I am wrecked with guilt after a life of awful things that I can’t stop thinking about

[guotls]

I’m 40 next week and I have made such a mess of life. I grew up desperate for love after a childhood of emotional neglect. I was desperate for love despite so much material affection from my parents. Things are better with them these days but that pain is still underneath. But none of this is an excuse for the person I am.

In my twenties I had two affairs and have sleepless nights about it now and what I did to those women (my fault). I slept with my best friend’s ex and she understandably has never spoken to me since and is celebrating their 40ths with my uni ex friends without me (my fault), when I finally met someone who said he couldn’t wait to have kids with me I thought I’ve finally met the person, i will have the family and I am safe… I missed a pill literally the next day and he did ask once if I had but I never told him. The relationship didn’t last of course because he was emotionally unavailable as all the ones prior had been and now I have a five year old asking why here their dad is (my fault), I didnt speak to my sister much over the years as she was treated so differently by my parents that I was jealous I think, she has a lovely life and I found it hard to be around her even though she has tried with me a lot, so I’ve missed that relationship with her (my fault).

I’ve done smaller shitty things over the years too. Not turning up or cancelling on friends last minute if I felt I couldn’t face it. Standing up men last minute. Taking a different job the day before being due to start another one. The list goes on. I’m a shit person and even though I had therapy and still do, it’s like it couldn’t keep up with how I was.

I’m 40 very soon and I just sit here thinking fuck what have I done with my life. I don’t think I’ve done anything good at all. And after all this I’m alone anyway, which is the one thing I had tried not to be my whole life. I could have skipped all the misery of the search and accepted it long ago and not inflicted so much misery on so many people, my poor child included.

I don’t deserve sympathy, I know that. But I would love to be better. I don’t think I know how? So many bridges burned so many mistakes that I genuinely feel anxious and worried everyday because of everything I did in the past.

@TheHideAndSeekingHill thank you, your post made me smile for the first time in a while. I just think most people find a partner (that doesn’t belong to another woman or friend) and plans dc properly. It’s calm and loving and happy. All based on openness and trust and I live with what I did everyday (rightly). If I started a thread saying ‘I did this to dp’ or ‘I was the other woman, twice,’ there would be floors of understandable aggressive comments about what a terrible person I was. I’ve read those sort of threads before.

i am always expecting something downright terrible because of how I have behaved. I’ve also been nasty to people (verbally) when I’ve felt neglected with partners. I want to make 40 better but it seems insurmountable .

Yeah I agree with this. OP I think you need a pledge like doctors make - "First, do no harm". If you stop causing harm now (and it sounds like you did ages ago tbh) things will heal around you.

Also, YES you do know people who've done what you've done and worse. I doubt every colleague/neighbour/friend reveals exactly how they got pregnant to you, chats about affairs they had etc! People are bloody awful a lot of the time.

If you really were a shit person you wouldn't be wracked with guilt. The guilt may have taken a while coming to you but it has. And that speaks volumes for who you are now.

Draw a line under how you behaved in the past, it's who you are today that matters and it sounds like you have grown into a thoughtful and compassionate individual.

There are so many helpful and wise posts on here. Please read and re read them. And please get some therapy. Only a trained specialist will be able to help you stop punishing yourself like this xx

@bloomety that’s nice of you to say, it’s one thing considering it isn’t it and another to do it. I was so hopeful (desperate) for family life. It was pathetic. I can never have a relationship again unless I lie either as no man would believe how vile I have been.

I want to make 40 better, I want to do better.

@TheHideAndSeekingHill do you really think there’s much worse than the things I’ve done? Honestly? I feel like they are some of the worst. I did stop a while ago, I just kept myself to myself and tried to always be good and kind. I think coming up to 40 has caused huge reflection and not in a good way.

This thread is allowed to be about you and your feelings. It's your thread. You are allowed to want things for you. It can be like a type of hell when you have constant intrusive thoughts that are telling you that you are awful. (I have been there). But just because those thoughts are coming from you does not mean that they are true, or that they are the whole truth. We all have narratives we tell ourselves, often learned from childhood, and so well entrenched we don't even challenge them. Forgiveness is key, you deserve it. Forgiveness was created as a concept because we are all capable of doing bad things, for all kinds of reasons, some we understand and some we don't. Please take your time and reread this thread and maybe allow yourself a break from thinking about it all? Choose to do something calming? I used to contract myself breaks in thinking about it all. It was the only thing that worked for me.

It's not insurmountable. You need to get some therapy, do the right things from now on, and learn to forgive yourself. That doesn't mean pretending that you've never made mistakes, it means learning how not to make them again and getting to grips with the fact that you did something wrong but it's over and done now.

I'm sorry you're in so much distress, it sounds like you feel you can never enjoy anything because you feel you don't deserve nice things (like a relationship with your sister who - it sounds like - still very much has time for you).

Please do see the doc, you sounds so low and depressed, and as long as you're in that state you cannot reach your potential and you risk doing more harm (sorry) to your daughter as your world view will be so negative and you're her only parent. If not for you (the "undeserving") please try to get yourself better for your daughter (the "victim").

@guotls but you have a child now. Why are you wracked with guilt about it? Had you not done it you wouldn’t have had a child. My mums friend is in her 70s and has no family. She was with a man who said he didn’t want kids who then left her and had kids with another woman. My mums friend never met anyone else. My mum always said to me not to think twice about it as you can’t trust men and you don’t want to end up lonely with no family in your old age like her friend.

So don’t judge yourself. I certainly wouldn’t. You’ve done the equivalent of using a sperm donor. Would you beat yourself up about that?

Do you have a support network? People to talk to?

People do shit things all the time. They get older and they change and look back and wonder how they could do them. It sounds like you are depressed as it’s having such a bad effect on you. You’re not a horrible person you’re human. Can you allow yourself that?

I have pretty much done all of those things too! It’s normal to feel guilty when you fuck up but don’t let it eat you alive. Humans are complex and capable of both wonderfully kind acts as well as selfish ones. No one is just “good” or “bad”. Continue your therapy, nurture your relationship with your child and form friendship connections wherever you can (join a club if possible - even if just on Zoom when you can’t get childcare). You may have Borderline Personality Disorder (like me) and need therapy which is specific to that. I also like the book “how to stay sane” by Phillipa Perry.

do you really think there’s much worse than the things I’ve done? Honestly? I feel like they are some of the worst. I did stop a while ago, I just kept myself to myself and tried to always be good and kind. I think coming up to 40 has caused huge reflection and not in a good way.

of course there are, the rational part of your brain KNOWS there are. Even just in my own family I've got a relative who broke up multiple marriages by targeting the husbands (obviously I do blame the husbands just as much/more), is a shit mum, has started feuds, massively self-centred etc etc AND as far as I know she isn't at all sorry about any of it! She loves drama. That's just one example. I'm not saying she's Hitler or anything, just that there are people who do what you did or worse and never have a moment of guilt over it.

I'm genuinely sad that you think your ex is within his rights never to see his daughter because it was "your fault" you got pregnant. She deserves her dad and I would put at least 80% of the blame for his absence on him, not you. Any decent man would be around for their child regardless of the circumstances, simply because it's not the child's fault in any way.

Please forgive yourself, you have a 5 year old, poor all your love and energy into them and realise that you need to love yourself for their sake too.

Life is not easy. Life is not black and white. People can grow and change.

Forgive yourself.

"Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better."

Look, shit happens and people move on, you have to.

If your friend hadn't gotten over it that isn't your problem. You did it, you've atoned. You get less time in prison for serious crime, it's what nearly 20 years ago!!

If it's still bothering you, writer her a letter with no expectation of a response by not giving your address.

Your child - not the best way to go about it but you gave him a child, he could have taken his own fertility in his hands and never had sex. Or used condoms. Or the snip. But he didn't.
He's the arsehole for not stepping up.

Your sister - write her a letter and mean it. If she still doesn't want to know, you've done what you can.

Just be better friend from now on.

Nobody is perfect. The only difference between you and many of us is you've written it all down. Which helps I'm sure.

@bloomety @TheHideAndSeekingHill @User67564454 These posts have made me cry. I’ve never said any of this to anyone I’ve just lived with it. I guess with dc I feel
i could have done it differently and that my ex not being around is really down to me, I was awful to him when we broke up, so nasty as I felt so abandoned… he has reason not to want to be around I guess. Do I deserve happiness after that, probably not realistically.

I could start by being closer to my sister. Or volunteering. Donating to charity. I work for a helpline one evening a week and I love that, maybe more of that is what I need to do and I can start to do some good. I just want to feel I am not the sum total of devastation I’ve inflicted on others.

Please do not be so tough on yourself, everyone has done stupid, selfish things in their life, the trick is to learn from them and move on. Do you have other interests and hobbies, things that make you feel good?

Sleeping with a best friend's ex is nothing really, nor are the other things. The affairs aren't brilliant but lots of people do this and no one judges them, or they do, but get over it.

I know of someone who really is a nasty person and terrible mum (ex drug addict, alcoholic, left her kids youngest 13 months to live with their dad, tried to use her kids to get a council house, one of her exes had to have a court order/action against him as he was abusing her daughters). She'll now post up stuff on FB about 'I've done awful things but I think I should be forgiven, I'm sorry'.

So what you've done pales into insignificance beside what she's done!

The people who you think you've done wrong by relatively minor things to me - they're really not worth your time. If they were any sort of friend they'd be understanding (or at least one or two would be) and you'd be friends and they'd try to help you move forward and make good decisions.

You've already stated what would be good, being closer to your sister, volunteering and donating to charity!

Working for a helpline 1 evening a week is great - I don't do that! Maybe offer to do more evenings.

Can you really read the posts and take them in, rather than arguing back? I mean that in the nicest way possible. We have read what you have done and no one thinks it's as bad as you and no one is holding you to the standards you're holding yourself.
You made mistakes, it's okay, you're human, what matters is what you do now, forgive yourself, find your self worth.
I can think of so many things that are worse than what you've done and no, not abuse and murder, please give yourself a break, you deserve a happy life but you won't get it until you let even one little part of your brain acknowledge that you aren't bad xx

Op no one will admit it on Mumsnet, but there will be thousands of other women who had "accidental" pregnancies in similar circumstances. The alternative would be you wouldn't have your wonderful and much loved child.

Yes, you've made mistakes , but humans make mistakes, and the difference is you've learnt from them.

I had a friend who slept with multiple married men in her 40's ( so a lot older than you were) , and would gloat about how she felt no guilt whatsoever.

It really doesn't sound like you've made any particular mistakes that are more horrifying than average.

I haven't read every post on this thread, but I'm hearing someone whose personal values are very strong and commendable - that's who you really are, right in your core. The true you.
Emotional pain you neither asked for nor deserved set you on this path. But the real you is a trustworthy person capable of being a valued friend or sister.
It sounds to me that you have made some bad decisions which were driven by powerful and deeply human emotions. I defy anyone who is experiencing similar to behave better. We are ALL very emotionally driven as humans and our actions are created out of our emotional landscape not occurring in a vacuum.
It is time to let the true you step forward. Express your regret, to yourself or anyone you need to hear it. But if you can forgive yourself, somehow, then you can begin to live as the real you.
Look at your daughter and remember yourself at her age, what would you tell her if she was you now posting this?
Birthdays are hard and how you feel about them is very much a mirror to how you feel about yourself. My 21st was horrendous as I was so lost and sad but my 30th was better, it wasn't the age it was just the forced self examination a birthday triggers.
Decide what you want your 50th to look like and start working towards that. Will your daughter be there, proud of you and full of the love you poured into her? Might your sister be there after a careful reconciliation? Might there be others who have also fought to recover and so recognise your path and celebrate with you knowing the real strength it has taken to get there?
Look to your future not your past (easier said than done), here's a hug for the little girl who needed tender love but didn't get it.

Being totally honest - you’ve made some bad choices and therefore suffered the consequences of those. Living in the past is pointless though. Maybe therapy to explore your childhood etc could help you live the way you want to in the future. You regret some things so you can change the way you make decisions.

You've mentioned a lot about reading other forums on here and how people are shaming others in the comments for the mistakes they've made (and how that affects you/your anxiety). Mumsnet can be a brutal place. My advice would be to step away from here for a bit and stop reading forums that are going to trigger you and your anxiety. It's similar to feeling unwell and googling your symptoms - you end up in a state of anxiety because google tells you you've probably got cancer when in reality you have IBS or something.

Be kind to yourself. You're not a bad person.

You sound as if you are desperate for someone here to say "yes, you are a horrible person" and "no, you have been too horrible to have a good future". It is a bit like mental self-harming.

There are two facts you need to embrace:

1 No one is perfect, most people are a long way away from being perfect, and most of them have done a number of things in the past that they are deeply ashamed about. I know I have.

2 The past is the past, and the future starts here. For example:

• you mention that you have done various "smaller shitty things"; do you think in the future you can avoid doing those and other similar "shitty things"? If so, that's a start.

• I agree with others who have said your relationship with your sister sound repairable. So start to repair it.

• You regard yourself as having gone about getting pregnant the wrong way and that might be right, but there is no reason why you shouldn't be a good, supportive mum to your daughter notwithstanding that so do your best to make sure you are.

• Bearing in mind we cannot go back and change the past, in addition to the above you need to ask yourself what things you could do from now on so that you start to like yourself a bit more. This is very very important. There have been some suggestions on this in the thread, but if something does not work try something else.

If you can find a way to do all that, I think you have a foundation to move on and tackle other things. I don't know whether you can regain your place in your old friendship group (I don't think it would be impossible) but whether you can or not you can and willmake new friends if you want to.

And stop beating yourself up!

Stop with the self hate. You aren't a bad person.

A bad person's someone who's violent, who steals, who sets out to do harm and hurt others.

You have just made normal human mistakes.

Forget uni friends. Most don't keep in touch after 20 years.

Missing one pill is rarely enough to stop the whole pack not working so you may have become pregnant anyway as you must be hyper fertile for that to have happened. I took the pill for years but almost never took every one on time. I didn't sweat it. It's not your fault the dad ran off.

As for the friend's ex. Well he was an ex so fair game. I slept with a friend's ex and none of us ever saw it as an issue. We even compared notes on what he was like!

You have serious self esteem issues. Can you get a GP ref for CBT to improve your confidence or pay for some coaching or something?

Why are you taking all the blame for these things?
Most importantly, if your child's father doesn't see them, surely that is his fault, not yours? You may have chosen to have unprotected sex without telling him, which was not great, but the fact is that conception is always a possibility when a man and woman have sex, it's not OK for him to choose to have nothing t do with his child. You may have fucked up, but he has continued it and made it worse. I'm assuming he does know that he is a father?
Having sex with a friends ex is also not great, but not that dreadful either, it's not like sleeping with their current boyfriend. Blaming you for her never being able to trust a man again is overly dramatic. You didn't cheat on her, neither did he, and tbh most people have had to deal with relationships ending either with two-timing or slight crossover timing involved.
Not great that you had affairs with married men, but again, they are the ones who cheated, not you. I think you'll find lots of people have slept with married men, or been reckless as to whether a man was married, young girls in their teens and early twenties are often taken in by sweet talkers, and it's only as they get older that they realise how much of problem this is.
Yes, you've done wrong, but you seem to be really obsessing about it.
You've been quite vague about what happened with your sister, but implied that you are still in contact and have tried to heal the breach.
Forgive yourself. You've been young, silly and suffered at the hands of some manipulative guys. Move on.