Both are a gamble.
If you take out a fixed rate, you are buying certainty. You will know each month exactly how much you are going to pay. That certainty, for many of us, is worth paying for. The longer you fix the term for, the more risk there is in your gamble.
But the gamble is that over the course of the lifetime of your mortgage, the rates won't go below (or too far below) the rate that you are paying. And, of course, you are protected from rate rises. You mustn't forget this
If you take out a variable rate, you are gambling that the rate won't go up too much, but that it could also go down.
Thing is, when you took out your mortgage, your fixed rate, by historical standards, was actually quite low. Nobody knew/could predict that interest rates would end up as low as they are now, or that they would remain that low for such a long period of time. In other words, you were actually quite wise at the time. You made a good decision, based on what you knew.
However, you also chose to fix your mortgage rate for 5 years, which is more of a gamble, as no-one can predict rates that far ahead. But again, you were buying certainty and that delivers security.
You have been unlucky in that rates have dropped significantly below what you are paying. But you have still bought your certainty. And don't forget that the rates didn't go up! You were protected from that.
We have been lucky (sorry) in that whenever we have taken out a fixed rate, the rate has always been low and the prevailing interest rate has rarely gone too much lower than that.
I really understand where you are coming from, and it sucks to know that you didn't need to have spent so much money - but it could also have gone the other way so easily - remember the time in the 80s when rates went up to 15%? Well, you have been protected from the risk of that happening.
I think YABU Mintyy - sorry - it doesn't matter if you are ordinary or the chosen one. You have borrowed money, and you have made a considered choice to borrow in a certain way. I actually think that you and your DH were very wise to make the decision that you did - you were just unlucky in the market circumstances. But be positive about the fact that if you take out a fixed rate now, at the current low rates, you could end up paying an awful lot less than the variable rate - the rate is bound to rise at some point in the future. So if you can fix a really low rate now, for the next 5 years, then you should benefit from that.