Recently Reddit user u/Ingenuiie asked the Reddit community: "What are your dating regrets?"
Folks didn't hold anything back, and revealed their deep relationship and dating regrets they still have to this day. I commend them for their honesty because their experiences definitely sounded pretty painful and traumatic on them.
So here are some eye-opening stories from people who'd probably take their dating/relationship decisions back in a heartbeat:
Warning: Some stories include topics of sexual assault. Please proceed with caution.
1. "So far my biggest regret was moving halfway across the country with someone, and when I was struggling to adjust to that location, they refused to move a few hours for me to a different location. That really hurt. It felt like I gave up so much for them, and it turned out they wouldn't do the same for me. I'll never move for love again."
"Another thing about this relationship, and a warning to others, is that if a person says they didn't spend enough time being single before y'all got together, just break it off so they can do their thing. While it might be hard to give up on something good, the feeling of regret for not getting to experience more opportunities and meet more people will constantly be in the back of their head."
2. "Taking my ex back after at first saying no — biggest regret of my life. He left me three weeks before our wedding, and left me absolutely destroyed for the past five years. I had a mental breakdown, struggled with anxiety, and the worst heartbreak that still pains me to this day."
3. "Not my personal dating regret, but I've seen it firsthand enough times. Some people have issues, and while these aren't dealbreakers themselves, you shouldn't enter a relationship for the purpose to be free therapy (or to fix them/date people who will fix you). People need to be in a place where they are able to date others, and not look for someone to fix them or prey on broken people. And if you are with someone who becomes 'too much baggage,' you can leave if it gets 'above your pay grade.' You have to make sure you are taken care of, too."
4. "Despite many warnings from people trying to help me, I put all my eggs in the same basket. I married young and devoted myself to someone thinking that devotion would always be reciprocated, but apparently, people change even if you don't. Always be prepared for the other shoe to drop, I guess is my advice. It's kinda cynical, I know, but recent experiences taught me a lesson I never wanted to learn."
5. "I should not have settled for someone I wasn't super compatible with just because I was lonely."
"This happened to me when I moved to a new city. It was great at first because I instantly had a fairly large friend-group and such, but I realized years later just how much I had actually passed up on and compromised on.
I'm still not sure I recognize myself anymore."
6. "I went on a great date recently — we really hit it off. We were at this bar until closing just talking, and he wanted to come back to my place. I thought: 'Hey, he seems really sweet and we are having a lot of fun together — why not?' We stayed up for hours talking and laughing, and wound up having sex. We continued talking even after that, and were up until 6 a.m.. The next day I wrote: 'Hey! Had a great time — I'd be happy to see you again.' He said he also had a great time and how fun I was, but he didn't want to date because he didn't 'feel it.' I was sad, but you can't help it. I asked if he wanted to be friends — days went by, he ended up just reading the message, and gave me no response."
7. "When people show you who they are, believe them. It seems so obvious, but we convince ourselves they are better than they really are. And maybe it’s not even them being an 'awful' person, but sometimes it's as simple as you’re not compatible, and you think time will make you as such. It just doesn’t work that way."
8. "I should have just fucking asked them out years earlier. It would have been a no, but then I'd have an opportunity to be hurt and get over it instead of pining away in a 'relationship cold war' for years. I'm over it now and we're still friends today, but I wasted a lot of time agonizing for, like, no reason."
"This is pretty much how my last relationship went, too. We were in a relationship for a couple of years, then she wasn't exactly sure what she wanted. But we lived together, so it was complicated — then we moved to separate places when we moved cities and it absolutely should have ended there (if not many months before then). She realized she needed me to be an emotional support blanket, so she didn't want to give me up. We finally broke things off when she moved to Europe, but even then, she kept calling me on a regular basis for nearly a year afterward to vent about whatever the hell. Christ, what a mess."
9. "Accepting how the person mistreated me, regardless of my personal feelings or mental health because I didn’t think I was worth anything better or that I could find anyone better. I regret not being okay with being alone sooner. If I had, I could have saved myself a lot of heartache — I experienced some dangerous situations because of it."
10. "I regret not telling my best friend I was in love with them. 'Protecting our friendship' was really me being a coward."
"As a someone who has dated his best friends, be happy that they were your friends. It hurts like hell if you lose them, and what's worse, you don't have your best friend there supporting you anymore."
11. "I remember coming home from college break one time and seeing my childhood friends. I was dating someone for six months at the time, and remember saying to my friends: 'Yeah, I’m seeing someone else. So, I don’t see us making it through the summer — especially because we're in a long-distance relationship.' We dated for another two years after that break, and the relationship just got more and more toxic as time went on. If I had actually listened to what I was saying and heeded my own inferred advice to end it, it would’ve saved both myself and her a lot of time and pain."
12. "I regret not ending relationships I was unhappy in sooner (like, years sooner)."
13. "I can't pinpoint the exact moment or reason behind it, but somewhere in my past relationship I had a moment where I thought: 'This relationship will definitely not be a long-term thing.' That should've been the moment where I jumped ship. Unfortunately, I didn't, and got dumped two weeks later because she had to focus on herself. Three weeks later, I saw her in the club kissing some other guy — fun times."
14. "There were a handful of girls when I was in high school I decided I wasn't super interested in, but it was clear to me they were flirting with me and I decided to just ignore that (I was friends with most of them, though). In hindsight, I wish I would have at least gone on a few dates or something. I think I was afraid the girls I was super into (that I had no chance with) would be like: 'Well, he's dating her, and then her, and then her — he must have commitment issues.' But in retrospect, I don't think it would have mattered. Hell, I might have even decided I liked them more than I thought. That being said, if I'm not interested in dating someone at all, I think it's good to set that boundary."
15. And: "Not researching the guy first. There was a guy I went on a few dates with last year — I really liked him, but he ended up dating someone else. A few nights ago I decided to find out his last name because he never told me. When I found his last name and looked him up online, I found articles about how he sexually assaulted a 7-year-old girl he was babysitting. The fucker only served four months. I dodged an absolute missile."
Note: Some stories have been edited for length and/or clarity.