To not feel guilty very often?

[longestlurkerever]

On here and irl people often comment about how guilty they feel about things. Often to do with their children, but not always. Sometimes it's about not doing enough around the house or exercising enough or whatever. It's not an emotion I feel very often. Obviously I would if I'd done some real harm to someone but day to day it just isn't something I particularly identify with. Especially about productivity/laziness. As long as I'm not directly taking advantage of someone I don't see why I owe it to anyone to spend my time in any particularly fruitful way. If I want to sit on my arse and not reap the benefits of having blitzed the house or gone to the gym or whatever then that's on me but I don't feel guilty about it. I'm wondering if I should feel more guilt, and am ultimately a bit selfish, or whether other people exaggerate when they talk about feeling guilty about things they haven't done? Just curious really.

@Fairislefandango

I don't know, I was thinking about that. It's not like I have no conscience at all, I suppose I just let it have its say at the beginning but if I've decided I have valid reasons to ignore it then it doesn't eat away at me. Like yesterday I felt rubbish and was considering flaking on an engagement I had committed too. In the end I thought nah come on, that person's gone to an effort and you need to give back that thing you borrowed, and I went. And I'm going to go and see my mum for mother's Day even though it will be stressful. But if I'd felt really too ill I can't see myself ruminating on it because I'd have made a valid choice.

But what if you hadn't really felt too ill to go, but had decided not to? Would you have felt guilty then? Or would you have convinced yourself that it was fine to just decide not to bother, even though you were only feeling a bit under the weather?

I think maybe people use 'guilt' as quite a broad term. Sometimes it's really more of a feeling of obligation or 'ought to'. Or it's worry about being judged, when maybe if there were nobody who knew or would be able to judge you, you might not feel the least bit bad about doing/not doing whatever it was.

I only ever felt truly guilty about one thing in my life - something I did decades ago. But I've finally made my peace with it. It harmed nobody, and there is nothing I can do to change it, so I've finally decided to forgive myself.

Good question. I think maybe I would feel guilty if I thought it was the wrong decision and that would cause me to revisit it: had I underestimated the impact it would have on the other person etc. And I probably wouldn't just sack off something if there had been no change in circumstances, as evidenced by the fact that I didn't, even though I actually have been quite unwell, so I'm not advocating being callous. Just that a) if I still thought it was a justifiable decision I wouldn't feel guilty about it; and b) I wouldn't have perfection as the bar I was trying to meet in making a decision in the first place.

It's not that I never ever feel guilt. I felt really guilty that I forgot a friend's birthday recently. Felt terrible about it. But I wouldn't apply that same emotion to beat myself up for failing to act in the most selfless way possible. Especially around productivity for its own sake, I don't get that one at all. I'm perfectly content to be lazy if I am not relying on others to pick up the slack. I might be annoyed at myself for having put something off and reaping the consequences of that, but not guilty. And certainly not guilty at the exact same time as deciding to sack it off - I think it's that contradiction I find hard to identify with. If you know it's the wrong decision, don't do it. If on balance you're ok with it, own that.

I am ruminating on it a bit because dd1 is being assessed for adhd and one aspect is not getting the "dopamine rush" from having achieved something and I wonder if guilt is the quid pro quo of that? Or maybe it's unrelated.

This gladdens my heart - please don't ever change OP!

We need more of you.

I am getting better but it's difficult when you've done it your whole life.

But I wouldn't apply that same emotion to beat myself up for failing to act in the most selfless way possible. Especially around productivity for its own sake, I don't get that one at all. I'm perfectly content to be lazy if I am not relying on others to pick up the slack.

Yep... if I get slack about the housework, I do feel a bit guilty, because I feel like I'm not doing my bit (I work part time, dh works long hours, I usually have plenty of time to get things done, but have to fight agaibst my own natural laziness!).

Whereas if I lived alone and let the house get into a state, I'd feel frustrated and maybe a bit irritated with myself, but I wouldn't feel even the slightest bit of guilt, because the mess would affect nobody but me.

I dont understand why lots of women feel guilty sending their children to any type of daycare when theyre at work. Id say leaving your dc alone at home while you go to work would be more guilt worthy.

@StrictlyAFemaleFemale

I dont understand why lots of women feel guilty sending their children to any type of daycare when theyre at work. Id say leaving your dc alone at home while you go to work would be more guilt worthy.

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I suppose the guilt is about going to work at all but while I get some satisfaction from working and accept that there are other choices out there, I don't really view my job as some kind of self-indulgent hobby. And if the kids have to go to holiday club sometimes so be it. They tend to enjoy it and even when they don't they put up with it, as we all have to learn to do with things we don't love.

I’m with you OP and I applaud you for starting this thread and a discussion around it.

I rarely feel ‘guilt’ because I rarely do anything unkind/morally wrong/unpleasant. If I did something horrible I would feel guilty about it but I’m not a horrible person so no guilt required.

I think a lot of the guilty feelings come from worrying about being judged, whether that’s keeping up with the jones’, or a self impinged standard that you perceive people will judge you on. I don’t have this either. I don’t judge people and I don’t like judgy (is that a word?) people so, if someone judges me, my thought process is not “oh no, how awful am I? Mrs Twat thinks my children have too much screen time”
It’s “wow Mrs Twat lives up to her name, without knowing me she thinks she can have an opinion on my choices. I’m glad I don’t care what she thinks”

It makes life much easier

I also find that if you don’t care what people think you tend not to hear what people think… like it’s amazing how much better babies sleep when you turn the monitor off

at "Mrs Twat lives up to her name". I find I think very little about what other people get up to. Perhaps that helps, because I assume they're equally uninterested in me.

I have a guilt complex and feel guilty about anything and everything. With therapy I've been able to manage it better over the years but I would love to not feel it so intensely.

I’m so jealous of all you have said u don’t feel
Guilty often. I have horrendous issues with guilt. I always have I feel guilty over the slightest thing.

Having been raised Catholic I spent a lot of my life feeling guilty about anything and everything, “Catholic guilt” really is a thing. It was the main reason why I chose not to raise my children as Catholic - I couldn’t bear inflicting it on them. As I got older I managed to shake it, I don’t think I have felt guilty about anything in years. It is so liberating.

I was going to mention Catholic guilt. Grew up in a fairly strict Catholic family. In my family the 'Catholic guilt' was mainly displayed by women. I didn't see much guilt from Grandad when he had got drunk and ruined another family event. Or even cheated on nana. There was a couple of day of acting sheepishly that was it.

Yet my mum and her sisters would always feel guilty about the smallest thing and it didn't help anyone. It stressed them out, didn't lead to anything productive and was usually done in a way that everyone else had to spend inordinate amounts of time reassuring them.

Mum had quite severe mental health problems when I was young and the constant guilt and reassurance after an episode was more exhausting than the the episode itself.

She passed away at 66, last year. Me and dad were talking about she constantly lived in a state of stress. She would relax and take a nap, then spend the rest of the day being ultra productive because she felt bad. She took up yoga to help, it didn't. She couldn't switch off and found it frustrating.

She constantly lived in a high level of stress and guilt. Given how she died, I think it contributed. We all helped look after her dad (the cheating drunk) when he had dementia. But it really aged my mum. The guilt she felt for, essentially, not having the knowledge or expertise of a dementia nurse was immense. She he had to go in a home she felt horrificly bad. But keeping him at home wasn't a good situation for him.

So growing up I rejected feeling guilty. I can honestly say I don't ever do anything intentionally bad. If something I have done has had a negative impact on someone I apologise and try to fix it. I will feel bad for a time, then try and use that to do something productive. I learned to be able feel something that shut it off (another skill learned from having a mentally ill parent) and look at what I can. Feeling guilty doesn't enable me to do much and doesn't help anyone.

I missed the kids when I went back to work. But it wasn't guilt. I needed to work and provide for them so there was no point spending my time feint guilty. I worked hard at work. Put lots of effort into the time we did have together.

Good for you OP! I'm going to try it more

@longestlurkerever thank you for your advice. This thread is incredibly helpful!

I don't go around feeling guilty either.

I work for a charity, and took a big pay cut to do so. The role suits my life in many ways. They have no idea that my technical skills are worth double what they're paying me, minimum. And I'm twice as capable as the people they've previously had in the role - that much is evident by errors I discover daily.

I also have too little to do, and I work from home. So for about 30-60m a day, I bugger around tending to my life admin, playing games on the Internet and running my side hustles.

No guilt. I view it as helping them afford me, given that they absolutely need someone with my level of skill, they need them to hang around longer than the previous staff. They're getting a great deal.

Guilt is a useless emotion really: it rarely motivates people to do anything or change anything, it tends to push them into avoiding difficult stuff. So YANBU.

Not sure guilt is really an appropriate emotion to feel in response to sitting around not getting much done anyway… either you want to do things or you don’t. If you are not strongly motivated to prioritise stuff over other stuff you probably don’t want to do it all that much.

I only feel guilty if I've personally done something wrong to someone. Otherwise nope, I'm with you OP, it's not something I feel on a day to day basis.