What's one of your biggest regrets and why?

[Guessimnottheonlyone]

What is your one of your biggest regret(s), and why?

I'll start.

Joe Elliot from Def Leppard once offered me a lift home.
Quite flirty, asked me more than once.
I declined.

I'm an idiot as I have always loved their music, and I love men with longer hair, and who have that rock star look going on.

Plus, Elliot suits my first name much better than my married name 🤣

Hubby had long hair and a six pack when I met him.
Fast forward two decades, he now has no hair and a beer belly (and he's not even a drinker!).

I don't have stalker issues BTW. As I have a feeling that may be mentioned 🙈
This is just for fun 😉

Go!!...

I wish I'd sacked off an Italian holiday with my total cow of a best mate, and gone to the wedding of another friend instead. I lost touch with the wedding friend and the holiday was crap.

Turned down an offer to party backstage with The Flaming Lips once. Still kick myself.

Not ending my life before I became a parent

@thecatneuterer did you go to Tapton?

You got it 😁

Trusting the drs/midwives etc who told me to force feed and sleep feed our milk refusing cmpa reflux firstborn, as a tube would be 'terrible' for him. He still has issues with food and weight now at 5yo. Still doesn't sleep through the night and takes 1l of fortified high calorie oat milk at bedtime and overnight, just to maintain his current low weight. I fear for the longer term impact on him, and it doesn't help that he's an obviously anxious child. I regret not being a better mum to him when my mental health was in absolute shreds, when it could have changed his outcome.

Not buying a property when we were in our early 20s and could afford it - it was a cute 2 up 2 down terrace in a lovely area in Yorkshire. We had been renting it for 3 years, and got on great with the elderly LL, he asked us if we were interested in buying it (60k, which was well below market value at the time)
We both had full time jobs, clean credit scores and would have certainly being able to get a mortgage. We seriously considered it but ultimately decided to move to London (for careers) where we were stuck renting for 10 years before moving back up north.

Took us another 4 years before we could afford to buy our first home. Only achieved by moving back in with my parents for 18 months. We had a great time in London, I don’t regret moving but I regret the £80,000+ in rent we gave to some seriously incompetent & immoral LLs during that time!

Plus @Guessimnottheonlyone you'd probably be filthy stinking rich living in an LA Megamansion if you'd stuck with Mr Def Leppard! (assuming you're not now)
My biggest regret is spending the best part of my 20's absolutely besotted with and being treated like crap by a pig of a man. He was really strange looking, overweight, with poor personal hygiene. He was also abusive and my friends were constantly trying to talk sense into me but would I listen? Nope. He was utterly gross inside and out and I was heartbroken when he dumped me. I now thank my lucky stars he did. Grim.
Sad to think what I could have spent my 20's doing instead!! What the hell was I thinking?!!!

I would lol!

@Cantfindthewordsddstruggling
I'm so very sorry you feel like this.
Would you like me to message? Sometimes talking to a stranger can help x

@MarvellousMidgeMaisel
Oh I know.
I am such a nob.
I fancied him but was so shy, so I said no, about four times.
I'm not starstruck, but I love the band, always have.
Definitely huuuuuggggeeee mistake there.
Time machine please!

We make very silly decisions, and in our 20s we might think we know it all, but we really don't, do we?
Glad you got out.

1. I kick myself for not giving my number to a hotshot local football star, all because I was too wrapped up in my dirtbag boyfriend.
2. Waiting until mid 30s to TTC.

But right now my biggest regret is inhaling a huge plate of McCain's chips when I'm supposed to be dieting. 🤬

Having kids

They wreck your body, your mental wellbeing, its thankless drudgery, now they are grown up and cannot even be arsed to come see me

wish i had not bothered

when I read of people desperate to conceive, I think fuck no, do you not realise how bad it is? I envy the childless

I regret spending the first 50 years of my life trying to please my narcissistic, controlling bitch of a mother.

Sleeping with the D bag who gave me genital herpes.

Just falling into a career because I didn't have a plan. I wish I'd really thought about what I wanted to do and made a clear plan to get there.

@AggressiveCub Have you considered the impact of your parenting on your current feelings of regret? I cherish spending time visiting my parents on Saturdays with the kids, even if we're just sat about with cups of tea.

I wish I hadn't let our infertility affect my studies. I try not to have regrets but I find it hard to move past that one. As it changed my career path and now I'm a bit lost with it.

I regret not taking more risks!
Wish I'd gone to a further away uni - I spent so little time thinking about it it's actually embarrassing, I have always over researched everything in my life but I did so little about my uni, and I ended up in a rubbish uni, n a place I hated, with a lot of people who were lazy or bitter that they didn't get into a better uni, and I didn't even have the balls to quit. Ended up with a useless degree and no more knowledge on the subject than I'd had at A Level.
I've ended up alright but god, what a waste of money. I understand why it happened that way (undiagnosed ND/MH/family stuff) so I don't hold onto the regret too badly, but I do sometimes wonder what if...

I wish I had split with my horrible ex and traveled, he ended up leaving me for an affair, when we had a 4 month old .

I wish id not rushed into things with now DH on the rebound ..

We're happy enough but I do wonder what would've happened had I not dumped the lad I was seeing and then immediately jumped into a serious relationship with DH.. I was 23, he was my third serious boyfriend! I wish id just remained single and taught abroad like I'd planned to.. instead we were living together at 24, engaged by 25, bought a house at 26, married at 27 then two babies in two years suddenly I was like "oh! Where did MY time go?" as I turned 30!

I obviously don't regret my children but I feel like we just did all that you're "supposed" to do just because!

As it happens now my career is going well (very well as it happens!) and my children are now approaching pre-teens so with 40 starting to loom ahead I feel a bit more like "me" again!

Always doing what everyone else wanted, even when it cost me dearly (both financially and emotionally).

We lost a signed first edition of two books by a very famous author. Would be worth a lot of money now.

Sticking with my now ex H when I was in my 20s and planned to live and work abroad. Had a chance at a job in the canaries and one in Germany but he refused to go, even for a year. Refused to consider long distance. We weren't even engaged at that point, but I was made to feel (by people's opinions I at the time valued) that choosing 'love' was more important than a year or so away. Now I'm older I realise a) it wasn't necessarily a very strong/sustainable love as it was hot/cold/rocky for years and b) those people were giving advice based on what they wanted me to do, which actually wasn't in my best interests. Now we are divorced anyway with the kids he insisted on having when I was more on the fence, that he now can't really be arsed with, and I can't easily pick up and go with the dcs in tow. Maybe when they've left home... I don't regret having my dcs but I do regret not travelling more and having my living abroad experience before getting settled down.

This also.
I regret putting men first (after dd oc)..all ended, them benefitting, me not so. I always left with nothing whilst they floated off loaded because theyd milked me dry. I have learned that lesson now.
Another regret, staying with ex 25 year.
Regret, not accepting marriage proposal which would have changed my life.
But 😁... It is what it is, hopefully we learn and stop repeating mistakes. I now come first. Non regret 🤣

God so many:

• studying psychology at uni, and going to uni at all. Then getting stuck in a career I hate and can't find a way out of.
• not moving to live near my family after uni, instead moving to the city I live in now, many hours away, that I had no ties to. I can't leave it now and my family will all be gone soon. I thought I had more time.
• I regret marrying in my early 20's. I wish I'd been brave enough to be single. I feel like I've been old and responsible for everyone else for such a long time.