Thank god things didnt work out the way you wanted

Yes 18 years ago my work place was sold and the whole job and charm of the company went. Us seniors were offered redundancy and I took it - I grieved and cried and felt just awful.
a year later my marriage broke down and had I been in tha job I’d likely have had to be the nrp and I would never have got 50/50 due to the nature of the job. I bumbled around in low paid jobs for years scraping by being a mum and now earn at least double what I’d have done had I stayed and I’m on a degree course. It was just meant to be and I don’t miss that job at all anymore

Oooh yes:

First boyfriend, completely in love with him- wanted to marry him. He turned out to be the biggest arsehole on the planet and ended up dumping me. I was utterly devastated - cried for months and months, didnt think I'd ever find happiness again whilst he happily skipped back into dating and took every opportunity to rub his pretty new girlfriends in my face (we were in a mutual friend group so hard to avoid him).

Fast forward a few years, he gets married and I meet my now husband. My husband is wonderful and absolutely adores me, and also happens to be gorgeous. Ex boyfriend's wife left him 2 years after they got married and he has remained perpetually single and whiny about it ever since. Last photo I saw of him I was shocked - he looks dreadful now- hugely overweight and balding. Very ironic since he used to love the fact he looked a bit like Johnny Depp. So glad he was taken out of my life.

Our first house - completely fell in love with this house and just before we were finalising things they decided to pull out and take it off the market. Again, I was devastated and didnt think I'd ever find such a nice house. A month later we found one that was even better - it has beautiful golden corn fields right behind our back garden, is bigger, and in better condition and in a better area. Sometimes I drive past that first house and it looks so run down and grotty I wondered what I ever saw in it.

a house that we were buying fell through and thank god it did because we then found our dream
house and couldn't be happier! Sometimes drive past the other one and wonder what we were even thinking!

Got pregnant young and didn't go to university where I would have become a Food Technologist, designing Ultra Processed Foods. Instead I've had a happy marriage, 2 beautiful children and now have a fulfilling career in nursing.

In most cases, you simply don't know how things would have turned out if you'd got whatever it was you wanted. That's always a consoling thought if you're disappointed.

So much in life is down to chance. Your choice might have led to a wholly unforeseeable disaster; it might not have been what you hoped for; it could have been wonderful; it could have led to an unforeseeable but wonderful thing happening.

There's little point in speculating.

I’m very much a big believer in the silver lining principle. You can be devastated by something not going your way but very often that door closing in your face pushes you to look for other hidden doors that actually open more easily and are more welcoming. It hugely increases resilience too and makes you more likely to take a chance and be successful as you are better used to dealing with failure.

love a good silver lining 🥰

Oh God yes, successful boyfriend, filthy rich, engaged and I had resigned work to organise our wedding. I came back from the country a day early and there was an unexpected car on the drive - my best friend's. Go figure.

I collected my stuff the following day, when he was out, and we spoke again once, a couple of years later when he told me he was getting married. In the space of 24 hours I had no home, no partner and no job. I vowed I'd remain single and retire early to a pretty cottage in the country and keep cats.

Was offered a better job so no period of unemployment, stayed with friends while my tenants were on notice, who introduced me to another set of people, met DH within the year (so skint he was on his uppers). Roll on nearly 40 years, two dc, DH's career took off, and it all worked out very well.

I have cats.

😂😂

I was meant to move to Russia for a teaching job, but the visa didn’t come in time and I wasn’t willing to start a few months into term. I met my husband six months later (plus obvious issues with Russia in general).

I had my heart set on a house in our village. I was devastated but turns out we didn’t want to stay in the village long term and the house actually wouldn’t have worked for us.

Didn’t get into my uni of choice and was gutted. Met some people on my year abroad who would have been my classmates at that uni and wouldn’t have really fit in with them anyway.

Its hard to say really because there's no way of knowing what path life would have taken had the thing worked out, is there? Not getting thing A may have resulted in meeting person B, but prevented you meeting person C. Being very happy in your second choice doesn't mean you'd have not been even happier in your first.
However, I think its a healthy, positive way to look at life and is really just another way of saying make the most of what you have, focus on the good things and don't waste time hankering after the things not available to you, which is never a bad philosophy.
It tends to be linked with higher perceptions of happiness. So if you're a person who has this attitude, whatever life throws at you, you will be predisposed to see it as 'for the best' and see the good side. Happiness isn't getting what you want, it's wanting what you have.

Got fired from a job 15 years ago.
Set up as a consultant and am
now the leader in my field working with amazing clients and earning twice as much money.

I got offers for two jobs I'd applied for at the same time. Chose one and ended up hating it - I quit after six months with nothing to go to, as by the end I was crying in the parking area every day before I went in. Even after I got a new job it was much lower paid, and I still thought all the time about how I should have made the other choice in the first place.

About 18 months after I would have started, the company I didn't go with folded, and all staff lost their jobs without warning on a mass zoom call. The place I hated gave me some CV benefits that eventually led to much better opportunities than I would have had otherwise, even though I was only there for six months. And I met two of my closest friends at the lower paid job I ended up in afterwards. I feel lucky all the time that it turned out this way.

I was utterly miserable for around 10 years, and tried to kill myself several times.

Pretty happy that didn't work out the way I wanted.

Many things, from bad relationships I yearned to continue being in to failing at job seeking and staying at home for quite a few years, turned out to be the best in retrospect.

😂😂😂

Love reading this thread

Can relate to so many, you really do just have to go with the flow of life don't you

As my teen said yesterday “rejection is redirection”!

I was made redundant from a good job at an age where I didn't think it would be easy to get another. Out of the blue I was offered my dream job, which I would not have risked taking if I hadn't been made redundant. Still in that dream job 12 years later.

These are lovely stories. I have never and will never believe that ‘everything happens for a reason’ or that anything is meant to be, as it only takes a moment to think of multiple events where thinking, or worse saying, that would be hurtful or insulting.

But yes, if I hadn’t married my first husband, crazy decision though it was, my life would be dramatically different and probably worse. Divorcing him was extremely painful but led indirectly to meeting Dh and having ds.

Yes, I was so upset when I didn’t get a ground floor flat I wanted in the block I was renting in. Now 3yrs on, I’ve bought a brand new 3 bed detached 250 miles away not too far from where I grew up. After years of renting I can’t wait to start my new chapter.

It took us ten years to start a family. I felt grief that nearly broke me. Now I’m fifty with a toddler, but she is the most wonderful child, and all that grief taught me to be a patient and gentle mum.

I don’t believe everything happens for a higher purpose. I think we can try to find the good in bad situations.

My daughter was born finding joy in everything, and loves every second of her life. I don’t think the universe wanted me to wait for her, but I do think everything I went through helped me become the mum she deserves.

I’m relieved I didn’t marry ex-DP. I emigrated and I can’t picture him at all in my new life here. If we’d stayed together, I doubt we would have made the move. He was not a go-getter, and held me back, in many ways.

I got BCD in my A levels and needed BCC to study at Liverpool. I was devastated as all my other friends got into their first choices or had unconditional offers so the grades didn’t really matter. I was so upset but eventually went through clearing and ended up at Lancaster where I met my now husband in the first year, went travelling after Uni, got married had kids and so that D was the best thing that happened 🤣

I remember walking home in tears because I didn't get a job that I really wanted. My guardian angel was really watching over me that day. I feel slightly sick when I think how much in worse my life could have been if I had got that job.

Same thing when my long term boyfriend dumped me. I was really upset at the time but I am so glad he broke up with me. There is a risk that I might have stuck with it and I dread to think how my life would have been with him, nice as he was.

Although I don't like rejection, my experiences have made me realise that it can actually be extremely fortunate.

Yes 2 both connected.

I Married now ex H and thought our marriage was sound . He was always a bit tricky but (I thought) we were in love. I found out he was having an affair as we were trying for a second baby. I asked him to leave but was distraught and desperate to get him back (errrr 👀) .

I found out a week later that I was pregnant. I was so broken and DD was only 2. I thought there was no way I could even cope with 1 on my own let alone 2 so I went to the doctors and told her I couldn’t keep the baby and asked what next steps were. She told me that I was obviously in shock and in no position to be making such a big decision, and sent me away for 2 weeks to think about it. I was furious with her.
I had already made up my mind!

Through many conversations with friends and lots of tears over the next 2 weeks I realised I might just be able to cope.

He has brought so much happiness over the years and is a lovely human being, and is just about to start his GCSEs! I still get emotional now thinking about what almost wasn’t.

Ex has proved himself to be such a dick over the years and he did me such a big favour. I just couldn’t see it at the time! I will always be so grateful to that doctor too.