Whether their latest choice has been probably good or probably bad, keeping those choices as something they did rather than something they are keeps the future open for them.
"The whole process of nature is an integrated process of immense complexity, and it’s really impossible to tell whether anything that happens in it is good or bad - because you never know what will be the consequence of the misfortune; or, you never know what will be the consequences of good fortune." ~ Alan Watts
My dad was a pretty great dad, but when he split with my mom he did some pretty dick moves.
I have no trouble to simultaneously hold those two facets in my mind when my mom rants about him.