REMORSE? EXTRACT THE LEARNING | FAMILY COUNSELING CENTER ASSOCIATION

“I want help from you to save our marriage. We had a love marriage based on understanding each others feelings. We love each other a lot but still a lot of things are going wrong. My hubby has no time at all. We’ve been married two years and we haven’t spend a single whole day together. All the time he is busy. I agree that he has work, but one day in a year isn’t manageable? I want his time, but he has no time for me. When he returns home from work, he sits watching TV. If I try to touch him or speak to him, he says move, let me see that programme. He kiss me only in bed, once before and once after sex. He doesn’t try to know if I am satisfied in bed. If I tell him I’m not satisfied, he says it’s because I’ not interested in having sex with him. If by chance any romantic scene comes on the TV, he changes the channel immediately if I am with him. If I’m not there, he will watch it. I wonder if he’s the person who shared and cared my feeling before marriage. I feel lonely at home without him. This makes me cry so many times. When he sees me crying, he asks why I’m crying. He asks what torture he’s given me to make me to cry like that. He says I don’t want to live with him. He tells me to leave him and go, that he will live without me. He says our marriage is going to break one day, if I continue to cry like this. But I cry for him only, because I miss him. If I tell him we should go out, he says it would be odd to roam like lovers. I’ve tried to explain him my feelings to him, but then he says again that I should leave if I’m so unhappy. I don’t know how to tell him that what I need is him and his time. Please help me. Am I wrong? Am I a bad wife? I do all that I can to love him. I don’t think I’m wrong in any way. Am I crazy? Inspite of all this, I think he really loves me. but something is going wrong.”–Lonely Wife

Dear Lonely Wife,

You say your husband loves you, but you also said over and over that you don’t feel loved. You and your husband have fought about your crying, but have you told him that you want him to spend more time with you–without the television on? You want to save your marriage and I understand that, but I’m not sure that you and your husband want the same thing.

If he works hard, he’s probably trying to de-stress by watching television. Even so, this relationship isn’t giving you both what you want and marriages that don’t do this, don’t usually last.

REMORSE? EXTRACT THE LEARNING

Everyone makes mistakes. We all fail sometimes. We lose jobs or relationships, sometimes because we’ve screwed up.

I trained under a man who claimed to have no regrets, but I think this attitude blocks our learning. I’ve made stupid choices, trusted the wrong people and headed down blind alleys. I think this is part of the human condition–we all make mistakes, but I think we limit ourselves if we don’t take these opportunities to learn.

It doesn’t help to get lost in regret. Even if we’ve hurt others and damaged ourselves, we need to look around for the good. This can be very difficult if the situation if we feel tremendous remorse, but every rough time has its lessons. You’re short-changing yourself if you don’t get the lesson. Why? is a great question, if you don’t load it with blame and self-hatred. You need to understand why you did whatever you did, but the learning will be blocked if you wallow in beating yourself up. Try to be objective about it. I know this can be very difficult, if you’ve messed up pretty badly, but if you want to be a better person, you need to look at your choices without ugly emotions.

Take a deep breath and look at the choices you made. Ask yourself why and don’t settle for any answer that’s a variation of “…because I’m an idiot.”

We all have some basic emotional needs–we want to feel special, to be loved, to feel vindicated. We want to achieve…and sometimes we trample other people to get to our goal. We struggle with self-belief and self-involvement. We have a hard time seeing others’ perspectives, particularly when they’re different from our own.

But you’re not a total screw-up.

Think of it this way–you’re not allowed to say anything about yourself that you wouldn’t say about your best friend, in the same situation. And don’t tell me your best friend wouldn’t do something like you’ve done because we all make bad choices sometimes. All of us.

Forgiving yourself doesn’t mean you think whatever you did–or didn’t do–is okay. It doesn’t mean you’d make the same choice again. It just means that you’re still a worthwhile person. Looking at yourself without blame allows you to take from the situation all the learning that’s there for you. This is important because you don’t want to be here again.