Home→Forums→Relationships→How to move on from the past once and for all?→Reply To: How to move on from the past once and for all?
Dear laelithia:
You are welcome. I am glad you will be seeing a doctor next week and “start the ball rolling with an antidepressant”. Maybe the guy in Switzerland (let’s refer to him as S, for convenience) felt like a dear friend, maybe he is suited to be a friend, but not a live in partner in life.
If you feel that you let him down talking about your past and burdening him, well, you won’t anymore, not if this long distance friendship-like relationship is over. No more guilt in this regard for you then.
“I feel lonelier than ever”- I think you felt lonelier-than-ever many times before and you survived it. Try to not fear that feeling of lonelier-than-ever. It is only a feeling, not a real-and-present danger in it.
“I wish I had just booked this (trip) instead of constantly asking him if it was the right thing to do”- no, it wasn’t a good idea to have this trip, it was not the right thing to do.
Regarding my statement before, that S was not going to work out for you- like I wrote earlier in this post, maybe he could be a friend to you, not a live-in partner for life. He is not willing to financially support you if needed (beyond paying more than his share of rent for a while, if I understand correctly), he is not likely to leave Switzerland away from his mother and you don’t want to live there forever, he doesn’t have emotional regulation skills, you wrote. These are a few of the reasons why it was a bad idea to make this trip and attempt to live with him, even if you didn’t have your issues (obsessive thinking, being stuck-on-regret, being confused and indecisive).
I don’t think that what I wrote above will do a whole lot to stop you from being-stuck-on-regret. The Regret Theme can apply to any choice you make, even the clearly good choices. Let’s say you visited a particular place and didn’t enjoy it, you may regret not going back a second time just in case that you will enjoy it the second time. It would make sense to visit instead a place you didn’t visit before, maybe you will enjoy that new place. But being stuck-on-regret causes you to think: maybe a second time I will enjoy that one place, better I go back there and make sure…so I don’t regret it.
I hope the SSRI will help with that, put an end to that ongoing regret-obsession.
anita