To ask you a rather cryptric question

[hollyhelen]

Do you ever feel like if you could go back to a certain time and make a different decision, everything following would also be different?

This is the situation I am in. Five years ago (today ) I made a really horrible decision that I genuinely thought was the right thing to do. At the time I thought it was, but to be totally honest nothing has gone right since.

I want to - how to put this? - try to remake that decision. But the reasons I made that decision are still relevant.

More of a WWYD then really ...

I don't see the point in bullying yourself about it and giving yourself a hard time

It happened. You cannot undo it. You can only work on accepting it and move forward.

Can you remake it ? Is that even possible ? ( eaten up with curiosity here )

The reasons may still be valid but maybe you have changed, OP.

Tell us the decision! Then we can give more insight.

If it's an irreversible decision then all you can do is try to move on. Be kind to yourself.

I regret plenty of decisions I've made but you make the best decision you can at the time and do what you think is right, there's no point beating yourself up for that.

Yes, but you can't go back, so have to live with what you regret and carry on.

Yup everyday but the decision I made cannot be reversed so I have to live with it.

Was it getting married or something like that?

It's hard call really. I have made lots of hard/stupid decisions. My first thought was 'oh god yeah, I'd go back and change', I've regretted so many things. The big but is, would I be where I am now? Which is a really good place? Who knows.

Be kind to yourself. Do what you can to make yourself happy, but don't beat yourself up about the past.

Way I look at it I know never to do it again or let myself be used that way so I learnt from it. What doesn't kill you and all that. Then again every now and then I remember how much money I'm down based on it and

I made a couple of career related decisions in my twenties which come back and niggle at me at three in the morning I wish I could go back & change them yes.
Me & DH made a major life decision 6 years ago which resulted in a year of misery and came very close to splitting us up, oh and we lost loads of money. However, I don't think I would want to go back in time and change that one as I feel that it was a learning experience, we came out of it stronger etc. Although it's only very recently that we can look back and see any positives!

I've made a couple of terrible decisions I'd change in a flash if I could. I'd definitely be in a better place today if I could. But I can't, nor can I do anything to improve some of the consequences. Did I learn anything? Only inasmuch as I usually DO think things through carefully, and a couple of times I let my heart rule my head.

Hindsight can be very depressing sometimes.

Yes I have made some bad decisions, but I don't have regrets. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I try and remember the decisions I made were what I wanted the time.

Rather than remake the decision, I think you need to find a way of making peace with the past. You don't know what the result of making the opposite decision would have been long term, so you're just beating yourself up assuming everything would be rosy otherwise. I hope you're ok OP.

You can only do what you think is right at the time. You don't have a crystal ball and it easily could have gone the other way and been a great decision, for all you knew at the time.

If it's ruining your life and can be changed, then, yes, change it.

Yes there are a couple of decisions I wish I had not made but I did and I have to get on with it. I don't think my life would have been much different day to day but it did affect two really important relationships adversely so I wish I could change those two decisions.
Both caused other people upset.

Yes, I had one of those moments too. My decision turned out to be shit in both the short and long-term, but the alternative might have been even shittier.

Op,
You did what was right at the time.
Can you accept that?