To ask what is the biggest mistake you've made in your life

[Smileeriley]

Mine is a double whammy, getting married and buying my current house.

The house in particular is a noose around my neck. I'm basically renting it from my mortgage company and it will never be mine.

Worst thing I ever did was but this house with my ex husband. He's a whole other thread.

I wish I hadn't let myself pile on weight during lockdown. I worked so hard and lost three stone in 2019. I felt so happy and confident but due to bouts of isolation, not enough room in the house to exercise, homeschooling two dc and relying on freezer food it crept back in again... and more. I look at photos of myself before covid kicked off with my slinky hips, slim arms and angular face and now I feel awful. No point sitting round feeling miserable, I'm back exercising and eating sensibly and starting to lose it again. I just wish I'd taken more care and looked after myself a little better.

I have a big long list of regrets including marriages, massive weight gain, jobs, educational choices...

I envy people who say they don't regret anything.

I know it's a cliché, but tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life. Try to look forwards instead of back and forgive yourself for any mistakes you made in the past. Good luck!

Not understanding myself, I'm early 70s now. Couldn't make good friends, still can't, people pretend not to see me if I catch sight of someone in eg the supermarket. Chose the wrong career, should have sat quietly in an office not be part of a team. Terribly self conscious , always thought everyone else felt the same.
Have a good life now though. But almost no close friends.

The big problem in psychology is measurement. They are constantly measuring "constructs" that are difficult to observe at all and certainly can't be assigned numerical values in any kind of valid way. Extraversion, for example, or self-efficacy. People are always giving out surveys ("assessment instruments") and assigning numbers to people and then naively slapping around statistics, and I spend my whole life tearing down their dreams and telling them their analyses are invalid because they are. It's honestly rare for me to come across research in psychology that has any merit. They just keep churning out those worthless papers, and because they're sorta accessible and have human interest, people outside the field are always snatching up the headlines of them and taking them in as truth. It's so depressing. I wish I'd done engineering. I get serious measurent envy and also make things envy. But I couldn't handle the sexism at the time.

I only have one. Took my ex back 2 years ago. Caused my DS and myself unnecessary suffering. I refuse to forgive myself, I'll spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to my son and will regret that until the day I die.

So true!

From my bff when I was at a very low point 'The past is the past and you don't live there anymore'. Profound.

Doing my post grads. Waste of money time and energy
Not starting my current job sooner...shouldve done this and not postgrad
Getting married to my current partner who is kind but has other issues i find hard to deal with

Many regrets but the most unusual is not going on a school trip to Poland in the late 1980s before communism fell. I think I would have learnt so much and it would have changed my outlook.

Going along with my friend and choosing CSE Maths instead of O Level Maths

Not completing the final module of an HNC and blowing the whole course - it's gone beyond the completion window and it's wildly out of date, but the full qualification could open doors, even now

Taking out student loans for a useless HND in Journalism, which wasn't accredited by the NUJ, thereby rendering it useless and preventing me from studying something worthwhile

Moving into this god awful shit hole and now not able to move - word of advice - when the estate agents say "up and coming area" to describe anywhere outside London, they're lying.

Listening to my parents about jobs and careers - they knew fuck all and I should have had proper careers advice.

Getting into a relationship with a narcissist at age 15, turned out to be emotionally and sexually abusive and it’s shaped my whole personality and life ever since. He made me push away all my friends and I’ve never got over that, and never been able to form proper friendships since because I still believe everything he told me about myself. Evil man

I’m now happily married to a lovely man, but I’m very over sensitive and we’ve had many issues stemming from what happened to me

I wish I’d listened to people telling me not to be with him, and I wish I’d seen the signs

Second marriage to an abusive arse. 23 years I coped with being useless, embarrassing and all sorts of other things. Best thing I ever did was call the police!

Letting my son rescue a cat . It’s not friendly at all and it’s now my cat as my son is never in. I don’t even like cats 😅

It's so frustrating for me to see posts where the poster can't forgive themselves.. honestly, you are probably the only one who remembers your transgression, please don't punish yourselves any more.. that was you THEN, you're a different person now.
You'd forgive others, why not yourself?

Wait to have kids. Thought I was being all worldly but now I’m 36 and back in the village I grew up in still in the nappy stages while my friends are done with that stage. Their kids are having kids now and it’s a bit embarrassing when they go “oh this is pony, my mums pal” at the jags clinic or wherever. Also a bit more lonelier this time. They’re going for bar lunches in pubs that don’t have soft play now and I’m in the ones with soft play…. With their kids and grandkids.

Getting involved in my mother's marriage. I did it for the right reasons but 5 years later they are together again and there is a wedge between us.

Having an abortion I'd be holding a newborn right now.

I wholeheartedly agree it was the best decision for my family. Just not the best decision for me. It's eroded my mental health and I'll never be the same person again.

I don't have loads of regrets but, in chronological order;

• not taking up the offer of summer work experience at a local paper when I was about 16. I think my life would have been very different.

• starting a relationship when my daughter was becoming a teenager. It caused our relationship (mine & my DD's) no end of problems and I wish I had prioritised her more. In my defence I hadn't had a relationship since she was born and I was lonely but I could have waited a few more years, it wouldn't have killed me.

• not completing some professional training which would have given me a whole new career. I told myself I'd go back to it but I won't now and have to accept that I will be doing the work I do until I retire (if I ever can!).

Thinking that we had the luxury of time.

This is mine too.

Staying in a job that made me miserable for far too many years. Finally took the plunge and got a new job and I’m so much happier. I’m now realising just how badly I was treated before and I can’t believe I put up with it for so long!

Oh my god Dimples that is a heartbreaking read. I'm sure you are a wonderful person with lots to give in life xxx

I regret trusting a woman so much, that she became more than my friend, close as a sister. I really trusted her, with mine and my childrens feelings. I supported her and put myself out so much, on so many occasions, only to find out that she didn't actually care about us at all. She was using me. And once she'd exhausted my goodwill she brutally burnt the relationship to the ground with both my and my children's feelings thrown to the dogs. I can handle it, but one of my daughters has had to have counselling and both have serious trust issues having been through it. I know that it will negatively impact all the relationships they have as they witnessed exactly how cruel and selfish people can be, we were all so blind sided and they are so young to have learnt that you can trust no one. I wish so much that I'd kept her as just a casual friend and never brought her into my children's lives. I've hurt them by not protecting them. It's awful to lose my "best" friend, but that's nothing to the knowledge that my children are hurt because of my idiocy.

Some of this thread is really heartbreaking

Can I please offer a virtual hug and very positive wishes to any of us hurting right now

❤️