[Standing in Patience]

I am wondering if there is any discussion about regret? Regrets?

Before BD?
At BD?
After separation?
At divorce (if there is one)?
After divorce?

I regret that I have "harmed" you? Made you feel sad or angry?
I regret impacting the children?

How does blame and shame work with mlc?

There is a known researcher on "shame" as a subject that I will add here
for purposes of discussion later. I remember reading an article about her.

[Standing in Patience]

Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psN1DORYYV0

So I had to go to the recess of my mind and try to remember where I heard about this subject.

I checked on YoutTube. So her name is Brene Brown. She talks about shame, vunerability, etc. Last I knew it had about 10,000 views. Now it is over 200,000.

[Still Kicking]

These are probably too little too late but I know of one who, on his death bed, told the first wife she was his one true love and that the biggest mistake of his life was marrying wife number 2--with wife 2 sitting right there.

I was also told by someone upon hearing my situation that even though he was happy with his current relationship, his first wife had been the biggest love of his life and not a day goes by that he doesn't think about her and the mistake he made in not treating her better.  This was 40 years later.  She had since remarried and then passed on so there was no hope of reconciliation.  But at least it gives some evidence that they do eventually start thinking about those things, even if we don't see it.

[Anjae]

There is one on guilt and remorse: http://mlcforum.theherosspouse.com/index.php?topic=2730.0

[toughtimes]

My h shows no hint of regret, no hint of shame and blames me and the marriage for his feelings of unhappiness.

My MiL had a MLC in her late 30s. She felt really good about herself after a promotion at work and went out to seek excitement. Changed lifestyle started affair was away from family weekends and holidays. She basically abandoned her family for two years. She got to a point where she went to her H and said,"what are we doing? Can we stop this crazy lifestyle and get ourselves back on track?" he told her she was too late and that he had met someone else and she will be moving in! She says now that it was her biggest regret, she has stayed with her affair partner because she's tried to make the best of things. She regrets what it did to her kids and is racked with guilt at their behaviour now at midlife! Such a terrible mess.

[Trustandlove]

TT, the shame and regret come so much later.  I know it's hard to think of this as "early days", but this whole process takes so much longer than we can even imagine. 

But as to others feeling regret, one female friend on RL who did this to her family in her 30s did tell me that she regrets it every day, even though she has remarried and is generally happy.  Her H divorced her quite soon, and remarried so there was no chance of reconciliation, but she says that she was completely misguided, was chasing something that only happened in the movies, that it was too hard on the children, and so on.  She also says that her current H would also still be with his original family if he had known then what he knows now, so it sounds like they were both MLCers at some point.  (I don't know her new H's story). 

Another RL acquaintance, another woman, also now has expressed regret...  it's something like 8 years now, and I believe she started thinking this way around 3 years ago, but I'm not exactly sure of the timeline.  Again, her H has a new partner and even a new child, so no chance there, either. 

In both cases it took lots of time and lots of replay antics. 

My H had some kind of episode of clarity around 2.5 years in, when he said that he was sorry he had treated me so badly for so long, but from what I can tell that was the guilt overwhelming him, rather than remorse.  He chose to run further; had another smaller crash when he again talked about feeling so guilty, but again ran further.

I keep thinking about that line from one of RCR's articles where it says that they have to run until they can't any more. 

[Anjae]

I keep thinking about that line from one of RCR's articles where it says that they have to run until they can't any more.

Yes, sadly they are long distance runners rather than sprinters...

[Wed2Him?Whatever.]

My H has used the word regret in emails to me, but he places it within a context of getting the divorce done as quickly as possible, and moving on with separate lives.
There's no remorse because his actions are still so selfish.  It seems he is trying to keep from burning the bridge with me entirely.  He wants us to remain friends LOL.
Right now, he merely wants to avoid looking or feeling like the bad guy.  He never mentions a word about someday in the future working things out with me.  But it's bound to have crossed his mind.  How could it not?  He's always been a nostalgic, sentimental type.  And when we were dating he "won" me back after a long break-up by writing to me out of the blue.  At the time it shocked me since he could be a prideful, stubborn guy and so much had happened between us.  I thought I would never hear from him again.  But I was wrong believing he never did think about us.

[Trustandlove]

I think the regret and remorse comes much, much later.  Even though a couple of years feels like an eternity, it's only the beginning....

My RL friend who reconciled with her H, who was away for 5 years, said that it was several years after he came home....

[Sally Wood]

Mine never left.  Did the usual horrible junk.  Coming out of it (I think) now a baby coaster.  BUT has never expressed any remorse or any apology for putting  me through all his monstering and his affair (claimed EA not PA but I don't believe it).

Yeah I know they do stuff that I suppose they are trying to show you they are sorry but I would actually like to hear it.

I apologized to him if I failed him in any way and took responsibility for any distance that I may have caused between us that led to our problems.  From him? NADA

Do they ever get around to actually putting out those words?

Sally Wood