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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask what your biggest regret in life is?

830 replies

SylviaPlath1984 · 28/03/2021 09:22

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?

OP posts:
babbaloushka · 28/03/2021 12:20

Treating my DM so poorly as a teen. I was awful, absolutely horrible to her and made her life hell. We had a great relationship once I was about 19 all the way up until she died, but I still regret the way treated her so much. I wish I'd told her that before she passed away, even though I'm sure she knew.

Popsy321 · 28/03/2021 12:21

Fucking hell, where do I start. Probably by leaving the room and keeping my mouth well and truly shut before me and my best mate had the mother of all fallouts. Others are too painful to even revisit.

Popsy321 · 28/03/2021 12:24

@KingsRoad

I wish someone had told me that different jobs get paid vastly different salaries so that I would have taken that into consideration when thinking about careers.
This is such an important message to teach our daughters. Be a structural engineer, not the administrator. Aim to be a surgeon, not a nurse. Be a world renown hair colourist, not the receptionist. Be the accountancy partner, not the clerk.
DonGray · 28/03/2021 12:26

Degree subject choice

callmeH · 28/03/2021 12:27

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

I wish I had a pound for every time I heard this from an ex-pupil, if only today's disaffected pupils could believe it! One memorable job I had was teaching evening classes to young soldiers wanting to go for promotion, many had left school with almost nothing.

Mummaofboys93 · 28/03/2021 12:27

I suppose kind of similar to you OP in regards of wishing I had done more at school & making more of myself. I really didn't enjoy school, I enjoyed the social side of it but not the academic side. Admittedly I was a very rebellious teenager, from the age of about 13 & authority meant nothing to me, I did what I wanted when I wanted. I left school in year 10 as I just couldn't be bothered with it anymore so I left without a single GCSE. I enrolled in college but then found out I was pregnant & was due around the time I would have started, so that went on the back-burner.

I also regret not leaving my ex sooner as I feel like I wasted alot of the good years of my life so miserable & unhappy. There were warning signs from the start but I became too scared & felt trapped very fast & it took me 7 years to finally get the guts & strength to leave him. I kept alot of what really went on in that relationship a secret & made out things were fine 90% of the time. He literally broke me as a person.

babbaloushka · 28/03/2021 12:28

One that still haunts me is the regret of my close friend who took his own life when we were just 17. I wish I had reached out to him, or paid better attention to the signs. It's been many, many years now but I still feel the guilt- every year when his birthday rolls around I'm consumed by it, he should be 46 now yet he will forever be 17. I should've done more.

DinosaurDiana · 28/03/2021 12:28

My mum not living long enough to hold her first grandchild.

SionnachGlic · 28/03/2021 12:29

Bring too polite when not warranted, being a nice girl when I should have been a mean one (in the moment), I should have taken more risks....I took a few & I have a successful career & am totally independent financially etc...but when younger, I should have explored myself/ things more, not allowed sensible people talk me down... It is just hindsight. And being part of someone's secret...

Poptart4 · 28/03/2021 12:30

Not making more of an effort to keep certain friendships going.

When I met my partner at 21 we were so in love, I thought that he was all I needed. So neglected my friends. Then I fell pregnant quickly and our son had disabilities which meant I really didn't have time for friends as he took up all of my energy. Plus being in our early 20's most of my friends didn't have children and really didn't have the patience or understanding for what I was going through.

20 yrs later, I'm still with dp and ds, while still disabled, is doing so much better. I have alot more time on my hands these days but few friends to spend it with. I look back and think I could have made a little more effort with certain people.

I wouldn't change my life for the world but I realise now that I didn't appreciate how important friendships are when I was younger.

UnlikelybutTrue · 28/03/2021 12:32

Getting married and then not having the confidence in myself to believe I could make a go of things on my own and wasting 23 sodding years with a man I loathed and was financially abusive. I left when the thought of leaving was much less scary then the thought of staying and now I bitterly regret so many wasted years with an unworthy bastard. I am a different person away from him and realised I was strong, capable and independent.

Gwenhwyfar · 28/03/2021 12:33

@KingsRoad

I wish someone had told me that different jobs get paid vastly different salaries so that I would have taken that into consideration when thinking about careers.
Come on. Nobody gets to 16 not knowing that different jobs pay different salaries.
Gwenhwyfar · 28/03/2021 12:34

"Not exercising when I was younger."

May I ask why?

OohThatCat · 28/03/2021 12:34

Properly learning to drive and passing my test at 17. I am in my mid 30's now and my eyesight is terrible even in glasses so I'm too scared I'm a danger to drive. I did pass my test in my early 30's but am constantly nervous of literally everything - and I don't think I'd have had all that nervousness as a 17 year old! And if I'd have been driving for 20 years now I'd be way more used to it.

Now I'm suck as that burden who always needs to ask for lifts and it affects my job in weddings as it's tough to rely on public transport for it.

ThumbWitchesAbroad · 28/03/2021 12:37

This might be totally trivial in comparison but my biggest regret is never seeing Queen live while Freddie Mercury was still alive.

I have seen them twice now with Adam Lambert (very good) but just not the same.

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.

Even getting into a stupid, stupid relationship with a stupid abusive man - that taught me a lot about how easily that happens, and how hard it is to just go "fuck off then!" when they start to mistreat you. Gave me far more empathy with others who are in that situation. I was SO lucky he moved on to someone else (Don't think she was but she wasn't my problem).

I can't even regret moving to Australia (although I have some regrets over it) because if I hadn't met and married an Aussie, I wouldn't have my beautiful boys - and while it's far from a bed of roses (or land of milk and honey) it's a fair trade-off. Can't move back to the UK easily though, which I would do, given the choice - but I have a good life here, really, it's just the heat, weather and bugs that make me miserable here.

(((hugs))) to all of you who have had serious problems in life Thanks

vixeyann · 28/03/2021 12:40

I wish I had got on better with my dad when he was still here. He died of cancer in my early 20s so never met my husband and my son or be at my wedding. I often think how different life would be now and that we would have got on so much better when we didn't live together.

Chicchicchicchiclana · 28/03/2021 12:42

Giving up learning piano when I was 14.

I regret that even more than allowing myself to slowly gain 35lb in weight over the years.

If I could choose between the two I would choose to be a fat pianist.

NoIDontWatchLoveIsland · 28/03/2021 12:43

Giving a shit what anyone at school thought!

It took me until my 20s to grow into the confidence to just not bother with people who didn't treat me well, I tried way too hard at school and was constantly insecure about my appearance/clothes etc. School was a shit few years feeling I didn't really have good friends.

Now I just don't really care about what is cool etc and do my own thing and I'm far happier with the decent friends I have now.

Sunshineonarainydayy · 28/03/2021 12:45

@OohThatCat do you have access to a car? Even just regular practise in an empty car park would build your confidence.

TroysMammy · 28/03/2021 12:45

Wish I didn't go on a second date
Wish I didn't ask him to move in

reader12 · 28/03/2021 12:49

@Chicchicchicchiclana both those situations are fixable!

Mine - getting into debt in my 20s. Wasting time with people - friends and boyfriends - who I didn’t really love.

Not asking for help when I was struggling with my A Levels, getting bad results and going to a not very good university that let me in with my really bad grades.

LannieDuck · 28/03/2021 12:54

@KingsRoad

I wish someone had told me that different jobs get paid vastly different salaries so that I would have taken that into consideration when thinking about careers.
I agree with this. It was shocking to me when I finally realised what a huge discrepancy there is between (sometimes pretty similar) career choices. And they're no more difficult! Some jobs that pay £70k aren't any harder than jobs that pay £35k, they're just in a different field/industry. It should be spoken more about in career guidance.
mouse70 · 28/03/2021 12:56

Biggest regret. Devoting life to a career instead of living life to the full. No partner no children.

anyoldtime · 28/03/2021 13:01

So many.
Not studying properly. Not having a supportive home life that would enable studying.
Being frightened of everything.
Not living life to the full as a result of being scared of everything.
Obsessing about settling down.
Not moving abroad when I had an opportunity. I wanted to - DH didn't. I should have pushed.
Having a second child.
Moving to the area I live in.
Losing contact with some people in my life.

Pretty much all my life has been regretful.

Pyewackect · 28/03/2021 13:02

Getting involved with the wrong person in my first year at University. I think about it now and it makes me shudder. What was I thinking ?.