To ask what your biggest regret in life is?

[SylviaPlath1984]

Or even what you feel you might regret in the future if you don't do it soon?

I regret not taking school more seriously or trying harder, not making more of myself.

What about you?

having dc with an absolute waste of space

So many things, most of which can be summarised by the phrase “living my life for other people” - it just doesn’t feel like life is my own and I wonder if it ever will 😕

@SteveArnottsWaistcoat

Similar to you OP. I was desperately unhappy at school and had very little confidence or self esteem due to bullying. I couldn’t concentrate and became resentful because none of my teachers would help or take me seriously.

I wish I had had the confidence to build a bit of a career before having kids too because it’s at times left me feeling very dependant and vulnerable.

I’ve always believed that I’m stupid and placed my abilities and capabilities below everyone else’s. Always felt I’m never enough for anything I do.

I know now that’s bullshit. Only realised in the last few years so, and now at 42 I’m gradually turning it in it’s head.

As above.

I wish I'd stuck in at school, but I was bullied at school, had a horrendous homelife (as a result of which I had no friends, because I couldn't say anything about home to anyone, and on the rare occasions I tried, no-one believed me), and together this meant I had no confidence.

I still have very little, but I am better now, and wish I'd had even this small degree of faith in myself, and assertiveness, when I was younger.

@peachgreen

Not going upstairs with DH when he went to lie down with a migraine. We think that as soon as he sat down on the bed he suffered sudden cardiac death and died almost instantly - I didn't find him for an hour and a half. I will always wonder if I could have saved him if I'd been there when it happened. Everyone says it's very unlikely but I'll never know. I'll regret it for the rest of my life. Sometimes I feel sick with the guilt.

I know this pain well. I stopped to get a pizza on the way home from work and when I made it home I found my mum on the driveway 2 steps away from the door. She'd walked home from a friend's and if I hadn't got the pizza I would have been home within minutes of her collapsing. She also died of sudden cardiac death, it's so so cruel.

Going to the same uni and doing a similar course as a close friend from school. We didn't plan it that way - we chose independently.

But I felt I couldn't really slough off my old personality and be and do what I wanted to. As it happened I had MH issues and we ended up on different trajectories anyway.
Regret not having had a more dynamic love life. In my mid 20s I worked in an industry with lots of (lovely) gay guys. Then I met my OH and have been (stuck) with him ever since.

I regret very much not being able to persuade him to change his ways. Various crisis points but I've never quite been convinced I'd be hugely happier without him..and so I've stayed.

1. Not buying a bigger house when we first bought. We could have afforded it then (late 90s), but it's too big a jump now and just not worth it. And lockdown is making me want to spend our savings on loads of long haul holidays, rather than more house.

1. Moving from scientist in pharmaceuticals into teaching. I do actually prefer teaching, but the lack of status compared to being a scientist is shocking. Maybe I'm shallow, but I miss the high status aspect of working as a scientist.

They're not major things though and by the skin of my teeth I've managed to avoid some of the common ones mentioned on here, like debt, bad marriage, putting weight on, not going to uni, leaving it too late to have children etc. So I'm eternally grateful to my younger self for that.

Not phoning my friend to check in on him. He didn’t answer my last two texts so I should have phoned him. He took his own life a week ago. I will live with that guilt forever.

I don't have that many but I wish I'd had a lot more sex in my 20s. I was also once asked to be lead singer with a band a colleague was setting up and I said no. I should have given it a try. He obviously thought I could do it! To complete the trio, maybe I should have tried some drugs. I feel so middle-aged....

I wish I hadn't spent years trying for a close relationship with my younger sister as I can now see she doesn't want one. I do regret not being closer to my nieces but weirdly, my relationship with my nieces on my DH's side seems better. I guess a lot of it is down to chance.

Regarding what different jobs pay, I think there could definitely be a lot more education around that. There are some good resources from Barclays Money Skills that encourage young people to work backwards from the kind of lifestyle they want to the earnings they would need to pay for it. I teach well off teenagers and even they aren't always that well informed about money. I find myself giving impromptu talks about pensions, PAYE and credit cards and trying to gender-pay-gap proof them (I do teach Economics but these things are not required to be taught in a practical way...only takes a few minutes extra though).

@LavenderLollies

I don’t really have many, but this is mine:

Breastfeeding.

It nearly gave my son brain damage. I regret so much about having breastfed for seven months. It was a stupid decision on so many levels. Never again.

What?

How?

That sounds dreadful!

*Breastfeeding.

It nearly gave my son brain damage.*

Can you explain that?

Oh and trying to please my mother. Due to MNet I realised she is a classic narcissist when I was about 52 and actually I wasn't odd, incompetent, difficult or very plain. I was a mouse brown child who was too bookish and not pretty enough to wear pink. Even my NHS specs were the blue ones because pink was a pretty girls' colour.

Not being more disciplined. I look at my DD15 who is so similar to me in interests and abilities- she’s doing the same GCSEs I did and does the same sport I did (I didn’t push her into any of these at all - her DB13 is the complete opposite!) but she really has her shit together and knows what she’s aiming for. While I had a clutch of mixed grades at GCSE she’s predicted 7s and 8s and with a fair wind will get get a few 9s (or All A grades in old money). Where I was decent at a sport playing with my friends or at school, she competes nationally. She already knows what she wants to do at Uni and at which Uni, and what she wants to do, and where she wants to live after. Part of it is about having access and opportunities that weren’t available to me, but lots of it is just about focus and determination. If someone told me I wasn’t good at doing something I’d stop doing it. If someone told her that she’d go out of her way to prove them wrong - and usually does!

Also not investing in Bitcoin!
Not investing in Uber
Not coming up with the idea for Uber...

Having the courage to be vulnerable in my marriage and trusting my exdh. It ended up a disaster, so much hurt and pain still lingers 3 years after separating for both of us. My problems stem back from my mother and I wish I had recognised this before I got married, dealt with it and healed, rather than bringing it into my relationship with my ex.

On a positive note, I am dealing with it now and am finally finding love for myself after 46 years on this planet :)

I REGRET NOTHING

@NotEver0
Not controversial, just honest.

Sorry you're dealing with this, it's unbelievably hard

Marrying my husband, I didn’t know then what love bombing is. We have a child with autism who he has nothing to do with, we live totally separate lives under the same roof. I can’t afford to split as I’d be homeless.

er, I hadn't rtft.

So, now can add 'trying to make light hearted comment to this thread without reading the full thread' as my first regret ...

I wish I’d be less risk-averse. Or just braver at coming out of my comfort zone. Twice I had big job opportunities virtually handed to me on a plate and turned them down because they meant moving to another country (first occasion) or putting myself in a very high-profile position where I would be noticed and judged (second occasion) and I shied away from that. I kept to the safe path. It didn’t turn out badly but I do wonder what things might have come my way if I’d “leaned in” as they say.

I hope my children will be braver.

I wish I had had another child. I have my son, a wonderful little boy, so I am fortunate, I realize, but I knew my husband couldn't cope with a second/ couldn't give me the support I need to have a second.
My husband is an alcoholic. It also took us years to get married and have a child. I should have walked away at year two, when he was clear that he wasn't willing to move forward really. Instead, I spent years with him, waiting, and then finally left him. This was enough for him to agree to marry me and to have a child, because he so much wanted to get me back.
I now realize that, when he said he didn't want marriage or a child, he meant it. It would be easier to have a partnership or to parent together with someone who really wanted those things too, rather than dragging along an unwilling participant.
I wish I'd been braver and left, taken my chances on meeting someone else.
I also sacrificed my career in a big way in order to live in the same place as him.
Today, when I read all this, it makes me really sad. I look at my son, however, who looks so much like his dad and is the best of both of us in personality, and try to remember that I wouldn't have him if I had not made these choices. And, that as he is the result of IVF, I am very lucky to have him at all.

I regret not putting into myself the effort I put into my husband and our marriage. I often wonder where I would have been if I’d spent all the effort on myself rather than “us”. I’m content now but the price I’ve paid has been to high. Given my time again I’d have chosen a different f life partner.

There are plenty of things I could have done differently/better in life, but all in all I think most of them have taught me things, or led me to other places that have turned out ok, so I can't really regret them overall.

This.

If I'd have done a different uni degree would I have met the same people later?

If I'd had more confidence would I have stayed in this country or settled in Australia as I'd planned to and never met DH?

If I'd have had a better career would I have had DS?

If I'd still had DS would I have coped with a career and homeschooling during lockdown and found the last 12 months unbelievably difficult? Would we have been financially screwed by me being furloughed/redundant/quit due to covid as we'd have stretched ourselves further?

Its a hard one, because the things I value most and appreciate most have been part of a chain reaction of events. If things had 'gone better' earlier in my life, I'm not convinced that my life would be better and I'd be happier. I'd just have different pressures and different regrets.

I think I have to view things in the context of appreciating and love what I do have rather than laminating how things could have been different. Ultimately I'm secure financially, have an awesome DH and DS and life isn't so bad when all is said and done. I could have been a superstar or a groundbreaking scientist or travelling the world or have won the lottery etc etc, but would my life really be better?

The grass is greener mentality isn't particularly helpful - we assume things would be better without considering if we had made 'the right choices' in the long run that could have fucked up our lives even more and the regrets we do have would pale in comparision to our alternative universe selves. Ultimately what we regret teaches us valuable lessons and stop us making bigger ones in the future... And even if we have fucked up, in many cases we could have fucked up even worse.

Buying a ruin that I never really noticed was a ruin until I moved in.

Twice!!!

Not buying a house I had the opportunity to get... in East London in 2000. I used the money (small inheritance but enough for the deposit and I had a mortgage offer) to go travelling for a year...

Oh how I weep. I then made the same mistake 10 years later too (no inheritance but saved money to travel again).

I’ve had amazing fun and experiences... I should have brought the house instead of getting cold feet over the burden of home ownership.