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?

@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.

Me too! I feel like this information just wasn’t available when I was growing up and selecting a career. I think unless you have wealthy parents and understand what wealth is you just don’t really think about the vast differences in salaries. Obviously I knew “investment bankers” were rich but didn’t really have any concept of different niche roles and careers that could be available to me.

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Drinking. Ever.
Alcohol never brought me any joy.

1. Not having the courage to have a third child after two children but five pgs that reached the second trimester.

1. Not pulling dd out of a Ln elite holy grail cofe secondary in the first term thinking her unhappiness would blow over rather than giving it two years.

1. Not picking up on dd's anxiety and depression as soon as I should have when she was 15. Not realising immediately that CAMHS would do sweet fa and putting a psychiatrist in place straight away rather than waiting 4 months for the realisation to dawn.

This is such an important message to teach our daughters. Be a structural engineer, not the administrator.

Some of us 'administrators' are doing fine thanks and chose this path over the many others available because they wanted to do it.

I was a swimmer as a teenager, I stopped at 17, if I had applied myself I should have gone to the olympics .
I stayed with boyfriends for far too long even when they were not great. I wasted years on the wrong men. I eventually met the right one, but I could also have ended up miserable in a relationship or still single.

FakeFruitShoot - completely agree no need for guilt i lost my parents young (no inheritance involved sadly😄) but people hugely underestimate the impact of losing your parents and the many many never ending ways it makes life so much harder.

I wish I didn’t leave my first husband. I had no idea what an exceptional man he was, completely took him for granted.

On a practical level I wish I'd concentrated more at maths at school. Reading was fine but in those early days teaching the basics of times tables was poor. It's a bit of an embarrassment.

Emotionally, just putting up with being bullied by a domineering father which has had a massive effect on all our family. Not having much of a relationship with older brother who may have dealt with this better if we'd all gone out to the pub together for a drink, a moan and a laugh about it all might have made things easier to cope with and gain a healthier perspective. We have virtually no relationship and it's too late now.

Marrying my first husband, who turned out to be in the closet.
Damaged my confidence immensely.
However, I've got a lovely husband & kids now so not all bad.

Being a good girl all my life.

Just end the lockdown and I might correct that. Watch out, granddads.

Getting married.

Most of the things I regret are things I could not have changed unless I was a different person. But I still wish it hadnt had to happen that way.

1. Being so shy and awkward and the way it has limited my life
2. Spending years depressed, ill and fat
3. Never finding a career I wanted & could work my way up in
4. Getting into debt due to illness & not being able to work
5. Not having any financial or social advantage in life
6. Not wanting kids. Sometimes I regret that I never wanted them.

There are things I could have changed

1. Getting married
2. Not passing driving test
3. Drinking too much
4. Times when I acted totally crazy and am still mortified by it years later

Not regrets as such, but things I would do differently is not buy my current home and not have as big a gap between dc. At the time though they felt like good decisions and with time they may still prove to be.

Not staying longer the night my DM told us that the doctors could not do anything more for her Cancer but that she wasn't giving up and would find an alternative medicine. I truely believed that she'd find something but she didn't and passed away 3 months later.

I left to put my DC to bed because they hate it when I don't do it. I wish I'd have just left it to DH and stayed with my DM.

I feel so guilty for not staying that night.

Not travelling before we had children....BUT we didn't have the money to do it ....

Not having another child.

I married late and had my first at 38. I wish I’d “made” a sibling for him.

Everythingmagnilia same here!!

Giving up the entirety of my life, my home, friends, well paid job, financial independence, ability to retire early, my community, my dreams and ambitions to move for my husband's job. I regret that and not being strong enough to stand up to his pressuring behaviour to follow him.

Its fucked up everything for me. And he's never even thanked me.

Not doing more pre-kids. We were both climbing the career ladder / focusing on IVF. Now we finally have slightly more money Covid has closed down so much travel and I don't think it will ever be to easy/cheap again.

I sometimes wish I'd not chosen my career. It has no real progression - where DH's is going from strength to strength.

I'm mostly content with my lot though.

This year DP made it clear he’s not going to have another child with me. DS is 4, nearly 5, and this is going to be the biggest regret of my life, just having an only child. I’ve cried almost every day about it since September and it’s not getting any easier.

Here's mine

• not planning my career while at uni. Back in the day you didn't get much advice / help and I didn't understand the importance of graduate recruitment fairs / getting a graduate traineeship. I could've achieved so much more.
• not realising that I did actually feel broody in my mid 30s (instead of distracting myself with hobbies and travel.)
• running out of time to have more than one child

Leaving a great school to go to one where I was bullied.
Not taking school as seriously as I should have until the end.
Staying in bad relationships too long.

Be careful @AlohaMolly. My ExDH was the one who said no to more children. When I was 43 he left, for a very much younger lady. He hasn’t had more but I think had he, it’d have plunged me over the edge.

Being an only child has some advantages but I absolutely regret not having two.

Getting involved with my Ex.
Not getting on property ladder
Having so many children
Wasting so much money