your biggest regret

I wish I hadn't cancelled my deferment to university and had gone travelling like I thought about. But, then I wouldn't be where I am today really.

I wish I had managed to finish my PhD.

I know many people are going to wish they'd been less sensible but I wish I'd been more so. Instead of investing 12 years worth of salary in the pub I should have got on the property ladder much sooner.

You see puss, that is the odd thing about my regret, my circs now determine it will never happen.i met my H when i lived in Manc, and wouldnt be without the kids (would him at times!!). But i know this regret is one that cant be changed. i.e. i wouldnt uproot the kids now to move to london (financially, practically, emotionally etc) its not worth it. My h is now blossoming career wise, for which i am so so grateful, but i know if i had had the chance i could have moved to london and potentially had a ball. if it all went t*ts up, so what, i could have come back.

I have never regretted anything before but this is becoming a really prevalant regret of mine.

my biggest regret...well i suppose its not listening to my mum!

i regret getting into a serious relationship at 17 and getting married at 21. i wish i had a time machine and i could go back to that 17 year old girl and make her see that the next 6 years of her life should of been some of her best, going out with friends, dating different guys, maybe gone to uni or done some travelling. not stay in a unhappy relationship because i was too scared of the unknown.

can't believe im getting upset just writing this. i'm now seperated from my husband but i have found it so hard adjusting to now not having someone controlling me and telling me what to do and think.

so thats my regret in life. sorry if its a bit deep!

Part of me regrets the fact that my visa to emigrate to Australia didn't work out, but if it had been accepted I doubt I'd be on this website planning a wedding (although I wouldn't be wearing a jumper!!)

Sorry to hear that Smithy, the whole sliding door idea is bad when you think of all the what ifs. Hope you can make a fresh start & do some of the things you wanted to do when you were younger. I didn't go travelling until I was 26 (didn't feel ready before then) & training as a teacher there were loads of mature students so if you want to do any of these things I hope there's nothing to stop you. Reach for the unknown & don't look back x ?

My biggest regret is investing £10k in a shop and becoming involved with two people who I thought were professionals and turned out to be complete twats. My gut instinct told me no, but we went ahead with it anyway- just wish I'd gone with my initial thoughts. Still, on a positive I have learnt a lot from the experience.

I was going to say none, but actually I regret not realising thatI actually used to be quite slim and that I shoudl have made more of it. Not that I'm huge now, but having had a baby my tummy has changed shape and when I look back at pictures I can't believe I thought I was too big!

Thanks blackkat. i'm trying to decide right now what i want to do with my life. i know i have to stop looking at the past.

I too fall into the camp of the experiences that I have had thus far have made me who I am today but I do wish I hadn't screwed up my finances at uni first time round so much I had to leave.

As I say, its made me who I am today, so no point regretting it really.

I regret following my head not my heart in my career. Am now taking steps to correct the mistake but it would have been a lot easier just to have made the right choice first time.

I also regret not travelling more before having children; I particularly wish I'd spent some time in India.

This might come out sappy I do apologise if it does.

I used to have regrets, and alot of them. However if I am honest I have worked out that I wouldn't be where I am today if my life had not taken me in this direction. And if there is anything that I am not happy about in my life I go with it. I used to regret not telling my H how I felt about him earlier which would have meant us being together earlier and other things happening in our lives but you know what we got there in the end and I am happy with that.

Looking at the past I think you have to think of how far you have come from thayt and the fantastic person that it has made you....

Right now, it's that I didn't start my assignment sooner (due in at midnight and nearly done, but 25 words need to go and I feel like I've cut as much as I can).

With the long view, I wish I had taken a gap year. I was a very young 18 when I went to university, and in hindsight I think a year out working, volunteering or even a bit of travelling would have done me the world of good. I'm sure I'd have enjoyed the social aspect more instead of feeling like I was constantly out of step with the rest of the world (a feeling that has persisted through my life) and when the teaching degree went t!ts up I would perhaps have had the wherewithal to try something else rather than running home and giving up.

But, as others have said, I wouldn't be here if that had happened and I feel like I'm doing alright just now.

This is very much an 'out of my hands' regret .... but I really wish I'd met H's mum, and that she'd lived to see our two boys. I know he misses her so much ?

Other than that I regret being such a twat during my first two years at uni!! I really didn't appreciate the chance I'd been given and wasted so much time/emotional energy on drink, drugs and boys ?

I also regret not staying in NZ as long as I possibly could and coming back early for a relationship which lasted 2 weeks!!!!!

You wanna list?

Umm.... Should have got married and emmigrated about... Oh .... Nine yar ago or whenever it was on the cards. I can never keep track.

Sorry to anyone who this thread has raked up unhappiness for.

i have loads of unhappy regrets along the lines on not going to see my nana in hospital one last time cos i had a night out to go on (aged 19 i hasnent to add). My main op regret is more of the sense, gah, i could have done that and i didnt.

as i said earlier, its defo the ariel shots of london that make me feel this way, isnt it such an amazing place.

xx

Its not a regret as such- I am not a fan if drugs at all- TBH I think if you're over 21 the use is a bit sad. However I do prescribe to the grandad in "Littlemiss sunshine" who started smack at 70 because if you can't do it when you're old when can you? I've never gone past very elementary experiments with drugs but maybe I'll take his lead at 70 ?

my biggest actual regret is letting down my parents, their pride means everything to me and I think they are a bit embarrassed by the way my life has turned out (mentalist, moves tolondon, spends university years binge drinking and falling out of private members clubs, settles down with the kind of man you meet there....)

I wish I had called in more often to see my Dad when he moved out.

So many times on the way from my Mum's back to university I just drove straight past the end of his road thinking "Oh if I go and see Dad it will take hours and I could really do with getting back to uni". I did it so many times. countless times. I didn't know his days with me were so numbered.

Little did I know he would never see me graduate. That would have made him the proudest of me he had ever been. A lot of my life now is about trying to make him proud even though he can't let me know he is, if he is watching.

By the same token though, I really wish I could have told him to shove it when he insisted that I do an academic subject. Why oh why could I not do something arts-based? I am so much better at creativity than I was at anything academic. How my brother ever managed to sneak media studies past him is a mystery to me...

Every step along paths I have taken in my life so far, has led me to be who I am today. I actually like me. So as much as I might sit and regret everything- I actually don't. In the words of Kevin Spacey in American Beauty, All I can feel is thankful for every single moment of my stupid little life.

?

My biggest regret is not staying on past 4th year at school and going to Uni. I was bright enough, I know that now, I just never really had the inspiration from my peers or family and left as expected at 16.

I've been fortunate in that i've had a good few lucky breaks in my life and have carved out a good career in the civil service with a decent salary.

Looking back though I spent my age 16-26 working a minimum of 2 jobs (at times up to 4) and feel i've kind of worked my life away without experiencing any different lifestyle, cultures etc that Uni life (and possible gap year) might have brought to me.

Having never experienced Uni life i'm aware that i'm looking at it through rose tinted glasses and can only see the benefits, social life etc. Whereas the reality, for me anyway, may have been totally different.

All in all though, I know i've been lucky and fortunate in my life and at the age of 33 I can say i'm truly the happiest and content that i've ever felt in my life. So I suppose what i'm getting at, is that I don't really regret anything. It has all happened for a reason ?

Starting smoking. But it could be easily rectified if I truly put my mind to it.

Apart from that nothing. I have taken every opportunity and made the best of them. The opportunities didn't necessarily work out in a positive way. But they've made me who I am today. I don't have anything that I really regret.

I regret leaving a very good job (it was my dream job) all because I didn't really like the town I was living in at the time. Yes I had to move to a different country to get the job in the first place, but if I'd stuck it out a little longer I would have been transfered back.

Leaving the job left me in a financial pickle as well because I've never been able to get a job that has paid so well. The result being that we find it very difficult to make ends meet and pay off the debt from that time.

What it has taught me though is that I'll never make mistakes again when it comes to finance , but when you're 19 living away from home you're bound to make mistakes, which I've learned from.

Getting fat.

I had the most fabulous Jessica Rabbit figure in my teens and early twenties. I wish I'd appreciated it more at the time and kept it than being the gross heaving mass I am now who has to be pregnant to get some kind of decent body image. How ironic, most women find being pregnant difficult for their body image, but I liked it as it meant I had an excuse to look fat.

Going to a crap uni.

Not taking my mum's hand when she reached for mine the last time I saw her.

Sorry but this is a wish list one. I wish my Dad hadn't got schizophrenia when I was 11. So many lives would have been better.

I wish I had ended it with an ex when I first felt unhappy, things could have really been a lot different for me if I had.

I wish I didnt have such bad depression that I had to leave uni before I graduated.

At the moment, my biggest regret is having a curry for tea last night after i've had 3 days of sickness, i shouldn't have had something so heavy for my first proper meal in 3 days and i am now feeling mega sick again.

Not starting a family sooner.

My regrets caused the circumstances which led to my life being as it is now. In many ways I wish I could change them and do the things I dreamed of doing which I didn't have the confidence to do at the time but equally I am happy I was a spineless coward and didn't follow my dreams as I wouldn't have met my H, had my girls and living how we are now which has no regrets.

We're taking the leap and emigrating in July, H has a job in Sydney so we're taking the plunge. We've had the guilt trips about taking the children away from their friends and school and our family but I know should we decide not go that would be a huge regret further down the line as it may well be the best thing we ever do but equally if it doesn't work then we can come back having tried.

The huge regrets I have are outside my control; I wish I could have met my H's mum, she died when he was 17. He misses her terribly especially now we have the girls as she would have adored them, equally I wish his dad hadn't died last year, he hadn't had enough time with his granddaughters which was his biggest regret. This is made worse by the total lack of interest my parents have in us and the girls, we have little contact but I have no regrets about that; my mum is a hate filled bitter old woman. I can't regret not exposing my children to that

I wish I'd never got ill and I know it's something I couldn't have stopped but it has left my life almost inrecognisable to the one I hoped for.

If I hadn't got ill, I would have:

Got my 7 Highers (Scottish A Level equivalent) I was going to do, I tried 5 times to get 2 in the end (2 at school, 2 at college and 1 via open learning) and still ended up with nothing as I really wasn't well enough to do anything. I was bright and it was wasted.

Gone to university, which was almost a certainty.

Been able to have a paid job, I've had a fantastic array of voluntary jobs but they don't pay the bills. The problem with paid jobs is you have to commit to go on x days and I simply can't do that.

Been able to afford my own place between living with my mum and getting married.

Been able to travel further afield than my five trips to Lourdes at first as a helper then as a patient (all fundraised for or paid for me).

Been able to afford to buy somewhere with H and not still be essentially living with parents (although it's much more than a financial arrangement but...)

Have more friends. The only people I know in life are through my mum, from school, one of my voluntary jobs, through H and the internet.

Been able to have tried for a baby when I was ready, not when health and doctors were. Been able to be instantly happy for everyone else when they were trying/announced pregnancy.

Been able to keep playing violin, be able to read a book and actually have more than one brain cell still working.

Sorry, is that too self absorbed?

ETA but I'm here, I'm (mostly ?) happy and have family and friends who love me dearly. I'm very thankful for that. ?

? to all that need it.

I regret putting my parents through so much grief as a teenager - being suspended and nearly expelled from school, self-harming, staying out all night, trying to get married to my australian boyfriend age 18 so he could get a visa. I don't particularly regret everything I did as a teenager as it made me who I am and I came out of it the other side in one piece, but I was too self-absorbed to see the pain I was putting my parents through.

I also regret losing touch with the best friend I've ever had, but I struggle to see what else I could have done about it as I carried on making an effort for a long time while she was the one drifting away.

Gosh, this could be long ?

I regret quite a bit I suppose and depending how far back I went if I'd have changed things, there might have been other things that automatically changed/wouldn't have happened so there wouldn't be so many regrets iyswim.

I regret in general not working harder at school and uni and in particular I regret some choices I made at school about the subjects to study which would have changed things a lot I think. I regret not having the drive and confidence to go out more and meet new people while at uni. I regret putting on so much weight and spending so long being sad about it (still do it though!). I regret getting myself into situations where I didn't know how to get out of them and ended up making a mess of them.

Most of all I regret that I didn't spot something sooner and do something about it and will always feel guilty that maybe I could have done something to have saved someone's life.