Your Biggest Regret

Oh Norgran, that's so sad, I am sorry. I regret very much an upset I had with my stepfather after my mother died. He had terminal cancer and died a few months later. He was a lovely man and had been such a good husband/father, but was consumed with grief as were all of us and I simply didn't know how to cope. Thank goodness all was well again by the time he died, but thirty years later I still feel guilty.
Like another poster, I have never regretted who I married, just that it wasn't a few years later! 20 and 23 is very young for a life time commitment!!

pinkjj27 no need to say sorry very understandable., my sister lost her husband when he was 47, she was terrible for a while but she is fine now. Time is definitely a great healer, it gets easier. He would not want you to be sad would he.

Life can be hard sometimes but from somewhere we find the strength.

Hope you feel better as the day went on [café]

I used to beat myself up re my ex and why I put up with him for so long. But I accept he has ruined a big part of my past and I refuse to let him ruin my future. Any angst affects me, not him, so I have learnt to let go.

I regret a few small things but if any big things were changed so much good stuff would go too. I might regret marrying my husband (now my ex) but if I hadn't, my DD and DS wouldn't exist and that would be unthinkable! Besides we did have good times - you just forget that when things go wrong!
So "Je ne regret rien!"

I have never regretted having my DS at only 18 either jocork I just regret marrying his waste of space father.

Having my mother tell me I was useless and would never amount to anything, I realise now that it's her problem and not mine, I regret not standing up to her, she tried to ruin my life, and has successfully ruined my sister's, who is 43 years old, and has never left home, she still lives with my mother who is in her late 70's, but there does come a time when you have to stop regret poisoning you, let go, and move on to a happier place, I now have.

The trouble with regrets is that one imagines the alternative to be so much better than what one has actually lived through when it might have been so much worse.

OH jocork, I just said to ALEXA, "'Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien' by Edith Piaf", and I'm sat hear with tears in my eyes listening to that truly wonderful voice.

Regreats who needs 'em.

Regret not regreats, tears in my eyes

I know we have had these discussions before but how many of us have had our lives made so hard by our mothers.
I was 69 and an only child when my mother died and I finally started to really live my own life.
It must be easy to ask why but only those who lived with domineering, selfish and difficult women know the answer. I could have cut her out of my life but I would have been the one who suffered, my conscience would have been unbearable. It could have been so very different but she was too bitter to see that, she had to be best and right every time.
She did not even realise when my two C , her only GC would hardly ever visit and certainly had no love for her.

Such interesting stories, and it sounds like we are some what divided, with some saying no point of regrets and others still suffering from regrets they have.

I have learnt quite a reading the posts, hope that we all have.

Have not read every single one so will make time to do that and hopefully it will teach me HOW to deal with regrets.

I try not too look back to 'What if'. I did what I have done because at that time it was right - my only deep regret I didn't listen to my doctor when he told me to take baby aspirin after my 3rd miscarriage. I lost my 4th baby. But at that time it was a big taboo taking medication in pregnancy - I'll never know if it would have worked.

I regret not asking my mum more about her life; how she met my dad, the babies that she lost etc. Information that I have no access to, now, and lost forever. On a lesser level [but one that annoys me on a daily basis, and is annoying me now] is having dark, hardwood windows fitted and not white upvc. The brown depresses me but I can't really have it painted white as there would be far more maintenance involved [even on the inside]. Oh, and buying a two seater sofa cause it was on offer, and not paid more for a 2 1/2 seater one [no room for the dog on this one ]. Also, perhaps, staying in a marriage that was no longer working for either of us for the sake of the children; then again, now we are divorced we are great friends and still love each other. But I did miss out on years of having the closeness that a happy marriage brings.

Oh, and being on theneverendingdiet from the age of 16. Have never been massively overweight but my weight has never stopped yo yo'ing. Each birthday I think to myself 'another year gone and I'm still on a diet of some kind' . And I never stop working on my house [decluttering at the moment and getting nowhere].

Regrets..
Not taking better care of my teeth. ( But no false ones yet!).
Not studying harder at school. (But now study for pleasure).
Getting divorced ( long story).
You are right, you can only look forward.
Wish I could join a singing group or do amateur dramatics.
Love living abroad now but miss family.
Nothing is perfect.

Exactly the same as Shirlasue we can never go back and rescue our sons and l know l will carry that guilt to my dieing day.

Pandoral1962 I also live abroad, any were exciting?

Giving up the piano at Grade 5
Not spending a year in Berlin as part of my degree course (compromised on Switzerland so I was speaking 50/50 French and German) My mother was born and brought up in Berlin and would have been so chuffed to know I was revisiting some of her haunts.
Leaving London 30+ years ago to bankrupt ourselves buying an old farmhouse in the sticks when the (modest) house we left would have fetched over a million now - and that would have been our pension sorted!
But of course, for each door that closes another one opens and if we had stayed in London I am as certain as I can be that our DDs ' career paths would have been very different and they would not have met the lovely men they are married to now.
(Shame about the piano though )

I find Maw for every door that closes ,another one is waiting to slam in my face.
I must have made some very poor choices in my life.

Annsixty there have been a few of those too !
( DH's redundancy followed by unemployment followed by 20+ years of ill health) but that is life alas.
Regrets? I'd go mad if I let them prey on my mind.

Only one regret - not learning (and allowing myself) to say 'no' earlier ..... it would have prevented many regrets!

I'm the same annsixty no luck whatsoever.

I regret just going along with whatever others said even when warning bells sounded. Therefore, my biggest regret is not having had enough confidence and not recognising my own worth. It's a regret but also still a reality I'm afraid. I am a slow learner!