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I have no life regrets ... my high school sweetheart and I have been married forever ... we are one and he is the better half of me. After we married my husband graduated from college and immediately was 1A ... prime choice draft-able and Vietnam was raging. He gave the Army 3 years of our life ... 12 months in 'Nam ... which we look back on and again ... no regrets.
After his time in the military we settle down in our hometown ... family and friends all around us ... adopted our first child ... 15 months later had another child ... five years later gave birth to "The End" as I called him.
I stayed home and raised children until they were school age ... then went to work part-time ... dropped them off at school ... picked them up from school ... they never knew mom was working. Then we have the years of dance lessons, guitar lessons, piano lessons, band, football, soccer, PTA, braces, basketball, volleyball, swimming, karate, band, homework, science projects, church groups, family vacations and on and on. These things were a joint effort with me and my husband. We always worked in time for each other that is important.
It was not all a bed of roses ... but still ... no regrets ... we laugh now about some of the trials and tribulations of raising three children ... their first dates ... OMG ... first monthly period OH NO they are too young for this ... ohhhhh my the state DMV allowed them to pass their driver license test ... they have a drivers license ... OH NO. But what pride when they walked across that stage for graduation.
Now it's our time ... we raised the kids, got them educated and each living in their own space and doing their own thing. We are a close family oldest daughter stops by two or three times a week ... middle child gets by a couple time a week and "the end" lives 750 miles away but calls and flies home often ... or we visit him. We have one beautiful grandson that likes to spend time with us but we have never been the permanent babysitter for him. We come and go as we please and do whatever strikes our fancy.
I have no life regrets ... my high school sweetheart and I have been married forever ... we are one and he is the better half of me. After we married my husband graduated from college and immediately was 1A ... prime choice draft-able and Vietnam was raging. He gave the Army 3 years of our life ... 12 months in 'Nam ... which we look back on and again ... no regrets.
After his time in the military we settle down in our hometown ... family and friends all around us ... adopted our first child ... 15 months later had another child ... five years later gave birth to "The End" as I called him.
I stayed home and raised children until they were school age ... then went to work part-time ... dropped them off at school ... picked them up from school ... they never knew mom was working. Then we have the years of dance lessons, guitar lessons, piano lessons, band, football, soccer, PTA, braces, basketball, volleyball, swimming, karate, band, homework, science projects, church groups, family vacations and on and on. These things were a joint effort with me and my husband. We always worked in time for each other that is important.
It was not all a bed of roses ... but still ... no regrets ... we laugh now about some of the trials and tribulations of raising three children ... their first dates ... OMG ... first monthly period OH NO they are too young for this ... ohhhhh my the state DMV allowed them to pass their driver license test ... they have a drivers license ... OH NO. But what pride when they walked across that stage for graduation.
Now it's our time ... we raised the kids, got them educated and each living in their own space and doing their own thing. We are a close family oldest daughter stops by two or three times a week ... middle child gets by a couple time a week and "the end" lives 750 miles away but calls and flies home often ... or we visit him. We have one beautiful grandson that likes to spend time with us but we have never been the permanent babysitter for him. We come and go as we please and do whatever strikes our fancy.
No regrets here ... life is good!
Your life is the one I wish I had. I'm a widow of a Viet Nam Marine. Raised 4 children alone, lost one son at 14 years of age. The other 3 are long grown, wonderful people with wonderful families. Love all of them dearly. I am lucky to have them, my Lord, my little home, and my 2 cats. I count my blessings but I can't say that life hasn't been lonely and I can't say that I don't have regrets.
I regret my mother's actions when I was small of not getting me tested (and treated) for ADD/ADHD. She knew, was told by my 3rd grade teacher that I had some sort of attention problems. Of course, that was in the 70's and they didn't know much about it. I can't say my problems are totally her fault. I was the one who didn't pay attention in class, couldn't follow through for more than 1 semester on any degree program in college, stuff like that.
I regret never learning to finish things like college.
I wish I hadn't PPD after my children came that it damaged my relationship with my oldest daughter forever. I wish I could have been more responsible and more reliable than I was for my children. After so long NOTHING can change that, no matter how hard I try.
i realize now there were a couple of turning points that i didn't see when they were happening.
one was when i was just starting college and my cousin wanted me to go to cosmetology school with her. i of course said no since i was going to college.
i ended up not finishing college and now have no actual trade or career...
my life would be totally different right now. i mean my life is good, and i have a nice home and wonderful baby boy. but professionally it might have been better.
age-32
There was a time in my life where I was married to a man who made a lot of money. We were married for almost 10 years. If I had been smart I could have put away at least $50,000 during the time that we were married and it would not have even been missed. In fact, over the 10 year period I probably could have put away twice that amount!. My biggest regret is that I didn't.
I regret the 5 or so years that I spent being bitter at my Ex husband. They were a complete waste of time.
It has been 11 years since our divorce. We have both remarried and the kids are almost all grown. Every time I have to talk to him I can tell that he is still very bitter about everything. He still brings up things that are long over. I have moved passed that stage and seeing him still in it makes me realize how petty it all is. We would all be better people if we could learn to forget and forgive. It took a lot of years, some serious soul searching and some therapy for me to be able to forgive and forget. I have moved on and it is a wonderful feeling.
Some real wisdom, here I thought. I do believe that bitterness and unforgiveness is not only wrong but very self-destructive. I'm glad for you, VBmom, that you were able to get past it. That has probably served you well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by goodmanm
Why dwell on the past? Learn from you mistakes and move on. Life really is too short, just be the best person you can be.
I totally agree. There's not much point in dwelling on that which can't be changed. However, as you said, we can sometimes learn from it.
Some of you know that our only child, was killed at age 16 in a car wreck. Which brings me to my biggest life regret~~that I didn't try to have children earlier my life and more of them. (By the time I was in my mid to late twenties, I had medical problems that made pregnancy difficult.) I hate to see girls put off child-bearing too long. You just never know what the future will bring. So appreciate your children and your grandchildren...and I think most grandparents do!
Besides that, I think one of my biggest life regrets is not getting my degree in something more "marketable." I have a bachelor's in Family Relations (which is basically a social science degree.) The market is saturated with them. After college, I was able to work myself into a position working in the social services dept. at a small hospital. I worked there for about 5-6 years. After that, however, I was never able to get a professional position. Even people with Master's degrees in social work (at least in my area) are finding it difficult to be employed in their professional field. (One thing I don't regret, however, though it was difficult financially, was staying home with my son his early years.)
Sometimes, however, we regret decisions that we made when in actuality, we did the best we could have done at the time. In other words, we berate ourselves for things we really couldn't change even if we had opportunity to do so.
So as goodmanm pointed out~~ best not to dwell on the past! Move on.
I don't have many regrets really. My Mum always taught me to 'feel the fear and do it anyway'. I have done most of the things that I wanted to already.
I guess one of my biggest regrets is not having a good relationship with either of my parents SOs. They were both just mean to me as a kid and the relationship remains difficult to this day and it effects my relationship with my parents. Less so my Mother, because she makes such a huge effort for it not to. But I wish my relationship with my Father was... deeper I guess. I can't talk to him about anything real. Just superficialities (is that even a word??). I've tried to develop a closer relationship with him, but it doesn't work. I regret that, but I don't know how to change it. Oh well.
I hope I don't live to regret not having kids as it looks like we are leaning towards no kids. Won't know that for a while I guess!
I am 31.
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20/20 hindsight...
