…rguments DO happen, the key is to not say hostile things that you’ll later regret. Hurtful words cannot be taken back. When you view arguments in hindsight, there are some advantages. You can sit quietly and ponder what your spouse’s errors are. A key example would be a mistaken assumption she has about what you think or feel. This allows you to go back and tell her, ‘I listened to what you’re saying. But I believe you’re operating on some mistake… Continue reading →

…he person with whom they want to spend their life. People in affairs often regret their actions and prefer to return to their spouse—if possible. Usually, an affair fills a void. If you feel that something is missing from your relationship, then you might be attracted to someone who can fill that void—albeit temporarily. Of course, that doesn’t make it right, and the possibility of permanent damage to the relationship is enormous. The chronically… Continue reading →

…with email, IMing, texting and all the rest. People have told me of their regret over sending emotional emails to personal or business associates. ‘I wish I had worded it differently,’ they lament. ‘Now it’s engraved in stone.’ Yet email offers the lure of instant gratification in an age of ‘attention deficits’—real OR imagined. But like everything else, instant gratification comes with a price: You could end up feeling foolish (at best), or (at… Continue reading →

…of thought to their opinions. They speak before they think, and maybe even regret it later on. If you know a person like this well enough (and care enough to intervene), you should say something about it to him or her. Not sure what to say? How about something like, ‘You know, you might want to rate a thought on a scale of 1-10 before you express it.’ Or, ‘Maybe it would be a good idea to conduct some research before you render a judgment.’ These… Continue reading →

…e beach for the scenery and the ocean. Then, after a while, they say, with regret, ‘I’m so busy! I never see the water or go fishing any more.’ Or, ‘I never do the things I used to do when I came here on vacation and loved the place.’ To which I reply: ‘No excuse!’ We all have choices. You have to CHOOSE to spend more time doing the things that motivated you to move here. I love to walk along the beach, and I block out time to do it. If I don’t ma… Continue reading →

…, either through fraud or outright violence. He might express or even feel regret for what he does, but not because he realizes that what he did was wrong. He only regrets not having done a better job at it—especially when he gets caught. To the criminal, failing to get the job done right is not all that different from the way you and I might feel about making a big mistake at work. To think that genuine criminal mindsets reform themselves is, lar… Continue reading →

…e’s nothing to forgive. People who are ‘really and truly’ sorry show their regret through behavioral change, not just words. Nothing less will do. This is important, because people are sometimes overcome with guilt over refusing to forgive someone—when that someone isn’t even sorry! I would never advise anyone to forgive when the wrongdoer doesn’t even care enough to show remorse. This would be the ultimate form of denial, and the damage to one’s… Continue reading →

…smile, to meet you somewhere, never shows up, and not only doesn’t express regret’but actually seems to derive pleasure from it. These, and similar situations, characterize what psychologists call ‘passive-aggressive’ behavior. The syndrome is defined by the National Institutes of Health as ”a chronic condition in which a person seems to passively comply with the desires and needs of others, but actually passively resists them, becoming increasing… Continue reading →

…(write) something in anger or haste that might feel good, but that you’ll regret later. For some, the immediate gratification of texting becomes an excuse for blurting out whatever comes into their mind, without having to deal with the consequences of face-to-face communication. But speaking on impulse is a human error, not a technological one. I don’t think people become addicted to objects so much as to bad habits that suit a momentary purpose…. Continue reading →