside it looks award-winning and successful, but it never really satisfied me. How can I banish invasive thoughts of regret and disappointment, so I can enjoy my life?

Philippa’s answer When someone wishes their benign long-term partner dead, I see it as a manifestation for a desire for change. I think the reality of having your husband die would be that you’d feel lonely once more, but this invasive thought is a symbol of how despairing you feel. However, you are not impossibly stuck. You need to, and you can, find a different route through life by renegotiating your relationship to your reality. You need a different story to make sense of your feelings.

I think whoever you chose to marry, you would regret it. In other words, I have a sneaking suspicion that it isn’t that you made a wrong choice, more that your pattern is that whatever choices you make, you assume they are the wrong ones. My suspicion is compounded as you feel the same way about your work. You rightly identify your problem as invasive thoughts, so you know deep down that it isn’t your choices are wrong, but that the thoughts around them are spoiling things.

link: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/apr/09/i-am-70-and-so-full-of-regret-about-my-husband-and-career-ask-philippa-perry