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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?

680 replies

shehardlysleeps · 20/04/2026 17:18

I’m in a reflective mood, and it’s got me thinking about something I did a few years ago which is probably the thing I’m most deeply ashamed of.

There was a coworker who really rubbed me up the wrong way. I was very unhappy at the time, and going through an awful time personally. She would make snide comments about me, do things with my family members (who were colleagues too) which really got my back up, I felt like she judged me harshly and was pretty rude. Along with another colleague they made three or four very nasty comments which still stick with me.

Instead of raising a grievance, which I should have done, I took to posting about her on another website (along the lines of Mumsnet), not realising she used it too. She saw the posts and reported me, and I ended up facing a meeting with HR and a senior partner of the firm I was working in. It damaged my reputation within the firm forever and I ended up leaving after not being offered a promotion. I still feel ashamed of it now, nearly half a decade on, and feel like it’s tarred me forever.

Whats the worst thing you’ve ever done?

OP posts:
ThatCyanCat · Today 15:50

TheDehumidifierNeedsEmptying · Today 15:45

Don’t know and no I wasn’t.

I'm assuming it was accidental? Did you stop?

Allseeingallknowing · Today 15:54

TheDehumidifierNeedsEmptying · Today 15:45

Don’t know and no I wasn’t.

How can you not know- didn’t you try to find out?

CarbootJunction · Today 16:35

UnctuousUnicorns · Today 11:27

No, you and he are just responsible for her unknowingly living a lie for the past 27+ years, because neither you nor he had/have the guts to tell her the truth and let her decide what path she wants to take after finding out that she's married to a cheating scumbag. Bravo.

It's ok, she was cheating on him too, but she can write her own response to the OP, I guess.

UnctuousUnicorns · Today 16:43

CarbootJunction · Today 16:35

It's ok, she was cheating on him too, but she can write her own response to the OP, I guess.

Thanks for the drip feed. 👍

Floofle · Today 16:46

SerafinasGoose · Yesterday 17:20

I'm so sorry. I know how these things can haunt a person.

These are entirely matters of chance. No one can be there 24/7. Eventually we have to use the bathroom, shower, change, eat. Having spent day in, day out, in a hot, airless hospital room with the cloying presence of mortal illness, I know just how precious a breath of fresh air and a 5-minute break in the garden can be. It's the only place I wanted to be, there in that room with my mum, yet conversely, it was also the place I wanted to run screaming from. DB and I alternated so that somebody was there with our mother as often as possible. We did it in shifts. And still neither of us was there when she died.

One of my mum's most strongly stated wishes was that, contrary to most people's wishes to die at home, she wanted to be in hospital. She'd been staying at my home or her own place with my brother, and I don't think she wanted to leave us with those memories. I also believe she didn't want us to see her die. When it happened I'd left an hour or so ago to spend that night at home and my brother had just gone to sleep in an adjoining room. The kind nurse looking after her said that whether or not a dying patient is still aware no one can tell, but this often happens as soon as they are alone. It's something she had seen a lot.

This will sound trite, but we all ultimately die alone. Your mother will have known what you meant to each other in life, and this is what matters.

Please be kinder to yourself. You wouldn't do this to a friend: please don't do it to yourself. It could have happened at any moment; none of us have control over this.

Condolences on the loss of your mum. It's a pain like no other. ❤

I've also heard that this happens a lot.
My Gran's last day was similar - my Dad (her son) spent the whole day with her at the home, and then she died in the night after he left.

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