The one moment that might have changed your life direction

[GlitterUnicornsAndAllThatJazz]

I'm sure we all have one.

A moment we think back to and made a decision - maybe it seemed full of meaning then or maybe it seemed insignificant at the time.

But you can't help but look back on that moment as the moment when things were to go one way or another.

Mine:

There was a huge complicated backstory to my relationship with this man.

We were in the south of france at the time. That afternoon a decade ago now he asked me to go with him to biarritz that same night. I only had a few hours to think and I chose not to.

I wonder just how different things would be if I'd said yes, for better or worse.

If I hadn't have stuffed up one of my A'levels I would have ended up at a different uni in a completely different part of the country.

As it was I stayed at home for an extra year to re-take it and applied to a different uni. It was there, in that city that I met DP over 20 years and 2 DC ago.

The decision to be a corporate lawyer in London, not a legal aid funded high street lawyer where I grew up.

My friends, husband, life has been hugely different to that which would have been had a stayed near 'home', near my parents and my old school. Not all plain sailing, not all happy but I feel like I aimed for the stars and have no regrets doing that.

One of my biggest decisions came at a very early age, but I do wonder what my life would have been like if I hadn't been a very confused and stubborn 11 year old (going on 40...)
I was in care when young and was asked if I wanted to go and live with a couple who worked at one of the childrens homes i was in (fostering arrangement). I said no because it es too soon after my mum had died. They were quite cool and had a red sports car. I ended up being fostered a couple of years later by a pyschologically abusive bitch from hell and her pussy whipped husband who royally fucked up my head. I often wonder how my life would have turned out if I'd allowed myself to be looked after at 11 instead of trying to be strong and independent at that age.

I'm fine now though,

What was the poetry gamer?

When my (abusive) boyfriend at the time said "if you go away to Uni I don't know if I will stay faithful"

I went to Uni and left the fucker behind.

My job is just that, a job. It's challenging and fulfilling and at times extremely stressful. I'm well paid and rewarded and I've worked very hard over the last 6 years to get where I am now. In my last firm I found out that I was being paid significantly less money than the rest of my team (all men) for the same role. Handed my notice in and found the same role and negotiated to be paid at the rate that I should have had. I am the main earner in our relationship. Is that sufficiently feminist Table?

What you are overlooking is the fact that my job doesn't give a shit about how I feel at the end of the day. It doesn't care if I have had a fight with my Mum, or my back's playing up, or I'm happy or sad or angry. Whereas my DH cares about me and therefore all of those things matter to him. He's the one rubbing ibugel into my neck when I can't move it because it's cramped. He's the one talking me down off the ceiling after a run-in with my Mum. He's the one going to the shop for painkillers when I have excruciating period pain. He's the one celebrating with me when I get a promotion, bonus or pass another professional qualification.

It's nothing to do with finding Prince Charming, and everything to do with placing a priority on loving someone and being loved back. Makes no odds whether than person is a man, a woman or a green alien from Mars!

My cross roads was deciding whether to go for IVF treatment or not. Known infertility issues before TTC so I'd known for a long time that having a family would be a case of going for assisted conception, but we were on the fence about whether we wanted kids. Decided no almost 10 years ago and am happily child-free and don't regret my decision at all. But I do sometimes wonder what life might have been like if we had gone for it and managed to get pregnant.

@tableshack, meeting a partner is the single biggest factor in most of our lives. Once you're coupled up, your choices are inextricably linked with the other person's, and that affects every facet of life - career, family, home-town, financial future... everything. The choices you make as a single person are just for you, but everyone compromises in a relationship. And whether the choice of partner turned out to be a good one or a bad one, the long term implications are significant.

If you asked my husband this question, he would 100% talk about meeting me (I'll ask him tonight). He decided to change some things in his life after connecting with me because he wanted to give a relationship with me his best shot (I didn't know this - we weren't together, and a few months later, he told me how he felt).

But mine is working in a coffee shop for a year after graduating university instead of applying for every graduate job going. I ended up in a totally different field, with limited career progression and earning potential compared with my classmates, and I wonder where my life would have gone if I had tried to get the same sorts of jobs they did.

I also wonder what my life would have been like if my parents didn't have an accidental 3rd child. I don't know what the other factors were (and I'm sure there are many), but my parents struggled financially and in their relationship after my sibling was born.

@lynmilne65 it was Thomas Harry's 'Neutral Tones' - I don't know why the syntax of the last line of this stanza confused me so much but it did!

"Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles of years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro
On which lost the more by our love."

Hardy not Harry!

26 years old. Living miserably with ex-DP of seven years. At that point we hadn't had sex at all for four years, despite all my best attempts. After months of trying to talk to him gently about it and him walking away / shutting me down he finally exploded and told me that expecting sex made me a 'disgusting fucking nymphomaniac'.

For me that was the point where the relationship ended. It took a bit longer for me to extricate myself but I ended up having a happy few years making up for lost time in lots of fun ways which ended with (a) meeting my DH through a kink-friendly dating site and (b) writing some psuedonymous filthy books which ended up basically giving us the deposit for our house.

We have 2 DC and nowhere near as much time for sex as we used to but life is lovely and fun and I feel happier than I've ever been personally and professionally. We laugh a lot at how we basically met each other through a bit of a meat market website and yet ended up happily married and making a life together. He is the exact opposite of ex-DP in almost every way and the kindest man I've ever known. Also the filthiest ;)

I was so so miserable in my early 20s. Me then would never in a million years believe life now.

(Sorry for lowering the tone so utterly straight after the Hardy!)

I wonder what would have happened if I had said to dh " Sure lets move to Copenhagen" when his x job wanted him too. (I am from Denmark) However the idea of uprooting 4 children from everything they had ever known was not one I was ok with..

The first made by my Mum. Her decision that she didn't want to move to Australia led to my Dad rejecting the job offer and us staying in the UK. I was only a small baby, but I often think how nice to have had that life.

The second happened at 10am, New Years Eve 1992. I can pinpoint it exactly. I was 19, 32 weeks pregnant by a waste of space criminal layabout and living in a kind of halfway house. I woke up, realised if I didn't do something now I'd be committing to another new year and changing nothing.
I told him I was leaving, walked to the phone box and called my Mum. By the time I got back he'd stolen all the money I'd saved for the baby (£300) and I've never seen him since.

By midnight I was cosily tucked in my own bed at my parents house and I never looked back.

I have obvious ones (discovering exP's affair, right-swiping current lovely BF on Tinder etc) but the one that sticks in my mind is being in 6th form, chatting to a bloke I had a massive crush on and running out of conversation so I grabbed the nearest thing to hand, which was a BUNAC brochure and saying, "oh yeah, the summer camp thing. I was planning to do that this summer!"

Huge lie, just for the sake something to say but I ended up actually reading the brochure, really liking the sound of it (BUNAC ran schemes for British students to go abroad to work during the summer) and decided to defer my uni entry for a year and spend the summer working in America.

The summer itself was an amazing experience but it's more the delaying uni thing that really strikes me as going a year earlier would have meant meeting a whole load of different people. I wouldn't have met two of my best friends!

I was also nearly run over by a car on holiday a few years later. I was walking up a hill with my ex and we stopped to get rid of a stone in my shoe. Just as we did, a car came flying down the hill, completely out of control and smashed through the fence a few metres ahead of us. If I hadn't had that stone in my shoe, we would have been much closer to where the car hit and could have been seriously injured, or even killed.

I was at home one night on a dating site and decided to put all of my interests in and widen my search area outside my local area, worth a shot after a few disappointing dates. Only one person came up, so I messaged him. It is now three years later, we are married, have travelled to lots of interesting places and are now settled in a totally different area. I couldn’t be happier and it all came from that one decision

As a refuge worker, I'm delighted by the ones that talk about refuge/women's aid being a positive change in their lives
Nice to know 😊

Breaking up with my long term 'first love' 4 years ago. I just wasn't happy, I was young and it was incredibly brave for me to do that. It hurt for a long time, but I know he's happy with someone, has his dream job etc. And I also wouldn't have had the opportunities I've got if we had of stayed together, I wouldn't have gone travelling like I always dreamed of. I do sometimes get a 'what if' About it though. I will always love him dearly, even if it's not 'that' kind of love anymore.

I've one that I can't get out of my head at the moment. 15 years ago, with a guy I knew wasn't right. I met someone else with whom I had an instant connection. But idiotically turned him down because it all seemed like too much of a risk (I was 25!!!!). Five months later I got an email from the same guy inviting me to his leaving party, as in leaving England for China. We got together a couple of months before he left, and held an ldr together for a further 18 months or so. My one regret is that I didn't go for it straight away, and this 15 years later!

Saying yes when now DH asked me to marry him (v unexpected and out of the blue, I didn’t even think we were that serious). My yes completely bypassed any thought processes, it was complete instinct. Very very very unlike me. My bio father was dreadful and I always had huge barriers up in terms of relationships - I’d generally walk away before things got too serious.

My DH is bloody amazing - kind, supportive, funny etc. He’s a great dad and role model to our DCs. I’m SO glad I said yes.

I have a degree, am a senior HCP in a very demanding but sorry (not sorry) my DH,DCs and extended family are by far the most important thing to me and saying yes was my best decision ever.

Not taking up the place at a musical theatre school I was offered because I allowed myself to be persuaded to go to Uni instead.

Happy with where I am, but I occasionally wonder what would have been if I had made a different choice.

Deciding not to go on my planned and paid for gap year in Australia when I was 19. I didn't go because the freind I was going with dropped out and I was terrified of gping on my own.

I've since met dp and had dd bought a house and got engaged. I met dp at the job I got after I didn't go travelling.

I think my whole life would be completely different and I don't regret not going at all.

The one moment for me was the doctor saying, 'we can't do anything to stop labour.' I was 26w pregnant. One twin survived, the other didn't. My life is before/after.

I still do the same job I always did, but my ambitions have shifted - I don't want to reach for the stars, I want to be home in the evening to put my child to bed. I am not the person I was - not better or worse necessarily but different down to my bones.

I couldn't have changed a thing about that moment but it has altered the course of my life irrevocably.

When I got back in contact with my now partner after 10 years (he came up on people you may know on facebook) I was seeing someone. It wasn't serious but he was really nice. Dp messaged me to go for a drink with him and another friend id not seen for years. That night everything just clicked. When I got home I rang the man id been seeing and ended it without even really knowing if dp was interested! Fortunately he was! I often wonder what life would be like if I hadn't clicked 'add friend'

Oh thought of another. In my early 20's I was on the train going to Glasgow. Whilst on the train a family member rang and I got off the train at Preston instead to visit them. That train derailed near Cumbria. Lots of people seriously injured. Life could of been very different if I hadn't got off that train

I failed my end of Yr 1 exams at Uni. I had a choice between going back to Uni to do a related a degree (knowing I'd not enjoy the self-directed study component and would struggle massivley with self-discipline and had a high risk of failing again) or to go off and complete Yacht Master Instructor and try to get a job teaching others to sail. Something that I was sure I'd enjoy in the immediate term but where I wasn't sure how I'd feel about it 40!

Fast forward 20 years and I got a 2:1 in my degree (science subject), have a highly paid job and work from home whilst hubby is a SAHD. I have plenty of free time for the family and generally love my life. i've traveled a lot for work, lived in other countries and have mostly really enjoyed it. I do sometimes wonder what might have happened if I hadn't decided to go back to Uni. I still struggle with boring tasks but over the years have learned a variety of techniques to allow me to get through them!