Regrets, do you have lots, a few, none?

[NovemberMorn]

I don't have any, not any serious ones anyway.
I accept I have made mistakes, probably a few bad choices, but they have all been a learning curve.
We can all muse about the sliding doors theory, but in the scheme of things, what's the point of having regrets?

Married twice.
Never to my one great love.
Three kids that I adore.
But despite this, I will always wonder, what if.
Never goes away.

My post said that I regretted having more than one child because I’m not able to give them both what they need. In a sea of some pretty sad admissions I’m not sure why I’ve been singled out.

I love them very much and feeling like a crap mum to them both because I can’t split myself in two haunts me as it is; I didn’t expect my reply to be jumped on, told they would not be in touch with me when they are adults and that I can’t love them

I don't really agree that regrets are pointless. They are if you dwell on them constantly but if I've done something to hurt someone's feelings, I really do regret that. I think we learn from these things.

Apologies if I misread you post , you said in your post you were foul to your children and hated yourself because of it,and I understood it as in the broadest term as ‘extremely unpleasant’ and it made me very sad for your children and how it can affect them.
Apologies again as I’ve since read you subsequent posts.

@awaynboilyurheid ‘foul’ as in, I don’t have any time or patience or much left of anything at all. I am not chaining them in the cellar.

I had an exceptionally hard day when I posted that and the truth is I have wondered frequently if I made the right call having a second. I tried to get across that I love them both very much but that I struggle to meet their needs. I realise I was using quite dramatic language but I think ‘if their own mother can’t love them’ was a very low blow.

This is so true.

Yes, but none I would admit to. Mainly young and stupid and then not so young and still stupid!

None because I believe every thing you go through in life is a lesson. Every mistake I’ve made has taught me something and I genuinely don’t regret anything. Actually maybe just one thing. Being too busy to soak in my eldest two when they were little. Just take a step back from life and enjoy them as much as I could. That’s the only thing I’d change.

I'm sorry you feel you haven't been a good parent, but if you love your kids, you have probably been a lot better parent than you think you have.

Boom 💥 ♥️

Quite a few. But I like to think that it has made me the wise, empathetic, insightful and (relatively!) unjudgmental woman that I am in my 60s. That's what I like to take comfort in anyway!

Your post was obviously taken the wrong way, but reading it, it did sound rather disturbing.
Loving them very much IS giving them what they need, it makes up for a lot of things you feel you can't give them.

For what it's worth, I don't think many mothers have not felt guilt sometimes about the way we are bringing/have brought our kids up...there is always something we could have done better.

More disturbing than I lost the plot a few times with my kids and the adoption we were undertaking broke down after a couple of months and was angry and unpleasant to the people I love and affairs and wishing they’d terminated?

I am not judging, just genuinely unsure as to why mines been singled out. But whatever, not important, I’ll keep quiet in future 😂

I have many regrets.

I was sexually abused when I was 15, and when I was 17 a man came into my life. He was 31 and he adored me ... and I married him. I think I was looking for someone to look after me and protect me. We had a 'good' marriage for 30yrs plus, but I didn't get to live my life. So, if I had my time again I wouldn't have got married so young, but instead concentrated on me, my life, my job and had numerous love affairs.

Now I'm in my 50s and I really feel that life has passed me by.

I have a lot of regrets. I think if regrets are minor and it’s just the fact you wonder what life would be like in a parallel universe if you made a different choice, but you still have a good life now so it’s not really impactful, it’s pointless thinking about.

The regrets I have however have ruined my life. I’m very unhappy in my life, I’m heading no where and there is nothing I can do to change it. I feel like I’ve lost at the game of life but am being forced to carry on playing.

Loads!! Mainly career choices really.
Also I could’ve been a better mum (not as shouty etc) when DC were younger - times have moved on now though and we are close, so …

I have huge regrets and I would love to learn how to be so blase and say there's no point having regrets, how do you do that? Perhaps that only works if you're happy with your life now. I don't feel like I'm choosing to feel regret but they are the last thing on my mind when I fall asleep and first thing that hits me in the stomach when I wake up feeling like I'm in the wrong life.

Well, when you said you were foul to
your children…🤷🏼‍♀️

Massive ones.

Marrying my ex. I knew I shouldn’t have.

Just coasting in my 20s and 30s instead of being focussed and driven with a career. I’m paying for that now.

Which apparently is worth singling out when someone else lost the plot with theirs and that wasn’t. I’m genuinely wondering why someone made such a low blow in response to my post when others went unmentioned.

Which apparently is worth singling out when someone else lost the plot with theirs and that wasn’t. I’m genuinely wondering why someone made such a low blow in response to my post when others went unmentioned.

Honestly, none.

There are things I look back on which make me cringe a bit - risks I took, decisions I'd advise others against - but without them, I wouldn't have what I have now.

There was a relationship which I chose to throw away and regretted it in the aftermath, but I absolutely wouldn't sacrifice what I have now to go back ad change it.

I think you make a very good point. If you are happy now, it's easier to not regret the past, because things have worked out right.

I regret loads, but I also can look back at a lot of my life and breathe a sigh of relief about the things I got right.

I regret-

a) not having embraced my inner nerd earlier.
b) sleeping with some really grim men in my later teens/early 20s. I didn't even want to do it at the time- think it was probably connected to a) and wanting to tell myself I was a different sort of person to what what I actually was.
c) leaving my last job, which I loved, for my present job which is better paid but far more boring.