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Original poster

To ask what was your 'sliding doors' moment?

455 replies

Fairyicecream · 16/11/2020 19:41

For those that haven't seen the film Sliding Doors, it basically showed how different her life turned out if she caught the train/didn't catch the train.

What was one decision, one moment that could have changed your whole life?

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. A few years ago my marriage went through a bad patch (understatement to say the least). DH talked about leaving. It was the worst time of my life and I honestly don't know how I got through it.

Anyway, i often wonder, what if I had just told him to go? We would now all be living separately and we and our beautiful DC would have a completely different life.

Instead, we are all now happier than we have ever been. But it could have all been so different with that one decision...

OP posts:
bluebellscorner · 17/11/2020 09:07

Not my story but a friend had an ex boyfriend-turned-stalker, he was following her one evening as she was leaving a party with someone. He attacked the guy and assaulted him pretty badly before he fled the scene. My shocked friend then phoned the police.

She ended up marrying the police officer who came to the scene!

PatchworkElmer · 17/11/2020 09:21

@ScissorsBike don’t be so ridiculous. Meeting my life partner is obviously a hugely significant event. I’m sure he’d say exactly the same thing about meeting me. This isn’t a feminist issue 😂😂

SparkyTheCat · 17/11/2020 09:33

Possibly a sliding door - but possibly not. DH and I locked eyes across the office when he came for an interview. I was really gutted when someone else got the job. The other person then walked out after just a few days, and the rest is history. Although there's a (small) chance we might have met anyway through what turned out to be a mutual friend in the department. So who knows...

EminyBOO · 17/11/2020 09:41

When I was 20 I made a date with a guy that I had gone to school with. He stood me up but at the venue I met someone else. He ultimately turned out to be an emotionally and physically abusive, drug addict and drunk. But by the time I realised this I had already uprooted myself from my life, moved to a different country with him and cut most of my friends and family out of my life.
If I hadn’t gone to that club, I wouldn’t have met him and my life would have been completely different now.
But... I then wouldn’t have met my lovely now husband, had our beautiful dc and the life I have now, which is very nice thank you very much. Just had to go through a couple of years to hell to get here!

WhySoSensitive · 17/11/2020 09:41

A job offer i turned down. It was what I wanted to do but the hours were so low...
I ended up getting into another career, qualified and profession but always think ‘what if’

Oliversmumsarmy · 17/11/2020 09:52

16 years ago I made a decision. My whole body was shouting no. But my head took over and I made the decision based on what looked like the sensible option.

Going against the status quo looked too risky and I thought that if things had gone wrong we could have been left homeless.

It is a decision I regretted from the moment I made it.
I look back everyday and wished I had been braver. Given we are about to lose everything anyway.

lostPEkit · 17/11/2020 10:03

I took a second ovulation test because some gut feeling told me that I’d screwed up the first (negative) test that I’d taken fifteen minutes earlier. The second test was positive. I called the clinic to tell them I was ovulating and they told me to come in because they could fit me in for my IUI that morning. Two weeks later, I got a positive pregnancy test. Maybe I’d still have got pregnant that cycle anyway, but it wouldn’t have been the same pregnancy or the same baby, right?

SurreyHillsGirl · 17/11/2020 10:09

@ScissorsBike

It's grim how many of these are about "meeting DH". This could be from the 50's. Have you nothing more significant happening in your lives? It's genuinely embarrassing.
Oh dear, someone's feeling bitter about being single!
lowerthanlow · 17/11/2020 10:17

Backing out of joining the army three months before 9/11
I got all the way to the point of no return before having a wobble so I decided to step back for the summer to have a think.

TheGreatWave · 17/11/2020 10:23

@ScissorsBike

It's grim how many of these are about "meeting DH". This could be from the 50's. Have you nothing more significant happening in your lives? It's genuinely embarrassing.
I put about my parents meeting as that was a definite moment where they both changed their holiday plans.

I do wonder sometimes if things would have been different if DH and I had bought our first house in a different area of town or in a neighbouring borough, or I hadn't spent one evening years back hurriedly completing a job application form, but I see these as a simple chain of events, a path trodden rather than a defining moment.

FortunesFave · 17/11/2020 10:54

ScissorsBike I consider meeting DH to be a twist of fate...all of my achievements were through MY hard work...not through any 'sliding doors moments' ffs. Use your brain.

CorianderLord · 17/11/2020 11:15

If I had gotten the uni room I wanted. If I had I wouldn't have met DP, wouldn't have done my MA, wouldn't have moved to London, wouldn't have got my fun career.

Life would be the total opposite.

BikeRunSki · 17/11/2020 11:34

@FortunesFave

ScissorsBike I consider meeting DH to be a twist of fate...all of my achievements were through MY hard work...not through any 'sliding doors moments' ffs. Use your brain.
Completely agree. My sliding doors moment (above) did lead to meeting DH; also a PhD and a 25 year career in a field I love, and him running a business that employs 45 people. Why is meeting partner not a significant life event anyway?

I’ve often said to my DC that life is all about sliding doors, many decisions you make has an alternative ending. How often do you think or say “I wish I hadn’t done that”, “I wish I’d done it this way...”.

MrsFezziwig · 17/11/2020 12:08

After finishing Uni (language degree) I got a job at the Foreign Office in London, with the intention of being posted abroad later. Had everything arranged, accommodation, did leaving party as well. The morning I was due to travel down, I got up and said “I’m not going”. No idea why, maybe just had a wobble at the thought of leaving home & friends at the age of 22.

Had to get a job at home sharpish which I did out of necessity in a totally unrelated field to my degree and met DH at work. His job sounded much more interesting than mine so I ended up training to do the same. He didn’t last but was the means by which I have had a 30 year career in a job which I have absolutely loved.

I do wonder sometimes about how different my life would have been, travelling the world, if I’d kept to my original plan. Ironically I have done a fair bit of travelling off my own bat and will now go anywhere at the drop of a hat! Maybe I was just a late developer.

MarkRuffaloCrumble · 17/11/2020 12:13

8 years ago I was chatting to a couple of guys on Plenty of Fish. Arranged a date with man 1, then man 2 asked if I wanted to meet up too.

I had a principle of only dating one guy at a time, so I said I’d see how things went with man 1 and then be in touch.

When the day came I was really poorly and had to cancel on man 1. When I was feeling better I was torn between rearranging with man 1 or going out with man 2.

I chose man 2 and we’ve been together 8 years. Lots has happened in that time, travelling to foreign parts, counselling to help deal with past trauma and for us both to work better together, new business ideas, all spurred on by him, so I do wonder how differently my life would be now had I chosen to rearrange with man 1 instead - my life would have taken a whole other course.

MarkRuffaloCrumble · 17/11/2020 12:17

But then again there are so many moments that change our history.

Saying yes to the holiday on which XH and I got together. Moving to a certain house and not another, which changed friends, jobs etc

Even choosing to have sex at a particular time on a particular day - even an hour or two later could have resulted in a completely different child being born! One fateful day I instigated sex with XH 3 times - totally unheard of and I didn’t know why as such. Of course that was the day DD was conceived, so my body clearly knew something I didn’t! But had he been at work that day, we may not have a 3rd DC or it would have been someone different. It’s mind blowing really.

IamMaz · 17/11/2020 12:20

When I was 18 [in 1974] and working evening overtime for the Civil Service, if only I had driven off on my scooter a fraction earlier or later...

It was 20:30 and had been raining.
I was less than a mile from home and some twat in a car pulled out from a row of parked vehicles, straight into me. He hadn't checked if anything was passing. Knocked me off my scooter and into the other side of the road. [He and his girlfriend had been sitting in the car chatting and deciding where to go....]
I ended up at A&E, with 25 stitches in my front left shin and later having to have a skin graft because it went septic.
At 18 it was devastating. 3 months off work and the prospect of not being able to walk properly afterwards. It took me YEARS to ever be brave enough to not wear trousers. Literally bloody years...

And I then had a terrible fear of being driven...

MarkRuffaloCrumble · 17/11/2020 12:21

XH’s sliding doors moment would have been when he turned down the option of 25% share in a small company instead of a decent salary. Said company is now huuuuuge! Of course if he’d taken the shares he would never have met me (some might say that’s a blessing Grin ) and never had had DC (doesn’t bear thinking about!) so you know, swings and roundabouts innit.

TheGreatWave · 17/11/2020 12:24

@MarkRuffaloCrumble

But then again there are so many moments that change our history.

Saying yes to the holiday on which XH and I got together. Moving to a certain house and not another, which changed friends, jobs etc

Even choosing to have sex at a particular time on a particular day - even an hour or two later could have resulted in a completely different child being born! One fateful day I instigated sex with XH 3 times - totally unheard of and I didn’t know why as such. Of course that was the day DD was conceived, so my body clearly knew something I didn’t! But had he been at work that day, we may not have a 3rd DC or it would have been someone different. It’s mind blowing really.

I occasionally think "what if it was a different sperm?" both in relation to me and my DC. Then I decide that hurts my head too much to think about it, so I stop pondering (for a while at least)
BlueCheckedTeatowel · 17/11/2020 13:05

I went to university in the US. After graduating my DB passed away, I decided I missed my family, ended my relationship and came home to England. Met DH and settled down and had DC. Always wondered what if I had stayed. Would happily move back but it would uproot my DC too much.

B00zyCake · 17/11/2020 13:12

I've had a few sliding door moments

Many years ago, my friend offered me a job with training. I believe that my life would be totally different now. I stayed in a totally different industry.

I got on a train & was chatting to someone & they asked me to go with them.
I discovered that it was the wrong train & jumped off to go to my original destination
What would have happened if I had stayed on the train

Aibuabouteverything · 17/11/2020 13:19

Mine was when i got the results back from the universities i'd applied for and i didnt really fancy the only one i'd got into. I ummed and ahhed for ages before i decided to go through clearing and got into one 30 mins away from where i lived. Not long after i met my ex, got pregnant and had my DS.

I'm so glad i didn't choose the first uni as i wouldnt have my DS but i always wonder what path my life would have taken if i'd gone down that route, it was a good few hours from my hometown and would have no doubt been a great opportunity for me.

Irishgene · 17/11/2020 13:31

I had just been dumped and went out for a few drinks with a friend on a weekday night, I met my future husband that night. He had last minute decided to not go to a concert and to go for a drink too. We've been together for nearly 14 years and have 2 children.

twoforluck · 17/11/2020 13:32

My date stood me up and i was pretty disappointed so went for a drink with my best friend instead, i ended up meeting my now husband that night!

Pleasegodgotosleep · 17/11/2020 14:07

I was coerced into OLD by my best friend. Had my first disastrous date and swore I would do no more. My bf made me keep the date I had already arranged with a second person instead of cancelling. I ended up marrying him Grin. We have 2 DD and he's the love of my life. If I'd just cancelled where would I be?