Regret and Jealousy

[LMN2286]

Hello, I have an awful trait that I hate about myself but can't control which is that I get jealous so easily and this automatically then affects my tummy and makes me feel physically sick with regret that I haven't done the same. These are not extreme things but situations like seeing friends or colleagues away on holidays with their big groups of friends/seeing people travel/have adventures all instantly sends my stomach into twists because I never did things like that when I was younger (or much crazy fun stuff to be honest which is probably the problem), or when a friend starts wedding planning I end up getting so jealous as there are so many things I would change about my wedding. Because I didn't particularly have an adventurous youth/20s etc I just regret this aspect of my life so much and I can't seem to let it go. Now we have a DD it's obviously a lot harder to try and recreate anything with time/money/available friends and just being older. My best friends have all moved away to other countries. My question is how do you let things go. I hate the impact it has physically making my stomach twist and then I will feel down and get depressed for ages just reflecting on what could have been and what I haven't done. How do I move past this and appreciate day to day life and be happy for people instead?

I understand exactly what you mean. It sometimes appears on the surface that other people have it better but you don't always know what their lives are really like behind the scenes!! I know it's hard but try to just smile and ignore what others are doing. Concentrate on things that you enjoy doing with your DD and then you'll find that you focus less on other people. Xx

My sense is that you'll struggle even to see your DD enjoying her young adulthood if your own regrets about 'missing out' remain unresolved. Perhaps your first step is to find someone to talk to who can help you grieve the loss you feel around your younger years, to identify what you feel you didn't get that was so significant it has left you feeling resentful now. I suspect there were reasons for the choices you made (or felt too restrained to make) in your younger years, and they may have been dependent on the expectations or needs of others. If that's the case, you're likely to be harbouring unexpressed anger towards those people, and maybe even guilt for having those angry thoughts and feelings. (But projecting it onto 'here and now' relationships.) If that rings any bells for you, please consider finding a counsellor with some experience of working with loss, and tell her/him what you've told us. S/he can then begin to help you unravel the details and impressions, with a view to helping you resolve some difficult feelings that are holding you back now and making you feel so conflicted in yourself. Do you have siblings? Early relationships with brothers and/or sisters can set up difficult emotional patterns for us in later life, but unless we've explored how those patterns began, we're likely to feel out of control regarding feelings of jealousy, envy and resentment.

I know from my own life what a blight this can produce inside ourselves, and yet looking at it with someone trained to help us face and contain it can really help us move forward, feeling more empowered and less out of control. Jealousy is very much about control, when you look into it. The key is partly at least about identifying why we think we need to control others - it's usually an unsuccessful strategy for helping us feel better about ourselves and what we estimate is lacking in ourselves/our lives.

You deserve better

Wow. I would never have thought about it in those terms but that makes complete sense. Thank you very much for that insight