What have you failed at?

[Anonymous]

As someone who is recently separated from her husband… I feel like a complete and utter failure. I’m so embarrassed and feel so stupid for messing up the most important decision of my life.

But I’m trying to re-evaluate my failure and look at it instead as information or am experiment from which I gathered important data and information with which I can make better decisions.

I’d like to hear stories from others about failure. What do you do that failed? How did you learn from it and turn your life around? Or did it destroy you?

[Anonymous]

on this thread here:
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1234985.page

[Anonymous]

You're on the right track, OP. Just see what you can glean. I'd drop the embarrassment and negative self-talk. Feel and process real emotions like sadness or happiness or lonliness.

[Anonymous]

That previous DCUM thread just went into the place where you click the icon and it goes into permanent reading gracias amiga

[Anonymous]

I think I started out like a young pretty girl with the world ahead of her. I was smart.

I was just not equipped with the life skills necessary to negotiate life safely.

I got lucky and married the "safest bet" ... really nice guy but he's super autistic and he didn't know how to be a dad or a husband. Now he's kind of "cared for" by a mom-wife-employee-maid-companion-handler a dozen years older than he is. I haven't seen him in 6 years.

I'm OK in the way that I'm sitting here on a laptop, and I could buy 6 more tonight and he wouldn't even notice. I could buy 2 cars tomorrow and he would not notice.

But his whole family is going on vacation for thanksgiving week, which they all do, to their virgin island place, and I'm not there anymore.

It's OK I've been there 20 times before. It's the part about where you're not welcomed by the group that smarts sometimes, but then you realize you don't want to be welcomed by a group that doesn't welcome you in your hard times.

[Anonymous]

I failed at my job. I thought I was doing fine for years, and then a new coworker came in very strong and told me I was doing everything wrong and I was absolutely awful at my job. It became a big HR issue. The person left to deal with some problems unrelated to me...But it shook me to the point I never recovered from it, lasted an extra year and then entirely switched career, to something low pay and low contact because tbh I just do not trust people anymore. I don't have a horrible life at all, I'd even say it's great, but professionally it has been a total failure.

[Anonymous]

I’ve failed at more things, more times than I can count. Failing is learning. The only and best thing you can do is take the lessons and move forward with purpose.

[Anonymous]

So many things! My career is essentially a failure -- I have a job but the money I spent on a graduate degree and my early ambitions were totally for nothing. When I talk to friends from grad school and right after about work, I can see the bewilderment that I am where I am. But I just flamed out -- I wasn't good enough, didn't have the energy, and couldn't cut it. I feel fortunate to have a steady paycheck doing work that isn't physically taxing. I'm rounding on 50 and have to accept it's as far as I'm ever going to get in this career.

I have some ambition to maybe start a small business or pursue a second career in a less competitive field once my kid's college is taken care of and I can take that kind of risk.

I also had a huge social failure about 10 years ago I'm still recovering from. Not romantic -- I had a falling out with a friend and almost everyone in our mutual friend group took her side. It was really brutal -- a ton of rejection all at once. In the midst of my career sputtering out, it was a really tough time. I got depressed, when to therapy, and really struggled for several years.

To be honest, this stuff still stings a little bit. But I have a nice life now. My job is small but it has its satisfactions (and perks -- the one thing about having a job that is no big deal is that it leaves you with a lot of bandwidth to pursue other passions, including parenting). I have a good group of friends and I also learned I'm more resilient than I thought, and also that even if other people don't like me, I can still love myself.

I find the Mary Oliver poem Wild Geese to be encouraging. Good luck, OP!

[Anonymous]

I'd encourage you to change the framing - I don't even know you and I thought 'that's my friend you're talking about.' Consider replacing 'It didn't work out' with 'I failed at the marriage.'

[Anonymous]

I have failed at everything - parenting, marriage (we are still together but its barely a marriage), career (stalled). But I never had any illusions that I deserved a rose garden. I didn't work as hard or as smart as I should have. I wasn't as patient or as generous as I should have been. But I don't think my life sucks. And I'm stilly worrying and trying and planning. Every day I get up and try.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That previous DCUM thread just went into the place where you click the icon and it goes into permanent reading gracias amiga

What??

[Anonymous]

Losing weight.

[Anonymous]

My drivers license test

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So many things! My career is essentially a failure -- I have a job but the money I spent on a graduate degree and my early ambitions were totally for nothing. When I talk to friends from grad school and right after about work, I can see the bewilderment that I am where I am. But I just flamed out -- I wasn't good enough, didn't have the energy, and couldn't cut it. I feel fortunate to have a steady paycheck doing work that isn't physically taxing. I'm rounding on 50 and have to accept it's as far as I'm ever going to get in this career.

I have some ambition to maybe start a small business or pursue a second career in a less competitive field once my kid's college is taken care of and I can take that kind of risk.

I also had a huge social failure about 10 years ago I'm still recovering from. Not romantic -- I had a falling out with a friend and almost everyone in our mutual friend group took her side. It was really brutal -- a ton of rejection all at once. In the midst of my career sputtering out, it was a really tough time. I got depressed, when to therapy, and really struggled for several years.

To be honest, this stuff still stings a little bit. But I have a nice life now. My job is small but it has its satisfactions (and perks -- the one thing about having a job that is no big deal is that it leaves you with a lot of bandwidth to pursue other passions, including parenting). I have a good group of friends and I also learned I'm more resilient than I thought, and also that even if other people don't like me, I can still love myself.

I find the Mary Oliver poem Wild Geese to be encouraging. Good luck, OP!

I could have written your post - the part about your job/career. I’m glad to know I’m not the only one out there. I’d also like to start my own business, I just haven’t yet figured out what that will be.

[Anonymous]

Change is not failure OP
Change is growth