Faced with decisions that seemed like a good idea at the time, only to realize later they were, well, pretty darn permanent. These are the stories of people’s worst decisions that stuck with them, no backsies allowed.
From career moves to matters of the heart, and everything in between, we’re diving into the moments that left a mark, for better or for worse. These tales aren’t just about regret, they’re about the raw, unfiltered human experience—the ups, the downs, and the unforgettable decisions that shape people’s lives.
Changing colleges to be closer to a girl. Nobody could’ve stopped me and I was certain it was worth it. 8 years later and I had a useless degree from a no-name school, and hated every second of college.
And the girl. Let me put it this way, my credit got ruined by the car I cosigned for when she didn’t make payments, the constant post-breakup mind-games caused me to completely shut down emotionally leading to severe alcohol abuse which almost cost me my job and caused me to fail every class that semester, and the last time we talked I told her I hope she dies in a fire. That was a year ago and I still do.
Life lesson, go to the college you want to go to. Seriously. It’s your life that you’re planning for, not your friends, or your SO.
I decided to break up a fight. It was a success at first, but then some guy came from behind and tackled me. I was stronger than him and gave a few good ones, but he was obviously a trained fighter. He put my leg in some type of jiu-jitsu hold and tore my ACL. I was an uninsured student at the time. Ten years later, I still cannot play any sports and I have to be extremely cautious in the snow.
When I was 14, I was getting ready in my room for school and from my window upstairs I could see my dad putting stuff into his truck to leave for work. I thought about opening the window and telling him “Have a good day, I love you” and then thought “Nah, that window is hard to open and I’ll see him tonight”. I did see him that night… in a hospital bed. He was a contractor working on a 2 story roof and fell onto a brick patio. He was in a coma for 23 days and then we had to let him go. He knew I loved him and all that, but I still had one last chance to tell him and I didn’t take it for laziness.
Mine is inaction. I should have played an extra sport in high school and I should have created a local non-profit organization for kids with Tourette’s syndrome (which I have and therefore relate to).
If I had done both of those, I KNOW I could have gotten a full ride to my dream college. Which would have then allowed for my two brothers and sister to for sure go to college without my parents going so far into debt.
Then my parents wouldn’t have been so stressed which would have made home life easier. And my siblings would have a much easier time in their lives.
My inaction took a huge toll on my family. I still regret it to this day and I wish I would have taken the opportunity to not be lazy, to play the extra sport, go the extra mile. Not just sit home, relax, and expect it to all come to me without lifting a finger.
I decided to actively pursue my best friend, whom I was in love with the entire 3 years we were friends. We met in college and had classes together, and continued to be friends after graduation. One night on vacation, he told me he felt the same way, and the best year and a half of my life followed. We had wedding plans and plans for the rest of our life together. People always say that when you meant “The One” you just know – and we knew. I couldn’t wait to start our life together.
Then one day, as we’re walking to the gym, he turns to me and tells me, “TrueBlonde, did you know that this entire relationship was a lie? I needed money and I wanted to date someone because I was bored. I’ve known you were in love with me for years so I figured you were an easy target. I knew that if I told you that we were getting married you’d give me money to pay my bills since I knew you had no debt. I knew that you would trust me since you already knew me. And I knew that I could manipulate you because of your relationship with your ex since he abused you. But yeah, this whole thing was a setup!”
I lost contact with the people I cared about because “I’ll just message them tomorrow instead.” Tomorrow never came and now the relationships are dead.
My girlfriend dropped out of college right around the time I graduated. We’d been together for years and I had a good job lined up, so I let her move in with me. She can take some time and figure out what to do with her life, right?
Wrong! She would get really mad when I brought up that she had no job or plans to complete a degree. She got frustrated that I’d work long hours at my job and come home tired.
I don’t think it’s a bad thing to want to be generous, but never in that way again.
I tried to climb the highest mountain in my country. My father took me and my brother there with some friends. The problem is that I have sickle-cell anemia, and due to the low oxygen I just couldn’t go further, but I did anyway. Bad idea. My spleen and appendix almost burst, and I had to wait for 24 hours in agonizing pain before a helicopter rescued my a**. Had to get my spleen and appendix removed. And now I can’t do any “hard” exercise, ever.
I turned down my dream job because of the location. Then, I ended up getting another job elsewhere that was the right location and a high salary, and those were the worst 5 years of my life.
It was a very gradual shift over the course of a year from “if I eat a little less and exercise more” to “if I eat absolutely nothing and exercise for 4-5 hours a day” that did it to me. The entire time I felt like I was making a conscious, independent choice as I slipped further and further into a mental illness that kills 20% of its sufferers. Now I have a serious heart problem and osteopenia, and people still do not think I am sick, just “in control”. I would have less health problems if I were overweight. My doctors had to let me go once I was a “healthy” weight but that didn’t help my mental health at all. Every day I struggle with putting the food I need to live into my body. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.
I have a large birthmark on one side of my face, and when I was around 8 years old when my father was still alive and we had a decent income, my mother informed me of a simple procedure and asked if I wanted to have the birthmark removed. I said no because it “Gave me character.”
As it turns out, that “Character” is a socially awkward hermit who, and I’ve had a couple of women tell me this, looks like a r*pist.
When I was 20 or so I was poor, my family was poor, and things got really bad that year.
I decided I could make some quick money flipping stolen items (buy cheap, sell for a profit). I was an idiot and got busted.
I got a felony for it, and 7 years of probation. Now I’m 28, can’t get a f*cking job anywhere, and life is nearly pointless at this juncture.
I’ve been on the good side of the law since that all went down, and with each month that passes where I wonder if I’ll eat tomorrow or have a roof over my head I think more and more “I could solve this by getting back into crime…” It’s a vicious cycle.
I have no clue how I’ll ever get my f*cking life back on track.
Not breaking up with my ex-wife while we were in college. One night we were doing laundry and we were right on the verge of breaking up. We almost broke up, but I backed down. We ended up getting married and had a couple of kids. My life is very f*cked up because of her now 15 years down the road…but I have two wonderful kids from the relationship, that would not exist if we had broken up that one night.
Funny how so much of my life seems to pivot around that one night and that one decision. Without making the decision I made I would not have my kids. But my life would not be f*cked. I think about that night a lot.
Got married twice, the first one I was young and dumb, and the second one she was young I was still dumb. There will be no third marriage in my future, I’m tired of losing 3/4 of my stuff.
Judge: They can keep all their stuff and you give them half of your stuff, oh and you get to pay all the bills.
Me: 🙁
Screwing around in high school and not going to college.
I’m not saying college is necessary for everyone, but I think I would be in a much better place overall if I had gone. I have a decent corporate job that I am very good at. I’ve been employed by the same company for 10 years. My life is not horrible, but the ceiling is getting so low that I have to crouch in my cubicle.
I’ve seen enough advice animal memes on the front page to know that the high school kids are out for summer. If you are reading this, please take my genuine advice. Just tough it out, do well in school and get a scholarship. Your schoolwork should really be your main focus in life. It will suck. You may not get to go do the things your friends are doing. I know this. I chose to have fun, and now I don’t have much fun anymore. I have close friends who are now fresh new lawyers, Paramedics on their way to becoming Doctors, A Wall St. broker and even an astrophysicist, and I am already 10 years into a middling career that can’t ever really make me happy.
I’m not saying my life is over and this is it for me. I can go to college in my spare time, my employer will even help pay for it. I am pretty good at taking pictures, I can see a spark there, maybe something will come of that as well. What I’m saying is I would have much preferred, in retrospect, if I had just buckled down and worked hard and gone to college right after high school when learning was still fresh and I still remembered a bit about high-level algebra. The ability to learn at the rate you currently do goes away. Use it while you have it. Now, I’ll have to re-learn a lot to do schoolwork around a full-time job.
My Dad called me and told me he was dying, (he was in the hospital with cancer), I asked the nurse if he was and she said no, anyway I tried to get to see him but my brother had my car and I couldn’t get anyone to take me and he died late that night, alone. If I knew, obviously I would have bussed, walked, hitchhiked or crawled to that hospital but I didn’t and 14 years later I still can’t forgive myself and it haunts me every day.
I took a job fresh out of high school at a major plant. One of the largest in the world.
It was great, 8 years ago I started at 60k a year…I figured with all the loans I could skip and education time I would net more in my lifetime earlier & could retire very easily early.
Ended up getting taken advantage of by the company, had a class action lawsuit for unsafe work practices (that doesn’t even pay for food now) and have constant issues with my internal organs & bacterial infections. Almost no money to pay for medical bills or any education for a job to do to make a living other than manual labor which compounds the health issue.
Seven years ago, I was a young tranny in CS. I had two jobs and regularly temped, which had mostly paid for college, leaving me less than $5000 in debt. I got a job as a C# programmer developing Office plugins while still a freshman, and I had just interviewed with Microsoft. My clubs and quiz bowl team were supportive of me going full time. Finally, I had four classes left until being eligible to graduate with a double major, and a job waiting for me up in Redmond – and thanks to always taking one or two classes above a full load, I had a semester and a half to study whatever I wanted. I felt blessed, and invincible, and thought the old American maxim – that hard work leads to good results – held true.
So, when my parents came to visit just before finals, I told my parents I was going to live full-time as a girl, and there wasn’t anything they could do to stop it.
After rocking finals, I went out and spent my summer visiting friends, learning to drive, and doing odd jobs – the most fun you can have while working at Labor-Ready. By the end of the summer, when I returned to school, I found I was no longer a student. Turned out my scholarship had been canceled, my grants had been cashed elsewhere, my school account had been drained, there were credit cards taken out in my name, and my parents had given my name when approached by debt collectors. My debt owed went from four-figure to six-figure, and I was now ineligible for just about all grants and scholarships. Just to drive the point home, I started receiving voicemails from my mother, stating that no matter what hardships I was going through, God loved me and there were churches that specialized in “curing sexual confusion.”
So now, I’ve spent these past seven years just trying to scrape together enough funds to pay for four classes straight up so I can finish my degree. Naturally, the recruiters who were so excited to see me during my junior year won’t return my calls or emails, and I can’t get a job in programming because all HR sees is that I’m a kid who quit school four classes short of graduation.
My best friend was a tattoo artist, and she was my platonic life partner. I thought it would be funny to tattoo “Insert her name here was here” on my inner thigh. There is no way we’re not ever gonna be friends right? Well, I was right, years later we are still friends but turns out she wasn’t a she. Now my best friend is a man that no longer goes by that name. We plan on scratching it out and putting his new name there.
I started off my teenage years feeling like I needed to have a boyfriend…at all times. I would love for five minutes to see what my life would have been like if I stayed single and had fun and not felt like my life needed to revolve around a guy. I wish I would not have wasted my time with a 5-year relationship starting at the age of 15. I think in the last 20 years I’ve been single for approximately 6 months.
It is 100% smoking. I started smoking young, started smoking again after quitting for a long time, and I’m still smoking despite worsening smoking-related health issues. Smoking is THE WORST. I’m a terrible addict and I’ll probably never quit but these things should be against the law. They are really bad – REALLY bad. People should not smoke.
I hopped on a young horse that I’d only ridden once before without doing any work from the ground to make sure she wasn’t full of piss and vinegar that morning. Turns out she was. She got to bucking, spun to the side, and knocked me out of the saddle. As I was coming down, I noticed how close I was to the fence, decided not to tuck and roll over my shoulder and instead landed straight down on my tailbone. I’ve had chronic back pain since I graduated high school.
Looking back, I can’t believe I missed both opportunities to avoid it. I was pretty sure I was made of rubber and falling wouldn’t do anything permanent. I can now tell you whether or not it’s going to rain with surprising accuracy. I always try to remember to be thankful that that’s all that happened. I could have easily gotten paralyzed or killed.
Rejecting an interview with the military because my then-girlfriend didn’t want me to go. My girlfriend didn’t last, we ended up moving 5 times in one year, (she had mental health issues)and after we broke up the final time and I went back to try again with the military, I was told my moving around so much made me look unreliable. Trust me, folks, don’t choose a woman over a career. (Work’s for women too.) A truly loving spouse will accept it and find a way to work with it.
I used to live in a penthouse that was built onto the roof of an existing apartment building. Floor 14 was the top floor of the main building and it had PH1-4 on it, there was a flat roof, then there was PH5, and PH6 on top of it. I lived in PH5 and I forgot my keys one day and my roommates wouldn’t be home for an hour. I decided it would be a good idea to use the window in the stairway, which happened to be at PH6 level to jump down onto their special roof area at my level so I could climb through my bedroom window. It had rained the night before and the wood their “patio” was made of was slicker than it looked. The ceilings of our level were 12′ high so I was jumping from about 14.5′ up. It didn’t look too bad, but when I landed my feet immediately slipped and I landed on my back. My ankle was completely numb. Though that ankle didn’t suffer a break, it did suffer a soft tissue injury that has caused me constant, chronic pain for the last 9 years. It ruined one of the healthiest periods of my life when I was running a few times a week and I weighed 180lbs. Over the last 9 years my weight has fluctuated drastically, my health as well obviously, and it all coincides with whether my ankle is doing okay, or it is so bad I literally think about taking a sharp spoon and scooping out the painful areas of my flesh.
I tried for years with physios, specialists in sports medicine, MRIs, and never really got better. I gave up trying about four years ago and I have gotten to be the biggest I’ve ever been. But, I decided to try a highly recommended physiotherapist a few months back and I am seeing progress that I’ve never seen before, so things are looking up. She has been utterly fantastic.
So yeah, I basically caused myself 9 years of chronic pain because I was too idiotic to just wait for an hour or so for my roommates to get home. My ankle goes from about 1-5 on the pain scale, it’s not horrible, but chronic pain is just so d*mn draining, and every time I’ve tried to get back to exercising eventually it gets so bad that I stop.
Not believing I could do better and continuing to work as a barista or server until my 30s. Sure, the tips were really good, I got to live downtown in a big city, drink craft beer on patios with my hipster friends and commute fifteen minutes each way on a fixed-gear bike but what happens when I reach retirement age?
So I had an epiphany after a near-death experience, applied for an airline job and to my surprise, got it. It comes with wicked good benefits and a pension but this being a complete change in career, I’ve had to start from the very bottom. No more tips. Instead, I had to finally get my license, buy a car and pay a sh*t ton in insurance because I’m an inexperienced driver. I had an incredible downtown apartment but I couldn’t afford it anymore so I’ve had to move out of the city. I haven’t seen most of my friends in a very long time.
Pretty much everyone around my age who started with the airline in their late teens/early 20s has been able to buy a house and start a family by now. They’ll even be able to retire early.
Can’t turn back the clocks, can’t be mad about the wonderful experiences I’ve already had, and can only charge forward with gratitude.
Quitting a job to help a family member start a business. Over time they ruined me financially, and mentally and made me physically ill. In the end, they got all twisted when I tried to leave, they became violent and basically terrorised me and tried to get me fired from my new job and turned my family against me. When that didn’t work, they started threatening my SO. I finally realised I couldn’t cope anymore and got a restraining order then. That was 5 years ago.
Last month I received a court order to pay £30k they had racked up in my name. Fighting it now. My life for the past few years has been dominated by trying to get myself back on track, just to normal. Every time I think I’m done with the counselling something happens like this court order and I’m right back there at square one.
Remember, a conniving manipulative c*nt (family or not) will always stoop lower than you can ever imagine.
Getting in debt when I was young. Money was a taboo subject in my family of origin, so when I was on my own, credit felt like free money. I’ve fought those habits and that compound interest for 20+ years now, and it makes me sick to think of how much money I’ve wasted. Even if I had only saved the amount equal to all the interest I’ve paid, I would now be very well off.
Young people, learn from my mistakes and live within your means no matter how hard it is. Start a retirement account as soon as you can, even if you can only put in $5 here and there. Make compound interest your slave instead of the other way around.
My worst decision was deciding to focus entirely on school in high school and college and not attempt to date. When I was younger I wasn’t dumb, I saw all my friends spending so much time trying to get girlfriends and go through a bunch of b*llsh*t drama that I assumed would mean nothing in the long run. I figured I’d ignore girls for the time being and focus entirely on school and in my free time socialize with friends but not get involved with any relationship drama. This carried over into college. By this time I started to realize how much of an emotional burden it had put on me. I’m not simply talking about stress, I mean crippling depression, no self-esteem, little to no self-worth, and many thoughts. Fast forward to today, I’m a well-educated 26-year-old virgin who is afraid to even try to get close to a woman. I have all this time now for a meaningful relationship and I don’t even know how to go about starting one, and even if I did I know nothing about maintaining one or even simple do’s and don’ts.
In short: I’m not saying don’t focus on school at all, but if you’re a teenager, please, for your own sake, go out and date. Have a ton of stupid short-lived relationships, because it’s the only experience you’ll get in that area which you will undoubtedly need when the time comes for you to actually have a meaningful one.
Not quitting my first big job when it became obvious that the boss was obviously crazy and psychotic.
When I was 22, I landed a job at a concert lighting/sound company. It was a cool job but I sensed the boss was kind of a nutcase. A week into my employment, my boss hired a young woman as secretary. A few days after that, she made a minor mistake and he just SCREAMED at her and had a huge temper tantrum. She stood up and said “I do NOT need this.” and got her purse and walked. I should have done that too. Instead, I stuck it out and at one point even led a revolt that got the terrible, incompetent, screaming boss fired, but eventually the company owner brought him back and fired the rest of us.
it’s been 20 years and I still have nightmares about that job. Working there really messed me up. 🙁
I was truly happy at my former workplace. I fit in great, the job was rewarding, and I loved my coworkers.
I left that job for a job that paid more and I could work from home. I left the job after 6 months and accepted a position with the same employer I was previously at but a different workplace and I’m miserable. I went from excited to wake up and go to work to dreading every single day.
I think the worst part is I always gave advice about doing what you love and it isn’t always about money. Should’ve taken my own advice!
The worst life decision (though not permanent) I ever made was getting married. I don’t mean I married the wrong woman – I mean that after we were married, she changed.
She stopped being a smart, funny woman whom I could have an adult conversation with and became a “wife” – a bitter, angry, Monday-morning quarterback of a woman whose only mode of communication with me is scolding me like I’m a five-year-old who keeps breaking her vases.
Now I remember all those older people saying the same thing happened to them, and I feel dumb for not listening.
And you may be saying, “Whatever Throwy… you’re probably a sh*tty husband is why. I know my awesome girlfriend would never be like that. We’ve been living together for 5 years and it’s still amazing!”
Good, I say! Live with her, but do not marry her. Or the transformation will begin. I don’t know what it is about that ring, but when you put it on, you will stop being her partner, and you will instead become her family. And you know, she f*cking hates her family.
Law school. Seriously. I love everything about it but holy sh*t if I didn’t enter a field that’s over-saturated filled with people that don’t actually WANT to be lawyers, but they are just trying to pay off loans.
I’m not trying to sound bitter, but literally 50% of the people I talk to don’t want to be here, they are just here taking up space. And it pisses me off. I’ve wanted to be here since I was 14.
MBA was great because it simply allowed me to be prepared for any and every venture I take on. Running a successful business is important. But law school? Getting the piece of paper feels like a massive waste.
At a high school dance my freshman year, I was sitting alone at a table and my crush came over and asked me to dance. I was so shy and self conscious that I was afraid, and said no.
4 years later I realized that she had a huge crush on me too. Had I accepted, there is a very reasonable chance I’d have had a girlfriend throughout high school. I would’ve spent the entire 4 years with friends and doing normal stuff, and would’ve entered college (regardless of how the relationship turned out), with confidence and could’ve made my entire college life awesome.
Instead, I spent high school sitting alone in front of the TV. I got to college with no idea how to interact with people and spent the first 3 years of it figuring it out. I finally figured it out my senior year, and by then it was too late to start figuring out how to be an adult, so I’m still working on that at 25. I honestly consider saying no at that dance to be the biggest mistake of my life.
I went to hundreds of loud concerts and shows without using hearing protection The majority of these happened between age 13 and 23.
Today, at age 24, my ears are so sensitive to sound that often the volume of a normal conversation will cause extreme pains in my ears. I’m disabled because of this, and I haven’t responded positively to any of the conventional treatments. Most of my days are spent alone inside in front of the computer in a silent environment. I can’t really do anything else.
Hyperacusis, it’s called. Acoustic trauma. My ears also ring and scream 24/7 like a cross between a banshee and a jet engine. I thought loud noise made you deaf when you were 80 years old. I had no idea it could cause such a severe pain-related neurological disorder.
My biggest regret is not using hearing protection. My second biggest regret is going to so many loud f*cking shows that weren’t even good.
I had to decide whether I should live with my mom or my dad after they were divorced. I was 14 and it was the worst summer of my life. I don’t believe I made the wrong decision, but the crippling doubt that lasted for days of me just questioning what I felt over and over again was almost too much to bear. I couldn’t stand it. But here I am, 20 years old today, living in my mom’s dining room; sleeping on an air mattress, trying to put myself through school. Always think before you get married, divorce is one heck of an ordeal. It affects those around you much more than you and your spouse.
Once, I broke up with someone I really loved because her dog was literally killing me. My allergies were really bad and my asthma is even worse. Every time I was around her amazing awesome dog I’d have to load up on Benadryl and hit my inhalers pretty hard. It got so bad I was going to the doctor every other week. I didn’t want to tell her about it because I knew she loved her dog more than life. Sorry Critter, you’re a better life partner than I will ever be.
For what it’s worth I’m happy now but at the time it was the hardest decision I ever made. I never told her that was why because I didn’t want her to hold it against her dog. I told her I wasn’t into it anymore, and she knew I was lying. She thought I’d met other people or was cheating or something like that.
Letting my daughter go stay with my cousin for the weekend while I was on a business trip in Vegas.
I have been trying to get my foot in the door with board game and video game companies my whole life it seems. I was offered a job in Las Vegas for 3 days right after I had lost one of my jobs. While I was there I got a call from my cousin letting me know she filed abandonment charges against me and planned on fighting for permanent custody of my daughter. She convinced other people in my family to write declarations stating that they had been taking care of my daughter for over a year now, which was a complete lie.
I fought her for over a year to get my daughter back. I paid $8,000 for a lawyer and eventually, she just ended up dropping the case the minute she was 3 months pregnant. Turns out she just wanted a baby, she didn’t care whose it was.
I now have to deal with behavioral issues with my daughter because of everything she learned from ages 2-3. Our relationship has suffered and I don’t really feel like we have the bond that we should because she was bonding with my cousin when she should have been with me.
3 days of work for a year of heck wasn’t really worth it.
Student loans. My life is ruined. I’m always depressed, thinking about these loans that I can’t afford. I don’t make enough money to pay the loans back. Credit is ruined so I will never get to own a car or a house. I can’t get married because it will ruin my SO’s credit (and he’s made it a point to tell me many times).
Instead of going to university all four years, I should have started at a community college and then transferred to keep costs down.
