Criminal Sentence 219: I Wish You Wouldn't

From an interview with a pitcher:

"I wish I wouldn’t have started."

This is a case where the speaker made the verb tense more complicated than necessary. Why do you need two auxiliary (or helping) verbs: "wouldn't" and "have"? I dunno. You don't.

The sentence needs just one:

"I wish I hadn't started."

You can imagine yourself saying, "I wish you hadn't done that." You wouldn't say, "I wish you wouldn't have done that."

I hear this tense problem in other sentences, such as this:

"If she would have listened, I would not have put her in time out."

You need to change the first verb:

"If she had listened, I would not have put her in time out."