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

My dad had called me up and he was asking me about my health as I was pregnant at that time. After a while he said he had to disconnect as he had to go for an emergency (he was a doctor ).

Before disconnecting my call, he asked me to take care of myself, my unborn child and my mom too. I asked him what made him say that I should take care of my mom too when she was with him.

He told me that he just felt like saying it. I told him that I am coming to him and mom in a couple of months and I expect a lot of pampering from him, mom and my siblings for myself and my unborn child.

He said that his love and blessings are always with me and disconnected the call.

My dad passed away the next day due to a sudden cardiac failure while he still was in hospital attending his patients.

I couldn't see him for the last time. I couldn't seek his blessings. Since I was pregnant at that time, I was mildly sedated and kept away from the information until his last rites were performed.

My biggest regret: Not seeing my dad for the last time .

I lived my parents until I was 32. I lived at home and went to a local college, graduating when I was 23. Got a pretty good job and saved enough money for awesome trips to Africa and Costa Rica. Bought a nice new car. Saved enough money to make a large down payment on a condo when I finally moved out.

The part I regret is not getting out on my own much sooner. I’m very introverted, and lost a lot of opportunities to learn to get along with people. I didn’t have to. Sure I had friends and dated, but I never had roommates. I had girl friends, but never a sleep over at my parent’s house. By the time I moved out I was fully in career mode and comfortably set in my ways. I feel like I got a very delayed start learning social skills and learning to push myself to get out of the house. I’m not exactly lonely. I learned to live quite happily by myself. At this point it’s just easier and comfortable that way. I’m 61 now. Never married. Quite honestly I’ve become a self-made hermit.

Part of me would like to be in a long term relationship. Hell, part of me would like to be a short-term relationship. At this point it’s just easier not to. I know it’s laziness. You don’t have to tell me that. If I *really* wanted to I could push out of my comfort zone, but in the end long standing behavior patterns are hard to break. Wish I had never established those non-social behavior patterns.

Divorce.

I was 18 when I got married. It was 1989, I was in love. We got married. He was 19. We welcomed our first daughter in 1990, second in 1991. We felt complete. Life was beautiful. My husband's business was doing great. We could afford a luxurious life with many amenities by God's grace.

4 years later we decided to have another baby. I was pregnant again. This time I wanted to have a boy. I used to pray for a boy. In 1996, my prayers were answered. I gave birth to a gorgeous baby boy. He had my eyes, he had my smile, and he had his father's finger shape.

I was happy.

One year later, my husband decided to expand his business. He moved his business from the capital of the country to the economic capital of the country.

Initially he would come home every Friday and leave on Monday. This stopped after 2 months. His visits reduced. He didn't have any affair, he was very loyal but he made his business his priority. We started fighting. Every time we spoke we only had arguments. This continued till 1999 February, when we decided to separate. I regret it.

He bought us a house near our daughters' school. We decided that the daughters will stay with me and he took the custody of our 30 months old baby. I fought for my son's custody but lost. We never remained in touch.

4 years ago, my husband got in touch with my daughters. They started spending time together. He would often meet them and call them.

One day my daughters requested him to let them meet their brother. He agreed. I was happy I was finally going to meet my son after 15 years. I didn't know him at all. I didn't know how he looked, what he liked, nothing at all.

When I met him, I realised how horrible I am as a mother. Because of my stupid decision it was my son who suffered the most.

He was put into a boarding school right away. My husband never met him in all these years. He was busy with his business. My baby was left there all alone. When other children went back to their homes during vacation, my baby had nowhere to go. He stayed there at the hostel. He had to eat horrible hostel food. He never came home for holidays. He doesn't know what a family is. He doesn't know what love is. For 15 years he was left all alone like an orphan, but, my husband sent him money regularly. He was an orphan with money.

I never got married after the divorce. I spent my life taking care of my daughters. I wish I can go back in time. I could've stayed there with my husband and took care of my baby. My precious little baby lost his childhood because of me. He deserves a better mother. It wasn't his fault.

I don’t like to share my personal life with anyone, so writing this anonymously. Though I have made some mistakes in life, this one really tops the chart.

So me any my father were never really close, although he cared for me but never really showed it (like most indian dads) and I was the same as well. It was my final year engineering exams when I received a call from home, it was my sister who said that dad just fainted and we are taking him to the hospital. I reached as soon as I could, he suffered from brain haemorrhage. Though the doctore saved him, he was not able to walk or speak properly after that. He was 57 at the time.

After 3 years went by, we had accepted this fate and were living peacefully. My dad was now able to take care of himself(doing his day to day activities that is) and he used to exercise as well, since the doctors mentioned it was very important for him to keep his body moving.

One fine day he complained to us that he is having some chest pain so he’ll skip exercise, we all thought it was due to gas so didn’t pay much thoguht to it. This continued for 3–4 days after which I had an argument with him and I shouted these exact words to him “You are just finding excuses to not exercise, there’s nothing wrong with you. You are just being lazy.”

Guess what! Next morning he started sweating really bad and fainted. We took him to the hospita and found that he was suffering from a heart attack and doctor said that it must be going on for about 4–5 days now. He asked us how come we didn’t notice any symptoms and we were all blank and cried like anything.

He was not so lucky this time, after being in the ICU for 15 days, he didn’t make it. Life has never really been the same since, beacise all I can think of now is our last coversation in which I shouted at him. That’s my last interaction with him, the amount of pain and guilt I feel now, if I could give everything I have just to change that one moment where I shouted at him, I would not even think twice.

But I can’t, after that day I’ve realised the importance of words and parents as well. Although they may not always show but we(their children) are the best thing that ever happened to them.

Please guys, treat your parents with the love and respect they deserve, because you don’t know which conversation is going to be the last one.

4V6I met with a car accident on 22nd July 2015. At that time I was pursuing my first-year MBA. It was my friend's birthday. He asked me to buy some food for everyone. I had my own car at that time so I went to buy the food along with two of my friends. It was around 11:30 pm. We searched for open restaurants everywhere but we were not able to find any, so we decided to go back. I was speeding my car at 120 Km/hr and there was a truck waiting to make a U-turn. I didn’t slow down the car. I thought I can cross the truck before it takes U-turn but instead I hit the truck. After that, I don't remember anything. Next time I opened my eyes, I was inside an Operation Theatre. Both my legs were broken and I unwent two surgeries to fix my legs. As for what happened to my two friends who were with me, the one who sat beside me in the front seat had a fractured hip and the one in the rear seat had minor injuries. After the surgery on both of my legs, I got another shocking news that the toes on both my feet were severely damaged and crushed so they would have to be amputated, so that the infection won't spread to my legs. Then I went for another six surgeries to amputate my toes.

It was the hardest time in my life, I was not even able to walk. I was just lying in the hospital bed for almost 6 months while my friends were promoted and going to the second year of the course. I was extremely depressed and sad for the mistake I had committed that day. I was not able to forgive myself for that. Then I and my friend (with the hip injury) got special permission from the college and were allowed to write the exam without attending any classes for six months. Finally we completed the MBA degree with 70% marks. Afterwards, we also got placed in a company through campus selection but I didn't join the job as my parents didn't want me to stay in that city anymore. So I came to my native place and after one year, I got a job and worked for a very less salary, but my parents were happy as I was with them. Now I’m 27 years old, physically fit, and now I run and jump again. I still own a car which I drive by myself everyday to my office. No one can find about my absent toes unless I walked barefeet. I always wear socks and shoes to hide this from everyone as I don't want them to feel sympathy on me.

This was the biggest mistake in my life I should have avoided driving at late nights for unimportant things and also should have driven relatively slowly and more carefully. Because of that unfortunate incident, I feel my life's growth slowed down.

My two friends who were involved in that car accident are well settled and happily married now.

I just wanted to share this with everyone so that they can understand that life is unpredictable and we should always fight back if things don't go in our favour. Life is short, and we should enjoy every moment of it.

When I was a child, 3rd grade to be specific, I found a caterpillar in my garden.

I instantly remembered one of my friends saying “Lock a caterpillar in a match box, it will turn into a butterfly after a week”.

I loved butterflies. So I ran into my kitchen to find a match box. Found one. There were only two match sticks, threw them away and went to my garden running. Somehow managed to put that caterpillar in that matchbox.

I made two small holes on the either sides so that there’ll be some air. Placed the matchbox in a cool and dry place.

2 days passed, I couldn’t stand my curiosity, opened the matchbox to see the progress.

I FOUND IT DEAD.

I cried a lot but that caterpillar I had killed unintentionally never came back to life.

All I had in my mind was REGRET.

I eventually learned not to believe anyone blindly. This incident laid the foundation.

Falling in love all over again to a man I dated and trusted in high school after 25 years. I gave up a wonderful relationship, a beautiful home at the beach, a great job that I had for 21 years and moved to the southern desert to be and marry him. We were married for 20 years and I found out he was living 2 separate lives with another woman and for the last 5 years had been hiding thousands of dollars with his greedy, adult daughter to keep for themselves. Now fighting and going through a divorce and discovering just how evil a person can be. I never stopped loving him and still struggle with not hating him. Wake up every day wondering why without an answer from him. He is still lying about everything and it kills my heart that all those years were wasted and what little regard he had for me. Throughout our marriage, he was always kind to me and when I found out he turned on me and is full of hate. I will never understand the horrible betrayal from a man I adored and would have done anything for.

I am 22, recently graduated Mechanical Engineer and UNEMPLOYED.

It's 23:15, I am sitting on my rooftop, lost in the thoughts of getting rejected from an interview today. Well talking about regrets, there is only one:

'I lack communication skills.’

And this is how it goes:

I completed my schooling from a government Hindi medium school. I got 100/100 in maths but 63/100 in English. But I topped my school so didn't care about one subject.

I took admission in a government engineering college of Uttarakhand where I completely devoted myself in studies to get good marks and a job. Didn't join any college society and never participated in any activities.

In final year, companies came for recruitment and here comes the CLIMAX:

M/S Escorts: GD out

Hero moto corp: written clear, GD out

Bajaj motors: written clear, Interview out

Applied off campus: 4 GDs out, 3 Interviews out.

See, I had points in my mind to speak in GD and interviews, even some very good points. But at that moment I was unable to plot them verbally. I wasn't quick enough to think and speak at the same time because I never did it before.

And every time whole conversation converges to, “mmmm…. you know” “mmmm…. you know”.

So a little piece of advice to all newcomers who are going to build their careers in any field:

'If you can't explain it to someone, you don't know it.’

So just learn how to present your thoughts the way you think them and try to be social.

Good luck.

P.S. I watch English TV series( Breaking Bad, GOT etc.) and English movies too, very often. But listening, thinking and speaking are all different.

I dropped out of computer engineering as a major at George Washington.

This was around 2003, I ended up majoring in business which has worked out fine overall.

But at my core, I think I’m an engineer. I like being creative and have always been very analytical. My dad was an engineering major at the Naval Academy, so maybe it runs in me.

Also, tech has exploded...

Not taking the flight.

Girlfriend and I were college students. We loved each other and we saved money the whole year for a trip together in Europe. Since we studied in different cities, we booked different flights that arrived roughly at the same time.

I sent her a message saying that I wasn’t going anymore, she only got my message once she arrived at the destination. It was her dream vacation. She was so lovely and caring, she had a luggage full of gifts for me.

Why did I abandon her in another country? I had a coursework project that wasn’t quite finished, I was still polishing it.

Oh, did I mention I got an A for that course? It was totally worth missing the flight, I totally knew how to handle priorities.

Remarkably, she forgave me for having been such an asshole and we got back together. We are happily engaged now.