Regret -- the negative emotion associated with realizing a different past decision may have brought a better outcome than what actually transpired -- accompanies a lot of failed marriages. And with a divorce rate of around 50 percent (although, this stat is a little misleading once you break it down into subgroups), there may be a lot of romantic regret going on in America.
According to a study published in 2011, the biggest regret on America's mind is actually a romantic one. University of Illinois' Mike Morrison and Northwestern University's Neal Roese led a nationally representative phone survey of 370 adults who were asked to detail their biggest regret. Almost 20 percent of those surveyed cited romantic regret as their primary regret, the largest of all categories.
Women cited a romantic regret more than twice as often as men (44 percent versus 19 percent, respectively), and men cited more work-oriented regret than women (34 percent versus 27 percent, respectively). The most interesting finding in this study to me, was that those who regretted inactions (they didn't do something but they wish they would have) held on to the regret longer than those who felt the regret was based on action (they did something but wish they wouldn't have).
When women were asked to submit their biggest romantic regrets to HuffPost Women via Twitter, themes of holding on to a relationship for too long, choosing the wrong type of partner, and not taking certain advice were big ones. Similarly, the descriptions of the romantic regrets in Morrison and Roese's study focused around lost chances at potential romance and relationships that didn't live up to their potential.
As noted above, taking action is better than sitting back and not doing anything about it. Although romantic regret is difficult, it lingers more when we regret not doing something than it does when we regret doing something.
In the Morrison and Roese study, the participants who were the most likely to have romantic regrets were the ones who were not currently in a relationship. The famous quote from Alfred Lord Tennyson, "'tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" is particularly relevant.
Although romantic regret can be difficult to handle, it also serves an important purpose: it shapes the way you handle future relationships. Learning from the regret and using it for a positive course of action (e.g., learning what qualities you should avoid or approach in a romantic partner, avoiding situations that may have led to infidelity in the past, etc.) can help to make the mistakes you've made in the past worth it. It's how we learn our life lessons.
Tell the truth. Express your feelings. If you like someone, tell them. If you don't, leave or at least be upfront with them about. Life should be that simple. This research on romantic regret sheds light on the importance of taking chances, especially when it comes to love.
Is it better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all? My answer is an absolute yes.
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Domestic violence committed by wives is severely under-reported.
Would be nice if everyone operated that way. But doing any of the above is no protection from regret in my experience.
Agreed!! Yes it should.
Shame that truth, trust and failure to communicate in a clear understandable manner seem for most to be the hardest paths to follow.
Women initiate the overwhelming majority of divorces, and the usual reasons are not violence, abuse, infidelity, drunkenness or serious breach of the marital vows. The most commonly cited reason for initiating divorce is, essentially, that the other partner failed to make her feel happy enough.
Recently I spent the day at a water park where I observed many thousands of people attired for swimming. I saw many tattoos of many types on both women and men, including many men with women's names tattooed on them. I saw no men's names tattooed on women. They talk a good game of commitment, but when it comes down to it, they get a rose on a hip, not their husband's name on their forearm.
This is fine, of course. It’s not up to me to tell women what to do, or what they should mean when they say they are committing. But guys need to have an accurate view of the situation, and know that commitment, to a woman, tends to mean something different than what it does to a man.
I filed for divorce and left. My vows were important to me but I could not remain married to a man who didn't want a marriage only a meal ticket and maid. Please don't assume all women file for divorce on a whim. It was the hardest, most painful thing I have ever done.
Research supports the view that women drive divorce in the pursuit of their personal happiness and to the profound and lasting detriment of children, partners, grandparents, in-laws and society at large. Children of divorce have more than twice the risk of suicide, depression, drug abuse, teen pregnancy -- and divorce -- than children from intact families. Divorced men kill themselves twice as often as married men. Divorce has no effect on women’s suicide rates.
I do not hate women. I hate a gender-biased system that enables and incentivizes one sex to perform actions that hurt others while benefiting themselves.
We need to stop automatically awarding mothers primary custody of children. Mothers not in jail, drug rehab, a mental hospital or otherwise AWOL are virtually guaranteed to be primary custodians, meaning in most cases they have custody 80 percent or more of the time, continue to receive a third or so their former partners’ income (tax-free and with no strings attached; he pays it or faces jail) and have a very good chance of remaining in the family home.
Women like the status quo; nobody else does.
I think the women's commitment thing is a mixed message of femanism. "Don't rely on a man for anything" means keep him at arms length and commitment requires more then that. That's part of what causes divorces (and cheating).