Regrets in life and dealing with mistakes you have made

Getting pregnant at 19 (1969) and then 'having' to get married. After 5 years it started to go wrong and finally after another 15 years I left him.

The mistake was marrying because I was pregnant. With my daughter's emotional support when I left him, I started my life again. She hasn't spoken to her father since the day I left him (26 years ago).

The frustrating thing is, I wish I could turn the clock back because the boy I gave up to then go out with my to be my husband, I have now met and married him. My 50 year old daughter thinks the world of him,

Party4 you do have a lot to deal with. I've only just happened across your message.

I'm sure Gransnet is some help in avoiding loneliness, sharing, and coming up with some practical ideas. Virtual cups of tea and chat are better than nothing. I hope you find some breakthrough.

It’s no good being miserable about past mistakes we have made as we can’t change the past, that’s all we can do is forgive ourselves, learn from them and move on.
I just wish I could take my own advice.

ps we all did our best at the time.

Exactly, Spangler.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQzdAsjWGPg

We can all have regrets in regard to our past but it is often that nothing can be changed in regard to anything that has taken place.

The best practice I have always found is to learn from any mistakes you may have made and move on. I say that as a male of seventy-seven years of age and the policy still stands me well today.

You are where you are and you move forward from there.

I agree with so many comments on this thread I think as women we beat ourselves up so much over some of lifes issues that we face what I do now when I start ruminating at silly o clock is say to myself didnt you do well bringing up your family with little support and muddling through the best way you could

Wish I had done loads of things differently, but I'm paying for it now, I did what I thought was right at the time and with the best intentions, I can't put bad decisions right. I tried to be every thing to everyone. Everyone's turned out OK despite me.

Show me someone without some regrets and I will show you a liar. What you have done you have done, you cannot change it, you may, in some cases be able to make reparations, you should be able to learn lessons from them, but what is done is done.

maddyone if you went back and tried to learn from your mistakes, it would only work for a week, max a month. Your new decisions would lead to other events and situations which you didn't face first time round and so you wouldn't have learnt anything, you would just live an entirely different life and make different mistakes.

re gloomy thoughts at night - that's my most miserable time too. Then if I manage to get back to sleep all seems much better in the morning.
Maybe that low blood sugar thing?

I agree Puzzled hindsight is a wonderful thing we can't change the past but we can learn from it. We just need to do the best we can now.

There will always be times when you wonder how things would have been if you had acted differently.
There are times when I wish that I had been more helpful, but cannot undo what I did or failed to do thirty years ago.
Yes, there are regrets, but what has happened cannot be undone, and we have to live life as it is now.
Although we should learn from our mistakes, "Then" should not be allowed to ruin "Now".
The past is past, so we can only live each day as it comes and try to ensure that tomorrow is at least as good as today, or even better.

BlueBelle

My problem is I have a terrible memory except for anything I did wrong or handled badly or acted differently as to how I would now Those are sharp and clear and forever nagging me I know there’s nothing I can do and I know I can’t change anything except do things differently now but it’s a very very lucky person who says they have no regrets
I have many and they nag

Exactly the same here.

I often think about mistakes I've made in the past. It makes me cringe when I think about them and then I realise I'm pulling cringy faces and hope no-one noticed!

Jennifereccles admitting a mistake and having regrets are in my mind very different things.I make mistakes daily .There is only one thing in my life that I regret,it doesn't affect anyone else,and didn't even at the time ,no one else knows I regret it.

So true Illte,you can`t change the past but you can and do learn from it.

Unsure if its present day problems but never a night goes by when I awake with feeling of anxiety and upset recalling past events of my life that I feel I handled badly.From my relationship with close family,friends,children to decisions on finance,house move regrets.Try as I might I cannot clear my head, this then leads to worries about the final stage of our lives at 68yrs and how we will cope.My husband has had mental health issues for past few yrs and retreated from any social life other than with our 2 sons and DGc so since moving we now have no friends or social life and I feel this has added to my anxiety as i feel isolated and envy the lives of others.Husband refuses to visit people from our past and shows no interest in even going out lunch or joining new clubs etc

You show me one person who claims to have no regrets whatsoever and I would say they are kidding themselves!

We ALL have had occasions in the past where, with the benefit of hindsight, we would have behaved or reacted differently to how we did.

Can anyone honestly claim to have been a perfect daughter, mother, wife or friend?

We are human. We make mistakes. Sometimes we behave selfishly. It’s the human condition isn’t it?

So long as we know in our heart of hearts that the good vastly outweighs the not so good, we shouldn’t beat ourselves up.

But we do, don’t we?!

Lilypollen, this is one of the good things about Gransnet, that people compare life experiences and in consequence discover they are not abnormal, and everyone feels these pains.

This thread brought tears to my eyes as I do have regrets about things I handled including with family but most was when I was younger and now with the benefit of hindsight...... I don't think anything was obviously damaging. However things could have been better. I know I'm more sensitive now. There are decisions I made, one with career stands out, which sadden me but it's gone and probably al has worked out well.

There are some good tips here for avoiding rehashing the past. I will have a go at them, I'm another who finds the nights sometimes unbearable and I wish I could live my life again.
I never did anything terrible but I needed help, didn't get it, didn't cope with difficult family circumstances and made a hash of many things. At least I managed to be a reasonable mother but I find myself thinking that I'd have been happier and more stable if I knew then what I know now. I wish I'd been able to be more assertive and to know what I really wanted.
Oh well, bed beckons, gulp, better try those tips.

I limit the time I allow for horrible thoughts. If it's at night in bed the horrible thoughts come, I drag my attention on to telling myself the story of a favourite film, in as much detail as I can remember.

Some regrets had more serious consequences.

It's always best to live in the present. I think of past mistakes (for which I've forgiven myself, long ago) as gateways into positive changes in life.

If I could back to 'correct' them, I wouldn't - goodness knows what else I would have missed out on!

Cs783

Yes Urmstonegran it has that meaning. Just a difference in the use of language 200 years ago that I hadn’t spotted! You and Jane Austen agree. I hadn’t seen your previous post and I love the way of being able to control the wandering mind. A technique very useful between 2 and 4 am.

?
Thank you.