Sometimes He Won’t Regret Leaving You, and That’s Okay

For a long time, I thought closure would come in the form of regret.

Not necessarily an apology. Not even reconciliation. I didn’t want the relationship back. I just wanted to know that at some point, the person who left me looked back and wondered if he had made the wrong decision.

I wanted him to see who I had become and think, I really lost something.

Recently, I finally had the opportunity to ask.

The answer wasn’t cruel. In fact, it was probably kinder and more honest than I expected. There had been real love. Leaving had been hard. There were things about our relationship that were missed and things about the person I had become that were respected.

But there was no regret.

The relationship had been unhealthy. Leaving had been the right decision. Life moved forward.

And even though I agreed, it hurt.

That confused me at first. How could I be hurt that someone didn’t want a relationship that I don’t want either? Why did I need him to wish he could have me back when I already knew I wouldn’t go back?

Then I realized I wasn’t waiting for reconciliation.

I was waiting for validation.

I wanted his regret to prove something to me.

That I had been worth keeping. That I hadn’t been easily replaced. That the love had been real. Most importantly, that the version of me who had been rejected wasn’t actually lacking anything; he just hadn’t realized what he had.

And to be fair, women are basically trained to expect the regret.

Think about what our friends say when someone breaks our heart.

“Girl, he’s going to regret this.”

You start losing weight or looking good? “Ohhh, he’s going to be SICK when he sees you.”

You get a promotion, start traveling, buy something nice, or finally seem happy again? “Just wait until he sees what he lost.”

And I get it. We say those things because we love our friends. When someone we care about has been rejected, telling her “one day he’s going to realize he fumbled you” feels a lot better than saying, “Maybe he’ll be perfectly happy with his decision and eventually you will be too.”

Nobody wants to hear that while they’re crying on the couch.

So we turn his future regret into part of the healing process.

Right now you’re hurting, but one day you’ll be thriving and he’ll be the one who hurts.

It gives rejection an ending that feels fair.

And honestly, Hollywood has done absolutely nothing to correct us.

Every rom-com taught us exactly how this was supposed to go. You get your heart broken, disappear for a while, and then reemerge hotter, smarter, more successful, and somehow with much better hair.

Eventually, you run into your loser ex while you’re on the arm of some ridiculously attractive man who is everything your ex wasn’t. Your ex looks at you, visibly devastated by the realization that he fumbled the love of his life. You smile politely because you’ve totally moved on, walk away in slow motion, and the credits roll.

Apparently, real life forgot to hire the writers.

Sometimes your ex is just…fine.

He doesn’t dramatically realize he made the biggest mistake of his life. He may even think breaking up was a good decision.

Rude, honestly.

And that’s the part nobody puts in the movie.

Once I got past the fact that my life was apparently not getting its cinematic redemption scene, I started wondering why I needed that scene so badly in the first place.

That’s when I started seeing the same pattern in other parts of my life.

I had been living for an imaginary audience.

I’ve always been a daydreamer.

As a child, when there were things my family couldn’t afford, I could spend hours imagining a different life. I’d look through store catalogs, circle the clothes I wanted, and somehow convince myself that maybe there was still a way I’d get them.

As I got older, the subject of the daydreams changed.

I imagined boys liking me. I could put on music and create entire relationships in my head. Eventually, some of those boys did become interested in me, although attention and being genuinely chosen weren’t always the same thing.

Somewhere along the way, my imagination stopped being somewhere I occasionally escaped to and became somewhere I went to prove that everything would eventually work out.

One day I’d be successful.

One day I’d have the body I wanted.

One day I’d feel beautiful.

One day I’d have everything I couldn’t have before.

And when that day came, everybody would see.

The guys who didn’t choose me would regret it. The people who underestimated me would realize they were wrong. People who had made me feel less-than would see that I’d become everything they didn’t expect.

It sounds like motivation, and sometimes it was. I’ve accomplished things because I wanted so badly to become that future version of myself.

But there’s a problem with building your life around proving people wrong:

They have to be watching for you to win.

And sometimes they aren’t.

Sometimes the person who rejected you is perfectly happy with the decision they made.

Sometimes the person you hoped would eventually recognize your worth never has that realization.

Sometimes people from your past aren’t thinking about you at all.

And maybe that’s okay.

His regret was never going to heal me.

I think part of me believed there would eventually be this perfect moment where someone from my past saw me thriving and thought, Wow. I really missed out.

And then I’d finally feel good enough.

But what happens after that?

Would one person’s regret undo years of insecurity? Would suddenly being desirable enough erase every time I felt unwanted? Would someone else wishing they had chosen me finally make me choose myself?

Probably not.

There would always be another goal. Another person. Another version of myself I needed to become.

That’s an exhausting way to live.

And the hardest realization has been that I can’t control the ending of someone else’s story about me.

I can become healthier, happier, more successful, and more confident, and someone can still believe that leaving me was the right decision.

Their decision doesn’t cancel my growth.

Both things can be true.

And maybe healing doesn’t require the pain to eventually transfer from me to him.

Maybe we can both be okay.

Maybe he can believe leaving was right, and I can believe it was right too.

And maybe neither of those things means I wasn’t worth loving.

So now I’m trying to remove the audience.

I’m still figuring out what this looks like.

I don’t suddenly have perfect self-esteem. I’m not going to start repeating affirmations in the mirror and pretending I no longer care what anyone thinks.

But I’ve started asking myself a different question:

If nobody from my past ever knew about this, would I still want it?

If nobody who rejected me ever saw my body, would I still want to become stronger and healthier?

If nobody who underestimated me knew my job title or salary, what would I actually want from my career?

If nobody saw the pictures, would I still want to take the trip?

If no ex ever came back, would I still want the life I’m building?

I don’t know all of those answers yet.

But for the first time, I want to find out.

Because maybe moving on isn’t reaching the point where someone regrets losing you.

Maybe it’s reaching the point where you no longer need them to.

Sometimes he won’t regret leaving you.

Sometimes he’ll remember the love, appreciate what you shared, see how much you’ve grown and still believe leaving was the right choice.

That can hurt.

But his regret was never supposed to be the reward for becoming the person you wanted to be.

Your life is.