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Granted we cant change the past but if you could would you? I often find myself torn between 'would I be where I am now without the life experience I didn't want or choose' type thought process. I think this comes up due to regrets for not doing what should have been done many years ago.

But................... if you could build a time machine and change something in your past with your X, what would it be??

For me....

I would go back and kick my own 19/20 year old ass. I would tell myself not to make excuses for him, he is a dick. Run, run now! the first time he showed me who he was. I realise now that he could never be emotionally mature, his FOO ensures that.

Obviously we cant go back but maybe it might be helpful to type out the 'shoulda/coulda/wouldas".

Now that I know better, I can do better. Maybe it took this shit storm to truly show me how much better I can do. But then, would I be were I am now? I might have been better off or not - who knows.

its all just crazy making

Ugh. When I think about this I know that, knowing what I know now, I would never have gotten with him in the first place. I wouldn't have my dds - and that's hard to wrap my head around and I feel really guilty for even thinking like that.

I never would have married him. WH moved across the country to be with me, and a couple years later when he proposed I wanted to say no. I was unhappy with how lazy he was and I couldn't imagine living that unhappily for the rest of my life with a man-child. But I was young, and I was afraid to speak up and say no. I was afraid to hurt him and afraid his family would hate me. I felt guilty because he moved away from his family to be with me. Ironic that I was afraid to hurt him, but he had no problems walking out on me at 7 months pregnant. Asshole

But I guess I still wouldn't go back and change it, because then I wouldn't have my kids. At the end of the day, I would go through all this a million times more if it means I still get these great kiddos.

thank you both for your responses.

I think for me this is the hardest thing. To accept that I 'had' to go through this to keep the joys that I now have (be they kids or otherwise) in my life.

I hate that it has taken such an event to realise what is good in life and appreciate it, I am thankful however that I am able to appreciate it. I still want to kick my own ass for putting up with it

The only thing I would go back and change is me. I would have never let him back in the door after DDay. I would have gone through with the legal separation and told him he had 1 year to get himself counseling and prove that he was trustworthy or I would roll it into the Divorce

I would have kept my house and protected myself and my kids from his drama. That is what I would change.

Wouldn't have taken him back after I dumped him for his bad temper when we were dating 12 years ago. But he was like a pathetic devoted little puppy and I relented 😁

Or at least divorced him after DDay #1 rather than blaming it on the long distance marriage.

But at the same time I wouldn't have my darling DS. But what if I could have had DS with a better father? The thought haunts me

after I dumped him for his bad temper when we were dating 12 years ago. But he was like a pathetic devoted little puppy and I relented 😁

I too dumped my x 16 years ago. I think that is what I am kicking myself about today.

If I hadn't have taken him back all those years ago could my life be better.

IDK, its pretty awesome but I managed that in spite of him. My biggest fear is that I might not get the choice now to be a mum.

Not something that I could ever have seriously considered with him but now I am 36 and starting again. My baby window is pretty much gone and I am only now mourning that.

[This message edited by HurtsButImOK at 2:59 PM, December 13th (Friday)]

Okay if we are bending the rules of reality - lets bend them:

When he proposed - I'd have stuck with what I originally said - "ask me again, a year from the day I return from overseas". Instead I let him lovebomb me into marrying him within 2 months... I really think I would have caught on if I'd had that year.

But, here's where I'm bending the rules further - I'm keeping my kids, and I imagine I'd have had more, had I been with someone who didn't emotionally abandon me both times I was pregnant.

And hell! While we're at it - I'm investing in Microsoft!

I, too, would have stayed gone.

He had dumped me for bitchface. But after months "he missed me, he loved only me" I did not fall for it right away, but damn it eventually I did!! We were teenagers, what the hell did I know??

40+ yrs later I have endured his "boundary issues" about once a decade. (didn't know what they were called all those years!)

I figure I would still have had my kids, as they were destined to be mine. Their dad, on the other hand, might have just been a man with some balls!!!

I asked for a time machine last Christmas and I'l be asking for one every Christmas going forward.

I would have stayed away the first time I dumped him - 6w into the relationship. I wish I never had children with him. These girls would have been mine with or without him. I wish I had had them with someone who would have been a half decent father.

I wouldn't have done anything differently. On the whole, we loved each other a lot. We were happy.'in a fact, I transferred some photos from last year onto an external drive last night and the last crop of photos of us together are the two of us smooching and snuggling and smiling at the place where we got M and one where he had fallen asleep with the puppy, still holding my hand.

I'll never understand why he did what he did and how we got here. But I'm moving on and not dwelling. I know I brought my A game to our M. I was good to him.

So if I had a time machine, I'd go back to any of those days when we cuddled before bed so I could hold him one last time. I 180ed/NCed so fast, I never hysterically bonded or got that last chance to say goodbye.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about what I would have done differently. I would have still married him, but I wouldn't have tried to R after DD #1. I still love his sorry ass with all my heart and I can't imagine my life without our daughter. I just keep thinking that if I hadn't taken him back after the 1st time, I wouldn't be sitting here tonight falling apart. I would be through the worst and on my way to healing. If I could go back to last Sunday, I wouldn't have lowered myself to begging him to stay with me because I can't live without him. Then, I wouldn't have forced him into the position of coldly pushing me away, looking into my eyes and telling me he does not love me and is done with me. I keep reliving those last few minutes with him and it makes me want to die all over again.

I would have kicked him to the curb after DDay #2 (when I found out he had taken the affair underground and we had been in False R for 3 months). I probably SHOULD say after DDay #1 -- but we had just accepted an offer on our home in former city and were living in a house provided by the church (his employer) -- so the kids and I would have had no place to live AND he would have lost his job! We had JUST placed a offer on a new home less than a week before DDay #2 -- I wish I had never let him move with us.

Now, I am unemployed and can't afford to file yet. So, I'm stuck in limbo land after a 3rd DDay.

But I will get a job someday and be able to cover my kids on insurance and get my own place (hopefully back in our former town) and file on his ass and I will be OK. I just hate waiting and wish this were already behind me!

I would never have wasted a second on STBXH if I knew then what I know now...but that may be easier for me to say than most because DD was mine before I ever met WH...I just wonder if I could have found and married someone who would have really loved me if I had never met him and wasted all this time trying to fix a broken marriage to a seriously broken man.

This question is always a tough one for me that I always have to start answering with this: If I knew that I could still have my three kids with someone else, then yes, I would take the time machine back to when I was 22, and XWH (then fiance) and I had a huge argument, and I gave back the ring. Instead of giving the relationship another chance, I should have held firm and walked away.

We would have had very little to lose at that point. He was living in an apartment by himself while I was still living at home with my parents, so we didn't have any joint property together. We had a tiny wedding about a year later, so we wouldn't have lost anything on wedding expenses. It would be another six years before I'd become pregnant with our first child, so there wouldn't have been any custody issues. I wish I had taken advantage of the nice, clean break that life had presented to me, but, naive fool that I was, I didn't.

The only thing I would change is that I would have left him the instant that the fateful text came through. Instead of fooling myself into believing the pathetic "EA" story, I would have listened to my gut. That said, wrapping myself tightly in a cocoon of false R is how I got through the damn bar exam, so if I didn't have that I probably would have failed.

Maybe it would be better not to change anything.

I would go back and have listened to the red flags.

It was always a dream of mine to hit my 50th wedding anniversary, and now that can't happen.

I was happy with XWH. I am happy single. I absolutely loved being married, and I would have been even happier had I married a decent guy,

I so wish I could go back in time and do things differently. But since I can't, I just have to make the best of a terrible situation.

((( NotFixable )))