While being hyper-focused on our own lives, we can forget what an important part we play in others’ lives, whether that’s a family member, friend, or even a stranger. We have the power to encourage, teach, or uplift someone with just one word or action. At the same time, one wrong move of ours can crush dreams and even ruin people’s lives.
Folks under this popular thread have been sharing how they accidentally sabotaged someone’s life without really meaning to and how they feel about it now. Scroll down to find the harrowing stories below, and don’t forget to upvote those that made you rethink your own life choices.
#1
Coworker would always talk about how “Jessica and I” were going to go here, or “Jessie and I” went there, or “Jess and I” got up to this, that, or the other.
One day I ran into him and his wife in the wild. He introduced her only as “my wife.” I, of course, said “Oh, Jessica. It’s nice to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you.”
Gentle reader, his wife’s name was not Jessica.
I feel nothing about it. He shouldn’t have been cheating on his wife. But if was going to, he shouldn’t have spent years telling me about Jessica then introduce his wife only as “my wife.”
Image source: pm_me_gnus, T.H. Chia
#2
I was working for a federal program and had a boss who hired her sister without disclosing to higher ups that it was her sister. (A disclosure required by the program.) Boss then paid the sister 2x the usual rate for the job and sister was logging a lot of extra work hours that she hadn’t actually been working. I only found out because my boss insisted I needed to do the time sheet inputs for her because she couldn’t be bothered. Boss told me to take any questions to Boss’s boss and left for the day.
I noticed the discrepancy immediately, and went to boss’s boss to let them know there was an issue with time tracking vs scheduling “on her sister’s time sheet” and wanted to know what I should do. The sister thing was news to Boss’s boss and then the discrepancy triggered an investigation that uncovered a whole bunch of other misuse of government funding. Boss lost her job, the FBI got involved, and Boss eventually ended up with some massive fines and jail time.
Knowing what I know now, I would accidentally report her again.
Image source: St3phiroth, Mikhail Nilov
#3
When I was in high school, I accidentally ran a red light and hit another car. The other car was totaled, and I later learned I broke the driver’s hip.
I was a young high school kid at the time. The male cop walked up to my car carrying a license plate, and I started crying, “are you taking my license away”. And he responded with a very warm and fatherly, “no honey. That guy is undocumented, if he wasn’t in the country you wouldn’t have hit him. This is all his fault”.
Turns out he was living with his adult daughter, and took the car across one street to the grocery store, and I hit him on his way back.
I totaled the family car, broke his hip and he got deported.
I ran a red light and got nothing. No punishment. Not even a ticket.
I am so sorry.
Image source: Itsyellow, AS Photography
#4
I do photography and videography at Weddings. This particular wedding half the guests spoke a language I am not fluent in and it was before AI translations existed. The mother of the bride said something derogatory about the groom’s mom in her native language and I included it in their video because she was smiling when she said it.
Turns out the groom’s mom spoke multiple languages.
Image source: Sufficient_Bake6862, Rene Terp
#5
My good friend was scheduled to have surgery when it was discovered she had an aneurysm. I was with her at the hospital with her family and right before she was taken away, she handed me her phone and said she wanted me to keep it until she was in recovery.
She ended up dying on the table, she was a heavy smoker for 20+ years and that doctor couldn’t find any good tissue to graft to save her. I turned her phone back on and handed it to her husband. It was maybe 24 hours after her death when we discovered that she had been having an affair for years, had been embezzling money from the business to provide for her boyfriend and signed over a car to him that he was supposedly still paying for. It broke all of us, and I still have unresolved feelings towards her for putting me in that position. I think she knew I would figure it out and expected me to cover for her. I love and miss you Amy but you’re a POS for doing that to your family.
Image source: Trin_42, Alena Darmel
#6
I suggested a kid I knew at school to consider joining the military and using the GI bill later in life after he wasn’t able to get accepted to a college or university. He thought it was a fantastic idea so he went for it.
Dudes convoy hit a IED on his first deployment. He survived but has a litany of health problems. I feel terrible for suggesting it.
Image source: FormerStuff, Mick Latter
#7
Not me, but my husband. He’s the reason my parents are divorced.
When my husband and I were engaged, I drove to work and when I got there, instead of my car turning off like normal, it sounded like it just *died*. Let out it’s last breath and was gone. I called my fiance and he drove over, had my car towed to a shop and got it looked at. He did all of this while I was at work.
I later told my mom about this and she was floored. “You mean, he just took care of it?” “He wasn’t upset? He wasn’t irritated to have to take care of it?”… “if that happened to me, your dad would take care of it, but he would be pissed and find a way to blame me.”
My mom left my dad a week later. To be fair, this was their *second* divorce. But my mom saw everything so clearly that day.
Image source: raybaythebayb, Timur Weber
#8
I work in a public library and, because of how our book hold system works, I once accidentally informed some poor guy that he was likely getting a divorce.
His wife had placed several DIY divorce books on hold and they had a shared library account. When I called their landline phone number (the only one on the account) to tell them that their book holds were in, he answered the phone and, when I explained why I was calling, he asked what the book titles were. With out thinking, I rattled them all off. “The Michigan Divorce Book,” “The Divorce Book: What Every Michigan Married Man or Woman Needs to Know,” etc. I think there were four or five of them altogether, so it seemed pretty inevitable that he was headed for the single life.
We don’t typically share our patron’s private account information with anyone, including what books they have checked out or on hold, but if they are sharing an account with another person, we have no idea which person on that account has placed the hold, and sharing an account means that all the account info is shared freely amongst all the people on the account.
I know it’s not my fault that this guy got a divorce, but that’s a heck of a way to find out and I *do* feel bad about that.
Image source: aubrey_25_99, Tima Miroshnichenko
#9
I accidentally stumbled upon a 2.5M Ponzi scheme when I was in finance. The person involved wound up committing s*****e once the Feds got involved.
Image source: donorcycle, AS Photography
#10
Many years ago I was going to the track (harness races) and I asked a guy, Alan, if he wanted to tag along. He was 17 I think. He’d never even seen a horse before. Each race I would tell him what I thought and he’d either bet $2 or skip the race. $2 was important to him.
Then in a late race there was a horse named Minya Mitzvah. He got all excited. “A Jewish horse! I gotta bet him!” The horse was awful and I told him so. Went off at 30-1.
This was early winter and there was a heavy fog obscuring the far side of the track. Off they go and disappear into the fog. Even the announcer is saying “your guess is as good as mine.” They’re in the fog for a long time and finally the first horse emerges. Alone. We’re waiting for the rest of the pack, which eventually the field emerges, but the lead horse is way out in front. Who knows what happened in that fog. We can now see the colors and sure enough it’s Minya Mitzvah. It cruises home and Alan reveals that he bet $10. So now this kid suddenly has more money than he’d ever seen in his life. His brain is doing cartwheels.
He was hooked. From that day on he became a degenerate gambler, always chasing that high. Years later he told me “I can’t stop. Even if you gave me a million bucks I’d be broke in a year.” All because of a Jewish horse and me casually asking him if wanted to tag along.
Image source: ParadisePete, Emre Uğurlar
#11
Temporarily: I was looking after my friends’ apartment while they were on vacation. There was building work outside and someone hit the downpipe of the toilet, which broke the ceramic toilet bowl, flooding the bathroom. I cleaned it all up then complained to the building management and asked for the toilet to be replaced before they got back, which set off a series of events that led to them being evicted.
It turned out they were illegally subletting without knowing it.
I felt like absolute s**t at the time but they ended up moving back to Australia because if it, and living a good life there, so I’m ok with it now.
Image source: ScreamingDizzBuster, MART PRODUCTION
#12
I was pissed a kid in 5th grade kept copying off my tests so I went and told the teacher and after i bombed a test on purpose and they compared answers it was determined that kid was indeed copying off me.
The kid was tested and it was determined they were illiterate and they were made to go back a grade. I don’t really feel bad because f**k that guy and hopefully he knows how to read now.
Image source: smr312, Tima Miroshnichenko
#13
Twenty years ago I was a computer tech at university. One day my colleague has told me that she is reviewing a very interesting master’s thesis and asked me whether I could find some authors mentioned in the references. Back then everything was either not online or not easily searcheable, so doing so required some google fu. I have followed some obscure links and found a copy of the article that was referenced in one of the chapters. It turned out the whole chapter was basically a single citation – the student has only changed all the ‘I’s, i.e. instead of ‘I have researched’ it was ‘the author has researched’ etc. But of course that is not how it works…
That was literally on the eve of the defense of the thesis… It was a big scandal in the department. The student was kicked out – but given that they formally has finished their education, they could not repeat the year or anything like that – to receive the master’s degree they would have to essentially begin studies at a different department.
Of course, it was not my ‘fault’… Still, being so instrumental in the demise of that person (even if completely deserved) made me feel quite strange.
Image source: JabberwockPL, Thirdman
#14
This isn’t my story but an old coworker. And it’s timely because it’s 9/11 today.
Said ex co worker was a manager at a different company and at the time managed a team member who was not cutting it. He gave her lots of chances and opportunities but was failing miserably at the job. He made the decision to fire her. She was terribly upset – loved the job/company. Begged him to stay. He had to say no.
Fast forward a few weeks later, she gets a new job opportunity – across the country. Needs to fly out for the interview. She was on one of the planes that hit the Twin Towers, on her way to that interview.
He obviously had no control over any of this but felt deep regret for a long time. What if he waited just a few more weeks to fire her? Delayed her search for a new job, and then she wouldn’t have been on that plane.
That story always sticks with me.
Image source: CurlyMom7
#15
When I was younger and in my party days, I slept with a guy I met on a night out. Nothing untoward except in the morning I saw his phone ping and his lock screen was of him, a woman, and a small kid. I questioned him and whilst he initially denied anything, he eventually admitted he was married “but going through a rough patch”. He asked me not to say anything to his wife.
I was pissed as he’d lied to me about being single, and I now wanted nothing to do with him. So, once he’d left, I found his wife on social media and told her what had happened. She was annoyed at me (rightly so) but thanked me for telling her, saying she suspected something as this wasn’t the first time he’d gone out by himself and told her he stayed at a friend’s.
I never heard from her again, and I’d blocked the guy’s number and on social media, so I soon forgot about it. Years later I found out she had kicked him out and filed for a no-contact divorce the day I told her, he was caught drink driving after another night out having slept in his car, then lost his (high paid) job and was now living with his parents, who were thoroughly unimpressed at his fall from grace.
Morally I don’t feel too bad as whilst I might have been the one who told the wife, he was the one who literally f****d up.
Image source: FMLitsSML, Polina Zimmerman
#16
He was f*****g around at work, never getting s**t done, always calling out for b******t reasons, etc. I ended up stuck doing all his work, so once when he called out for “a splitting, puking migraine”, then posted on Facebook about being at a concert, I narc’ed.
They fired him a few weeks later and since his wife refused to work, they ended up losing their house.
Image source: Time_Ocean, Anna Shvets
#17
Not directly, but a friend came to me once to casually ask me about another friend and how they were handling their new job. The friend with the new job had been ecstatic because it was a huge opportunity for their career in an over saturated field. It was essentially their big break.
I told the first friend that they were loving it and handling it just fine and they asked if they were like stressed or anything. I offhandedly said something about them having friction with one of their coworkers but that they were doing fine with it.
What I didn’t know is that friend asking me these questions was friends *with* the coworker and used what I told that friend to help get my friend fired for “creating a toxic work environment.” Not only was it very high school drama, but it ruined the trajectory of my friend’s career completely and they’re still struggling today to find meaningful employment despite this happening four years ago.
Image source: kindnesskangaroo, Marta Klement
#18
We kept having boxes of parts “lost” when they were shipped to customers and manufacturers; about $20K worth. I was in charge of operations so I had to figure it out and keep it quiet since we didn’t know if it was one of our employees or not.
I installed a GPS tracker in a box and had to ship it like 5x back and forth between two of our locations until I finally got it figured out. It was an orchestration between one of our employees and a FedEx driver.
Long story short, our HR fired our employer, and alerted FedEx who did the same. Our company did not press any civil charges, and the DA declined to prosecute because the evidence was very thin.
I thought nothing of it for about two years, but then a fellow employee linked me to a news article that the former FedEx employee had recently died from a d**g o******e while homeless. I don’t know if my solving our theft problem directly caused it, but I’m sure it contributed to their downward spiral.
Image source: LA_Nail_Clippers, Tima Miroshnichenko
#19
I unknowingly introduced a really good friend to the most toxic person I’ve ever come across in my life..
My college buddy Chris (fake name) and I both had a Thursday afternoon off and decided to hit up a happy hour. It was early, there were only about a dozen people in the bar including us and a group of 3 girls.
One of the girls was 100% Chris’s type (tall, thin, dark hair, outgoing) but he was a shy guy and didn’t have the courage to strike up a conversation.
30min and some liquid courage later, I take it upon myself to start chatting with the girls and specifically introduced Chris to the tall, dark haired girl Veronica (fake name for this story). She and her friends were all single, our age, in a nursing program at a cross town school and seemed like nice gals.
Chris, myself and the girls ended up shutting down the bar that night and by 10PM, Chris & Veronica were fully sucking face and acting like the rest of us didn’t exist. I was happy for him, but got a little nervous when they ended up leaving together and her friends started joking about ‘not knowing what he was in for’. Whatever, he’s an adult and far be it from me to rain on his parade.
After that night, Chris effectively disappeared off the map. The only times I would see him was in class or at that same bar with Veronica. The dude just seemed off, but refused to talk about it and insisted he was happy. Veronica on the hand? Refused to let him out of her site (would make him wait outside the bathroom for her).
Surprise surprise, turns out Veronica was a complete sociopath/narcissist/straight up con-artist who bled Chris dry both emotionally and financially. Highlights include (but are not limited to) fake pregnancies, forcing him to cut off friends, demanding he drop classes to fit her schedule and manipulating him into paying her rent/bills/lifestyle.
Now, Chris came from a nice upper-middle class who he was super close with and apparently they rightfully had some suspicions about this girl. I had just figured he was head over heels for Veronica and ignoring us all, but I knew something was wrong when his Mom called me and asked if I had spoken to Chris lately.
Turns out he had drained his bank account and started wracking up significant debt on the credit card he shared with parents, buying crazy expensive jewelry/make up/clothes for Veronica. That was enough for his parents to drive the 4hours from their hometown to stage a mini intervention.
In the end Chris had to drop out of school, move back home and his parents ended up getting a restraining order against Veronica. His parents forced him to get a job to pay off the $3K he accrued and ended up forfeiting his partial football scholarship.
I lost touch with him once he moved back home, but I sometimes wonder how his life would’ve turned out if we didn’t go to happy hour at Kelly’s on that Thursday..
Image source: sloppy_sheiko, cottonbro studio
#20
When I was 15 my friends and I went to a Cincinnati Reds baseball game with a large group of high schoolers at old Riverfront Stadium. My friends and I snuck off from the group and convinced a guy to buy us beer. When he handed the beer to us a plain cloths police officer came up and flashed his badge and started to ask questions. When the guy was not forthcoming with answers and would not show his ID the cop pulled out his cuffs and a tussle began as he tried to put them on the guy who bought us beer. As the tussle began, my friends and I took the opportunity to run and re-joined our large group in the upper seating on the opposite side of the stadium. I’m not sure if it ruined his life, but him buying beer for us certainly ruined his night and I’m sure costs him a bunch of legal fees. I wish I could tell him I’m sorry.
Image source: centexgoodguy, Pixabay
#21
I don’t take full blame, but I didn’t help. Had a boss. He was not a good boss. F*****g employees, never came to work, raging alcoholic, good ol’ boy type that didn’t understand why I was so good at my job with my personality type (sales). He was a made man, though. Basically, he was kept around because a connection with a high level executive. Anyways, he was still on thin ice because he would regularly get wasted at company events and start fights or whatever. Still, he did advocate for me at times.
He pissed me off and when his boss came to town (who was also a piece of s**t, but was forced to tolerate my boss), I unloaded. Let him know he was f*****g employees, that he never worked, and that he was drinking again. A week or two later my boss gets fired. New guy comes in who sucks maybe just a little less.
Heard a couple years back my old boss I probably helped get fired died of liver disease at 43. Rumor is he was begging to just be allowed to die. Year later the executive who always bailed him out also died. Not sure of the cause.
Image source: Sisyphus-Smashed, August de Richelieu
#22
I outed a school friend accidently after stumbling across his photo on gay dating website. I told my brother about it while talking over the phone and I wasn’t aware he had me on speaker. His roommate basically told everyone. When I heard her in the background, I knew the secret was out. I felts so bad that I outed someone. I died a little inside that day. This happened 20 years ago now. I don’t know if I ruined his life, but his girlfriend left him, his friend group was now aware he was trying to suck D at gay dot com. It really wasn’t cool. I really felt sooo bad.
Image source: CP066, Maria Pashkova
#23
I divorced my ex wife when I found out about her chronic cheating after dealing with years of her alcoholism. She immediately tried to get with the guy she was cheating with, who was married with kids. During a drunken fight between them, she called the cops and filed a false report against him (she had tried with me previously. Was proven fake). In his drunken state, he panicked and k**led himself.
My ex had no remorse, instead posted on social media looking for sympathy. Now 2 kids don’t have a dad and a wife lost a s****y husband. I only feel bad for the surviving family. I have no doubt I saved my own life by leaving her without trying to work things out. In the following month she tricked a guy into marrying her, got knocked up, bought a house. 12 months later he reached out to me on Facebook asking for divorce lawyer advice and asking me to testify against her. She signed away her rights as a mother when she saw my name on the court paperwork.
Image source: FigoTheAWD
#24
I was newly invited to a friend group and ended up expelling a core member via exposing her anti-vaxx status.
I had offered to have a hang out with our young babies but mentioned that we don’t do playdates with unvaccinated children.
She went on a tangent about injuries and pauedo scientific nonsense, which stunned me to be honest. This whole group has kids and are all very risk averse when it comes to childhood diseases.
Mutual friend asked how the playdate went and I forwarded screenshots.
So she asked her directly if she was exposing her immune compromised friend and their critically I’ll child without their knowledge and consent at parties and it went nuclear. She was unanimously ghosted by everyone and I felt like s**t about it.
Image source: Frostyarn
#25
I had an upstairs neighbor in apartments years ago. He was from a warm-weather climate, and one year it snowed and iced up, etc. One morning he tried to walk down the outside stairs normally, not accounting for the thick ice. He fell all the way down the metal stairs to the bottom. Injured, he knocked on my door for help. He wanted me to drive him to the hospital, but I decided to call the ambulance and let the pros deal with it. I didn’t think about him potentially not having insurance; I just wanted him to get care. Well, I never saw him again. The cops came looking for him and I realized that he may have had no insurance to pay either for the ambulance or the care at the hospital. Today I feel bad because I could at least have saved him the cost of the ambulance. I suppose that he fled somewhere to avoid tens of thousands of dollars he couldn’t pay.
Image source: RockysDetail, RDNE Stock project
#26
I went to my husband’s best friend’s wedding with my husband. I had only met him once as he lived in another city. We had gotten married in August and his best friend was getting married in October. Anyways, at the wedding I told the bride that it was so nice to see her at their wedding when they had just been to mine.
Huge mistake, my husband never thought to tell me, and honestly I was in my wedding daze. The bride did not attend our wedding. He had brought another woman.
Image source: MysteriousCrew3732, Eko Agalarov
#27
I work in Human Resources and way back when I was new and naive, I had a home address change request for an employee come across my desk. I couldn’t read the handwriting and wanted to be sure I put in the correct new address, so I called their house and their wife answered. I asked her about it and much to my surprise she said “what the hell are you talking about?!” The employee came up to me a few days later and said “I didn’t tell her I was moving out yet.” 😟.
Image source: OutOfPlace186, Kaboompics.com
#28
I took video and pics for the yearbook at a high school assembly. It was some sort of DARE deal don’t do d***s, strong men ripping phone books and do all sorts of strong man things.
Took it home to review the tape (late 90’s) and get pics developed. Mom saw it, asked for copies (as she paid for the pics and the film to be digitized and would be reimbursed by the school). No problem. Turns out she worked with one of them. She in Human Resources, him in whatever capacity (keeping it vague). He was out on worker’s compensation and disability, saying he couldn’t work or really move meaningfully in his life. He was almost claiming to be partially bedridden.
That was not the case. Sorry random strong guy.
Image source: Nopef**kthis, Airam Dato-on
#29
I was a volunteer firefighter a while back.
Pager went off for a medical assist (we often had to help ambulance with patient lifts etc).
I opted to give my spot on the truck to the rookie we had in training, figured a lift assist, he could help the guys and get that mental boost of being on the team. No biggy.
I shouldn’t have. Patient was an older guy who had been smoking in his wheelchair, wearing synthetics, and with oxygen thru nose. Caught fire. Was a lift assist to get patient onto the helicopter. Didn’t survive the flight.
The rookie had to see that as his first call. He left brigade shortly after. Some s**t you really can never unsee, and he was just a high schooler trying to do something good for the community. Hope hes OK these days.
Ive seen alot that’ll never leave me either, but I have come to accept that is how life and death can be, and I was prepared the moment the helmet was on for whatever came at me. Kid probably was his first experience of that and unprepared for it.
Image source: waikato_wizard, Anna Shvets
#30
I told my girlfriend we should stop by starbucks on our way to my job and I got her a tea for her sore throat. The lid came off and she spilled it all over herself. Two weeks hospitalized, skin graft surgery, and I’m of zero use to her. She’s probably going to have permanent scarring.
Image source: 52Tomate
#31
I was at a friend’s house with my boyfriend when we were 14. My friend and I are white, my boyfriend was black. Her racist dad happened to see him kiss me. He told us to leave. My friend badly wanted me to stay, but you know, it wasn’t my house. I couldn’t insist on staying, though now I wish I’d asked her to come with us. Maybe it would have made a difference.
We left. Her dad went apes**t. Her mom came home from work to find him with his hands around her throat. Her mom separated from him and she and my friend lived somewhere else for awhile until my friend figured it out and dated an older guy and let him get her pregnant so he’d have to marry her. He married her and joined the Army. She had two kids from him and divorced him.
The last time I talked to her she was dating a guy who was “nice except when he was drinking.” She probably married him since she has a different last name now. Her daughter has been in and out of the court system. Her son died of a h****n o******e. He was dealing it, too. Her grandson is in prison for m**der.
ETA: I appreciate the kindnesses, but I doubt I’ll ever shake the feeling that I had a hand in the way things turned out.
Image source: Senator_Bink
#32
Big move on a busy road a while ago. Lots of moving parts. Permits. Store downstairs. Reserved parking. Just an incredibly stressful amount of management. When the day comes me and my roomies were incredibly stressed because if one thing goes wrong, the whole house of cards collapses. It seemed, however, to be smooth sailing. The only thing that was annoying, was that cars kept parking on our reserved space (before we got our moving vans there). Most left numbers we could call, so we did and they’d usually leave.
Right before my dad is supposed to show up, four cars park in the reserved spot. They’d left no number. Their owners weren’t in sight. There was no way for me to get any of these cars out of there. To be clear: this meant that there was nowhere for my dad to park the moving van in this incredibly busy road. If he couldn’t, we couldn’t move my stuff, which was completely blocking the already very tight hallway and first part of the stairwell. Moving my stuff back up four floors was out of the question. I had like 40 minutes to solve this so I just called the cops. They show up within 15 minutes, start writing down fines and tell me they’ll get a tow truck. Half an hour later tow truck shows up, along with a couple of the car’s owners. Big arguments between the cops and the owners.
All of a sudden, reinforcements show up. Like six other cops. Apparently they’d seen d***s laying in one of the cars illegally parked there. And the dude seemed to be working in the hookah bar across the street. So they detain the guy with the d***s and wait around for an hour to get a warrant to raid the f*****g hookah place. Meanwhile, one cop is holding back traffic (including trams in two directions) so my dad can parallel park the van). Other civilians are still arguing. It’s f*****g chaos and I’m just standing there so f*****g stressed out about what’s going on. Suddenly, one of the cops asks me if the sandwich place downstairs in the building always has their outdoor seating out like this. Apparently that was also illegal so they start getting into that.
Four people got pretty big fines and towing costs, the sandwich place has no more outdoor seating, the hookah place is closed and I’m sure the d**g user was arrested.
Just cuz they parked in my spot.
Image source: Friendly_District547
#33
In high school, we were putting away big set pieces after the talent show, and we stored one large item under a stairwell. This particular piece was very oblong, and stuck out the side/partially obstructing a walk way. It wasn’t a high traffic area, and we were in a rush to move it out, so we just left it as is.
I later heard that a friend tripped on it, busting her face open and needed dental work… I don’t think it was ever connected that I was one of the people who put it there….
Image source: jocall56, Andrea Piacquadio
#34
Oh man I have one. When I was like 19 I was riding a bicycle to work and got hit by a landscaping truck pulling out of a gas station. The two guys were so apologetic, helped me up, checked out the bike, offered to give me a ride, everything. Nice guys, and I was ok, just stunned really. Well some lady in the parking lot called the police. Turns out they didn’t have documents. Cops arrested them both and impounded the truck. And then gave me a ticket for riding my bike wrong. I still feel bad cus if I had just got my s**t together faster and left they could have left before the cops got there and ruined their s**t. Total time was less than 5 minutes from hit to cops. They only show up that fast when you don’t want them I guess!
Image source: Cespenar
#35
I made 2 different women realize the 2 different relationships they were in..they were not happy or satisfied.
One was about to be married and one was married for at least 20 years.
Image source: Small-Storm8536
#36
I told my toddler it was bedtime when it was bedtime. Ruined her life.
I feel fine about it because she needs to sleep. Just wish she was less shouty.
Image source: pamsteropolous
#37
I was once the tool which got someone’s career stalled, but I do not feel entirely responsible.
I was in therapy at an agency, and knew two friends who were therapists working there. I also had a 3rd friend who had just committed s*****e. At the funeral of our mutual friend, one of the people I knew from the mental health agency gossiped about private and confidential information they had snooped into the dead person’s file to read.
At my next therapy session I was deeply grieving the s*****e loss, and outraged about the gossip from the dead person’s file. So, my therapist pressured me to reveal the name of who gossiped, and I refused.
Two days later I got a phone call from my second friend who worked as a MSW therapist at the clinic — and who had absolutely NO idea about what was going down as we had not even spoken in a year or so — and she asked me why she was being questioned and possibly disciplined due to this gossiping.
So, I was forced into a position of having to reveal who indeed had been unprofessional. And that was the end of her career, and it was handled so beautifully that to this day she has no idea it was me who reported her. The incident happened in 1990. I’ve often wanted to tell her, but feel it is best to leave as is. She really did it to herself.
Image source: VarietyOk2628, Felicity Tai
#38
When I was in high school me and a friend of mine were trying to go to an MLB game. It was right before smartphones and his car didn’t have GPS so we got lost going there.
Lost touch with him for a couple years before seeing him at a house party and brought it up laughing about how we got lost. Turns out he didn’t tell his parents where we were going. His mom saw the toll bills from when we got lost and thought that it was his dad using the car to cheat on her and that his dad slept on the couch for a year before my friend realized our excursion was a contributing factor to his parents fighting.
When he told me the story it seemed like they had reconciled and I’m sure the toll bill wasn’t the only thing, but it was pretty wild finding out that two dumb kids on summer break trying to go to a baseball game played a part in a marriage potentially breaking down.
Image source: Tc237
#39
A few years ago I accidentally leaked a private message at work that caused my colleague to get fired… I didn’t mean to, but it really still haunts me.
Image source: PhantomVoltage43
#40
I don’t think it was his life but it cost him a job. Coworker said he was going off for bereavement saying a relative passed away.
The next day he was off & I worked directly with his sister in law and she wasn’t off. I offered condolences she asked wtf I was talking about. I told her about the relative she got on her phone texting and said nobody died. I thought oh s**t and walked away.
It started a big investigation because company pays you for bereavement days. He got fired for fraud.
Image source: Googlemyahoo75, ANTONI SHKRABA production
#41
I worked at a blockbuster in the early 2000s. The rule was you could have a card and you could have a note for one other person on your account to rent for you, like a spouse.
A woman comes up to the counter with three kids in tow and a bunch of kids movies. Gives me the card, says “Harry” (names changed). I pull up the account, there’s a note that says “Julie” can rent for him. So I say, “Julie?”
And he stops dead and says, “I’m Kim.”
She leaves the movies, walks out with her kids, and I see her get into a minivan with a man and I can hear her screaming through the vehicle and the intervening wall.
Image source: shaidyn
#42
I got an incredible, wonderful man and dedicated father and colleague made redundant.
This guy had been in the company for decades and had been shuffled around departments when his job would be automated and move to the next. But we all loved him and wanted him around so any gap in a team he could fill he’d get. Until i opened my stupid mouth.
We were getting paid a pittance because our roles were initially entry but we’d modernised the systems so much that all of my staff practically held high degrees in our software and were now irreplaceable, and I was the change manager snd super user so I knew everything. I threatened to walk if my team weren’t paid more. They wanted to keep me so found the budget for our pretty small raises by eliminating him.
Then they gave me a bonus for it. I bought his family a table tennis setup. I hope he found another place to light up every day but I still feel terrible.
Image source: alexlp, Andrea Piacquadio
#43
My friend and her mom were fighting on a really important day for my friend. Some other friends and I were there to celebrate with her, and we were all concerned. Her mom wasn’t very nice to her on good days, and she was drunk that day. She was acting very erratically, and it was worse than we’d ever seen her. I told my friend to come stay at my house that night to let her mom cool off, we’d go to uni together the next day, and then she would go home after. She hesitated but eventually agreed, so we spent the night at mine and then went to classes. She got home the next evening and found her mom passed away, possibly after taking a lot of her pills…
I still feel like it was my fault. I often wonder how things would have turned out if I hadn’t insisted, where we would both be in life.
Image source: PumpkinPlz
#44
I was the cause of a car accident, which resulted in one person being stuck in the wheelchair for the rest of her life. I fell asleep while driving after work and drifted into the oncoming traffic, because I chatted to long with my girlfriend at that time.
How I feel? Although it’s been 10 years I still cry on a regular basis driven by guilt.
Image source: Cute_Committee6151, Mike Bird
#45
My sister in law used to date this nepalese dude. They dated for more than a year.
I was talking to a friend about her and mentioned her boyfriend. She said her cousin also dated a nepalese dude. I mentioned he was working in engineering and she replied her cousin’s boyfriend too. Then I asked his name and they both had the same name. We got suspicious and checked photos and indeed, it was the same man. Dude had been dating her cousin for 3 years, talking marriage and children. She was devastated when she learned he had been cheating on her for more than a year.
Image source: Doumtabarnack, Austin Guevara
#46
I broke up with my boyfriend our senior year of high school and he SPIRALED. The breakup wasn’t completely out of blue though. We were definitely becoming different people and had very different plans for after high school. We were straightedge (hardcore music scene) and neither of us had even drank alcohol or smoked weed let alone touched hard d***s. He started drinking very heavily. Showed up drunk to school, was known for taking random pills at parties, all sorts of stuff. A lot of people villainize me and blamed me for it. After high school was the worst. He become homeless and started smoking crack. He was so destructive and lost a lot of friends and support.
In our early 30s he cleaned up, went to a great college and moved across the country. He became very religious too. We caught up a few years ago through Instagram. I expressed how I always felt bad for being the catalyst to his dark times. He said not to and that this was God’s plan for him.
Image source: anon
#47
My very best friend and I had drifted apart after school, once we both got our first serious jobs. They hit me up outta the blue one day asking if they could borrow $45 to pay a ticket, saying they get paid in a few days. Was always good for it in the past, thought nothing of it and gave em $100.
Went to hang out with some mutal friends maybe an hour later and one of em says “did you hear what happend to X? They just got out of rehab”
“rehab? for what?”
“h****n, they were doing it for years and nobody knew”
I freaked out and called their mom, “Hey Mrs. X, I had no idea but they hit me up outta the blue asking for money to pay a ticket and I gave them $100. I’m so sorry”, she sighs and says “Oh honey. If it wouldn’t have been you, it would have been one of the others”
The h****n they bought with that money k**led them. Their tolerance was gone and they did what they were used to. I honestly do not blame myself at all, in hindsight they did an excellent job hiding it. Think about them every time I hear a song I know they’d have loved.
Image source: name_it_goku
#48
I ran over the neigbours dog and unfortunately the little guy died. This made my neigbour very sad for a while and his wife was already weary of him and this tipped her toward divorce. He worked for her dad’s car dealership, so he gets laid off. She owned the house, so he is homeless. So instead of having a job and driving a nice car and living in a decent house and living with his wife, his kids and his dog, he is renting my brothers basement.
He ended up doing better after a few years and got a house. His kids and I got him a puppy as a house warming gift.
Image source: CFCalgaryMan
#49
Helping an ex get out of a bad relationship. I tried to bring her to my place for a while but when she was picking up her stuff she got into a physical altercation with her boyfriend at the time. I saw them rolling around throwing punches at each other through the front door and it made me freeze. Without knowing what to do I called my mother who said I should call the cops so I did. After they investigated the situation, I saw my ex being dragged out in cuffs. Turned out she was the aggressor in the situation and the only one with no bruises or wounds, and she had to spend the weekend in jail. That situation caused her entire family to move a few hundred miles away to a new city and I heard she had lost her job and almost lost custody of her kids. I still think about that situation sometimes….
Image source: kame4prez, Eyüpcan Timur
#50
Coworker went on a road trip to Seattle. I jokingly asked him to bring back some H****n. I was not a user and didn’t actually want any, it was clearly a joke.
Well, the day that he’s supposed to be back he calls me and says he’s running late and might not be there on time. So, I don’t get concerned when he’s not in at his scheduled time. An hour late and I call him again. No answer.
He doesn’t come in that night. Calls the next day. He was speeding excessively to get to work, still in another state, and got pulled over. He had some w**d in the car, just a personal amount, but still not great. The problem was he had a very small amount of Tar H****n he was bringing me back as a joke.
That joke ruined his life. He had to move to that state in hopes of avoiding a charge for transporting d***s over state lines. Since he had two separate kinds of d***s they pinned a dealing charge on him. It didn’t end up in jail time, but long probation and he had to live in a s****y place for years.
I apologized to him and felt terrible. He never once blamed me or had any animosity. He knew it was his choice and that he had f****d up. I still felt bad about it.
Image source: jasenzero1
#51
I almost started a forest fire by accident once. I was burning a burn pile, and I didn’t take enough safety measures. The wind started gusting, which started the grass around it on fire. I kept putting it out and the wind would gust again, igniting it all, over and over. I rushed to the house, called the fire department on myself, and rushed back outside with hoses, connecting many together to reach the fire. I got the fire put out after about half an acre burned. The fire department came after it was out. It would have reached the trees before they got there. I almost caused a major fire. I felt terrible about it, of course. My hands were blistered from trying to put it out with a shovel over and over.
The grass was green, but there was dead, dry, grass under it. Combined with the wind, it was just a nightmare.
Image source: LooCfur
#52
My childhood best friend and i were making a silly plan to sneak out of my room at night. we tied some sheets together to make a rope (movie-style) and lowered it out of my 3rd floor bedroom window. she volunteered to go first, and after she was fully outside of my window dangling in the air, the knots came loose. i watched her fall all the way down in slow motion and bounce off my water heater onto the grass. i RAN outside, fully expecting her to be unconscious (or worse). but she was unexpectedly fine and already up and walking towards my front door.
we swore ourselves to secrecy about this moment & never told anybody what happened because we were so embarrassed. it became something we joked about for awhile after (we did a lot of dumb/dangerous things as kids lol)
over the years we’ve grown apart, and now as adults she’s developed a lot of mental challenges she didn’t have before (memory issues, social skills, overall executive functioning). i think about her often & i can’t help but suspect her falling out of my window had something to do with it….. :(.
Image source: kushmaster2000
#53
It wasn’t an accident per se but I didn’t know what the outcome would be when I filled a sexual harassment complaint against a high level manager who worked in corporate for a grocery chain managing their remodels. He lost his job and his retirement benefits. He was VERY close to retiring. He was harassing EVERY young female associate and another manager actually encouraged us to file the complaint. He got what he deserved.
Image source: Time_Design5885
#54
Working in CPS for a while, a lot of people say I’ve ruined their lives. Granted, some I have, but I don’t think you should get to continue living as normal after SAing a child or t**turing multiple children. Most families, I was able to get resources in the home to help. There’s a couple that haunt me that I wish I had been more experienced, supported, and knowledgeable earlier in my career so I could’ve actually helped them.
One man shot himself (I don’t think he did it, I think it was a family member but I ain’t snitching) after being confronted with the evidence of years worth of him SAing a disabled child. That family was shattered, there was no possible happy outcome there.
Image source: amnotanyonecool
#55
I feel like if I hadn’t moved out of the state, my mom wouldn’t have overd**ed. And it might even be true, but my life is good now and there’s no way I could have stayed there anymore. But that’s a guilt I’ve lived with for ten years.
Image source: FionnaAndCake
#56
Started dating my therapist, one of her friends found out. Got very angry at her, we were broken up by then, but she still reported her to her professional order.
Now she’s losing her license, won’t be able to practice anymore.
Edit. I know everyone is saying this is her fault and all. But I still feel tremendous guilt, yes in the end the relationship was hurtful to me, I won’t go in to detail why. But my goal was to move on, the process the order went about on making a case against her was/is extremely invasive (pulling my medical records, calling my family, making me testify). I didn’t ask for any of this, I just wanted to move on. Her friend is using this against her to be spiteful, because she didn’t want to be her friend anymore. I just wanted to be left alone and not create even more hurt.
This is all still happening right now and I truly wish none of it was.
Image source: marslo
#57
I went into Middle school with an unfortunately earned reputation as a ruthless brawler amongst my classmates who I basically had beaten up every single male classmate at some point (I know, I was a stupid kid who could fight, forgive me). I had matured a bit though and realized fighting was stupid over the summer and regretted my past.
So as multiple elementary schools come together into one middle school.. one kid who was the mean kid at his elementary school.. wanted to fight me to prove he was tougher than me. But I refused to fight.
Over the course of a few weeks, he would give me flats (step on the back of my shoes), push me, poke me, etc.. anything to try to get me to fight. But I refused.
Finally, one day I just had enough and actually snapped.. and so we went at it.
Old lady teacher begged us to stop, so I did.. but he didn’t. Fast forward to principals office.. and I am let off scot free as it was my first fight in Middle School, I stopped when asked, teachers had noticed me putting up with this, etc.. and I was provoked. But then I learn he has been in multiple fights, was warned, and is now being sent to a boarding school by his parents. He started to cry.
I felt bad then.. and I feel bad now. But the kid was asking for it and it would have happened eventually as he just wasn’t going to stop. I do sometimes wonder if he turned out ok.. but I doubt it.
Image source: bdschuler
#58
This is a fun one. I thought I was doing the right thing. Back in high school I had a group of friends that I used to eat lunch with every day. We all lived in the same two or three neighborhood block radius so it made sense that we all hung out in school and out of school. We will call one of the guys Dan. Well one day at lunch a girl that was in my ROTC class came up to me with her boyfriend and asked to talk to me.
I said what’s on your mind? She says why do you hang out with that guy? And I said because he’s my friend. And she said you know he SA’d me right? And I said no, no one had ever said anything. Why didn’t anybody ever tell me? And she says I don’t know but I thought everybody knew. And I said well did you report it? And she said no because I didn’t think the police would do anything. And I said well when did this happen? She said about a month ago.
Later on in the day, I’m walking to a different class talking to another classmate of mine about the situation and how I was conflicted because I didn’t know whether to report it or not. She made the decision for me by pushing me into the office of the ROTC program leader as we were walking past. I almost fell lol. So I spilled everything I knew to him about the entire conversation. And he listens intently and is taking notes and he says OK. Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of everything.
Two or three days pass and nothing happens. Shortly after that I get called into the principal’s office with the principal, the ROTC program lead and two police officers. They were extremely nice to me. They basically said well we interviewed everybody involved and everybody, including the girl, agreed that nothing ever happened. Nobody was ever SA’d. I was really scared because I thought I was gonna get in trouble for making a false for a poured or lying or something even though I believe believed it to be the truth. I was a kid you know?
They said nope you’re not in trouble, you did the right thing by coming to us. We just wanted to let you know the results of everything that had happened. So it came out that she lied about that and a bunch of other s**t and she actually ended up leaving the state because she couldn’t go to school here anymore because people kept bullying her. I guess she said different things had happened in the past with different people and it came out that pretty much none of it was true. I don’t feel bad for what I did, but I certainly didn’t mean for that to happen because I thought I was doing the right thing.
Image source: P8ntballa00
#59
There was this guy from school who I sort of grew up with. We were in most classes together starting from kindergarten all the way to the end of high school. We weren’t friends, but maybe acquaintances? Never talked but were friendly with each other.
One day when I’m about… 25ish? He reached out over Facebook – we talked for a bit before he eventually asked if he could couch surf while he got his life together. I gave a wishy-washy answer because I wanted to help, but my younger sister (who knew his sibling) warned me not to. While I never had an issue with him in the past, I trusted my sisters judgment and eventually told him no.
About a year later there was a news article that he committed s*****e. I know I’m not THE reason his life turned, but I still feel pretty bad about it.
Image source: ShiningUmbreonVMAX
#60
Ex bf was an a*****e alcoholic. After a fight one night I turned off his phone while he was asleep, knowing that he had an important meeting the next morning at his corporate job. His drunk a*s overslept and missed the meeting, and eventually got fired. I packed my s**t and moved out one day while he was at work. Honestly I don’t feel bad at all.
Image source: jahmean
#61
Source came to me, asking me to go to the local paper that a local college resident master was beating his child.
Did it, got published, guy got fired, took a plane home and it crashed into the Everglades k**ling everyone.
Don’t feel too bad about it, as he was bad, and it wasn’t JUST me, but still a little odd thinking my actions contributed to someone’s death.
Image source: JourneymanHunt
#62
I had a cr**py office sales job when I was 24 and worked with a bunch of younger people like myself. We used to goof around a lot, and one day the president of the company sent out an all employee email about something or other. We started talking about playing a game of email chicken.
As you know, when you click the send button on an email it doesn’t actually send it until you release your mouse button. I dared a guy I worked with write a reply all email (around 2000 employees) that said “gargle my balls.” I did the same thing. We both had to hover our mouse arrow over the send button and click our mouse. I was able to successfully move my cursor off the send button, but he did something wrong and ended up sending the email and long story short, got fired. The first few minutes after it happened were sheer panic. It didn’t necessarily “ruin his life,” but it definitely threw a monkey wrench in it.
Image source: TruskVarner
#63
A girlfriend’s father died in Vietnam, but she got no benefits. Very very early internet, found his military records, and discovered that her parents had divorced prior to his death….. mom had been lying for years. Opps.
Image source: sgarst
#64
I didn’t do it per se but I had an officemate/friend who owed me money. I resigned so haven’t kept up with her and every few months I text her a friendly payment reminder and she always replies with an excuse and a promise to pay.
I texted her one morning again bec I needed money and sent some harsh words bec its been more than a year, but there was no response this time. later that day I saw one of our common friends post on fb saying he’ll be missing her etc. found out she commited s*****e that noon and that she started a gambling a*******n around the time I resigned and owed a lot of people money. she crashed out in just a year, left kids just like that. dont gamble, people.
Image source: binatogsilog
#65
Oh no, not me sifting through this thread to see if my ex that wracked up $12k of credit card debt in my name before she left has anything to say for herself.
Image source: Boy_Wonder22
#66
My old roommate embezzled money from his job. He told everyone the CEO had cut him a deal: he’d quietly reimburse what he stole, resign, and the CEO would even call a friend out of state to get him a new job.
Fast forward 16 years— I moved states away, and that supposed “friend” of the CEO is now my new boss. In conversation, I mentioned how cool it was that he helped my roommate after the embezzlement. My boss looked confused. When I explained the whole Baton Rouge story — how my roommate upcharged clients, cashed checks, paid the bills, and pocketed the difference — my boss excused himself to make a call.
Turns out my roommate had lied. He had landed a finance job with my new boss by pretending that referral was real. When confronted, he admitted the embezzlement story. There had already been questionable financial discrepancies at his current job, and now the truth confirmed suspicions.
Without meaning to, I exposed him — and 16 years later, he was fired. Shortly after, his wife left him, maybe because other issues had already been simmering.
Image source: RealLiveLawyer
#67
In the late 90s, I was working a pizza delivery job. Ended up getting a friend of mine a job there, something he did for a few more years because it was good money. He ended up moving to a different chain and 20 or so years ago he got ambushed by a couple of thugs who called in a fake order to mug the driver. He suffered some brain damage as a result, and it derailed his studies. Granted, he had a lot of issues anyway and there’s no certainty he would have been able to finish his degree and go into that field, but this incident didn’t help.
Image source: lluewhyn
#68
I used to work retail and there was this one eastern European woman who’d come in regularly, I noticed that she was looking more depressed and withdrawn, buying vodka with each visit. I remember seeing her one day in an awful emotional state with the whites of her eyes a very dark yellow.
I looked it up when I was home and I read it was one of the symptoms of liver failure and that the person should seek immediate medical care. I never saw her again after that day and I sometimes think about the fact I was selling her the alcohol that might have k**led her.
Image source: GrockleKaug
#69
In my first term at uni we were on a very high pressure and very vocation driven course, but there was one guy in the year who really didn’t seem to like it much. People only do this because they love it so if you don’t love it the stress is hard to handle. But he was just way more into photography. I sat on some steps chatting with him in the sunshine and we talked about all his career plans and skills, he wasn’t sure how to do better at the course, and I listened. I told him my honest thoughts: “I don’t think you want this really. You don’t enjoy it, and you really want to pursue photography. It’s not going to get easier. Are you doing this for any other reason than it’s what your parents want?” And he got really quiet. He kind of mumbled a bit and left.
We came back in second term and he was gone. He didn’t say bye before he left. I don’t know how he’s doing. At the time I felt awful that I’d seeded that doubt, I thought I might have caused him to swap a qualification you can earn well on for a life of scarcity as a starving creative.
Now I look back and realise he always would have left but I had helped him not waste another 3-6 months. There was no malice in my words, just a genuine reflection of what I was hearing him tell me. I daren’t look him up though. I do hope he did get a life where he achieved what he aspired to, not what others expected.
Image source: Otterly_wonderful_
#70
Got my best friend to do hallucinogens with me. triggered his latent schizophrenia. He originally got me into w**d in the first place which ultimately led to other d**g addictions and my own latent bipolar disorder. We called it even.
Image source: rasputin1
#71
I had a salesman who’s prices were just outrageous so I kept refusing business with him and his company. He would drop by almost monthly however there’s was no chance I was going to capitulate. I liked the guy but that was as far as that goes. He came into my office one day and he was begging me for an order. I told him we’re done and move on. He left my office and I got a call from his parent company telling me he just committed s*****e by jumping off the Tappan Zee bridge. Apparently his office terminated via text on his way home. It still bothers me to this day.
Image source: skullfrucker
#72
I wouldn’t say that I ruined her life, exactly, but I didn’t make it better. I was voted class representative in my first year of high school over another girl who, apparently, really wanted the job. I didn’t care for it that much, but she started screaming at me when the results came out, so I got a little pissed and I decided to double down. She started crying hysterically, accusing me of somehow cheating, and left the room. No one liked her much after seeing how she behaved after losing what, in retrospect, was such a silly election.
Image source: malcontentgay
#73
Complicated situation… And I wouldn’t agree that I ruined his life but if you ask him, I did. It’s my brother. He has always been immature, lazy, bad work ethic, defensive about his lifestyle, narcissistic. He was living in our mom’s home, for free, for nearly 4 years with his girlfriend. My mom had remarried and the house was empty for awhile. Nobody pushed him to move out, nobody asked him to pay rent, nothing. He just got comfortable and became possessive about the house. My wife and I were in the process of looking to upgrade from our starter home as we were about to have our 2nd baby, and my moms house was perfect. My wife and I discussed purchasing my moms house and we came to the agreement on the purchase. Now the rough part…. I casually mentioned to my brother on a phone call, who had basically been squatting there for years, that mom and I had agreed on a sale of the house and I was the purchaser. The sale would be completed in 2-3 months, plenty of time for him to find something for himself and his GF. He hung up the phone…. That was kind of predictable coming from him. I gave him about a week and called again. He immediately started yelling and screaming at me, telling me how horrible of a person I was, how I am ruining his life, that I don’t care about him, etc. I tried calming him down and laying it all out as peaceful as I could but he isn’t the kind of kid you can talk off a ledge. He dug his heels in and basically said he wasn’t moving out, I wasn’t allowed to purchase the home without his permission and the house belonged to him. Towards the end of the conversation I just started laughing and told him he was funny. Told him he had about 6 weeks to move out, and hung up. The berating on his behalf continued. Texting me hateful things during the days, leaving drunk voicemails late at night. It finally cooled down about 3-4 weeks later, and then I get a random phone call from an “attorney” telling me my brothers legal rights and all this BS. Turns out it was a friend of his, that was in law school, and he put him up to the task of trying to intimidate me. I’m not f*****g stupid, I called his friend out on all his BS and he admitted he didn’t want to do it but my brother was a good friend…. More happened but I don’t want to make this story continue forever.
He eventually dragged myself and my mom to a therapist who acted as a mediator in the mental process of this whole thing. My mom never wanted to be involved with him and getting him out of the house after past incidents with him being verbally a*****e to her and combative. I cant blame her. She did always coddle him but that’s another story.
Apparently I ruined his life. I’ll never agree with that. Nor will I apologize. Haven’t spoke to him in 4 years now. No plans too. We have a long history that’s not pretty and this was the last straw.
Image source: MurphyBacon
#74
My sister got pregnant at 20, she wasn’t sure what to do.
I, being a good little christian at the time, told her of course she would keep it and we would figure it out.
She married the baby daddy, who turned out to be a psychopath that k**led two of her cats, completely destroyed her mentally, and ruined her credit “starting businesses”. She’s now obese, unemployed and unemployable, on several psychiatric and physical medications, and her son is taking after his dad. I blame myself for it everyday and can’t stop imagining how amazing her life would have been if I had encouraged her to get an abortion.
Image source: Trick-Pizza8669, Engin Akyurt
#75
I was recently seeing a guy for a couple of months on and off and I found out from him that he had had a relationship with an 18-year-old girl two years prior to our meeting. For context we are both in our 30s.
I thought this was really weird and possibly predatory so I reached out to said girl also a former coworker, and it turns out that he r***d her. It’s been two years and she has no intent to file a police report so I took all of the information I could, and I sent it to his parents and effectively ruined his relationship with his parents. No regrets.
Image source: humanicicle
#76
Me and my friend were hitchhiking on holiday, this really kind man offered to give us a lift on his moped, I could tell he looked concerned for us because we looked vulnerable which made me feel bad but he insisted so he gave my friend a lift whilst his wife took me in her house and looked after me, then her husband came back and picked me up to take me, we crashed into another moped and he died, I was sitting on the back and didn’t get a single bruise. His family was distraught.
Image source: Dolly____Diamond
#77
When I was 17 I accidentally saw some files on my bosses laptop. So I reported it to the police, turns out the guy was a huge p**o and had terabytes of child p**n across several computers. He got sentenced to 50 years in prison. Honestly, that’s one of my proudest accomplishments.
Image source: Darth_Cuddly
#78
When I was a punk teen I left home and was living in a men’s mission in HI. I had no license, had no car but did have a love of surfing and a d**g habit. I paid a friend of a friend like $50 to borrow a car, only to later get arrested for possession of a stolen car (yep, it was stolen) and for d**g charges. I refused to say who I got the car from or how I got it. I ain’t no snitch, but when my property was inventoried, they saw a slip of paper with a name, address and phone number on it and, hilariously, a note that said “go incognito.” I had written that down b/c the friend said it when he was telling me about the dude I was borrowing the car from. In other words, dude’s crooked, be safe and be quiet. They used that info to investigate the guy, learned he’d been running a chop shop basically and he went to full on prison. Years later, I’m clean, got my s**t together, started working in law enforcement even and went to a funeral. The dude was also at that funeral. He came to me and said he held no hard feelings, that he found god in prison, changed his life, etc. It provided a tiny bit of closure for us both and was really nice.
Image source: EdithWhartonsFarts
#79
I intervened when my close friends were s******l and they stopped being friends with me. It ruined their lives at the time.
Many years later, they’re alive and seem to have a good life and got married. I wasn’t invited to the weddings. I tell myself it was worth it because it was the right thing to do and at least they’re alive.
Image source: LowAside9117
#80
I was s****************d by another student living in my dorm during my first year of university. I spoke out about it which led to two other women coming forward with similar experiences. A couple of months later, administration discovered he was growing d***s in his room. This was grounds for being kicked out of residence. The next I heard about this guy was a couple of years later when an acquaintance had let me know he had gotten expelled from school, got mixed up with bad gambling, and committed s*****e.
I feel fine because I did nothing but tell the truth.
Image source: Ordinary-Meeting-701
#81
Not ruined. I fought an eviction. Lawyer was a complete a*s. There wasn’t real reason to evict so he made up a ton of stuff. Anyway he is an estate lawyer or something so evictions aren’t really his thing. so I managed to drag it out like a year. His client my landlord was so upset she dropped him. Then this lawyer stalked me and had me evicted from my new unit where the same thing happened again and his client dropped him. his reputation in town fell. apparently this was his thing . he ended up changing his law firms name.
Image source: nourright
#82
This one time in college me and this guy i knew were sitting around chatting. then more and more people i didn’t know kept showing up until there were sbout 10 of us sitting in a circle just talking about random things.
this one guy came sitting down next to me and eventually we got to memes. i jokingly said “mom’s spaghetti is the best meme ever made” to which most agreed. then this guy’s eyes lit up. he was so excited and said, “if you guys like that, then i have something to show you!” to which i made the mistake of jokingly going “as long as it’s not my little pony or something, haha.” he looked at me like i had just shot his dog.
i immediately realized what i did and tried to backtrack, but there was already blood in the water at that point. the two girls next to him looked over and asked pretty cattily, “aren’t you that guy who walks around in the pony shirt?” and when he said it was his favorite character, they just tsk’ed. i admitted at that point that my brother had made me watch an episode and it wasn’t bad, but the guy just deflated by then.
for the rest of the semester, i never heard him talk again and i never saw him in the later years either. i know it wasn’t that bad, but i still think of ir once in a while. who tries to show a my little pony parody to a bunch of twenty-somethings? 😭
oh, and i also told a guy about bitcoin before that first huge crash, and he also disappeared. in that case, i did warn him it’s not a safe investment though but who knows 😓.
Image source: Temporary_Self_2172
#83
Have not thought about this in quite some time. This was back in the early days of the internet. I would be chatting with people online. Started talking to a girl and we really hit off.
Things go flirty and then things moved to the real world. We found out we were only a couple of hours away from each other. And she was coming to my area in a couple of weeks. Perfect! Set up our ‘date’ and we had a great time.
A couple days later I get a message… from her husband. Apparently I was not the only person she was visiting. He was hurt and disappointed by her actions. He wanted to reach out to just let us know what was happening. More of a: I am divorcing her and you may be called into court.
Did I feel bad about it? A little bit of guilt but this was on her too. She was not forthcoming about her marriage. Should I have asked more questions? I was a lonely, and h***y, 20 something. Not much thought given when someone wants to meet you.
Image source: OkArgument4487
#84
My friend had a terrible break up with a lovely girl called Liv. He dumped her for a b***o called Lulu.
Someone had a house party and both girls showed up. I got incredibly drunk but managed to be polite and socialise with both girls without upsetting the other.
At the end of the evening I was sitting in an armchair at the back of the main room with some others. Liv came over to say goodbye.
Without thinking I jumped up and shouted over the music ‘oh, goodbye LULU!!! See you soon!’
The music stopped and everyone gasped and glared at poor Liv. She storms out mortified and I am agog at my own stupidity.
Apparently I ‘ruined’ her life that day and she never spoke to me again.
That was like 20 years ago. I presume she’s over it but I’m still squirming!
Image source: wibblywobblywo0
#85
Drove 78 in a 70 and this F-150’s world basically ended. After tailing me, flashing highs at me, and swerving left and right to check in front of me for 3 miles, he finally was able to get around me so he could tail the 12 other cars in front of me.
I feel bad, still see a therapist to this day about it. Wish I could have just phased into gas state so he could pass me sooner to tail the other guys in peace and get to his destination 3 seconds sooner.
Image source: ritz-chipz
#86
When I was maybe 11 at a friend’s birthday sleepover, I casually made some comment about something being as disappointing as finding out that Santa is actually our parents. I’d known since I was six and didn’t think much of it…but then I looked up and saw my friend’s horrified face. And she saw my horrified face. She just turned and stared dumbfounded at her mom, who whisked her away for a long chat.
So: I made my sweet, innocent friend cry on her birthday and shattered her childhood illusions forever. That one still jerks me awake with anxiety sometimes.
Image source: filthyantagonist
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