The Regrets of a Woman: Are Relationships Really Top of the List?

A recent study has shown that the most common regrets among women are those related to relationships. More than 45% of women listed romantic failures as their top regret, compared to just 20% of men. Researcher Neal Roese said, "It does conform to a certain stereotype that we have, but it has been thought of for a long time that women are the keepers of relationships."

Stereotype or not, I can't help but agree there is a lot of truth to Roese's study. I believe most women cling to at least one relationship which makes them wish they could hop into a time machine and change the outcome.

Me? Absolutely! High school boyfriends aside, I've had two long term relationships plus some shorter ones in between. My most frequent mistake was dating men who fed my insecurities, but my biggest regret happened with my last boyfriend.

When I first met him, everything was magical. I guess the first flush of love really does distort your vision because it took a whole year for me to see that we weren't compatible. There were many small things about him that irked me, but the issue that really killed the relationship was that he made no effort with my family, yet I was expected to fit in with his. It took another two years before the list of little things became too long to ignore and I tried to call things off. My boyfriend couldn't see the problems though. He thought everything was great and refused to let me go. I felt enough for him that I couldn't bear to hurt him, so I agreed to stay. Of course, it didn't last.

Of all the things I regret in my life, failing to make the right decisions in relationships seems to affect me more than anything else. The pressure on women to settle down with the right man sounds outdated, but I still feel it. Every time a relationship ended, I felt like there was something I should have done differently, or better.

While I will never be sorry for the good times I had with my last boyfriend, I will always wish I had been brave enough to break things off sooner. Time wasted in a dead end relationship is time you can't get back. My biggest regret of all time is that I knew it and I let it go on anyway.