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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask if you could change just one decision you have made...

199 replies

LifePond · 14/04/2018 22:57

What would it be?

Mine : In October 2005 I considered changing my mobile phone number but did not. I wish I did ....

OP posts:
WaitingForSunday17 · 15/04/2018 11:41

whatsgoingoneh it's the absolute best advice I can give them. Why wouldn't I warn them against doing something so soul destroying? The happiest people I know are people with good careers who are childless by choice. Do what they want, go where they want, no huge worry all the time.
In addition it turns out I have passed on a genetic illness which my dc are also likely to pass on so all round it's just better if they don't have children.

Jannilost · 15/04/2018 11:58

Wish i had stayed with an XBF when he was diagnosed with cancer, i panicked and just left. He battled for only 4 weeks before passing, but i always feel so guiltyfor what idid.

Ceirrno · 15/04/2018 13:15

@WaitingForSunday17 I wondered if there was a genetic condition at play in your comments. I was undiagnosed when I had my kids but I've also passed on a nasty genetic condition to them. Had I known before I had them then I don't know what I would've chosen. One of my children has already decided they don't want to have their own children as a result, the other two are younger but it will also be less of an issue for them as being boys they'll only have to worry about passing it on, whereas my DD has both that and the concerns over how pregnancy makes our condition progress.

FluffyWuffy100 · 15/04/2018 13:16

Nothing.

My life isn’t perfect but I can’t think of any defining sliding doors moment which would improve my life.

steppemum · 15/04/2018 13:51

whatsgoingoneh it's the absolute best advice I can give them. Why wouldn't I warn them against doing something so soul destroying? The happiest people I know are people with good careers who are childless by choice. Do what they want, go where they want, no huge worry all the time.
In addition it turns out I have passed on a genetic illness which my dc are also likely to pass on so all round it's just better if they don't have children.

I am so sorry that you have this condition and have passed it on to your dc, that must be very hard.

But I just can't get past how bleak your experience of parenthood is, and that you think that ony childless people are really happy/fulfilled etc. and that being a parent is soul destroying. I find it quite shocking actually, not, I must add that I am shocked at you at all, that is not intended as a judgemental comment, what I mean is I find it shocking that someone's experience of parenthood has been so hard and I really feel for you. Flowers

My own experience is that I know people with and without kids, and that I see/know that there are people in both camps that are happy/less happy or fulfilled/less fulfilled. But I don't know anyone in either camp who would feel quite so bleak about their life.

Allthepinkunicorns · 15/04/2018 13:57

I wish I hadn't married my husband. A couple of months before I found out he was using chat site's and showing other women pics of himself etc but I still went ahead and married him. I can't trust him and know that he's either cheating von me or is on the chat site's again. I will eventually be leaving it's just getting the courage to do it and change my life.

greenheart · 15/04/2018 13:57

I wish I'd spent more time with my grandmother before she died. And I wish I'd had the forethought to ask her the big questions about her life. I often wonder how she felt about motherhood, what her pregnancy and birth was like and if she breast fed etc etc. We were very close and yet I don't know these huge things about her.

mishfish · 15/04/2018 13:59

Telling my DS’s Dad I was pregnant. I should have broken up with him, changed my number and moved away.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 15/04/2018 14:04

I would change my mum, make her decide to stay in Kent and not follow my gambling, useless 'dad' to Wales for his job. I really like Wales but at that time, it was a formative age for me and a disruption that started a chain of bad events.

I wish I had a time machine now.. my life would be different and I'd be married to the man I should have been married to but can't be.

LimonViola · 15/04/2018 14:23

My mum told me she regretted having kids and advised me against it. Contrary to what PP who haven't heard that from their own mothers may guess it feels like, for me it brought us closer. It made me realise she trusted me to be able to handle her deepest thoughts maturely and lovingly. It showed me she respected me as her adult child who she could relate to on the same level. It gave me more insight into who she was and how her life had turned out. I never for a second thought it was a personal dig at me from what we discussed, it was about having children full stop and the stress and the way her life changed and what it held her back from.

I'm so glad she told me. It was a positive thing in our relationship. I guess mothers are often able to sense what their kids can and can't handle hearing, they don't always get it wrong just because it's a difficult topic.

iffyjiffybag · 15/04/2018 14:34

I would have been brave enough to stay single, not marry and listen to the inner voice. OMG Missmouse101, just this.

Those wasted, wasted years Sad

Afonavon · 15/04/2018 14:35

I would have chosen a different (easier) degree and not end up in a minimum wage job because I couldn’t complete the degree.

I would have waited to have first child. I was not mentally prepared and was so scared and lacking in confidence that we didn’t bond until he was an adult. I find this so sad.

I wish that we’d have stretched ourselves to buy a better (bigger and in nicer area) house as we’re stuck not able to move up the property ladder now that a leap of £100000 extra is needed just to go from a terrace to a semi detatched. Not a massive regret, but a pity that we didn’t look to the future.

tomhazard · 15/04/2018 14:36

I wish I had studied A levels in sciences instead of humanities.

Mari50 · 15/04/2018 14:41

I actually have several decisions that I made that given the chance I would change. I don’t live my life saddled with regret but I think my life could have been a lot more fulfilled had I made different decisions. Career, husband, divorce etc etc. On reflection I seem to make pretty crappy decisions quite regularly

WhatsGoingOnEh · 15/04/2018 15:57

@LimonViola Thanks for sharing that. It's given me a different perspective.

WhatsGoingOnEh · 15/04/2018 16:03

@Mari50 I make crappy decisions regularly too! 🥂

OR... I lack self-confidence, so I either make the choice that I feel everyone else thinks I should make, or I make great choices then waste ages afterwards second-guessing them all.

Who knows, maybe we did in fact make the best decisions in our lives. If we'd made the other decisions, perhaps we'd be dead now, or drug addicts, or something else horrible?

Wouldn't it be cool if Heaven were to begin with a celestial PowerPoint presentation showing us that in fact we made the right choice at every turn, and that many peoples' lives were made better by them.

haverhill · 15/04/2018 16:12

Nothing.
My life is not remotely perfect but I can’t think of anything I would change in my past. It’s made me who I am.

FellOutOfBed2wice · 15/04/2018 16:14

On January 10th 2003 I met a man for dinner. I should have turned my phone off and gone to bed instead, which was what I wanted to do as I had a chest infection. If I had done I have no doubt that my entire life would have been different, for good and perhaps for ill, Sliding Doors..... style

Oblomov18 · 15/04/2018 16:27

I wish I'd dealt with Ds1 differently, not allowed it to happen, changed his school, and kept him off sick that week.

MaireadMacSweeney · 15/04/2018 16:46

Me too Mari50, it's hard to pick just one...

I think my most regretted decision was moving away from my family. It was many years ago but I still regret it every day Sad

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 15/04/2018 16:46

WhatsGoingOnEh, I just LOVE the idea of a celestial powerpoint. It would be the only one that I'd stay awake for throughout.

Maris, if I didn't make poor decisions, I'd be permanently sitting on the fence about everything. If I make a good one, it's usually by default, sort of like my sense of direction. Even my satnav seems to humph at me and my random diversions.

K9Time · 15/04/2018 16:46

I wish I’d kicked off as a child instead of hiding the depression. If I’d had out and out behaviour issues someone might have done something to help the me.

But... it’s made me who I am today... which is alright I guess.

Grumpbum · 15/04/2018 16:48

Not gotten fat again after getting thin

Mari50 · 15/04/2018 17:01

Good to hear it’s not just me making consecutive dubious decisions.
My life is pretty good and I’m contented but I just have a feeling I’ve been presented with a lot of opportunities in my life that I’ve squandered through lack of courage/confidence and sometimes pure stupid short sightedness.
But as WhatsGoingOnEh pointed out- it could probably be worse..... good lord!

OhMyGodTheyKilledKenny · 15/04/2018 17:07

I can't decide whether I should have chosen to do a different degree or ,after doing the degree I did, should have actually gone into that profession and at least given it a go. Instead I did the degree and never went into the profession.

Another one that I wonder about is whether I shouldn't have ended a particular relationship that I did 25 years ago. The main reason I ended it was because I couldn't see the relationship going anywhere because we lived about 2 hours apart. He couldn't move to my city because of his job and I didn't want to live in London. As a relationship it worked well but I guess it might have been a disaster if we'd lived together