“I Will Never Forgive Myself”: 30 People Reveal Their Biggest Regret In Life

When I was in my late 20s, my husband and I were living in St. Paul, MN. Around dusk one late autumn day we pulled up to a convenience store and I my husband ran in to purchase something while I waited in the car. It was a chilly evening and a cold drizzle was turning into a rain storm. I noticed a girl, about 15 or 16, shivering under the building's eaves trying to avoid the now driving rain. She wasn't wearing a coat and her jeans and t-shirt were soiled and raggedy. I tried to see her more clearly through the wet windshield and it looked as though there might be bruises on one side of her face and that she was bleeding from a cut on her lip. As I watched, she started to cry. I struggled with a profound desire to help this girl and an equally strong fear of not knowing what to do. I sat rooted in my warm, dry car unable to make the decision to get out and approach her. Then my husband returned. I couldn't even articulate to him the moral impass I was in. He started the car and we proceeded on our way.

The memory of that young woman huddled against the plate glass storefront, looking utterly alone and bone-cold has haunted me for 40 years. How many evenings have I gone to bed wondering what was going on with her and what became of her? How my times have I asked myself what stopped me from getting out of the car? Perhaps I should not consider this as something to regret as it deeply affected the rest of my life. I am a much more empathetic person than I might have otherwise been and have never allowed myself to fear helping another person again. But still, I DO truly regret not going out into the rain that evening.

My biggest regret in life is choosing a career that my parents wanted me to go into.

My parents always wanted me to be an engineer and nothing else. No engineer, no son. That was the situation at my home. As Asian parents do, my parents also were too strict with my career and didn't give me the flexibility to think what I really wanted to do. So, with no other choice I spent 4 years of my life in a degree I never wanted to do. Every day felt like an eternity in hell. You happy dad? There's a degree on your wall now which you can look at for the rest of your life so you can feel pride at dinner table conversations about how you ruined my life. I wasted 10% of my life in a career I never wanted.

Now my parents want me to get a Master's degree in the same field and opt for a government job where beauracracy prevails. No, I'm not doing it whether they like it or not. I'm switching careers.

My dad loves me, no doubts in that but I don't. I hate him because he was so blinded by his love for me being an engineer and a government officer that he ruined my childhood and my teenage years. I act like I love my parents but I don't. I'm am running two businesses now and those I also started without telling my parents. I'll me moving out soon.

Today's humiliation is better than tomorrow's regret.

There's this girl. She was a smart, intelligent and caring soul. Every summer when we met, she would make sure I was the happiest person on this planet. She would talk to me for hours! She loved me and I loved her back.

Two summers back, she called me all of a sudden. She asked,"Why are you not here to see me? Come soon." I had traded my visit for an internship half way across the country, so I coolly replied,"Very soon!" She calmly said an OK, and we hung up.

Two days later, she passed away. By the time I reached, her last rites were done with. The girl was my Grandmother. I wish I had gone visiting her instead.

It’s a simple one that changed my life forever unfortunately. I picked up a shift at work late one night and left my kids with my ma so I could do so. It was usually papa who watched my twins, but he was sick so I asked ma. I mean that’s fine and shouldn’t be a big deal right? I left and all was good, I worked several hours, with a few checkins and no problems. I get home early the next morning to find ma passed out drunk on our couch with Patrick in tub. He had drowned while ma got drunk, and I’ll never understand why she couldn’t have waited a few minutes to start/keep drinking. I knew she was an alcoholic, but she’d gone from binging every day to just on her day off over the last several months and was doing really well with not needing alcohol to function.

She went to prison for 4 years and remained sober the last decade of her life before she died. That was her way of apologizing for Patrick’s death and accepting responsibility and blame. I was proud of her for that and though it can’t undo her actions, it made it easier to live with.

Long story short, I have a skin condition that results in white patches almost all over my body . All my life ,while in school, I tried my best to hide these white patches which i thought were unpleasant looking . Not with makeup but with full sleeved clothes , hair over my forehead and all other ideas that could hide or camouflage those white spots .

With years passed, the urge to hide them has faded now . I wear whatever I wanna wear , my hair is neatly done and not over my face . in simple words , I have grown out of that dark phase when I wasn't confortable in my own skin.

Now I am 22 . I recently joined a swimming class for the first time in my life . And we know how swimming costumes are! My arms , legs and my back were quite visible in that costume . The first day when i stepped out wearing that costume , I looked for people staring at my different skin … I looked …and looked but no one seemed to be paying attention . All of them minded their own business . One girl complimented me on my costume and I have been swimming like that since that day without any kind of embarrassment or shame about my skin .

I felt relieved but something hit me hard . What about all those years of excruciating mental pain i endured in hiding my spots .

No one told me there was no need to hide them .

No one told me , there was no need to wear stockings in the month of June .

Sadly , I cant go back in time and tell my younger self all this . This is my biggest regret. Atleast . One of my biggest regret . It is a lesson I learnt late . Late like a sailor's message that arrived when the sailor had already drowned .

But , if you are reading this and if you are someone going through a similar phase or you know someone who is going through this . Stop them . take a moment to tell them how redundant and unnecessary it is to hide something that is an integral part of them .

I have many regrets in life, but the one that keeps me up at night has been hidden for nearly 50 years. This is the first time i have told anyone.

Mind you this is a deeply hidden memory of a time when i was a small child so its a bit foggy. How old i actually was is difficult to say but i believe it was before my 5th birthday. I had moved to Minnesota with my Mom, Sister and Step-father. I remember the apartment vaguely, more specifically the bathroom. The bathroom and the screams.

I have some memory of the girl who was babysitting us that day. She had auburn hair, thin, tall and so very pretty. She seemed grown up to me, but i am sure she wasn't much older than 15 or 16 years old. I have no idea what her name was.

My Mother was at work. She was always at work because my step father couldn't be bothered to work. We must have been playing a game. I don't remember the game, only that we were all laughing and running around the apartment, and then something changed. She wasn't laughing anymore, she looked scared. He pushed her into the bathroom and the screaming and the crying started as he r*ped her. I still hear it.

What followed was a rushed escape from the State in our orange studebaker. I can remember them talking about it as we were driving. They talked of him getting in trouble for what he had done. My mom knew and she protected him. My childs mind had no where else to go but my mother and i was scared. At that age i had no concept of what had happened that day in the bathroom. I had no idea what tortures he had inflicted upon her and those that could await me. Most of all i remember the look on her face when he let her out of that bathroom. We locked eyes and i could see her pain.

I wish i could have done something that day. I think of her often and hope that she forgives me for not being able to bring her the justice she so deserved. I am so very sorry.

I was in complete shock at the sudden death of my firstborn son at the age of 22. He left behind a one year-old son who does not remember him and a pregnant wife who had a daughter who never knew him. My greatest regret is that I did not offer his organs to save the lives of others. My son was the epitome of good health When he drowned. To save time and distance to cross a creek at rock State Park, Maryland he leapt from one bolder to another, slipped on the mass of the second boulder and became jammed between the two. It was spring runoff from the mountains and the water was flowing fast and furious over his head as the boulders held him. His Very healthy organs could have saved many lives. Even though the autopsy report said death by drowning he did not drowned he died of a severe asthma attack because the water was 32° and had not frozen because it was flowing so rapidly. Even his lungs could have saved another life. I will never forgive myself for not offering his organs to others.

I started smoking at age 11. I'm now 66 and have emphysema. It's a cruel way to die. There are so many things I can't do anymore without gasping for breath. I'm glad I have no kids or grandkids as there's no way I'd be able to spend time doing things with them.

When my first son was a child, I was a law student and also the sole breadwinner in the family. So, I left him with caretakers and took off. I spent days away from him. Returning home exhausted and cuddling him briefly before passing out. He spent days planted in front of TV in his little walker, not going anywhere, not doing anything. As a result, he suffered a delay in his development that we are now working hard to undo.

My biggest regret in life is that I haven’t found a way to both provide for him and raise him.

The day I did not help an accident survivor.


This happened outside of Aarey colony on Western Express Highway in Mumbai. There were these riders on highway riding like it's their last day on earth.

I was just noticing them from the signal and the rider could not control the vehicle when a bus hit the brakes. This bike straight up dashed into the bus.

The crash was so hard and straight that the bikes front part made a dent in the bus and got stuck in it like as if it's parked on the main stand.

The boys the vehicle also did not fall from the bike and that made me assume it was not a fatal accident. However, I still went over there to check on them.

As I moved closer I noticed none of them were wearing a helmet. Ahh, riding like crazy, that too without a helmet, you deserve it, I said to myself.

I reached closer and I noticed something that put me in shock. I saw the rider flat on the fuel tank and a little blood stream coming from a part of his face which I couldn't see.

Then I noticed the pillion moving, as soon as I turned to him, he was furiously shaking, more like a stroke I think. He wasn’t bleeding by then, but as soon as I reached to grab him so he doesn't fall from the bike he puked blood. He was still on the back seat but rested on his back looking at the sky.

Seeing that I immediately stopped, the people who I thought deserved it, did not. Nobody deserves that kind of pain.

I had chickened out. By now, like me there were other people gathered around them but no one was doing anything that was remotely called as help.

After a few minutes I heard a loud yet a very low pitched voice. It was a girl asking everyone to move aside. Nobody had called the ambulance. I think everyone knew the evening traffic won't allow the ambulance to reach. She too realized that.

This girl straight-up started asking car owners to take them, nobody stopped. Later she did something outrageous. She legit went and stood in the middle of the f**king highway and stopped a taxi driver and with the help of people literally forced him to take these survivors up.

To this very day I regret the fact I did not respond like I should have.

But remember, next time you see an accident, you act, you f**king act. You don't want to be me in that situation and regret later, because you are going to regret it for years.

After that, never have I ever missed helping any one, my conscience is too aware to get away with not helping.

I wrote this answer with the only intention of getting at least a single person to act if ever they happen to come across any accident.

My friend called me 2 days before committing a s*icide, I did not attend his call neither did I call him back. It’s been 2 years since that incidence, may be I could have saved him.
I was too busy with my new job, financial independence, parties while his love for civil services left him jobless after the college and a under a lot of pressure from the society, as he could not secure a job studying in the best of engineering college.

His parents didn’t understand, his friends didn’t understand, I didn’t understand .

He spent a whole year in loneliness, in a dark corner in Karol bagh preparing for UPSC, but good days were far. He just couldn’t take the burden any more. He lost the race and quit!

I have been in touch with his family for the past two years, they are suffering a lot.

One of his sister’s is an IPS officer now after 3 failed attempts fulfilling his dreams to serve the nation.

Please I don’t want anyone judging. Please refrain from commenting no sympathies no theories. I am using Quora as a medium to lay some burden off my chest.

Not taking pictures.

Whenever I saw people taking pictures/selfies, I was thinking: “Oh how dumb they are, you have to enjoy the moment not take pictures”. Now I realise that I am the dumb one.

I never took my camera with me on any memorable event. Yes, I still can remember what happened but my memory is not perfect and memories do fade.

Now I want to remember how my great grandmother used to bake her special cake. How she used to watch my siblings, but I never recorded it, and she is no longer around.

I want to remember how my boyfriend and I used to feed squirrels that time we went to Bristol. But I didn’t record it, and now he is not around either. How we travelled around and explored. But all I have is memories that are fading.

See, I can’t remember how green was the grass that day in the park in Bristol, or what my great grandma was wearing. I have a vague idea but I want to see how it happened.

Now I understand why my dad records everything, but in the past I was ashamed of him taking a camera with him everywhere.

I think now its time to record my memories.

Not marrying my Girlfriend.

We were together for more than 2 years and she was the only girl i know that loved me more than anyone i have ever loved. Her love was unconditional and pure and we were so desperate to marry each other. Somehow we knew we were both perfect for each other and would be so happy together, always.

There was only one problem, the problem was me. My family is extremely orthodox and i loved my father so much that i had promised myself that i will marry a girl that he selects for me. Now don’t get me wrong, when my girlfriend and i came close, i explained this very clearly to her. We both were however so much in love with each other that we couldn’t stop and agreed that the relation would end when one of us gets married.

Unfortunately i got married first and those months were the most painful of our life.

After 8 years and a divorce later, that is the biggest regret of my life.

It was last semester of my college. Third exam.

My girlfriend’s Dad was severely sick and was admitted. She has this thing of intuition when something is about to go wrong, and I never took it seriously.

This time we were studying and she called me late evening to say, she is getting a strong intuition that something is wrong. I calmed her down and asked her not to worry and focus on preparation.

Couple of hours later she called again to say that she wants to go and meet Dad at that very moment. As she was already not able to study for that particular exam, I suggested to study for now and meet him next day, on the way back from exam.

Next early morning I got the bad news that her Dad is no more.

When she met me the first thing she said is she couldn’t meet Dad one last time before he left. And since then I consider myself responsible to stop her the previous day.

It was recently that I confessed this to her and she helped me move on from the regret.

I made my mother’s Facebook account.

My biggest regret is not inviting my son’s father to our family photo shoot. The photo shoot was a gift from my sister. I guess I didn’t want to ask because I didn’t want to deal with the logistics of getting him and the photographer in the same place at the same time. Logistics was often frustrating with him.

Little did I know that he would die that same year. I don’t have single good pic of the two of them together. It would have meant a lot to my son.

My son’s dad was only 43 when he died of a heart attack. I thought I would have another opportunity. I was wrong. It’s definitely my biggest regret.

I'm a single gay man. One of my life's regrets is that I never had children. I don't dwell on the subject because that's water under the bridge, but I think I would have been a great father.

After a year in Vietnam, I came home and met a woman that I really grew to love, and I ended up marrying her. But without realizing I had PTSD, I pushed her and our sons away by drinking and staying away from home so much that she left me. Eventually, my sons also left me, and now I have no relationship with any of them.

I never forgave my wife.

My high school sweetheart and I had a son when we were just 17. We got married at 19. At 21 she cheated on me. Because I wanted to stay near my son I stayed with her but I was never able to forgive her. After her infidelity she became a great wife and was always a wonderful mother but still I couldn’t let go of the past. It took many years but we finally divorced after my son was grown. Since our divorce, 5 years ago, I have been miserable. I miss her terribly. We are still friends and talk regularly but I hate that I could never forgive her. I am more unhappy without her than I was with her. I truly wish I could have found a way to get over it while we were still together.

Not speaking up

Not speaking up, when my parents asked what I wanted to do for life.
Not speaking up, when I learnt engineering is not my cup of tea.
Not speaking up, when I was asked if I wanted to do something else (career-wise).
Not speaking up, when my relationship was going down.
Not speaking up, when everyone was asking ‘what's wrong'.
Not speaking up, when I was told to speak up.
Life would've been different, a lot different.