Regret is ruining me

Yes, I think this is a case of be kind to yourself. You can only do your best and that involves making choices with the information you have at the time and not the benefit of hindsight.
For this reason I think there is limited point in looking back, unless there is something to learn from the experience or you are a historian. Life moves forward and loss is part of that. I don’t think you should beat yourself up that you made what now seems the wrong choice. At the time, it was impossible to know that.
I also believe that there are many every day things which can be enjoyed and sometimes it’s just a case of focusing on these until the sense of loss and grief passes or becomes more manageable. I do think that naming things and being able to talk about them can be helpful, however hard or pointless it may seem. It’s a step in moving on.

Yes, OP, there are other people who know how you feel. Some mistakes you can't fix; nor can you change the impact they've had on you and your life and the way they've shaped your present and potential future. All you can do is keep moving on and try to make the best of the time you've got left.

I mean sending Present Me back in time to speak to Past Me, so they have more info to make better choices! 😂

Zen parable at the ready...

"There once was an old Zen farmer. Every day, the farmer used his horse to help work his fields and keep his farm healthy.

But one day, the horse ran away. All the villagers came by and said, “We're so sorry to hear this. This is such bad luck.”

But the farmer responded, “Bad luck. Good luck. Who knows?”

The villagers were confused, but decided to ignore him. A few weeks went by and then one afternoon, while the farmer was working outside, he looked up and saw his horse running toward him. But the horse was not alone. The horse was returning to him with a whole herd of horses. So now the farmer had 10 horses to help work his fields.

All the villagers came by to congratulate the farmer and said, “Wow! This is such good luck!”

But the farmer responded, “Good luck. Bad luck. Who knows?

A few weeks later, the farmer's son came over to visit and help his father work on the farm. While trying to tame one of the horses, the farmer’s son fell and broke his leg.

The villagers came by to commiserate and said, “How awful. This is such bad luck.”

Just as he did the first time, the farmer responded, “Bad luck. Good luck. Who knows?”

A month later, the farmer’s son was still recovering. He wasn’t able to walk or do any manual labor to help his father around the farm.
A regiment of the army came marching through town conscripting every able-bodied young man to join them. When the regiment came to the farmer’s house and saw the young boy's broken leg, they marched past and left him where he lay.

Of course, all the villagers came by and said, “Amazing! This is such good luck. You're so fortunate.”

And you know the farmer’s response by now…
"Bad luck. Good luck. Who knows?"

If you went back in time you'd be 'past you' once again and once again you'd make the same decision.

That goes for all regrets/'wrong' choices ect.

The actions we took at the time were bourne out of the knowledge we had then/situation we were in then/age we were then/mood we were in then ... and if we went back we'd still be us. We'd still do it.

Now we are who we are in the present and we look back and judge ourselves.

Be kind to yourself. You only get one life - don't waste it regretting

Regarding jobs and houses. Those are decisions that can be changed though.

Unless you mean selecting the wrong job had knock on consequences (been there.)

ME!

I have a number of decisions I made which were absolutely the wrong decision and some have had lifelong consequences for me.

I am slightly different to you in that in many instances it’s only with hindsight, mental growth and subsequent information / knowledge that I realise what terrible missteps I made.

Like you I long for a time machine. But I also have to accept those don’t exist so that means findings ways to live with the consequences of decisions made by Past Me with no regard to Future Me.

I think a lot of people live with regrets, I certainly do and they are also unchangeable things. It’s very hard when it’s a one shot only thing.
How is the rest of your life aside of the mistake? Or has the mistake had a detrimental effect on most of your life?

As long as you're not giving yourself a hard time about your decision, that only makes a difficult situation worse for you. What's done is done, maybe it's a bit like a process of grieving the choice you didn't make - like bereavement, all you want is for it not to have happened, but you have to find a way through somehow. Be gentle with yourself while you go through this loss of what you think might have been.

But then begin to let go and build a life around the decision you made. Don't miss the good things you have by pining for the fantasy of what you could have had.

I made the stupid decision to move back to my hometown. Moved DH and two small kids. Regret it every day. I get we can just move, but that’s also difficult

Hi OP, It’s difficult to say without knowing fully, but most things in life teaches something. You may not know what the lesson is yet, but it’s never too late to change.

I get it. I've made a few decisions I wish I could really, really change. One is my degree subject for example, where I now realise I'd be much better suited to a different career. I'm low paid and basically incurred a load of debt for no good reason. Another was a poor investment that lost me money. I'm trying to keep moving forwards with positivity but I don't really trust myself to make decisions so it's hard!

I get it. We’ve not long moved to a new house in a new area, and to me it’s completely wrong. I feel we have made such a bad decision, it’s given me huge anxiety which I’ve never had before. Ultimately we will have to move again, we moved for the right reasons but to the wrong area.
I’m trying everything I can to learn to live for now, GP, drugs, counselling, CBT, but I’m struggling. I wish I could go back in time. Hindsight is a wonderful thing😔

This sounds really hard for you. I’d only advise you not to write off the idea of counselling completely as a good counsellor will not tell you you are wrong in how regretful you feel but might help you to find a way forward in the place you have now found yourself so that your regret doesn’t prevent you from finding a way for yourself to find some peace. Good luck x

You can still dump him and kick him out.

Yeah we need more info op ❤️

Yanbu to feel badly about things. Can you not quit the choice? Just quit and pivot onto something else?

Its not gonna get any better - how bad will your life look if you do quit?

One problem is, you have rejected all the possible solutions. You made the decision you did in the best way you could, and you don't know that the other choice would have been better, becasue that's not the choice you made and that's not the life you're living.

You need to find a way to live with your decision - what else can you do, unless it's possible to remake the decision further along the line, but not knowing what it is makes it hard to offer any real comment.

This

It's really difficult for us to know what to say when we don't know the situation. I can imagine that in something like abortion you literally can't change things but you give examples of jobs and houses and they seem to things that can change.