What is the hardest decision you've ever made?

[Anonymous]

* Whether to stay with a 2x cheating spouse. Made the wrong decision, but made the right one when it was a 3x cheating spouse.

* Whether to take on a multiple murderer as a client, under heavy pressure from my firm--the only question was whether he should get the death penalty, which I am against, but I turned it down because I wouldn't feel physically safe with him anywhere near me. Do not regret in the least.

[Anonymous]

Whether or not to hold my son back a year before starting K.

Looking back now at that decision I can see how he would have done just fine either way. And there would have been pros/cons to either choice, just nothing real major.

At the time though it felt like I was dealing with the weight of the world....so worried about making the "wrong" choice for my baby. There were lots of early parenting decisions that felt like that actually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To have a child on my own - single mom by choice style, not an 'oops, now what do I do' situation. Hardest but best decision of my life.

Great for you. Same here but why do you feel the need to clarify is was not an "oops, now what do I do' situation?
Do you think you are a better person or mother b/c you actively made the choice before conceiving?

NP. Way to read into things. I believe the PP's point regarding "single mom by choice" meant that was the HARD DECISION. Which is the point of the thread.

Move along if you are going to insert your own insecurities.

[Anonymous]

In a 6 month span:

1) Wife started cheating. Once caught, asked me to turn a blind eye for a year to let her decide if the family life was what she wanted. We had a small child, so it was tough.

2) To have child tested for autism and subsequently enrolled in early intervention services without wife's permission because she thought I was using it to guilt trip her for cheating.

3) To pull the plug on my mom who slipped into a vegetative state a week after being diagnosed with cancer despite showing no signs of illness prior to the diagnosis.

4) To file for divorce and become a single parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To have a child on my own - single mom by choice style, not an 'oops, now what do I do' situation. Hardest but best decision of my life.

Great for you. Same here but why do you feel the need to clarify is was not an "oops, now what do I do' situation?
Do you think you are a better person or mother b/c you actively made the choice before conceiving?

NP. Way to read into things. I believe the PP's point regarding "single mom by choice" meant that was the HARD DECISION. Which is the point of the thread.

Move along if you are going to insert your own insecurities.

I read it as she was clarifying that she was debating whether to do it before getting pregnant, so it wasn't a scenario of contemplating being a mom vs. abortion or adoption but rather a scenario of "do I try to get pregnant or not". Important distinction as those are very different decisions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To have a child on my own - single mom by choice style, not an 'oops, now what do I do' situation. Hardest but best decision of my life.

Great for you. Same here but why do you feel the need to clarify is was not an "oops, now what do I do' situation?
Do you think you are a better person or mother b/c you actively made the choice before conceiving?

NP. Way to read into things. I believe the PP's point regarding "single mom by choice" meant that was the HARD DECISION. Which is the point of the thread.

Move along if you are going to insert your own insecurities.

I read it as she was clarifying that she was debating whether to do it before getting pregnant, so it wasn't a scenario of contemplating being a mom vs. abortion or adoption but rather a scenario of "do I try to get pregnant or not". Important distinction as those are very different decisions.

13:19 again. Yes, that is what I was trying to say was the hard decision. You worded it much better than I.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To have a child on my own - single mom by choice style, not an 'oops, now what do I do' situation. Hardest but best decision of my life.

+1 same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:- Not reporting my rape in college because I didn't want to let my parents down (yes, that was my thought process). I now regret that decision and wish I had but at that point, I thought it would hurt them too much and I know they wouldn't be okay with me living away from them. It was tough to keep that to myself and to this day, they don't know. It still hurts.

- Finally deciding to fight back against my abusive ex boyfriend. It saved my life although when 911 finally showed up (took a while) they didn't know what my chances would be with how much blood I had lost.

- Deciding to walk away from my fiancé after a devastating miscarriage. He tried to rush me to get over it and didn't understand why I didn't want to immediately try again. He had no idea what losing a baby felt like and despite being perfect in every other way, I knew that I couldn't one day marry this man. I loved him then and part of me still loves him now, but my whole world came crashing down when the miscarriage happened and I still don't know if I've fully recovered from it.

Counseling would have been another option. People respond very differently to grief.

Agree you should have tried counseling. We've had several devastating miscarriages and other fertility related nightmares for most of our marriage and I can tell you that men often react differently to it than women. They want to fix the situation somehow. We are lucky in that all of it ultimately made us stronger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I spent my 20s living the good life in France. My job was ending and I had no prospects and did not want to go back to the US. I was despondent. Then suddenly not one but two offers materialized: the first was for a super-high paying, long-lasting, non-teaching job at an international organization in Geneva, the second was teaching French at the American school in Rome for one year for a maternity leave replacement. I had never lived in Italy but had studied Italian and wanted to improve it. I saw that as the bold, adventurous choice. I had been in France for a number of years, spoke French well and would be able to continue to live in France with the first offer. The location was only two hours away from where I was then living. I saw that as the safe choice. In the end I went with the money. It was a grown-up job. I bought a car. It was a beautiful area. I had a great time. I don't regret my choice at all but often think about what kind of life I would have had had I picked the job in Rome.

This really spoke to me. I'm in my 20s (no kids but DCUM is a good source of information regardless!) and recently turned down a full-time, permanent government job in order to take a temporary contract with an international organization in Paris. I kind of regret not taking the safe option but I'm having such a great time here that I'm hoping it ends up being worth it.. It's so scary not knowing how things will work out, but hopefully if I work hard and keep being proactive something good will come along once my contract ends!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I spent my 20s living the good life in France. My job was ending and I had no prospects and did not want to go back to the US. I was despondent. Then suddenly not one but two offers materialized: the first was for a super-high paying, long-lasting, non-teaching job at an international organization in Geneva, the second was teaching French at the American school in Rome for one year for a maternity leave replacement. I had never lived in Italy but had studied Italian and wanted to improve it. I saw that as the bold, adventurous choice. I had been in France for a number of years, spoke French well and would be able to continue to live in France with the first offer. The location was only two hours away from where I was then living. I saw that as the safe choice. In the end I went with the money. It was a grown-up job. I bought a car. It was a beautiful area. I had a great time. I don't regret my choice at all but often think about what kind of life I would have had had I picked the job in Rome.

This really spoke to me. I'm in my 20s (no kids but DCUM is a good source of information regardless!) and recently turned down a full-time, permanent government job in order to take a temporary contract with an international organization in Paris. I kind of regret not taking the safe option but I'm having such a great time here that I'm hoping it ends up being worth it.. It's so scary not knowing how things will work out, but hopefully if I work hard and keep being proactive something good will come along once my contract ends!

PP good for you! Wish I'd made some different choices when I was younger.

[Anonymous]

I don't know if this is a decision, but I guess I made the decision to tell. Anyway, telling my then boyfriend, now husband that I had just been raped. Probably the hardest conversation in my life.

But- how he handled the situation made me know I had found one of the best men on the planet. I knew then I wanted to marry him.

[Anonymous]

To not cut off ties with my father after he changed the locks on my family home without telling me. I am proud of myself that I never restricted his access to my children. He has a distant but pleasant relationship with them. I didn't allow my incredible dislike of him to interfere with the grandparent/grandchildren relationship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:* Whether to stay with a 2x cheating spouse. Made the wrong decision, but made the right one when it was a 3x cheating spouse.

* Whether to take on a multiple murderer as a client, under heavy pressure from my firm--the only question was whether he should get the death penalty, which I am against, but I turned it down because I wouldn't feel physically safe with him anywhere near me. Do not regret in the least.

'

Good for you PP for turning down that client. One of the reasons I absolutely do not date trial lawyers even when they ask me out, is because I worry about their person values while practicing law.

[Anonymous]

Maintaining no contact with my mentally ill parents. Cutting them off was easy and a relief. Maintaining the distance has been hard emotionally not because I miss them (never have in the almost five years of estrangement), but because I have had so many milestones that have brought home how sad I am not to have parents like others do.

[Anonymous]

Deciding to have a double mastectomy after diagnosis of breast cancer. Really happy with results and I don't have that sword hanging over my head