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.

Thank you. I think I need to do some reframing of it. I see so many posts on here about people still deeply in love with their partners after decades and think that that’s the norm; but I think you’re probably right and my situation is more common than we think

many marriages I see on mn and indeed in real life people stay together because of the kids and for financial reasons. There's also pressures from family and even society to not divorce.

Divorce can be messy when it comes to splitting fiances and a lot of of people know they won't get a better deal there on their own especially as we get older. You can be left with pittance after a divorce even if you married into wealth, rich families can be savvy in how they handle their money so that those who marry in won't get their hands on it... Thus what I'm saying is that many marriages are long lasting not because of love but because walking away from them can be outright treacherous.

It reminds me of people who live alone who say they don't like it because it's lonely. As a veteran of house shares which is always an alternative I tell them it's so much worse putting up with others. I'd love to be able to afford my own place, even a bedsit.

Please tell your husband. I was in exactly the same place a year ago. I am not going to lie, it wasn't easy, in fact those first few months were absolute HELL. But we did come through it and I can't believe how much of a different person I am now. I had t calculated the toll it had on my mental health.

I destroyed my life when I was 13. Broke my mother's heart, she never forgave me. What a fool I was, thought I was being clever at the time. I'm 68 now and still carry the guilt, blighted my life.

Becoming a teacher.

I've a few.
Staying with my first very abusive boyfriend but was only 16 so couldn't leave.

Not going for a high paying career.
Putting up with abusive people in general.

Spent 6 years of my life with an absolute controlling idiot. Never again.

Sleeping with a married man when I was 17. More his mistake than mine I'd say, looking back it was textbook grooming and I'd never even had a boyfriend before, barely kissed anyone. Fortunately to my knowledge his wife or family never found out. DH knows.

Doing medicine, then staying a GP after I realized how much it was destroying me. I'm still doing it, and it eclipses all the good things in my life... I love the job it should be.. the job it is (for me) is truly awful due to the broken system and utterly unrealistic expectation. I hang for the glimmers..

Everything I have ever done.

Seriously. A lifetime of making sometimes stupid, sometimes impulsive but always wrong choices that have led my life to be the pile of shit it is now.

The latest victim of me always doing the world thing is my elderly dad.

Everything I touch turns to shit.

Not buying those bit coins. 🫣

Not buying a house when I had the opportunity. I had £20k saved and the house was £38k (4 bed, double garage). I placed the money in the “safety” of a Cash ISA account as I wasn’t ready to leave home. Those houses are now worth £380k. By the time I was ready to buy, I bought my first home in 2008 when the prices were sky high. 6 months later, the market crashed… 😡🤬

My biggest mistake was spending my entire life thinking I had made huge mistakes along the way. I’m mid 30s now and realise I spent so much time beating myself up for bad choices when the reality was they were life lessons, and I wouldn’t be where I am now if everything else hadn’t of happened. This is only something possible with hindsight and I really hope that for so many of you here, one day you’ll be able to look back and forgive yourself for being so wrong about it all, thinking you made huge mistakes.

I consulted Dr Google when I felt a nearly painful ongoing tingling in my breast, was reassured and didn't go to a real Dr.
By the time other symptoms were apparent and I went to actual Dr's it had spread and I'm now stage 4.
I have made loads of other stupid decisions or more correctly been too passive and had the opportunity to make decisions taken from me in my life. But that one was the clanger!

Rushing to get so serious with my first 'proper' boyfriend when I'd just turned 18. I'd been through a decade of hell thanks to my parents dragging us around the world and I think I wanted 'security'... I was so emotionally immature, even after I was 18 they treated me more like a 12 year old - my boyfriend wasn't even allowed in my bedroom! He was earning good money, and wanted to take me on weekends away, holidays etc...I wasn't 'allowed' to even to stay out all night!

So I rushed my poor boyfriend into proposing - essentially I emotionally blackmailed him into it by threatening to split up with him if he didn't. We'd only been going out about 2 months! Didn't tell our families until we'd been together 6 months...looking back I can't believe how insane it all was. All my parents cared about was that my fiance hadn't asked my father for 'permission'...

We married 2 and a half years later...which was exactly the same length of time the marriage lasted. I was unfaithful less than 6 weeks after getting married (ex husband worked nights regularly) and I came back from honeymoon to find my father had left my mother for another woman. The whole madness finally stopped when I was 25, by which time I'd been diagnosed as bipolar after a suicide attempt/massive nervous breakdown.

I'd love to go back in time and give my 18 year old self a fucking slap.

I've made so many mistakes in my life. Big mistakes. I still am. The biggest one though was my second abortion. I'll never forgive myself for that. How could I? How could I do that again?

Luckily for me, I've managed to get myself out of situations before they happened. E.g. marrying at 21 to someone in another country, a long flight away, who had PTSD and a drink problem. I'll always thank a close friend of mine who just told me not to do it, I was too young. Getting married to a couple of people (or having kids with them) because it was the right thing to do, one is bankrupt (I think) and lives in an Eastern European country, presumably to escape his creditors.

My nana always told me to live with a man before marrying, said marriage was overrated (she'd done it 3 times and been divorced 3 times) and also didn't place loads of emphasis on having kids.

Omg, i am so sorry you have been through all of this. NONE of which is your fault!!

Have you got a good life now?

I was similar! I was in my mid 20s, had inherited a matured sum (£20K then) and was ready to buy a property. I recall speaking to a bank advisor about a mortgage who told me in no uncertain terms that due to my earnings I couldn't buy somewhere and get a mortgage. However DM and/or stepdad would've been guarantors for me but the bank didn't advise on that at all. House/flat prices were far cheaper then too and I'd always worked/was working. Stepdad had a property but DM had paid off her mortgage and both were fairly young too and good earners.

I did buy a house fairly early in life later on but it does irritate me how much I wasted in rent until I could afford to buy.

Thank you very much kick a dog when he down won’t you and that’s from all of heartbroken here.

@DimplesToadfoot - don't ever say that about being born.

My aunt who I saw recently for a visit/holiday was born by mistake, when there was no social security etc. She was given up by my nana (god knows why) to a home for Waifs and Strays and ended up being fostered a lot too before coming briefly to live with her DM, my nana and then eventually marrying and having a child.

Yes, it's upset and traumatised her, she has no or very little knowledge of her dad. But basically if she hadn't been born, she wouldn't have her lovely son, 3 grandchildren and 8 great grandchildren, met her lovely husband and have the friends/family she has now.

Topee · Today 09:25
Getting myself into debt and keeping it a secret. I live in fear of the post and getting found out every day. This is my punishment. In order to keep it secret I’ve lied and I know that the day will come when it all unravels and my husband will (quite rightly) leave me.
I love my husband and family and the thought of not being together is unbearable but I know the day will come.
I’ve confided in nobody (until this post), the fear and shame prevent me from doing so.

PLEASE RING STEPCHANGE TODAY!!!! This is so easily sorted - trust me, I speak from experience - you don't even need to list your debts - just give them permission to access your credit file. PLEASE DO THIS. TODAY

So many . Not realising the importance of better education , not being financially aware but most of all marrying the wrong man .

I think one of the worst things was not sticking up for myself in a strong fashion when I was bullied in an early job. Instead, I put up with it and having been brought up to be accommodating it made me very unhappy for around eighteen months - which seems like an age when you're in your teens. I gave my notice in and he left soon anyway. It was a job I enjoyed, and I could have got promotion eventually.

I was in a similar situation, credit cards and overdraft. It all came out during a row. It sounds ridiculous but the relief was immense.
I hope you can get this sorted op, in my case once it came out I was totally, brutally honest and DH was supportive in the end.

Having a child with my ex - he's the most verminous, abusive, horrific person you could imagine.
I don't regret my daughter, but I regret her choice of father 1million times over.

Me too.