Regret is Unhealed Wounds: Part I

In my journey, I recently received divorce papers after a lengthy process. Though I left my husband, he asked to be the one to file, and I felt obliged. When I finally received the papers, a flood of emotions overwhelmed me. I couldn't face them, even avoiding the mention of my cat's custody. Denying reality, I gave myself 30 days to decide, fearing future regret. In turmoil, I wrote a tear-stained letter to my ex, reminiscing on our past and dissecting my decision to leave. Suddenly, clarity struck: my regrets were unhealed wounds. Avoiding discomfort prolonged my healing. Realizing this, I faced the papers the next day, signing them and embracing growth. This experience taught me the importance of confronting discomfort and allowing myself to heal.

Fast forward almost two years, one Friday, not too long ago, I finally received an email from my husband’s (or I guess ex-husband’s) lawyer with documents that were titled “Dissolution of Marriage”. To preface, we all know the story of how I left him, but through the turmoil of it all, he asked if he could be the one to file and I kind of felt this sense that I owed him that. It’s a long story that I’m sure I’ll dive into one day but basically this process took over two years to come to fruition. He never actually wanted to separate so he’d spent that time in a cycle of begging for me to come home, reverting back to why I left, giving me space- over and over and over. By the end, I had to start limiting contact because the conversations only became more difficult. My mind never changed but I always felt this tug at my heart of wondering whether this was the right decision or not. Every phone call ended with me crying and essentially just hanging up. Then I’d spend the rest of the day or night buffering like I did in the beginning.

But the day I opened that email, I felt a rush of emotions that I was not prepared to feel. A million thoughts cycling in my head all at once, the inability to stop tears from welling in my eyes and flowing down my cheeks, my heart instantly dropping to my stomach to the point of actually thinking that I might vomit. To be honest, I opened that email- briefly skimmed the 20 page document and pressed that little red “X” in the corner of my screen. After every line I’d read, an unwanted, distant memory would pop into my head, followed by a “you might regret this” thought. And then I reached the part of the document where custody of my cat was laid out. “Cici the cat”, she had her own paragraph tainted in incomprehensible legal jargon. Those were the only lines I read slowly, ensuring I didn’t miss a single detail. I did not open that email again for almost the entire 30 day period that I was given to sign and return them.

Call it denial but I’d told myself that over the next 30 days, I’d really think about all of this (as if I hadn’t already) and come to a final decision. And if by the end of the month I felt differently, I wouldn’t sign them and I’d move right back in and continue on with the life that I left behind two years ago. My biggest fear in all of this was the thought of waking up one day in the future to regret looking back at me in the bathroom mirror. The amount of time I’d spent envisioning my future as an old single lady who left the only man who could ever love her. Maybe I’d have several cats? Maybe dogs? Would I be the type to find a sperm donor so that I could have kids on my own? What if I met a man in the distant future when it would be too late to have babies? Would I just live enviously through my friends and family? Would I see the regret of my decision in the faces of my future nieces and nephews? And what if he found someone new and jealousy started to eat me alive? I thought I had started to see the light at the end of my Dark Night of the Soul, but I slowly (and very easily) fell right back into the darkness. I prayed for several nights in a row for guidance because I clearly couldn’t be trusted to figure this out on my own.

I wrote a letter to my ex-husband. I wasn’t sure if I was going to give it to him or keep it for myself to reflect back on. Much of it is illegible because I was crying so hard I couldn’t see straight and some of the tears started to mix with the ink in which I’d written it. In this letter, I’d detailed out all the memories that we had together. The little things in which I would miss dearly. Everything about the life that we had built so perfectly together. And then…I got to the part where I dissected my brain for every single detail as to what led to my decision to leave him as best as I could articulate it. Have you ever had a moment of utter epiphany where everything all just suddenly comes together? When I signed off on this letter, it hit me. All of my regrets? Those are my unhealed wounds. I fell so easily back into the darkness because I’d never actually HEALED my wounds- I think I just threw a band-aid on them and called it a day. I limited contact with my ex because he made me feel so uncomfortable that I couldn’t stand it anymore. All those conversations that he wanted to have and that I’d avoided were wounds that wouldn’t clot on their own. I thought that I had mentally prepared myself for the moment that I’d receive those papers when in reality, I refused to live in the discomfort. I prolonged my own healing. I wouldn’t have regret because I was exactly where I was supposed to be. Plus actions always speak louder than words. Those thought spirals were just words but my actions were continuing on quite comfortably living on my own. My actions were praying to God to help me through this. The words were fueled by the discomfort I had felt out of guilt amongst other things. I’d realized that if I wanted to heal, I’d have to start doing things that made me feel uncomfortable because at least I was feeling and healing rather than just living in this stagnancy. The very next morning- I tore off the band-aid, I printed off the packet of pages, read through them in detail, signed and returned. Don’t prolong your healing, sit in your discomfort and grow.

Love,

The Wounded Lover