yogagrl,

I was drawn to your post because of the title that directly addresses whether men ever regret…

The easiest answer is “yes”.  Men, and women, regret many things that they have chosen to do.  You will never find a perfect person who has consistently made all of the “right” decisions in life.  The majority of people will have some amount of moral experience to at some point feel sorry for what they perceive as errors that they may have made in the past.  There are of course a distinct few individuals out there who are truly monsters, psychopaths, sociopaths, and narcissists who only care for themselves and lack all sense of empathy and remorse.  (Steer clear of these fiends if at all possible!)  I don’t think from your description that your ex falls into this category of evil people though.

I’m discovering that love isn’t something that comes in equal portions of intensity and experience.  It’s surely not forever…  Hopefully we are all in our lifetimes able to experience love, but we also have to recognize that it comes in many different forms.  Aside from the horrible individuals I described above who are unable to love (the only reason to pity them because they will never love…) We will all experience different types of love and different intensities.  Unfortunately our society has done a good job of making love pretty generic.  “I love chocolate milk” or “I really love how you did your hair today!” are a couple examples of how disposable the word love has become.  Love as a concept and feeling is many fold too.  I have a much different experience of love for my pet, my children, my friends, family, or intimate partner.  In each of those categories the intensity of love may differ also based on a person’s experience.  I absolutely adore my children, but I can honestly say I love my sister more than I love my mother because of things that have happened in my past.  The same thing holds with the girls I have dated/married/divorced…  and I regret.  I regret the mistakes I have made that may have change my life and the life of someone else, but we can’t predict the future any more than we can change the past.  So unless he happens to be heartless, I’m sure that he will occasionally hear a song or see a sight that reminds him of you, and he’ll wonder for a second…

You though are still carrying a burden that you should let go of before it poisons you any further.  Life is an adventure, and much of it is a gamble.  We’ll all experience good and bad, but what we do with our experiences and what we learn is greatly up to us.  This is a hard thing to learn and even harder to practice, but when you begin to focus on improving yourself and loving yourself, you improve your chances of attracting the successes that you desire.  You wonder if you’ll ever see him again?  You wonder if he will ever come back?  Is that what you want?  and if you do, you do know that you can influence the possibilities of success?  Ultimately it will be half his decision, but it’s not impossible…  Don’t expect life to be fair from your perspective.  You look at his current situation and sense unfairness based on the residual emotions you have.  The intensity of his love may not have matched yours, and honestly, that he waited over a year to begin dating someone else is a sign that he gave himself the necessary time for himself to recover from your relationship before putting himself out there again.  He’s obviously moved on into his next love.  You’ll have to let it run it’s course and decide what you’ll do in the meantime.  Torture yourself with what ifs and wondering if he still thinks of you occasionally, or jumping into the mosh pit of life and love…

wishing you health and happiness,

Ramone