Financially ruined family

[Madeamistake1]

Name changed for this.

Without going into detail, I made a massive decision/mistake recently that almost certainly has life long financial implications for my family. We're not going to be destitute, but will affect the size of the house we can buy etc. Plus there are emotional implications too.

I'm really struggling to forgive myself and have slid into a deep depression. I have a baby boy and feel so guilty that I'm giving him a worse life than I could have done if I hadn't made this mistake.

How do I forgive myself and move on? The regret and guilt is eating me up.

People say "you couldn't have known this would happen" but I kind of did, and did it anyway. I wasn't thinking clearly.

I'm on ADs and still feeling so low and like I've ruined everything.

Everyone makes mistakes. You are not alone.

this thread made me think of a song:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ebd5UpF4zc8

Whatever happened, try to find something, anything, that you can be grateful for.

This.

If you can still buy a house, you and your family are NOT facing "financial ruin".

Is your silly fibbing, misrepresentation, prevarication and exaggeration how you got into a mess with money? Then the first thing you need to do to get out of the mess, is stop doing that.

My response would depend on what you did and how much you've lost. If you decided to put the deposit you'd saved for a house into FTX crypto (now worthless), or you'd blown it on day trading or playing bingo or another form of betting, I'd respond one way. If you lent it to a family member in the confident expectation of getting it back, or you'd been targeted by a sophisticated scam it might be another.

I don't think you forgive yourself about something like this. I think you learn from it, learn to live with it and do what you can to restore the situation and ensure that nothing like it ever happens again. Time eventually deals with the grief and guilt, but you don't want to ever get comfortable with doing catastrophic things.

People say "you couldn't have known this would happen"

but not one would say this to someone who’s lost money from gaming.

i just want the op to come back and tell us why she made the huge financial decision all on her tod

Nail on head

A problem with "Oooo I feel terrible" is that focusing on it can get in the way of doing the right thing to mend whatever it is, whereas moving forward with more positive action can bring better results

My husband made a similar financial misjudgment 6 months ago. Our income has gone from higher rate tax to minimum wage.

It's a real struggle. I'm feeling so angry. Not with him but with the circumstances that lead him to the decision he made.

No way would he have jeopardised our future knowingly, and I can and will support him to get past this period of our lives.

I expect your partner feels the same.

You do the very best you can with the information you have at that time. That's all any of us can do.

I mean they do let women earn money and hold assets these days. 🤷‍♀️

OP AIBU wasn't maybe the best place to post this, especially as you've added no detail, and you'll get people filling in the blanks themselves and telling you all sorts. But being in a similar situation, I just wanted to give you a hand hold and send you flowers.

We worked hard, saved hard, and bought a house in Ireland. Our dream home. Now we're coming to sell it we've found out this week it's got mica. We didn't know about the potential for that when we bought it as at the time we were assured it was only in a specific part of Donegal. Because of Covid, we didn't complete until almost a year after we had our offer accepted, and that means we are not able to access the redress scheme.

We've lost £200,000 overnight on a £250,000 house that we can't live in as it's unsafe. Our stability and security is gone.

I really feel for you but (at the risk of sounding sanctimonious) you need to work towards forgiving yourself. It's not an overnight process but you'll get there.

Was his misjudgment changing jobs? Did he do this against your wishes?

Where's my dodo I'm so sorry to hear about your dream home
The mica situation is nothing short of
scandalous
I hope you are ok and that things turn around for you.

Sorry that happened to you 🌻

You will get through this.

10 years ago my partner lost all the savings we had plus his future inheritance from his parents when he tried to prop up his ailing business. It was the worst time of my life. He made some terrible business decisions so it was in some way avoidable. I didn't know how bad it was. It was 100k that was gone on total including the debt we had to pay back.

Somehow we got through. We had to make some huge life changing decisions and I now think we wouldn't be where we are now if that terrible thing hadn't happened. I just move my thoughts away when I start to think about it. I say a sharp 'no' in my head. We moved on and you can too.

Around that same time as all this happened a work colleagues best friend took his own life because he had been gambling on the stock exchange. He had put his house against the debt he owed and the debt was £600k and being called in. His wife and daughter just wanted him back, they would have given anything. They lost the house anyway so the whole thing was pointless. It put what I was going through into perspective.

People make bad decisions all the time. I think I'd find it harder to forgive myself for a bad decision if I knew I'd made it with the best of intentions and if I knew those around me had genuinely forgiven me. Did your partner know what you were doing? If you made the decision secretly or hid some of the facts then you might find your partner does resent you. If he does then it's going to be harder to forgive yourself.

Was it a definite gamble such as bitcoin or was it a poor business choice

OP I made a decision with my husband to work part time in retail when two of the kids were small. Childcare was £1k per month, was working to pay that bill (with minimal support from DH)

I couldn't have known that the recession would happen and that the market would virtually collapse, leaving us with high interest on mortgage payments on a house in negative equity

I was devastated. I blamed myself, my family blamed me or at least they intimated it pretty strongly. It almost killed off my mental health. My parents helped us out eventually however my ex husband was an ungrateful shit and resentment set in on his side.

You need to take some time to let things percolate and figure out a way forward. Try not to panic and catastrophise because you won't be seeing straight. I feel for you .

Lots of really good advice here OP

You can’t change the past. What’s done is done. It’s now about moving forwards 💐

OP from the tone of your post, you MIGHT be catastrophizing - are you sure it's as devastating as you say it is?

As others have said, it's hard to judge without context, but actually judgement is the last thing you need.

My thought would be this: What has happened is done. But please don't assume that had to made a different decision, everything would have been rosy. This might have been a loss waiting to happen further down the line. LIfe is not 'win' and 'lose' it's flex and flow and shift and change. This is not a hard stop - it's a bump in the road that might well have come bigger later down the line had you made what you currently consider to the correct decision.

Your family are behind you and your future is ahead. You will have to change gear temporarily but the universe may well deliver a change in more positive change in financial circumstances down the line. You can't know.

All anyone can ever do is keep playing the odds in your favour by making the best decision you can at any given time. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But you just keep going.

Your biggest mistake is you think you have a crystal ball and can see the future! You can’t! You’ve assumed your life with take a certain path but you don’t know that. Re a book on a famous person who has lost everything and bounced back.

I mean they do let women earn money and hold assets these days. 🤷‍♀️
Not sure what this snark was in aid of?

Op has apparently managed to lose the entire family's money/assets, it's a slightly different scenario from gasping in wonder that she possessed any in her own right at all? Ffs...

I had a chance about 18 years ago to do something financially, it transpires the return would have been huge. We live and learn, dint fret.

Thanks for sharing that. I hadn't heard it before.

It's a bit like where I am now 😂

Inspirational reading that. Sorry that that happened to you though.

Was it crypto?

hard to say without knowing what your mistake was - if a partner lied to me about money/ran up debts/put our investments in bitcoin, i'd find it hard to forgive.

And if my partner was being self flagalating so i COULDN'T be angry with them, that would be hard too.

but if partner leaves all financial decisions up to you and you bought shares in say MADE.COM in your isa that have now fallen, over saysafe premium bonds, thats very different.

OP you are at a crossroads you can either learn from this mistake or sink into it.
You can't change what has happened, but you can change how you react to it.
e.g.
Does it matter if you buy a smaller house? Maybe a bigger house would have meant higher bills that kept you working longer hours?

What you need to be honest about is why and how you made the mistake you did. What will stop you making the same mistake again and what have you learnt from it?
I wonder if the root cause is your attitude to money. Were you looking for a get rich quick idea? Did you want to provide a particular lifestyle for your family and was looking for a quick way to do that? If so, where did this drive come from? Where did you get the idea that a bigger house = a better life?
Perhaps go back to basics - something like Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps and rebuilt from a more solid foundation.