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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:
McBirdy · 12/02/2022 23:22

Mine are about my health.

I wish I’d looked after my teeth better as a teenager. I didn’t have a good role model or any real guidance in self care. I’m suffering for that now at 43.

And exercise. I wish I’d got into exercise when I was young, so I’d be fitter and healthier now. If I could meet my younger self, that’s the advice I’d give.

DomesticatedZombie · 12/02/2022 23:23

Flowers to everyone on this thread who is living with regrets; some of these posts are heartbreaking. My heartfelt compassion to you. I was going to write something about health issues, but really, I'm lucky. Wish I could help out, if only by sending out a virtual best wishes.

Katie2017 · 12/02/2022 23:23

@linchinton

Getting stretch marks when I was young, wish I had the sort of mum to warn me not to get fat! Dating the dick head and marrying him.

Not having real confidence until I was forty.

Me too-never thought I'd get stuck with stretchmarks, I wasn't THAT overweight but it was enough to give me them for life at age 18.
AngelinaFibres · 12/02/2022 23:25

Not realising sooner that my mother's treatment of,and attitude towards , me stemmed from her own problems and was nothing to do with me. I dressed in the way she wanted, hid myself away, did a career that she thought was respectable and okay and she still though I was pointless. I should have realised that if I ditched all that, wore clothes that showed off my figure, chose a career that I wanted she wouldn't approve, but it wouldn't have mattered because I would have been so happy I wouldn't have cared.Took me til my 40s to realise this..

Hoolihan · 12/02/2022 23:26

My marriage - I was on the rebound, didn't want to get hurt again and felt I was running out of time (at 25!!). So I settled and it's basically been a battle for over 20 years and counting.

Choice of uni.

Coasting along at work just thinking things would work out or an idea would present itself. I now regret not thinking and working harder to find a career I could be passionate about.

Living in London for most of my 20s and 30s and not making the most of it.

dipdye · 12/02/2022 23:27

Marrying DH.

I thought I wouldn't be able to do better. More fool me.

Skybubble · 12/02/2022 23:27

@darumafan

I wish that I had forced my son to move back home after his diagnosis instead of believing that he would be better in his flat. He took his own life less than 6 months later.
So sad reading this, I feel for you. I hope you are okay. ❤️
noraclavicle · 12/02/2022 23:27

MsAnnFrope

“I don’t have regrets about choices I made to do/not do things but god I regret the hard time I gave myself over everything!”

This!

Stillfunny · 12/02/2022 23:27

Being so uninformed about my career options so didn't think exam results mattered.

Lots of shallow relationships
Drinking even though it didn't agree with me.
Being financially foolish
Not appreciating and showing my mother more attention
Not having more children
Marrying my STBX

Maverick66 · 12/02/2022 23:28

Not going to university and dieting

IdblowJonSnow · 12/02/2022 23:28

Not ring fencing a large amount of money my parents gave me.
The way in which my marriage recently ended. Although that was out of my control but I really wish it had ended differently.

maddening · 12/02/2022 23:30

Only having 1 dc

Flowersandhearts · 12/02/2022 23:31

@Miserablelife

I regret the majority of decisions I have made as at 42 I have a miserable, joyless existence and I just hate every aspect. Escalating health problems I m too scared to get looked at, mental and physical, no friends, no family that care, a horrible toxic ‘relationship’.and a job I despise. We live in a nasty damp scruffy house, that makes me cry every day with no savings, no pension and I have no hope of turning it around at my age. My DC are the only decision I don’t regret but they would have been better born to someone else. I wish I d made better relationship, career and financial choices in my earlier life and I will do all I can to make sure my kids do.
I'm sorry that you're having such a difficult time MiserableLife, that must be awful.
chaosrabbitland · 12/02/2022 23:35

being really really lazy and not bothering too look after my teeth in my twenties , drank loads of coke , switched to coffee with 2 sugars in my thirties , never bothered too floss and a lot of the time was too out of it after a night getting on it , i forgot to brush , im nearly 50 had to have 6 out . it hurts soo much to have it done , the rest are all crumbling now and then , have to keep going back to the dentist to have this one or that one fixed where a bits fallen off , in time i will need a full set of plates

its the one thing i wish i could go back in time and redo it differently

foreverandalways · 12/02/2022 23:36

Having children so young
Not going to university
Building a career

feelsobadfeltsogood · 12/02/2022 23:39

My Fwb and I went to college we slept together first at 18 afew times we were sort of seeing each other then I met someone else and he did we went our separate ways
Over the years our paths have crossed and 3 years ago we met again at an old college friends wedding night so I was on my own so was he we ended up sleeping together

I have 2 kids he has 3
We both have a history

When we were 18 he wanted me to move into his flat with him...

I said no as I wanted to stay at home then

However now I feel such a connection with him I often wonder what would
Have happened

AnnaK163 · 12/02/2022 23:39

My regret is that I made ghe massive mistake of thinking that if you work very hard at school, university and then at work, you put your head down and work your arse off all day every day, you will do ok.

The fact is, whether you get on at work depends very much on whether you are likeable, helpful, pleasant and positive. No-one really gives a shit if you are not very good at your job. What sort of a person you are matters far more.

AcrossthePond55 · 12/02/2022 23:40

Buying an old farmhouse. Money pit and now that we're ready to downsize we'll play merry hell trying to sell it. Due to not being up to certain current building codes it'll have to be a 'cash sell'.

Disneydatknee88 · 12/02/2022 23:41

My only regret is that I didn't learn to drive when I was younger. I'm early 30s and just starting now. I've always had a real fear of it and forcing myself to do it now so I can have some freedom in the long run.

Lemonata · 12/02/2022 23:43

@maddening

Only having 1 dc
How come? We’ve decided to stop at one for a number of reasons, but I do often worry and wonder if we’ll regret it in the future!
whattodo2019 · 12/02/2022 23:44

Not progressing my career in my 20's and 30's enough.
Not investing for my future, pension etc

Starseeking · 12/02/2022 23:47

Not buying the house I should have done at age 25. I was so risk averse in the mid 2000's, when they were giving out 100% mortgages like confetti. Instead of maxing out atthe £250k I would have been given on a 2 bedroom flat (where I could have rented a room to a lodger), I spent half of that on a 1 bedroom Victorian conversion with dodgy freeholder that I had to sell at a loss to get rid of it 10 years later.

Settling for my EXDP. Met him in my early 30's when I believed I was over the hill. He had a DS, and I'd always vowed I'd never get together with a man with DC, but thought I should accept it then. Never again. Tied to him for life as we have DC together. Ugh.

amusedbush · 12/02/2022 23:48

Not pushing harder for support with my binge eating when I was 20 and first went to my GP about it. I've been fat, unhappy and self-conscious my entire life - I can't relate when people talk about how slim and fit they were in their teens because even then I was bursting out of my school trousers but too embarrassed to ask my mum to buy yet another bigger size.

I'm either starving myself and overexercising, refusing to go out and see friends or family in case someone wants to eat something, or else I'm binge eating, gaining weight rapidly and too embarrassed to go outside because I'm fat. Every single time DH and I have booked a holiday, I'm determined to lose weight for it but I put pressure on myself, end up binge eating in secret, then cry my eyes out a week before we are due to fly because none of my clothes fit. I even had to buy a new wedding dress three weeks before we got married because I gained weight.

I'm almost 32 and I feel like I've lived half a life because I'm constantly thinking ahead to some mythical time when I'll be slim and happy and can really enjoy what I'm doing. I've been dieting since I was 12 and I've been (varying levels of) fat the entire time Sad

Istandinpause · 12/02/2022 23:50

Not having a daughter. I utterly adore my sons and know how lucky I am to have them but I always dreamt of having a daughter and feel I’ve missed out on a part of mothering by having no one in the house who is my gender.

Haveyoubrushedyourteeth · 12/02/2022 23:52

@pupcakes my DS is uni age now, and I feel the same about his father. We were talking about it over Christmas and I told him it's a guilt I'll always feel. He was incredulous and told me that I'm looking at it all wrong, his dad has been a brilliant example - he has shown him exactly the type of parent and man that he doesn't ever want to turn into, and so he'll make damn sure he doesn't.