15 Stories That Prove the Saying “The Road to Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions”

It is unlikely that any of us can accurately foresee the consequences of our actions. It seems that our intentions are good, but in the end everything goes wrong. Of course, we can try to make it up to the person or turn it into a joke, but sometimes the outcome can’t be changed.

• I had a friend. She was brought up by her great-aunt and lived with her. Her life was hard, and she was always depressed. I felt sorry for her. I wanted to make her happy.
  I was away on her birthday, so I bought her a present in advance and asked my husband to give it to her. He brought it, I was online at the time, and saw everything. My husband handed the present to her and left immediately.
  A month later she texted me that she fell in love with my husband and to make her happy I should leave him for her. And then she started threatening me. I will never deal with people like her anymore! © Overheard / Ideer
• My uncle took me and my brother in because he wanted us to get a good education. My mom and dad agreed, as they knew that my uncle would be able to give us a better shot at making something of ourselves.
  My uncle’s intentions were good. However, my uncle’s wife made our lives hell. She basically mistreated us and my uncle was unable to do anything about it. So his inaction made him complicit.
  Even through the hardships, my brother and I still managed to get an education, but my uncle’s reputation was affected negatively. Family members don’t see him the same way, and his wife is really disliked (to put it mildly). It started with good intentions, but it didn’t end well for my uncle. © ksoss1 / Reddit
• Once upon a time, I found a wallet on the beach. Having lost my own more than once, and not having it returned to me, I am aware that it is a stressful life event. So, my first thought was how to return it quickly.
  Looking through the contents, the owner was from out of state and there was no contact information other than the driver’s license. Aside from that, only a few credit cards and some cash. Not knowing how long ago the owner had left, I thought, “Let’s just sit here for a while, and maybe he will return looking for it,” since it is the first thing I would do.
  After a couple hours of fun and sun, we needed to move on; my next best idea was to turn it into the local police station, which we found easily enough just down the street. What I thought would be a quick in and out turned into a full on interrogation session during which I was, at one point, accused of theft/robbery. It was a bizarre experience, to say the least, which wasted an hour of our day. © notawhingymillenial / Reddit

• After a long break in work and knowing that HR managers don’t like it, I prepared a killer answer in advance, “There were serious personal circumstances, I had to take a break. Now all the problems have been solved, I am ready to work.” I thought I had broken the system.
  But no. “What kind of personal circumstances? Why such secrecy? You’re scaring us. Are you troubled? Where’s the guarantee that these circumstances won’t recur? So why didn’t you work? You just didn’t want to?” This is the story of how I was outplayed and destroyed at my recent job interview. © Overheard / Ideer
• I was sick, and my husband was nursing me. It was dark, and he was trying to give me a sip of ice water while I was lying in bed. Instead, he started waterboarding me with ice water and didn’t realize it because he’s hard of hearing and all I could do was gurgle weakly, “please stop.” He didn’t realize he’d poured it all over me until I started trying to wiggle away. © brandonisatwat / Reddi
• I was around 11. I was at a restaurant with my entire extended family (like 50 people) and the waitress was carrying a lot of drinks. I always want to help people, it’s in my nature to try and be useful. So I said, “I’ll help you!” Even though she was doing her job very well.
  The panic in her eyes as I lifted up my drink from her server plate. The annoyance of multiple drinks then tipped due to the imbalance of weight I had just caused. The apologies were not enough. I felt so bad.
  It’s been 13 years and I still think about it on occasion. That was my biggest “don’t help people if they don’t want it.” Because I was just trying to help. My intentions were good, but man did I cause a massive mess. © stormthief77 / Reddit
• My wife was cooking for the Christmas party. I decided to help her. While she went to change, I volunteered to make sandwiches and chop salads. I did it all.
  Satisfied with myself, I said to her, “The work is done.” She looked at it and said, “The baguette is not cut at a 45-degree angle, the spread is not up to the edges of the bread, salmon slices are messed up, and too much mayonnaise in the salads.”
  I took offense and decided to eat muesli with milk. So, we are sitting at the Christmas table: I have a bowl of muesli, and my wife has a plate of delicacies. I was offended for about 15 minutes. We made up just as the first guests arrived. Well, I turned out to be a bad helper. © Ward No. 6 / VK

• My husband is a first-class tailor. Women wait months for their dresses and pay extra to have them made faster. They brag their dresses on social media and write good reviews. He has a workshop and 4 workers. He sews for everyone, but not for me.
  And all because when he was just starting his business, I pointed out his mistakes and shortcomings. The last time, 8 years ago, he made a promise to never sew for me again and has kept his promise ever since. I have his students making dresses for me. So, I am a tailor’s wife without his signature dress. It’s a shame. © Overheard / Ideer
• When I was younger (like sixth) I used to push all of the products on grocery store shelves to the back, because I thought it looked better and that that was how they were supposed to be placed. Now, as an employee at a grocery store, I realize how much all of the employees probably hated me. © MsKrueger / Reddit
• I am a teacher and was working at an independent school supporting struggling students. One student needed much more support than we could offer, and I spent the year coaching her parents around better options for the following year. Thankfully, her family got her into a school that better suited her educational needs. And I got laid off because our highest needs student was gone, and the school felt like they no longer needed me as a result. © tiny_****_toucher / Reddit
• I had an idea of giving a phone to a friend for his birthday — his old one had broken, and he complained about it a few times. But I decided to play a prank on him and pack the phone in an old kettle box. I came to the party and handed it to him.
  The friend put it to the pile of all other gifts. There was silence from him for 3 days. Then on the fourth day, he called me and said, “Bro, there’s an awkward situation here. Did you bring the kettle box?”
  He gave it to his mum without opening it. He thought she needed the kettle more. But she got an expensive phone instead and was delighted. It wasn’t nice to take it back from her, so he left the phone to his mum. © Chamber 6 / VK

• A good friend of mine was going through a breakup, and I was supporting her, and of course we were doing the usual rant about the ex. Cue a few days later, and they get back together, and now I’m “that person who was talking bad things behind his back.” So I lost a “friend” because I supported her, but c’est la vie, that was a lesson learned. © Thelazywitch / Reddit
• I once saw the handle from someone’s front door had come off and was lying on the pavement. I thought that was no good because somebody could steal it, or it could get lost or whatever, but instead of seeing if I could reattach it (perhaps it could click back on) I put it through their letterbox. So now this person’s door had no handle to access the handle they would need to get into their house.
  They saw the end of me doing this. I thought I was going to have to shove my skinny arm through the letterbox and get bitten by the dogs, I heard bark in an attempt to reach it. I apologized and they said it was fine. I have no idea how they got into their house, but I really was just trying to help. © circus-witch / Reddit
• A friend suggested I go to a dancing class. So I went there with her sister. After about a month, I relaxed and stopped being shy. I noticed that I began to dance better. And at one lesson even the teacher praised me — I was so happy!
  Apparently, I was too happy. Toward the end of the class I felt a terrible pain in my lower back, I couldn’t even walk home. Turned out I had a hernia recurrence. After the operation, I had to spend a couple of weeks lying down. So, I went dancing, but spent a lot of money on the operation. © Ward 6 / VK
• My husband gave me a shower gel for my birthday. I didn’t show it to him, but I got really offended, because we had no money problems. I checked that his company was okay, and we had enough money in our bank account so that he could buy me at least a bunch of flowers.
  I looked closely at the gel, and he knew that I hated that fragrance. I ended up crying and poured the gel down the toilet. My husband came home happy and said, “Did you find it?”
  Turns out he’d put the ring in the bottle cap. He wanted to surprise me. So, he had to retrieve it from the toilet himself. © Overheard / Ideer

And here’s a story of a woman who wants to divorce her husband because of his birthday gift. Check it out.