What advice or guidance do you regret following?

My late mothers advise to stay in the marriage.
I stayed until I could not take the unhappiness and irresponsibility of my partner that affected our finances etc
I stayed in that marriage of doom for 11 years way to long.

Once out of that marriage ( I filed for Divorce) I then worked on providing a stable environment for me and my children, upgraded my education, got work and put money into savings etc

I could not understand how in the world an Accountant by trade could not balance our budget until I divorced and my lawyer showed me where the finances were going…all to his personal interests!

Even though we were the same age he was in fact like another child!
( Counselor informed me ).

None, actually, or none that I can think of. I’ve received plenty of advice, but I don’t think I’ve followed much of it. In any case, I don’t consider someone else responsible for the decisions I’ve made, not even (or maybe especially not) the stupid ones.

I’m thinking I might have been one of those people about whom they said “You can’t tell her anything”—and may not have tried. No one, for example, attempted to talk me out of dropping out of school or getting engaged or breaking the engagement or going back to school or dropping out again or moving in with a boyfriend or getting married. Should they have? I don’t know, but of course I always thought what I was doing was the right thing, so it probably would only have created friction without altering the outcome.

I’ve regretted things I’ve done, and some of them I was advised to do, but again, I pretty much made up my own mind.

I do wish now, though, that somebody had offered me a few key questions to ask myself (besides “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”—not helpful, but thanks) before I took a couple of big steps. That might have helped more than advice, and things might have turned out differently.

My advisor in university suggested that I take a year off. I should have transferred to another university instead of going to work night shifts at a convenience store. All is well now. Took me 20 years to get over my grief or losing my friends and failing out of university. I guess I did care after all.

There’s no accounting for subjectivity—it’s as good as arbitrary.

Which was almost always followed by:

That’s why disciplines with purely “objective” standards are the only ones worth pursuing. If the discipline relies on subjective standards, you have no control over your success in that discipline. You’re at the whim of others, and they may simply decide they don’t like you or what you’ve done.

None of that, I’ve found, has been true, nor useful. But it has taught me a lot about that person’s subjective experience of the world.

To stop trying to have a child when I was in my late 20’s.

To not buy a house that was expensive where I live. If I was in that house right now so many things would be so much better.

I hold myself responsible in the end, but I wish I had been stronger.