Today’s theme for World Childless Week are letters of forgiveness. So, I’d like to explore the idea of “forgiveness” and how it fits into our lives. Often our need to forgive ourselves stems from guilt we feel due to using the “benefit” of hindsight to look back as past decisions.
I have written “benefit” of hindsight because I DON’T think there is a benefit to hindsight. Actually, using hindsight when looking back at previous decisions is the worst thing you can do. It’s not that hindsight can be a double-edged sword and a 50/50 mixture of good and bad. If not used very carefully the split is more like 90/10 and not in the favour of hindsight.
I learned about the link between hindsight, guilt and forgiveness in a very extreme way. For many years I carried around the guilt that by NOT going home to see my mother as planned that I was responsible for her death. If I had been at home, she wouldn’t have gone on such a long walk. A different walk and a different outcome.
I explain more in the video:
The lesson learned
The bottom line is that NO ONE goes out to make a bad decision. We are programmed to make good decisions. Unfortunately, things change. The world moves on and what was right one day isn’t always right the next day, the next week, the next month or the next year.
Yet it WAS right at the time.
It WAS right based on the information that we had at the time of making the decision.
If we had different information, we would have assessed the situation differently and perhaps made a different decision.
That’s the crux of the problem with hindsight.
We assess past decisions based on information that we DIDN’T have until much later. Yet we can’t make decisions based on information that we don’t have.
The lesson lived
In 2016 I had a chance to apply the theory and put it into practice. Here’s what happened:
A very close girlfriend of mine driving from the UK to France in time for Christmas. I had been back in the UK for a couple of weeks and was offered a lift with “E” rather than getting a flight back home. I jumped at the chance. It would be the longest time that we had been together, without the distractions caused by her two children, in YEARS.
About halfway through the eight hour journey we started to talk about my blog and books. We’d been discussing this for five or ten minutes when suddenly, out of the blue she asked …
“Do you ever regret not having children with Ian?”
“NO”
Instant answer.
No hesitation.
Zero pause for reflection
A completely emphatic and unequivocal NOOOOOOOO!
“E” was astounded that I didn’t need a moment or three to reflect.
I assured her I didn’t need to think about it because:
- Ian was a complete control freak
- Dad gave me away even though we got married in Australia.
- Yet he died whilst Ian and I were still on honeymoon.
- Having children was at the forefront of my mind. Yet I KNEW that I didn’t want to have Ian’s children
I strongly believed then that if I hadn’t left Ian when I did, I would have had a serious mental breakdown.
The belief hasn’t changed over time.
In fact, I am even more convince now that I would have probably ended up on antidepressant medication for the a very long time.
I left BECAUSE I wanted to have children yet knew how much damage could be done to those children with us as parents. Children growing up in an environment where their father has so little respect for their mother would not reach adulthood unscathed.
I’ve known “E” for over 20 years now. She was there for me after my stepfather died. When she was going through her divorce we talked about my divorce. Whilst she might have forgotten some of the minutia of every last detail, she basically knew what Ian had been like. So, she accepted this explanation without further comment. However, she did have another question:
“Do you regret anything about earlier decisions that had an impact on your ability to have children?”
“Yes, I do have a couple of regrets. However, these are regrets. I don’t beat myself up about them. Having fallen into the trap of carrying around hindsight generated guilt for years over my mother I vowed NEVER to do that again.”
So, what are these regrets?
* Despite talking openly as a family about sex my mother and sister didn’t share the fact that they had endometriosis with me. My grandmother also probably had the disease.
* If I had known that I was high-risk I COULD have used some of the money I inherited after my stepfather died in having eggs retrieved and frozen. Whilst this wouldn’t have guaranteed having children with Andrew if could have improved our chances.
* Following my miscarriage in 2003 we MAY not have delayed trying to conceive until after we got married in 2005. Having become pregnant due to a split condom we were both lulled into a false sense of security that my eggs only had to smell sperm and it was a done deal.
* During the investigations into my failure to conceive endometriosis would have been included in my medical history. More tests COULD have been recommended. I WOULD have insisted on scans after my course of Clomid to check the condition of my ovaries. This COULD have led to earlier detection of damage. We may even have benefited from a couple of free cycles of IVF. Afterall I was only 39 so success rates would have been higher.
“E” was surprised that I could again answer so emphatically and without any reflection. This time it wasn’t due to the harsh reality of my first marriage. Instead it was because I had learnt from the guilt about my Mum that I had carried around for years. I was true to my word: I was never going to let hindsight curse me again!
A World Childless Week Poem
As I don’t feel the need to write my own letter of forgiveness I thought long and hard about what I could write during World Childless Week that would help other people who are struggling in this way. I hope that my insights have been useful.
As I was mulling over the theme my creative subconscious brain was working hard in the background. Waking up at 3am one morning for a wee I ended up having to grab my mobile and jot down some notes. The notes became fully formed ideas and a couple of hours later had morphed into a poem ….
Bottom line about hindsight
Hindsight can be a dangerous thing. It leads to feelings of guilt and when the guilt builds up, we are desperate for forgiveness. Yet we are seeking forgiveness for something that doesn’t need forgiving.
So, give yourself a break and forget about the benefit of hindsight. More often than not it is a curse resulting in years of undeserving guilt and blame.
Are you ready to CANBACE?
Have you got to the stage of wanting to change your story?
Are you are feeling anxious about taking those first steps?
Would you like a gentle introduction to ease you into the process?
If you answered “YES” to any of these questions, then please check out Sunday’s blog when I will be sharing details about a new way to start moving forward with CANBACE.
If anything I have written resonates with you, I’d love to hear from you in the comments. I appreciate that this can be a difficult subject to speak openly about. If you don’t want me to publish your comment on the website, simply include “NOT FOR PUBLICATION” in your comment and I will keep your words private.
In Canbace friendship
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