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Original poster

What is your biggest regret in life?

856 replies

Teadrinker11 · 12/02/2022 21:19

At 26, I know I'm still at an age where I'm somewhat young enough to make good decisions to prevent more regret in the future, but I still do regret a lot. I've wasted so much money on things I didn't need, I neglected my health for so long, it's taken me to 26 to somewhat have my life together. I'm studying law and love it, but hate how I spent so much time after school messing around wasting my life. I didn't go to college straight after school like so many of my classmates did and I still pine over the years I lost, when people in their early 20s are having the time of their lives. What is your biggest regret?

OP posts:
Torres10 · 31/03/2022 21:57

Such an interesting and sometimes emotional read :(
For me, marriage..I'm not out yet, but I'm working on it. I'm just not cut out for it, but Social pressure won me over in my 20s!

CloudPop · 31/03/2022 22:00

@howtomoveforwards I'm heartbroken just reading that post. I truly wish you all of the very best and hope you can work through this.

Goawayquickly · 31/03/2022 22:00

I have so many regrets and feel I've squandered my life.

I read something a couple of days ago, I think by Les Brown (motivational speaker)

'If you only do the easy stuff, you'll always have a hard life. If you do the hard stuff you'll end up with an easy life'
I'm paraphrasing slightly but I wish I'd heard those words at 16.

I'm trying to do the hard things now but I'm no longer young and it's daunting with no safety net.

Thesefeetaremadeforwalking · 31/03/2022 22:00

Starting smoking (have quit for years now but still wasted a lot of money)

Letting men treat me badly in my 20’s and 30’s due to poor self esteem and being a people-pleaser.

Wish I’d got therapy sooner after childhood trauma.

Wish I'd cut off my abusive narcissistic mother sooner.

Marrying 'D'H No 1, who was also narcissistic

Not divorcing ^ sooner.

Not going back to my University city right after I got divorced. Instead of staying in a boring one-horse town at the ar$e end of nowhere. (I did move much later)

Started self-employment sooner - I had loads of $hi££y bosses who I never stood up to because I was scared of losing my job.

AthenaPopodopolous · 31/03/2022 22:02

Not marrying and having far too many sexual partners for my own good. Very randy young woman who threw caution to the wind. And being put off ‘the one’ because he had a hairy back. He would have been a good husband probably, I should have committed... I’d be living abroad by now and probably secure with a good man and family. Never mind.

Nanalisa60 · 31/03/2022 22:04

I don’t really have regrets, if you don’t make mistakes you can’t learn and grow as a person, all the stupid stuff I did in life have made me the wise old lady I’m turning into now.

I remember my NANA tellIng me when I was a teenager that this was not a practice run this was it, so I own my successes and I own my mistakes ( and there have been plenty of both).

timestheyarechanging · 31/03/2022 22:04

Being with my ex for 8 years, other than that, nothing

BlackeyedSusan · 31/03/2022 22:04

not getting diagnoses earlier. one beauce I wass dismissed initially and it took 30 years (3 decades) to get a diagnosis from when I first raised the problem. could have had better medical care, more support in pregnancy, genetic counselling etc.

second diagnosis is annoying I did not know earlier but it was not well understood when I was a child.

staying too long with abusive ex. fewer punches to the head may have helped me think clearer.

lisaandalan · 31/03/2022 22:06

Not buying my house, my husband didn't want the pressure.
Now I'm stuck in an unsafe area I hate. X

notanothertakeaway · 31/03/2022 22:09

I travelled, and had amazing holidays in my 20s and early 30s. At the time they felt like a poor substitute for being married with children, which is what I really wanted

Now that I am married with children, I llove my family dearly, but I feel it's a shame I didnt fully appreciate that freedom when I had it

notanothertakeaway · 31/03/2022 22:13

I slept with a former work colleague. In my defence, I liked him and thought we could have had a future together. But in fact, he didnt feel the same, and it spoiled what could have been a nice friendship. We're no longer in touch, which feels appropriate, but a pity to lose the friendship

DoktorDee · 31/03/2022 22:14

I’ve did well in school, good family support, did well in career, good health, so a lot of be thankful for compared to a lot of people. Of course like many people in life some bad experiences too.

The thing I regret most is my marriage. We have great kids and live comfortably, but deep in my heart I know I’ve not made the best decision for me.

DH is great in so many ways, but we have different interests, he is overweight, I feel like a sex pest if I ask for anything. It wasn’t like this always, but I feel like I was trapped in some sense and lots changed after the kids. When the kids are finished college I dream about leaving.

AuraBora · 31/03/2022 22:19

Not believing in myself and working on my poor self-esteem, resulting in a lack of good career and issues in relationships. Now I have 2 very young children it's it's much harder to find time to work on it, and I haven't a clue what to do about work.
Also drinking too much in my 30s (all part of the self-esteem issue) - think i could have achieved so much more without sinking my anxieties in booze..

nordica · 31/03/2022 22:21

Career related - I just didn't understand in my teens/twenties that what I chose to study would have a huge impact on my future earning potential and career prospects, and also offer different options for arranging my working life. For example, I didn't even think of freelancing or having my own business then.

Secondly, staying with an ineffective psychotherapist for way too long (and I mean wayyyy too long, as in years) because I really liked her and felt cared for by her. I just didn't consider whether it was helping me make any changes that would help in life after therapy. Now I have a brilliant new therapist and we've done more in a few months than I did with the previous one in many years. What a waste of time and money the first experience was though...

starynight21 · 31/03/2022 22:22

At 26 years old you are still a baby in my eyes and you have so many wonderful things ahead of you that you can use to do the things you love and achieve what you want.

So okay you wasted money (haven’t we all) so tomorrow go and open a savings account and budget what you can put away every month.

Write down all the reasons why you make silly decisions and try to work out the pattern that gets you Into these messes.

Remember you are achieving so much and more is just about to come.

For me I always used to regret the things I didn’t do or was to scared to do. I don’t like some of the decisions I made when I was younger but I don’t really regret them as it made me who I am today.

I guess more so than a specific situation, I regret not seeing my value sooner. Letting other people live rent free in my head and always getting stressed out about nothing.

I am 35 this year and I am still trying to find inner peace but I am getting there. When I was your age, I thought why didn’t I study sooner or do this sooner but; today i have achieved so much and I don’t think like that anymore.

Make a list of everything you want to stop being and what you want to become and then work toward becoming the best version of yourself.

You can do it! Just believe it and it will happen. Xxx

oohmamama · 31/03/2022 22:23

Not dropping regrets earlier in my life.

There’s just no point.

LesleyA · 31/03/2022 22:23

If you mean this I’m sorry 😞 life must be hard for you. I hope somehow something changes and you find some attachment to life.

Maskless · 31/03/2022 22:24

I have two great regrets

  1. Wasted my teens, 20s, and 30s spending all my free time socialising, chatting about nothing with people whilst eating, drinking, smoking and giggling when I could have been studying and learning.

  2. I ended a lesbian relationship with a young woman, she was 17 and still at school, and I was 25 and she absolutely adored me, worshipped and idolised me. I felt it was wrong because she seemed so young and naive, had never even tried sex with a man, and the age gap felt so huge. It felt wrong. So I ended it, and she committed suicide, and I have to live with that for the rest of my life.

cafenoirbiscuit · 31/03/2022 22:25

Not having a relationship with someone I really liked as my (toxic) BFF at the time had a thing for him. He really liked me. I still wonder what might have been…..

Couchbettato · 31/03/2022 22:27

Stuffing my gob. Every day. I've got no willpower, and when the hunger pangs hit it renders me nauseous, in pain and unable to concentrate. It's like there's no such thing as mild hunger I'm either not hungry at all or need to eat a house.

AnastasiaRomanov · 31/03/2022 22:32

So many things..I actually can’t bear to think about it it makes me so sad.
However, different choices might have led me in directions which might have been equally fraught in different ways.

Sunnytwobridges · 31/03/2022 22:39

@Lonleygal

A sea of regrets , yes that’s exactly how I feel. Crap isn’t it Sad
It is crap. I wish I could let it go but I just can't. Sad
Echobelly · 31/03/2022 22:39

In my mid 40s, no massive regrets, but I might say:

  • Not taking a year off and spending it in Israel like a lot of Jewish people. I was just too eager to get on with uni!
  • Not working on the university newspaper when I was there - it might have given me an in with journalism and I was a bit directionless when I left
  • Not putting my foot down more about some building work I really didn't want to happen in our last place and DH really did which led to massive stress with our leaseholders when I was heavily pregnant, and we ended up not even carrying out. I did try, but I could have done more. Found out a few years after that DH seemed convinced I was keen on it even though I remember laying out the arguments for not doing it!

One interesting one was that for a long time I wished I'd insisted in DH moving in to my house that I owned at the beginning of our marriage (he hated the area - I initially lived with him elsewhere due to it not being accessible for his job) because we'd have been mortgage free. In retrospect we did the right thing buying where we did instead, for various reasons. I think him moving into my house might have set up an unhealthy dynamic where he felt beholden to me early in our relationship and who knows, it might have damaged our relationship.

BigUpAllOfUshereOnMN · 31/03/2022 22:40

Smoking when younger. I had no idea about all the carcinogens and cancer risk

Not taking school seriously, not trying, just coasted and ended up with nothing much. Total wasted experience

BigUpAllOfUshereOnMN · 31/03/2022 22:44

Oh and wasting time feeling sentimental and thinking about family members when in reality they couldn't give two sh*ts about me due to family politics