What small decision changed the course of your entire life?

[justanothermanicmonday1]

Lighthearted.

Mines was just getting out of a relationship, being in my thirties and thinking I'd never ever meet anyone. I'd got used to the fact that I wouldn't likely have children, and be alone. And I was fine with that.

4 weeks after I ended my relationship, my friend asked if I wanted to be set up on a date with her friends friend. I was extremely reluctant.....

3 years later we have a toddler and a newborn and it was the best decision I have ever made in my entire life. I didn't think I would ever be this lucky. He treats me how I deserve to be treated, hands on, funny, respectful, romantic & the best role model for our children!

Intrigued to hear people's stories whilst my newborn sleeps away..... 🥹

So you disagree for you, which is fine and obviously valid for you. But that’s not the same story for my PhD journey. But lovely that you had such a great supervisor, hope mine is as good.

So I am not in a relationship as such as I am recently widowed but I can still read posters' happy stories !!
Plus the poster didn't say just relationships !

My one:
I was given a list of 50 countries to choose from after a job interview (2 sides of A4) everywhere from Spain to Brazil and picked 3 East European ones
The interviewer said well as you are interested in East Europe go to Russia!
So I did!
And met DH there - we had 26 years together and he died 4days short of our 21st wedding anniversary

If you don't like it then hide the thread!

My lovely late mum found a job for me after coming out of a DV relationship, single mum struggling to make ends meet. Ended up falling in love and marrying the CEOs brother

meeting a security services recruiter at a job fair. they also had other companies, eg dtsl, and other related companies.

I am loving these stories and trying to think if I have one! I have many that are stories of fate but not so much based on my decisions!
Shame it has to be broken up with the usual MN bitchiness!
Life is hard, full of ups and downs for all, sadly some have it worse than others. We should celebrate all the lovely happy moments and be happy for others.

Complete change of career at 40 and I'm now I'm a little bit famous in my field😃

Sorry for your loss. This is a lovely story though and glad you had many happy years together x

@RosesAndHellebores

I had just worked 10 days in a row, with a week of nights coming up over Christmas and had planned to use my precious half day to go Christmas shopping in Knightsbridge with a visit to the Harrods food hall for some treats.

During the morning there was an incident on the ward which required me to stay late and make a statement about a colleagues behaviour. I was sorely tempted to just leave on time and get the bus, but decided to stay and make the statement as my colleague was going to get shafted.

Very glad I did!

When I was doing my O level physics, I asked a question in class and the teacher (I thought) brushed me off and said it was something we'd study in A level -- and I got upset because I wanted to know the answer NOW and walked out. (I had always been a good student and storming out of a class was kind of a mad statement).

I went back to apologise later and he lent me a copy of Bertrand Russell's The ABC of Relativity.

Anyway it basically convinced me that I was able/ wanted to study physics and I later went on to get a PhD in digital signal processing and had a pretty good engineering career in telecomms companies.

I became a teaching assistant in a secondary school. I have childcare qualifications but due to a (very traumatic) childhood I didn't have great gcses. I felt like a fraud, helping teenagers accomplish something I hadn't managed myself. I retook my English & Maths GCSEs, enrolled on to an Access to HE course at my local college and I'm just about to start my third year of university. My GCSEs are now A* & C, I received majority distinctions in college and I'm averaging a decent 2.1 at university (with some firsts thrown in!).

I had no faith in myself, at all. Feeling like a fraud was the thing that pushed me to challenge myself.

I have 2. The first was walking out mid shift and applying for another random job that I never thought I'd be able to do. I just thought I'd try it and if I was epically shit at it, at least it was a months pay. 5 years later, I'm regularly rewarded for exceeding targets and am happy there.

The other was following a man I'd never met into a strange house, in the dark, 21 miles away from my home town, having told no one where I was.

He was a therapist. Nearly 3 years later my life is unrecognisable. His insistence that he didn't care what I said or did, he wasn't leaving me and seemingly bottomless optimism saved my life and he has been the driving force for change in me.

Don't get me wrong, there have been sessions his optimism made me want to murder him and I'm sure some weeks he could have cheerfully strangled me too, it hasn't been easy or cheap! but change never is and everything has changed. I'm doing good now and who knows, when I'm ready maybe I'll meet someone special too.

The night of the Kings Cross underground fire, my sister was supposed to be coming across London to see me, but had cancelled at the last minute for some bloke she fancied. She’d have been right there at the time of the fire, thank goodness for fickle unreliable sisters!

Several:
Book club, one of the women was lamenting that they needed a marketing exec to write a marketing and comms strategy. I had not worked for years and had never been in marketing, but projects 10 years earlier. Said, I'll give it a crack, met the client, blagged and then googled the shit out of all the training I could find on line. 8 month successful contract.

Two years later was on an escalator outside the local supermarket and a former colleague saw me and yelled up that she was on maternity leave and could i cover her role, they hadn't found anyone. Did it, loved it, did a post grad when it ended and was re-employed when it fi ished. Now an international director and lead my business unit. Salary beyond my wildest dreams.

Met my fiancee showing a single friend how to use Tinder, one Friday night. I was dating someone unsuitable but fun and still had the app. Dp and i met on the Monday and have been inseparable ever since. He had recently separated and I was the first women he met. 3 years later, happy, blended family and planning a most excellent wedding in Feb.

A looong time ago, my friend's band was playing at a local venue. I didn’t want to go that evening but was more or less literally dragged there by two other friends.
When I was there, I re met an old flame, who had also been dragged there by some friends.
That was umpteen years ago and we have been together ever since.

Put our house on the market during covid, literally just before the stamp duty holiday came about. The market was such most estate agents wouldn't even let you view anything until you were under offer.

So we went under offer and waited. And waited. Nothing in our budget that ticked our 'must have' boxes for weeks and nerve-wracking weeks.

DH began systematically working through all the Rightmove listings and found a house on totally the opposite side of town to our preferred area and missing several key elements on our wish list.

But it had a granny annex, it was a bungalow and we both had a weird inclination to give it a look not least because it was with our estate agent who was getting twitchy at lack of movement in the chain.

We'd fallen in love by the time we walked into the living room and are so happy here. The granny annex has helped as my mum is very poorly so her and my dad come and stay regularly and it brightens a tough time for all of us and gives them much-needed support.

Was 25, working at a mobile phone retailer, and was signing up for a college course to do an early years qualification. I'd got an appointment at the college nursery that morning to discuss doing my placement there, and after it finished, was to go into work.

I'd been working a lot, and volunteering, so felt like I'd been going at 1000mph for ages. So I thought I'd have a coffee first, rather than getting the bus to work.

Got to work, instantly got told to put my bags in the stock room (normally a complete no-no) and stand at the doorway, not letting customers in to the store. Finally got a second to ask why and found out...

The jewelry shop opposite us in the shopping centre had been raided by men with hammers and axes at around the time I would've got to work if I'd not stopped to have that coffee.

So not as scary as @RosesAndHellebores experience but could've been life changing if I'd been there (I suffer with my MH anyway, I suspect seeing that happen wouldn't have done me any good).

I also decided to leave that job and go and do Camp America that summer - that was life changing as I learnt that I, as a visually impaired person, could travel independently and I gained so much confidence from that summer.

I was coming out of a bad relationship and a friend suggested we take a ski holiday. Net result - ended up living in Vancouver for 2 years.

Decided after that to go back to uni and having finished that degree go on to do a masters. No luck with most of the programmes I applied to but then got accepted in the UK. Chap on my programme introduced me to one of his house mates at a departmental party the second month I was there. Just had our 36 anniversary.

Bloody hell 🙄. Op is not having a pop at those not in relationships. Neither is she being smug.

Reading the first Harry Potter book. It inspired me to try my hand at writing for children. I am now a published author.

I love these stories and even the ones meeting their soulmates (even though my love life has been one disaster after another). Of course every relationship starts by happenstance so not really that mind blowing but still lovely to read.

Considering the absolute kicking you got on your thread @ShellySarah Im surprised you aren’t nicer to posters here.

I did! And I explained to him it was because his photo had no bio, my rule had been they must have a bit of blurb about them so I was going to reject him on that basis alone.

Decided to try online dating. After several months I hadn't been on a single date as there was just no one who seemed like a decent human, or who I thought I would get on with (and there were plenty of weirdos and perverts of course).

Logged on to cancel my membership but had a quick search first. Saw this guy's profile and just had a feeling. Messaged him and included my email address. Couldn't stop thinking about him and re-reading his profile.

Heard nothing and felt so disappointed. A few weeks went by and something told me not to let it go. Sent him a follow up message on the website just to say I wondered if he'd seen my previouse message. Turned out he'd replied almost straight away via email - I checked and there it was in my junk folder where it had been sitting for weeks. He'd assumed I wasn't interested after getting no response.

We've been married ten years. It makes my blood run cold to think how we almost never met.

I sometimes wonder about how many little decisions we have made which have changed our lives without us even realising. For instance today I was about to leave in my car, realised I’d forgotten something and went back so left two minutes later. For all I know if I’d left when planned I could have had a car accident…..is that odd to think about that? 😁

Got pregnant through sheer teenage stupidity 19 years ago. Walked out of an appointment at Marie Stopes and never looked back. That young person is the best thing that ever happened to me as I started living for myself and made some huge changes off the back of that decision.