I often thought that having sat around for 7-8 years regretting her decisions, Anne had enough time to realize the futility of her earlier reasonings made when she was a malleable/impressionable 19YO.

I wonder too if during the course of her self-introspection how many times she'd been angry with LR and then resigned herself to her own fate-as-she-knew it. I don't totally get it as to why she couldn't have just ignored LR :-) Here is LR's awful view of CW.

Chapter 4: "...but Lady Russell saw it very differently. His sanguine temper, and fearlessness of mind, operated very differently on her. She saw in it but an aggravation of the evil. It only added a dangerous character to himself. He was brilliant, he was headstrong. Lady Russell had little taste for wit, and of any thing approaching to imprudence a horror. She deprecated the connexion in every light."