Many people (dumpees or dumpers) believe that they’ve wasted a lot of time with their exes.
They think that their ex was a huge mistake and that they should never have met their ex.
But even though they shouldn’t have suffered the way they did, it’s still not healthy for them to think about their past in such a negative way.
Since they’ve enjoyed their time (probably more than they’re willing to admit), they haven’t really wasted their time, money, and life.
As far as I’m concerned, the time that people enjoy in a relationship is time well spent. It may not be all sunshine and rainbows, but no relationship ever is.
Relationships require a lot of effort, compromising, and even sacrificing.
You might think that 100% of your failed relationship was a waste of time because you got dumped, met your ex’s dark side, or did the dumping yourself.
You now feel as if you’ve lost a great portion of your life and that you could have met someone else and started a life with that person instead.
But what you failed to realize is that the person you were dating was your life.
He or she was your long-term “investment” that you chose to invest in.
It may not have ended well, but it was nonetheless an idea worth spending time on for as long as it was profitable.
So before you decide that you regret spending all those years with your ex, think about whether you actually hated your relationship.
Was it really all for nothing? Did you gain nothing from your relationship? Were you never happy and did you truly waste months or years of your life with your ex?
These are the questions we’re going to help you answer in this article.
I regret wasting years of my life with my ex
If you consider your time with your ex a waste, then you’ll really regret wasting years of your life that you’ve spent with your ex.
You’ll regret ever meeting your ex, building a life with him or her, and most importantly—regret enjoying the numerous good times throughout the relationship.
You will become incredibly pessimistic toward the many years you’ve spent with your ex-partner and associate negativity to your very own life.
Your life is, therefore, going to have a part of disgrace linked to it.
And that’s something you will feel bitter and disgusted about and will blame your ex for—even though he or she didn’t force your beliefs on you.
So try not to hate your ex just because your relationship has ended.
Relationships shouldn’t be regarded as a waste of time if they don’t have a forever and ever, fairytale-like ending.
They should be seen as an experience—a journey full of good memories, joy, and valuable lessons.
That’s why you need to see it this way even if your ex has betrayed you or did something despicable after the breakup.
You must not connect the quality of your past relationship to your ex’s behavior.
You must instead think of the fun you’ve had when you were dating your ex.
We’re referring to the fun you’ve had when your ex was around and the fun you’ve had when he or she wasn’t.
In simpler terms, think about the memories that made your time with your ex worthwhile and not the ones that killed it.
Relationships determine our happiness
Would you believe me if I told you that the better your relationship with yourself and others is, the higher the quality of your life will be?
Well, numerous studies show that this is true no matter what kind of relationships we have with people.
Studies show that we’re the happiest when:
- Our perception of ourselves is healthy.
- We get along with other people and have great relationships with them.
Relationships can be:
- romantic
- friendships
- acquaintances
- family
People create high-quality relationships with trust, love, respect, acceptance, support, and shared interests.
These are the values we look for in order to feel accepted and valued by the people we build relationships with.
So when our relationships possess positive attributes, we coincidentally feel better about ourselves—and our own lives.
We basically feel validated and feel that we belong in this world.
The quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives.
esther perel
You create your own story
Napoleon Hill, best known for his book Think and Grow Rich said, “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve.”
This powerful philosophical quote explains the strength behind people’s thoughts in the best way possible.
Napoleon is essentially saying that the things we believe in become true whether they are true or false. All we need is to believe in them strongly enough.
For example, if we tell ourselves (and believe it too) that Earth is flat, we are going to know, feel, and understand that it’s flat.
The same principle applies to lies.
When we tell lies and repeat them many times, we distort reality, overwrite the truth, and believe that our lies are the truth—and that the rest is incorrect.
This occurs when we believe ourselves so much that we don’t consider anyone else’s opinion.
As for our ex-thoughts, they pretty much work the same way.
If we believe that our ex is a bad person, we attach a negative stigma to our ex and perceive him or her in a way that hurts us more than it hurts our ex.
You see, holding grudges and remembering people with hatred in our hearts is killing us.
Not only is it making us miserable, angry, and spiteful, but it’s actually killing us on the inside.
It’s boiling our blood, raising blood pressure, and causing hundreds of other counterproductive stress-related symptoms that otherwise wouldn’t be present.
So let’s not go down this negative path. Let’s forgive and forget everyone that has ever intentionally and unintentionally hurt us.
Think of your relationship in a positive way
Why don’t we tell a more positive story that doesn’t make us regret spending time with our exes?
Why not tell ourselves that we’ve tried everything to make our relationship work, but that in the end—we’re meant to share our happiness with someone else?
You see, when we let go of negative associations and admit that we don’t regret spending years of our lives with our ex, we eventually get closure.
We consequently begin to think of our ex as the person we needed to meet in order for us to become the best version of ourselves.
By thinking positively, we also make the time we’ve spent with our ex meaningful. And that’s because we deliberately search for the positives and not the negatives.
So do your best not to hate your ex for dumping you. Your ex has merely given you a chance to self-improve and find someone who can offer you more than he or she can.
There’s something bad in everything good and something good in everything bad.
Michael Lewis
Talking badly about past relationships
One of the biggest red flags you can come across when you’re dating someone new is when that person talks badly about his or her ex.
When your date or partner is using derogative comments about his or her ex, your first impression can’t be very good.
Nasty ex-comments immediately raise your guard and make you concerned about the moral values of the person you’re seeing.
Not only is your partner showing you his or her true colors, but he or she is also focusing on the wrong person – an ex from the past.
Your partner is recreating and reliving the injustice that he or she experienced—and is refusing to let it go.
And that’s really, really bad for you as his or her partner because you don’t want to listen about your partner’s intimate life with someone else, nor care about someone who shouldn’t matter anymore.
That person should be buried in the past and not walking all over your new and exciting relationship like a zombie.
So if your ex is talking badly about his or her ex-partner, ask yourself the following questions:
- Is my partner over my ex?
- Why is my partner showing me such an unattractive side to him/her? Is this who my partner really is?
- If my partner is talking badly about my ex, what are the chances he/she will talk badly about me if we break up?
Be your best self
Talking badly about the person you used to love is not a very mature thing to do.
It’s not mature even if your ex has hurt you badly and is acting as if he or she doesn’t care about you.
I know you may be extremely sad due to the breakup and perhaps even because of your ex’s bad post-breakup behavior.
But don’t show others what you’re really like at your worst.
Instead, show them how big a person you are even though your ex has wronged you and caused you pain.
That’s something that takes courage and self-respect while trash-talking your ex every person can do.
The only time when you really wasted your time with your ex
The only time when we can say that you wasted your time with your ex is when you were never, ever happy in the relationship—because you were practically your ex’s slave.
If everything you did was to please your ex’s wants and needs, then you can’t possibly have been happy.
If you basically lived for your ex, then yes—your relationship was a waste of time and effort.
Not only did you live your life in discontent, but you also failed to find purpose in your life because you overprioritized and overvalued your ex way above you.
In such a case, you refused to find or create your own goals and ambitions—and failed to focus on working toward something, anything other than your relationship.
Earl Nightingale, an American author says, “We are at our very best, and we are happiest when we are fully engaged in work we enjoy on the journey toward the goal we’ve established for ourselves. It gives meaning to our time off and comfort to our sleep. It makes everything else in life so wonderful, so worthwhile.”
So did you not enjoy all those months or years you’ve spent with your ex? Do you really regret wasting years of your life with your ex and becoming the person you are today? Comment below.
Definately wasted 32 years. Only good thing that happened was my 3 daughters.
Sorry to hear that, Evelyn.
I hope you can move forward and get the most out of your life.
Sincerely,
Zan
I’m quite confused. I have a thinking that I have wasted my 11.6 years relationship with my ex. All I did was love her, been faithful and loyal. I’ve been with her since I was 17 and we broke up in 30Dec2018 (I’m 28) after I caught her cheating on me for the second time around (just 5 months after I caught her initially). I am having so much anxieties right now. My ex left me for someone (that someone is the same person I caught her). I thought I am ok already after doing NC and after not paying attention to all her breadcrumbs. But after returning to my province, all the heartaches from the beginning came back after seeing her with that new person (same person I caught her). She never stop sending me breadcrumbs. I don’t what she needed from me. I feel devastated and I seems my youth became meaningless. I gave everything to her and all I got was this. It’s like she just kept me as her back up plan in case something happens to all her relationships (relationships that I did not about). I trusted her with all my heart and she completely ruined the trust and found out that she’s been cheating from me from the beginning without me knowing at all.. My heart is really broken into pieces.. Up to now. I want to move forward and forgive them, but it’s easier said than done.. I can’t believe that all my efforts, sacrifices were all for nothing. I wasted my youth… 11.6 years of my youth.. It is so unfair that I get to have all these PTSD anxieties depression and all that while the person who left me is a happy person with her new partner.
I know exactly what your feeling. I was with my ex for 10 years. While i was spending my time with my dying grandfather our last month together, she totally dissapeared when i needed her. She finally decided to tell that my grandfather passed away that she had been seeing someone else. I lost 2 people i loved that day. But thats only the start, a few days later she texted me begging me for my forgivness, and begging me back.,and admitted she made a huge mistake, that she was in love too deep to throw away those years together. And then she proposed to me!! Well like a dumbass, i said yes and she quickly wanted to tell everyone the news. Everything was great , i was happy again…….Wrong!! That very next morning she tells me i have to leave, she changed her mind, and shes in love with this new guy and wants to b with him!! If i really loved her and cared about her happiness i would go. That was 2 yrsago, and i still am devasted!! So obvious this guy hasnt been with someone as evil or for the amount of time to know the damage and the years we can never get back, to find someone new,and start over again. Im almost 45, i dont go out to clubs anymore,not in the clubscenes,no nightlife, besides that, how can i meet someone if its impossible to trust and look at love in a different way? Not only that but u tell me where to meet people?? Covid is here,rest my case. I lost ten years ill never get back . Im miserable and that cunt is married ,a kid, and on top of the world. So sure, i should b happy for the good times we had?? Fuck that!! I cant wait for karma to catch up to her, i want front row seats
This is a tough one. I’m 8 weeks out of a 3.5 year relationship, my second after my divorce. The first was about three months. I’m the Dumpee, and I do feel guilt for my role in the break up. We both did not communicate or handle conflict well. Feelings were not being communicated or validated and we were all over Gottman’s Four Horseman, criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling. she was a criticizer and I was a stonewaller. In times of conflict I would sometimes ask her go to her place for the night, or two. I thought I was respecting my needs for some space. I since learned it was stonewalling. I knew it hurt her, but I literally couldn’t stop the narrative once the physiological flooding kicked in and I didnt even know what I was trying to solve or where to start. We needed to address this a a team and couple. Break up retrospect has told me this was dumped on me to fix. Her criticism wasn’t even on the table. This is telling to me about the overall health our relationship and she wanted nothing to do with it post break up.
So I’ve learned that about myself. I’ve also learned, re-learned maybe, communication skills and techniques and dynamics about relationships in general. When she broke up, I had no idea that ‘no contact” was this real thing and not a nice to have request. It’s been awhile since I’ve been a non married Dumper.
I’ll miss her, she’s not coming back, but I’m not sure I could ever nor want to take her back. I knew the end was coming because of our dysfunction, neither had the desire to stop the bleeding (again, telling) and I had enough of my own grievances to become frustrated and distant myself.
I spect 3.5 years with a beautiful and really, wonderful woman ten years younger (her 47) than me and we killed it for awhile. She was my learning relationship post diverse where my ex was serial cheater. My role to her was the source for her to move out of her parents place having gifted some $$$ to buy a nice little condo and she will use it to become the independent women she is destined to be, living on her own.
My relationship was nice at first (first year). Later I started having weird issues with my ex. He did things that normally were my dealbreakers (stopped calling, only texting, meeting max once a week, coming late (even 1hour later), finally disrespecting for my looks, abilities and emotionally abusing me). I tried having conversarions with him about these things and when it didn’t help I decided to leave him. He informed me about some mental illness he had and that it couses him much issues in life and 90% of troubles that we had. I was very sorry for what he had to go through with his illness and tried to suplort him as much as I could. However, his negative attitude towards me increased month by month. I broke up with him when I couldn’t stand the situation anymore. I was very depressed. After some time I contacted him and wanted to talk. He text me he loved me at the beggining but later it changed. He does not want to talk becuase he has somebody else. I am very broken now and it is hard to forgive. I thought he loved me but his illness was the issue. It turned out his illness was an excuse to keep me longer until he found somebody else.
I absolutely regret the many years I spent with my ex. I put her first in all things and at all times, and was ultimately repaid with infidelity, dishonesty, deceit, and disrespect. I was used and taken advantage of in multiple ways. At the end of the ‘relationship,’ the callous disregard she displayed caused me to question why she was ever involved with me. As a result, it’s difficult to find value in any of it. I read all of Zan’s helpful articles, but this one (together with a prior one, ‘How to Forgive…’) seems to take an overly charitable view of dumpers and their intentions, and I’m a little bothered by it. Hey, I’m as forgiving as the next guy, but there are truly selfish, malevolent people in the world. And their actions shouldn’t be excused, discounted or forgotten. In doing so, we dumpees grant license to dumpers to repeat their foul actions with others in the future. No lessons learned.
Hi John.
I understand that you’ve been hurt badly in the relationship and after.
I also understand that you didn’t enjoy your relationship as much as you could have.
But even if your ex was a narcissist and you don’t like her very much, do your best not to despise your own life.
It’s not worth staying bitter and angry at your ex—because you’re only hurting yourself.
You’re causing long-term damage to yourself and could even develop trust issues in the future.
Also, your ex will get to win once again and might even get an ego boost from knowing that she affected you to this degree.
Thanks for reading,
Zan
Hi Zan,
I usually agree with your very helpful views, but we’re not on the same page here. I don’t think it’s an indicator that I ‘hate my life’ or that I’m bitter and angry because I don’t want to countenance my ex’s malevolence and narcissism. I don’t see the connection. I’m not fixated on her nor the end of the relationship. I do regret the time I was with her because I was used and treated poorly for much of it. Regret is a normal reaction to negative events, actions or outcomes. As I said in my response, I simply think that abusive people should be held to account for their actions and not given a pass by way of forgiveness. And I don’t believe that forgiving is a prerequisite to forgetting.
Hi John.
The fact that we agree on most things is good enough for me.
I too have dealt with a narcissist before so I know what it’s like to be treated badly. When she ended things in a very nasty way, I had the power to teach her a lesson that would last a lifetime. But had I lowered myself to her level, I would have been just like her, so I chose to walk away peacefully. It was over.
And even though she will or has hurt someone else already, I can’t be held responsible for my inactions. Perhaps someone else will break up with her and change her for the better.
I think that abusive people should be punished by leaving them or reporting them to the authorities. Revenge, on the other hand, is a no-no.
Kind regards,
Zan
Hey John,
huge hug to you. I feel your pain, I spent years in a marriage faithfully loving a man who was grumpier every year that went by. He began emotionally abusing me and became a different person from when we were dating. One day, I discovered he was living a very carefully planned double life filled with girlfriends, sex, prostitutes and drugs. He hid this successfully with his work hours/errands he was apparently running and friends/coworkers who would cover for him. We had children. I left him. I was so angry and felt he ruined my life. I was a good wife to him, there was nothing I did that could have warranted his actions. I was livid. How dare he abuse me and expose me to STDs and betray me (and leave all the parenting to me as well) for years and waste my youth??!!! Yes, marrying him: huge regret in a way. How could you not?
Yet…
There’s a book by Steven Stosny called “Living and Loving after Betrayal” which helped immensely, as well as therapies such as muscle testing. Somehow, I eventually got to the edge of the cliff of forgiveness for him and jumped off. He may still be a cheating liar. But I also recognize he was the implement of an important lesson in my life. Forgiveness is a huge concept for me now.. and also I am able to pass these lessons to my children in a variety of ways. I can also coparent with him and stand in front of him and feel absolutely nothing. No feelings of friendship nor feelings of loss, not even anger. I also like his new wife. It is incredibly refreshing. I absolutely became strong through that. I have so much respect for myself now, and I’ve already been able to walk away from another relationship that was turning unhealthy before it went too far, with dignity. I was that girl who always held grudges. That girl has been destroyed and I don’t miss her, life is still hard, but it’s many times more enjoyable for me now!
Your anger is so, SO justified! Let that out. You may need to break some bottles on a brick wall or scream in a field. You may need to do that more than once. Just don’t cheat yourself by staying there for too long. Our exes will reap what they sow. My forgiveness doesn’t give my ex a free pass, our friends and family know what he did. He’s lowered himself to a low standard. He’ll never be able to undo the past. God only knows what he is sowing in his fields these days. But one thing I know for sure: your ex cheated herself out of a man who put her first and loved her. She’s not living consequence-free, there is likely a wake of destruction behind her and that would be shameful and embarrassing enough for anyone.
Hi Carly,
Thanks for the encouraging words, and for sharing the lessons you learned from your terrible experience. In my situation, the relationship hadn’t progressed to marriage (though that was supposed to be the next step), so the ‘damage’ was limited. At a certain point after the breakup when the smoke had cleared, I actually felt thankful for how everything developed; seeing this horrid person who I didn’t know or recognize made it easier to flip the emotional switch and walk away. And the indefinite NC hasn’t been too challenging. If anything, I was more disappointed in myself than her for not seeing what should have been obvious signs about what was happening. Also, as you correctly pointed out, no one who’s guilty of the deeply hurtful things she did will skip down the road totally scot-free (Karma will have its day). Very glad you emerged from your ordeal wiser and freer to forgive. Hopefully, your children will also learn some invaluable lessons about people that will help them in their own future relationships. Best o’ luck!
I’ve never regretted the time with my ex and I hope she doesn’t either. We had three really happy years together and I wouldn’t even say it was that bad the last 4 or 5 months, she just withdrew from me before breaking up. Hopefully one day she looks back and remembers that I wasn’t so bad and did a lot of things for her and was good to her most of the time. I messed up from time to time, but who doesn’t? I didn’t do anything horrendous, just your usual relationship mistakes. AFAIK she never cheated, so I’d be open to reconciliation one day if she revisits the idea and reaches out to me.
Hi Trevor.
Everyone makes mistakes every now and then, so don’t worry about the past anymore. All that matters is that you fix your shortcomings and continue moving on for now.
And if your ex decides to give it another shot, be careful before you allow her back into the relationship.
Kind regards,
Zan
Not really regretting but more disappointed in myself and my ex. Disappointed that I let my anxiety and fear get the best of me and letting myself go and just focusing on my ex.
However I’m glad that I’m able to do some soul searching, self reflecting and healing as well as reintroducing self love and just focusing on me during this whole breakup process.
I’ve come to realize that I’m worthy of being love regardless of my strength and weaknesses. I’m human, I make mistakes but I can also learn from it and be the best person I can be and just continue to move forward and continue to be happy with or without the ex or be in a relationship or not.
Hi Inaho.
You’ve come far and you’re getting even further. There’s no stopping you.
I’m glad you see the positive side of the breakup and that you’re working hard on self-improvement.
Keep it up and don’t ever blame yourself for your mistakes to the point where it hurts your well-being.
We all make mistakes and so did your ex. But you’re the only one fixing them between the two of you.
Kind regards,
Zan