Can you tell the story of a significant failure in your life and what it taught you?

Maybe this is too racy for you jellies, but when I had my abortion. I felt like I had failed myself, my unborn twins, and I definitely failed my parents. I took away what would have been their first grandchildren. But now I’ve learned to never let a man pressure me into anything. I think about them every day. Also, now I’m a total hypocrite and switched from pro-choice to pro-life. I would never wish this upon anyone.

@MCBeat Don’t think of yourself as a hypocrite. It was obviously the only option for you at the time. People have the right to change their minds, especially when it’s something so personal & emotional. Don’t beat yourself up. You have been forgiven.

=)

My biggest failure in life was my marriage. Which is surprising when you think of how much effort I put into it. I’ve had a hit with a song I wrote in the bathroom in about 5 mins, and I got every job I ever applied for, even when I forgot to even present a CV. But my marriage was a complete and utter failure, despite 2 years of putting up with 6 monsters torturing both me and my daughter (or perhaps precicely because of that). My best friend (who also had a failed marriage) put it this way:
“if we just walked down the street and married the first woman we met, it could never have been any worse than the ones we picked to spend the rest of our lives with”. And of course it was not just the wives, but the whole family behind both of them (his and mine).

What have I learnt from that? Not much. I’ve learnt not to trust people, but I knew that already. And to expect the unexpected.

And to always have a backup plan.

To follow my gut instinct.

And that human beings (and not just women) have an infinite capacity to do as much evil as the worst devil could imagine, just like the could do as much good as the best angel could.

MCBeat changing opinion does not make you a hypocrite. Perhaps what happened was a mistake. But there’s not much you can do about it now. Let’s hope you get another chance at motherhood, and give it your best shot when it happens :)

Two things -

My first marriage – total and complete disaster. I failed, he failed and believe me, it was a marriage from hell. Nothing good about it, except for my daughter. He cheated, all the time. I settled for the constant apologies and the lies. I was bent on staying in the marriage, after all, it’s better to have a Mother and a Father under the same roof, right? I failed myself and my daughter by staying as long as I did. Basically, I allowed his cheating and didn’t stand up for myself. When the emotional abuse really kicked in and his gambling, I packed up our stuff and we left the house. Technically, I left him. He wasn’t going to leave and I didn’t have the fight left in me to stick it out. My first success, I had enough strength to finally say enough. He cleared out accounts, hid money and tried to make life hell for us, I rented a small townhouse and somehow, I made ends meet. By the next year, I had a house, a great job and life was getting better for my daughter and I. I failed in the marriage because I lost myself. I didn’t keep any of my independence and became very dependent on him. The day I took my daughter and left, I changed my personal outlook on life.

Professionally, it was a biggie. I took a position in a field that I was not trained for and underestimated the amount of work and planning that was involved with certain events. I bombed in such a big way, I should have been fired. My boss, did say that yes, the event was a failure – and it cost them a lot of money. a lot of money! Instead, he explained where I went wrong and helped me along, until I got the hang of it, the next big member event, was successful. The areas where I was weak, I excelled and where I was already strong, remained strong.

I asked him why he didn’t just fire me, demote me or bury me under the club – as some of the other department heads suggested (it ate into their bonuses), he said because I showed a willingness to learn and had a good attitude about things, even when I failed. When I left the club, I had the highest revenues out of all departments and highest member and employee ratings. It was due, in a large part, to the General Manager and his ability to take a negative and turn it into a positive. And…a ton of hard work!

i’m living it right now. i’ll report back when it’s over. hahaha

I don’t know if I want to delve into this one again because most people are probably tired of hearing about it…. but… it was nevertheless my biggest failure as well as my biggest lesson.

I have been married for 10 years. I’d like to say that they were 10 of the greatest years ever.. and it may have even LOOKED as if they were.. but my wife and I both knew there were problems… I resented her for “forcing” me to marry her when I was only 19.. I felt like my youth had been taken from me.. my wild days… as childish as that was…and she resented me for not loving her like the shining prince on a white horse like she wanted… for not actually being the person I had pretended to be. Both of us had rocky childhoods so dealing with those problems together should have been enriching.. rewarding.. but we let them get to us I think. I took for granted all the things she did.. not unlike the movie fireproof .

She was unwise with money and got us into some serious debt. Once she got into a little debt she felt so guilty (because of how I treated her) that she tried to do things to make money.. which ultimately led to more debt.. and more depression.. and more angst. I couldn’t figure out why she wouldn’t listen to me.. stop spending money.. stop doing her little hobbies that were costing us so much and let me take care of the family financially..

Those things combined led to a quiet, ever-present disdain between us and we just continued the marriage with problems left unresolved. Along the way we had 3 handsome little rugrats .. our focus became them instead of each other.. we let our marriage suffer even more..

For the majority of this time I had been in the US Navy.. a great career… (hindsight being 20/20) .. but along the way I had gotten out.. thinking of myself.. how I disliked the job at the time.. My wife resented me even more for that because she didn’t feel as if we’d be financially secure.

This is getting too long…. LOL Don’t worry… almost done..

In april last year I joined the Army. My wife was glad to have me out of the house. I was glad to be married, and glad to be on my own as well. Somewhere along the line I started to chat on a video chat site online.. I had good intentions… my favorite room was a room full of Christians.. and I had some very good discussions there.. at some point I started to share my problems with a woman there… we connected.. though now I see it was only on a superficial level.. I let everything happen… and we eventually “got together” for about two weeks while I hid it from my wife.

I went home on leave and didn’t last long at all. I had to tell my wife what I had done…it was killing me. She went through a range of emotions of course and we’ve been dealing with it ever since. I broke her trust.. the one thing that we had going for us in our marriage was trust.. and I broke it. All my life I had been focused on not letting it happen.. for the simple reason that it happens so often in marriages.. I wanted to be the prince on a shining white horse.. I wanted to be different. I had turned down propositions many times before.. but this time I failed miserably.

There isn’t enough room here to tell you how much I learned from all this. I have reconnected with God and with my wife in ways that I almost think would have never been possible had I not received the wake up call that I might actually lose her. She was set to divorce me but my dad convinced her to wait.. again.. not unlike the movie fireproof. Ever since, we have been getting closer and closer.. there are still hard times.. it will take a lot of time to fully recover.. but we’re on the right track now.. and I’m excited about what the future holds for us…

@NaturalMineralWater I don’t see this as a failure. This is an accomplishment. You put your life back together. Good for you.

When I first started working I was pretty sure it was not just my right, but my responsibility to tell anyone and everyone what was wrong with the way they were doing things. I would shoot my mouth of whenever anything, no matter how small was not to my liking. I lost a couple of jobs before realizing that there is a time to speak up and a time to keep my mouth shut. I learned a very important lesson about picking the hills I am willing to die on, these days they are few and far between.

@jbfletcherfan Thanks, I appreciate that.

I’d say the entire year of 2005 I was a fire ball of failure. I let every single person in my life down. No one in my life escaped my path of misery, and I wish I could erase that year from my life.
I was dating a guy, and we were slowly breaking up. I was 18 turning 19, and just couldn’t deal with the fact that he didn’t love me. I knew we weren’t meant for each other, and when we did break up, it wasn’t as bad as we both thought (we have since apologized and became friends) Well, after we broke up I slept around..a lot. I was disgusted with myself. I did a lot of drugs, and became manic. I had been diagnosed at 17 with bipolar, but never stayed on medication and always had depressive episodes. I’m not sure if I’m still bipolar…but that’s another story.
Anyways, I was doing so many drugs, and sex and so many reckless things. I got into a University and thought that would change my life. I ended up withdrawing with a medical absence because I walked into an ER and told them I was going to kill myself and needed to be committed. I was in therapy at the time, and my therapist told me it was what I needed to do. I think I’d be dead if I hadn’t listened to him.
Calling my mother that day, and telling her “Mom, I’m so sorry. I’m going to the hospital” She knew what that meant. She knew I was falling into a hole that I couldn’t get out of.
I had also done something to a someone that I considered a friend. I did a terrible thing to her, and hated myself for ever causing someone so much pain. I couldn’t comprehend why I would ever do such a thing.
When shit hit the fan, my aunt and mother were in the living room and I really needed to talk to someone. I walked out of my room crying and told them what I had done. They didn’t even know what to say because it was just so awful of a thing to do to someone.
That was right before I was hospitalized. After I got out of the hospital, they had me on so many drugs that I had to leave school and my job. I couldn’t function. I began dating a guy and felt it was the best thing to do…it was a terrible mistake. I ended up dragging him into the mess that was my life at that point, and I really regret that. I wish he would have just stayed away from me, or just been a friend rather than try to enter into a relationship with me. That relationship of course ended shortly after it started, I was still on my medication but becoming more self aware and realizing a lot of things about life.
I then began dating my now husband and it was an awful decision at the time, but also one that changed my life. He saved me. He helped me through my darkest hours, held me while I kicked and cried. He was there when my agoraphobia was so bad, I would pass out and vomit if I left our bedroom. He helped me get the help I needed, and never pushed me.
He proposed to me and things fell into place after a while. We’ve had our bumps in the road…but without those bumps, we wouldn’t have our beautiful son or the strong relationship we have.
I may be young, but I’m not as naive as people think.

Wow, I’m sorry my post was so long!

Amazing story, @casheroo. Thank you for telling it. One thing—once you’ve been diagnosed with bipolar, unless you were incorrectly diagnosed, it never goes away. You can control it without meds, and many people do. However, it’s not a big deal if you can’t, and go back on the meds.

And your post was not long. I read the whole thing with much interest. You should see how long the post I wrote was on another question this evening. It was also about being bipolar. I’m also bipolar

@daloon Thank you. The whole bipolar thing is hard for me. I think I still have issues with having been diagnosed with it…along with a list of other mental illnesses, that I apparently do not suffer from any more. I think a part of me controlling it without medications, is me pretty much denying it. I would most definitely seek help if I even felt a tinge of it happening again..but I haven’t in over two years, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it stays that way. I’m not sure if you think it’s a wise decision, but it works for me and when it comes to bipolar..my view on it is do whatever works for you!

@daloon That was a failure how?

@Grisson: Failure to find a job; failure to properly use the advantages my education gave me; failure to meet my parents’ expectations; failure to be self-supporting; failure, when I did find a job, to find one that was suitable to my education, or to have an income my father expected of me (which I haven’t done to this day). I could go further, but I’ve done enough damage to myself already. I don’t want to think about this too much.

@casheroo: I’ve heard of people going for years, even decades, and then having another event. I’ve heard of people who never get another event. You never know. The best thing to do is to learn your warning signs, and be prepared with an action plan in case you feel it maybe happening (which it sounds like you have).

@daloon The way I see it, you succeeded in fending for yourself and making your way in the world. You learned a lot.

Failure is when you are knocked down and decide not to get up again.

@Grisson Interesting take on it, but not a point of view I share.

I dislocated my right knee and I got Employment insurance what helped me finish my high school diploma and I was free to go to university.