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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To realise I made the wrong choice 15 years ago?

34 replies

Santashelperisonstrike · 12/12/2023 22:01

I’ve seen threads on here where people have realised how lucky they’ve been for meeting their OH, but has anyone realised that they’ve let a great relationship slip through their fingers?

I’ve just come to the realisation that my uni boyfriend was the love of my life and I messed it up. I split up with him for no bigger reason than we left uni but had jobs in different towns (only about an hour away). He was really hurt about it and wanted us to stay together.

Fast forward a few years and we live close to each other and hang out in same group of uni friends. We both got married about 6-7 years ago to other people and each have kids. My marriage wasn’t happy and split with ex soon after my second DD was born.
im now in new relationship which is good, but feel
there’s just something missing.

I still see my relationship with my uni boyfriend as the benchmark for my relationships, but no one has come close.

Before there’s a pile on, I just want to say I have no intention of starting anything with my ex boyfriend. He’s happily married and I know that ship has sailed.

but I can’t shake this feeling of sadness, that splitting up with him was a sliding doors moment and I made the wrong decision.

how have you dealt with your regrets?

OP posts:
PurpleFlower1983 · 12/12/2023 22:07

I think for every bad choice in life there was a good choice that wasn’t made so YANBU. If something is missing from your current relationship though don’t feel like you have to settle. It may be that you’ve just not met the right person yet.

PepsiCoco · 12/12/2023 22:10

I think most people have ‘the one who got away’. I’ve not got an ex as such like that but certainly guys I’ve dated for a while and then thought about

Curlewwoohoo · 12/12/2023 22:11

Yes. I made that mistake. I have a good life now but I'll always have that regret. It feels like a waste. If I'm trying to be logical I think there's something to do with age at the time too, things are heady at that age. That's what I tell myself.

Behindyouiam · 12/12/2023 22:12

You made the right choice 15 years ago, you may have made a different choice today. But that's not relevant.

theduchessofspork · 12/12/2023 22:12

I think ‘the one that got away’ is a rabbit hole you shouldn’t let yourself fall down. It’s just a fantasy - the reality of having him as a husband wouldn’t be like you imagine - your uni boyfriend can’t be the benchmark of an adult relationship.

Bit generally life is full of sliding doors and you’ll have missed good stuff and bad stuff.

You just need to focus forward

ChanelNo19EDT · 12/12/2023 22:14

There are choices I regret too. I'm not talking about bathroom tiles. Important stuff.

ArsenicInTheAppleTart · 12/12/2023 22:17

I split up with him for no bigger reason than we left uni but had jobs in different towns (only about an hour away). He was really hurt about it and wanted us to stay together.

Keep reminding yourself of this. If your relationship had really been that great you wouldn't have ditched him for such a trifling reason.

Cupcakekiller · 12/12/2023 22:19

It's just guessing games. You don't really know if you're compatible now or if you would've stood the test of time. It's very different having a short young relationship to a grown up long term one living together. If you'd been that bothered about him, you'd have stayed together. I think in a lifetime there are lots of people we can be compatible with. It's timing, luck and circumstance. How well do you really know him now anyway?

Curlywurlycaz2 · 12/12/2023 22:25

There is no point wasting time thinking about what could have been. A lot can change in 15 years and just because he was that person back then, doesn't mean he is that person now. In the same way that I doubt you're the same person you were 15 years ago.

What was good about that relationship that's missing in your current one?

Naptrappedmummy · 12/12/2023 22:45

I’m the same. If I had a Time Machine I wouldn’t get in it, because I love my DC too much and wouldn’t want to change events. But I spend a lot of time thinking about it, what might have been, why things played out the way they did. It all makes me a bit sad.

Original poster
Santashelperisonstrike · 12/12/2023 22:47

@Curlywurlycaz2 i miss the connection. It was so easy. We were compatible in so many ways, and I’ve struggled to meet anyone who has really given me butterflies- but I realise that me just be a ‘first love’ thing.

@Cupcakekiller i think you’re right. I know it’s very different when you’re in a long term relationship as an adult.

@Behindyouiam agree that my younger self made the right decision at the time - I suppose I didn’t want to settle with my first proper boyfriend.

But in a way, I regret having such a great relationship so early. I didn’t realise what a good thing I had. I thought relationships like that ( and men) grew on trees. If I’d known what a rare connection we had, I would’ve maybe taken more care.

i also think I appreciate the stability he would’ve offered. As I get older, that’s a bigger factor. But I valued that less in my early 20’s.

OP posts:
Passingthethyme · 12/12/2023 22:55

You're just thinking the grass is greener. If you really wanted to, you would've stayed with him.

SkaneTos · 12/12/2023 23:05

You don't know what life would have been like with your uni boyfriend.
You don't really know what he is like now.

Enjoy the life you have now.
Enjoy being a mother to two lovely children.

mikado1 · 12/12/2023 23:09

I heard a psychoplgist respond to this question before and I think she was right. She said if it had been the right relationship for you, you wouldn't have broken up, simple, or you would have found a way to get back together since. I think if only realising this after 15 years it's even less likely to be accurate or you'd have thought it previously, and it's much more likely you're looking with Rose coloured glasses.

ArchetypalBusyMum · 12/12/2023 23:40

When you're young you make all kinds of decisions for an kinds of reasons which with hindsight turn out to be based on ignorance / short sightedness / naivete / impulsiveness / lack of self knowledge... All kinds of things which as we get older and wiser and know ourselves and the world better we hopefully make fewer and fewer decisions which are based on shaky ground... Though no guarantees at any age!

It is possible that this was one of those and that's the thought that's gripped you.
However, had you recognised you had gold and worked it out, you could very well have ended up saying he's great, but we got together so young I don't feel I've ever had chance to spread my wings and I got tired down so young I feel stifled...

The hard part about life is that it is all made up as we go along and the spending path remains cloaked and opaque and imbued with what night have been, as this relationship never went sour, that might have been is still a significant mystery.

I think the only way out of how you feel is to work towards acceptance of what has gone before and where you are. Young you couldn't have chosen better because the decision was taken in good faith knowing what you knew at the time. Had you remained together the 'what could have been' question would not still be hanging in the air, but many other alternatives may have arisen, not necessarily good.

You know that connection was rare, you have a hunger for something like it, which is natural but you also have other enviable things in your life. Children, health, friends and other things... The longer I live the more I think that no one gets a life without some sorrow or loss in the mix, you can only learn to treasure those you love and make sure they know they are important as you don't get out of life more than what you put into it and each connection is precious in its own way.

Small comfort in the dark of the night sometimes I know, but the more you behave with determination to love well the less power the regret has over you.

youcandanceifyouwanna · 13/12/2023 00:01

I feel like I've messed up a few aspects of my life. I've tried to understand my thinking patterns at the time I made those decisions and learn from them, can't change the past but I can try to learn from my mistakes.

MiddleParking · 13/12/2023 00:11

Aren’t your kids a pretty powerful regret-killer re who you ended up marrying? You wouldn’t have had the ones you’ve got!

wronginalltherightways · 13/12/2023 00:30

You remember that you wouldn't have your children if you had picked differently, that's how.

x

surreygirl1987 · 13/12/2023 00:37

Read the book the Midnight Library. All about regretting life decisions.

Original poster
Santashelperisonstrike · 13/12/2023 07:24

thanks everyone for your replies - have read every one and it’s made me feel a little more philosophical about things. I think I’ll also use this feeling to seek out what I really want in life. I sometimes think these negative thoughts can actually point out what’s wrong in your life in the present.

@surreygirl1987 I’ll read that book- sounds like it might be relevant!

@wronginalltherightways @MiddleParking I know- I’m so happy to have my kids- wouldn’t change them for the world, and as a pp said, if I could go back in a Time Machine, I wouldn’t.

But I always think with this kind of regret is that I’d never have known them. I’d probably have a couple of kids with uni bf who I’d similarly not change for the world!

Thanks @ArchetypalBusyMum for you’re very comforting post.

OP posts:
CalistoNoSolo · 13/12/2023 07:28

God, naval gazing over past relationships and 'the one that got away' really is self indulgent bollocks. If you're dissatisfied with your life or the relationship you're in change it. But it's incredibly naive to think some guy you dated 15 years ago is going to make your life wonderful.

Ploctopus · 13/12/2023 07:32

Rose tinted glasses, OP. It’s easy to look back and think that things could have been perfect, but if they had been at the time you wouldn’t have split up just for living in different cities.

There’s a reason why it didn’t feel worth it to you to put up with that inconvenience at the time.

MrsJellybee · 13/12/2023 07:44

You do know in the alternate sliding doors reality, there’s a version of you writing on Mumsnet about how you married your safe Uni boyfriend and regret not finding out what else is out there. We can never know the outcome of the path not taken. Accept your choices as valid and move forward with your life.

Porageeater · 13/12/2023 07:45

Normal to have ‘what if’ sliding door thoughts but also it’s impossible to know how things may have turned out and could just have easily been for the worse as better. Philosophical is the way to be.

The happiest people live in the moment apparently, not too much in the past or the future.

TookTheBook · 13/12/2023 07:51

But do you regret your children? They are real and exist.

Have you had therapy or counselling to work out what you are pining after (in relationships especially but overall in life)? It's like you're latching onto a fantasy and regret rather than facing what you actually want to think about - what you want to do next.