"My wife and I..."

My best friend's wedding day. My wife and I had been fighting that morning, but decided to attend my friend's ceremony anyway. We drove separate and after the ceremony was over, I left to go home. After the approximately 30 minute drive home, my wife called me and asked where I was. When I told her, she said, "'Jake' is standing out here in the freezing cold wind wondering where his best friend is because he wants to take some pictures with him on his wedding day."

I felt like absolute garbage. My wife had been mature enough to put our petty disagreement on hold so that we could support my friend, but I let it get the best of me, and abandoned him. I will never forgive myself for that one.

papahet1

"The one bright spot..."

When I was in 5th grade, I had serious issues. Was bullied, didn't have any friends, was overweight, parents were constantly fighting, etc. Basically life just sucked.

The one bright spot in my life was my grandma. If I'd asked her to do anything she would have done it. I was her special love and she treated me amazingly.

Being an older person, she didn't have a job. She didn't have a bank account, so she kept all her money in her purse. I saw that one day, and a plan was hatched. At school, they were doing those stupid sales things to raise money. The class that raises the most money would get a pizza party. I thought, "hey, if I help our class win a pizza party, maybe they'll like me." So, I stole over $1000 from my grandma I loved to impress a bunch of 5th graders who hated me.

Somehow the school didn't question a 5th grader spending over $1000 in cash. So we won the pizza party. And it didn't make a damn bit of difference. Still bullied.

My grandma worried herself to death, though. She thought she lost it somewhere. Thankfully my parents helped her out. But my cover story for my parents, "I found a rich person who wanted to buy pocket calendars" fell thru pretty quickly.

They never told her, but it's eaten me up ever since. When I say she worried herself to death, I'm afraid she did. Within 3 years, she had passed away from complications from a surgery due to acid reflux that essentially dissolved her esophagus. I don't know if worry caused it, but it certainly didn't help.

Even thinking about it 30 years later just rips me up inside.

Nowforscd

I was in a bad drug addiction, with my best friend using and living with me. I spent a few days in jail over missing a court date or something (arrests were so common idk how many there were or even what most of them were for nowadays), and when I came home, he was gone, and so was a watch of mine. I called him up and screamed at him, said a bunch of terrible stuff that I realize today I didn't mean, and hung up on him. I ended up getting arrested again a few weeks later, and hadn't spoken to him since then. A couple of months later, while I was still incarcerated, he won $2,000 on a scratch off, bought a bunch of drugs and booze, and intentionally killed himself with all of it. We were all we really had at the time, and I can't help but think that our relationship being in the state it was at the time contributed to his decision. I love that man like a brother, and regret it so much. It was an ugly watch that I myself had stolen in the first place...

I haven't used since that last arrest. I did 22 months in prison, and basically everyone else I knew died during that time, too. I have six years clean as of March 4. Great job, amazing fiancée, full custody of my 7 year old son, two cats, the American dream... I hope there's something else after this life just so that John can see where I'm at today.

delancey517

"When I divorced my husband..."

When I divorced my husband, I didn't take the house, or his car, or more than 1/3 of our cash, or break anything of his, or damage anything. But I gave him the time share. Single meanest thing I've ever done.

Flahdagal

"So I'm out with my friends..."

I remember I was 17/18 and I was broke, between jobs and really down. I was too proud to ask my parents for financial help and too proud to tell my friends or give them any incline.

Now, this is a bit deep but I had always believed that we have angels that look over us that help us when we are in need whether that be big or small. So I was convinced my luck was going to change.

So I'm out with my friends and we're going for dinner. I had no money but didn't want my friends to know that. I asked to be driven to an ATM and made out that I was getting money but would make up a story about not getting paid, hoping one of my friends would pay for me that evening.

So I queue at the ATM behind a guy with two young children, really struggling to control them. He wasn't much older than me and I could tell he didn't have much cash looking at the state of his clothes.

He finishes and I step up to the ATM and the guy has took his card but left his cash in the machine, £50. Without hesitation I stuffed it into my wallet and jumped back in my friends car and look back to see the guy walk round the corner and into the supermarket with his kids.

My dickhead 17 year old self thought 'yep, that's angel looking after me that, helping me steal £50 to go and spunk it on beer and food.'

Now I look back with a child of my own with all the financial uncertainty going on at the moment and I'm ashamed of myself for what I did. It was undoubtedly the worst thing I have ever done to another man and I often think of the guy getting to the till in the shop and realising he had no money to pay with.

MC1787

"He took it extremely well..."

I broke up with my boyfriend of five years out of the blue, because I was in love but afraid of long term commitment. I had been a habitual cheater that always got bored with relationships eventually, and I think I panicked when I realized I was still happy and this was the real deal.

He took it extremely well, didn't cry or beg me to change my mind, just said, "if that is what you want, I understand. I just want you to be happy." He didn't harass me afterwards like all the other men I had dated. Complete radio silence.

After about 72 hours I realized something. I realized that this man truly loved me. He put my happiness before his own, even though I honestly didn't deserve it. I ended up going to his house in the middle of the night and sneaking in like a crazy person. The rest is history and we have been married for 5 years.

I didn't find out until a few years later that the day I broke up with him was the day my engagement ring arrived in the mail.

I know it's not THAT bad but I still look at my husband sometime and can't believe I did that to him. It was an important turning point in my life.

ladyybluee

"I was on an 8 hour road trip..."

I was on an 8 hour road trip driving up with my then girlfriend to see her family all the way from SoCal to a small town in NorCal. We were on Northbound Highway 5, which becomes notoriously boring at one point. I had been driving almost non-stop for a few hours until I got stuck behind slow cars on a 2 lane highway. Now, there's not much you can do at this point except accept your fate and stay behind slow cars until they take their exits.

For some reason, that didn't cut it for me. I decided to jump over the solid yellow line to the other side of the highway and I started gunning it to get past the slow cars. There was a handful of them in front, so I figured it would take a couple minutes. As I started the takeover on the oncoming lane, I saw the cars heading towards me on the oncoming lane. There was no room for me to merge back into my lane as I was still mid-takeover, I decided to literally play chicken and just kept going.

Thankfully, the first car moved out of my way into the shoulder of the oncoming lane. At this point, girlfriend starts screaming to please stop, but I had somehow locked myself into this bizarre conviction that I could make it. The second car on the oncoming lane does the same thing, and at this point, girlfriend is bawling her eyes out and freaking out, which was understandable, but nothing was going through my brain except I knew all these cars would give way to me. The third car does the same thing, as did the fourth and the fifth, until I finally swerved back into my original lane after I got past the slow car that was holding up the traffic.

I didn't stop and kept going while I was apologizing to girlfriend that what I did was probably traumatizing to her. Even after all these years, I still feel bad that I played chicken with 5 cars in a row while she was strapped on and had absolutely no choice in it. To this day, I can't figure out why I did it or why I was so convicted and confident that I could make it. I was bone sober, and I very much had no intention of killing myself nor her.

pdpbigbang

"I fired someone..."

I fired someone that had been with the company for over 25 years, because my boss wanted the cost save. He didn't deserve it. I left the company a month later.

25 years at the same company, and he couldn't use us on his resume.

PopeJohnsonAgain