make one's bed and lie in it

• make one's own bed and lie in it
• make one's bed / make one's own bed
• make one's bed and sleep in it
• make the bed one lies in

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make one's bed and lie in it (third-person singular simple present makes one's bed and lies in it, present participle making one's bed and lying in it, simple past made one's bed and lay in it, past participle made one's bed and lain in it)

1. (idiomatic) To create a difficult situation whose unpleasant consequences one must now endure.
   • 1861, Anthony Trollope, chapter 27, in Framley Parsonage:

     It was true that he had made his own bed, and he understood the justice which required him to lie upon it.

   • 1919, W Somerset Maugham, “chapter 33”, in The Moon and Sixpence, : Grosset & Dunlap Publishers , →OCLC:

     [...] one of the falsest of proverbs is that you must lie on the bed that you have made. The experience of life shows that people are constantly doing things which must lead to disaster, and yet by some chance manage to evade the result of their folly.

   • 1949, Upton Sinclair, O Shepherd, Speak! Part I, reprinted, published 2001, →ISBN, page 120:

     Harry said, "It's too bad, but of course we couldn't attempt to smuggle him. The old man has made his bed and he must lie in it."

   • 2005 November 26, Bob Kropfli, “Letters: Second-Term Blues”, in Time:

     What has happened is that all the horrible moves he made during his first term . . . are perfectly evident to all. Bush made his bed during his first four years, and now he has to lie in it.

   • 2008 August 21, Steven Erlanger, “Europe Grows Impatient as Delays Pile Up in Georgia”, in New York Times, retrieved 27 June 2011:

     “Saakashvili made his own bed,” said Nick Witney, a senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Affairs and the former chief executive of the European Defense Agency. “It was a pretty catastrophic miscalculation.”

   • 2010, Arlynn Leiber Presser, Blue-Jeaned Prince, →ISBN, page 149:

     He had made his own bed, chosen his own course in life, taking the path of easy money over hard work and initiative.

• as you make your bed, so you must lie in it
• you make the bed you lie in

• bring one's own hide to market
• reap what one sows
• stew in one's juices