To ask what was your 'sliding doors' moment?

[Fairyicecream]

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...

If I would have punched my bully in her face when she first hit me, she might have been the scared one and not made my school life a misery.

Mixedupworld - so sorry. Sending love. xxxx

If friend A hadn't gone to a party at friend B's house. He wouldn't have met friend C who joined our friendship group and introduced me to dp 13 years ago. Turns out dp also worked at Wimbledon and went to the same uni as one of my other friends in our group but they'd never met until he joined our friendship group.Also his best friend went to uni in my home town and we were probably in the same nightclubs at the same time without knowing it!

How is that outing?

We were trying for children but i sadly had 2 miscarriages in a row. I don't know why as nhs policy isnt to investigate til you have 3 in a row, but i was referred for tests. They found blood clotting problems. My next pregnancy i took treatment and had ds1. If some kind doctor hadnt agreed to do tests i would have miscarried again and he wouldn't exist. Awful thought and i am eternally grateful.

I was an extremely infrequent visitor to Mn and am still.

One day, not long after I'd discovered that the Feminist boards existed, I was having a look around and saw a post by Amy Desir, suggesting that a group called ManFriday be set up. I joined that day and it turned my life on its head. If I hadn't looked on the Feminist board that day, I'd probably never have noticed and made that giant leap of faith.
I've never regretted it for a millisecond but wow, has it been a rough ride since then! Kudos to all women in these groups everywhere, you make me a better feminist and braver woman.

I've remembered an interesting one.
I'd seen my dream job advertised a long way from home and had sent for and completed the application but it was a huge risk so I was having second thoughts. DH would have no job in the area, we would be too far from family....nope, it was too big a change. So I decided against it, and the application sat, completed but not posted, on the coffee table in its envelope.
One Sunday afternoon, the day before the closing date for the job, our front door bell rang and there stood an old friend from University who I hadn't seen for several years. She'd been Christmas shopping in our city and had dropped by on the off chance that we were in. When she went to pick her coffee up she noticed the envelope and asked me what it was, as the address was in her home town. I told her but said that it was too late now as applications closed next day. She dropped it in her bag and told me that she was driving up to see her parents that evening and would put it through the door as she passed.
She did, I got the job and we moved. We've been here over 20 years now. Our lives would have been totally different were it not for that chance visit.

Oh ive just realised what mine was.

The night I met my partner it was my 1st shift at my aunties pub, and him&his friend had been invited to a stag do 100 miles away but he decided to pop in the pub for a quick pint.

9 years later we have a beautiful daughter and a lovely home x

CloudyVanilla

Can’t say on here the details as it isn’t my story to tell but if you and your Dp were meant to be together then fate has a habit of bringing people together.

Scotland? Probationer scheme? :)

Mine is very silly actually.
Met a man trough a dating app before I was with DH.

Didn't work out. I was heartbroken, met DH and got married / had a baby.

He still sends me messages now and then and it's obvious there is some unfinished business between us. I always wonder what would have happened if I had not married DH and had waited for him to come back.

I wasn’t very wooo until this but I still can’t explain it. I was in a pub with a female friend and normally I’m not social/don’t speak to men even when spoken to, etc.

I saw someone I barely knew’s brother walking past, I knew their name and nothing else about them. Before I could even think I yelled their name across the room and then was gobsmacked with myself. I didn’t do it because I fancied them at the time (but eventually I would) and they weren’t “my type”. Not that I would have even done that to someone who was

That was my now DP, who eventually told me he had been in love with me for years from afar and he would’ve never spoke to me if I hadn’t have shouted of him. The chances of us bumping into each other after that day were slim to none.

I still have absolutely no idea where it came from, it was really rushed and loud like you would shout “stop” to someone walking into the road. Like my life depended on it

I always got on a specific train to work and sat in a specific seat and had done for years. I had bad toothache one day and decided to wfh. The train crashed and most people in 'my' carriage were killed.

After uni I was doing agency work while trying to find a job. I had sent letters a CV’s out and was offered a job in a town about 13 miles away. I didn’t drive so turned it down as it was more travel and cost than the agency work I was doing.

A few weeks later I was let go by the agency so I rang back this job and started a few weeks later. I was there (worked my way through the ranks) for nearly 15 years. On my second day I met my now DH. We have been married 17 years with 2dc and all the experiences I gain in my old place allowed me to get my current job.

There was a moment in my relationship when we nearly broke up a few years ago. We were in the middle of an enormous, bitter argument and I remember thinking "I could just get up and walk out of the door and never see this guy again". But I stayed, and now we're married with a kid. I am happy but do occasionally wonder how my life would be different if I'd left that day.

I also changed my A Level choices on a whim on the first morning of sixth form and ended up studying something that I now do for a living. It was a totally spur of the moment decision that changed my whole future.

I took a job working as a shot girl to get me between finishing sixth form and starting uni. Very not me, had to borrow a mini skirt off a friend and buy some pink strappy tops.
Obviously a lot of men are very interested in pulling a shot girl. So a few were asking for my number and I refused, spoke to one a bit more than the others and about normal stuff which was novel.

Two weeks later after one of the bar managers took a dislike to me and I got moved to another bar. Saw the same man on a night out and it was like I was seeing my best friend after years, ran over and gave him a hug. 7 years later we're married with a baby on the way. I lived with him through uni which protected me from bullying in halls (autistic, I struggled) and stopped me having to go back and live with mum and stepdad where I would have ended up killing myself.
He's my rock and I'm his.

I like to think fate gave me a second chance that night and I took it!

@Disco91

How is that outing?

Assuming you're asking Tummywhy I would imagine that she told a lot of her friends and family about that situation, so if any of them are on here, they would know it's her.

I've known DH for years, met him 21 years ago in a club when his mate tried to chat me up, didn't fancy his mate but did fancy dh. But my mate fancied his mate, they copped off for want of a better word, all went back to mine and I had a fwb type arrangement with dh for about 4 years, on and off.

My friend subsequently married his friend. I moved away, had dd and moved back home. Dd was nearly 2, I went out out for first time in 3 years with my friend. At the end of the night we wanted chips, queue was too long at first place so went round corner and dh was stood having a fag, waiting for a taxi with another friend. Didn't get chips, we all went back to mine for more beers and we've been together 15 years, married for 2 and a half and have ds (6). And he's raised dd as his own, much better than her useless waste of a skin father.

If there hadn't been a queue I'd have gone home with chips and cheese!

Maybe I am a little bit cynical but there are few genuine moments like this ....sure the person that overslept and missed that fateful flight on 9/11 ....but the romance ones ....surely you'd meet someone anyway at another time and place and then THAT would be your sliding door moment ?

I lost my driving licence for 6 months and had to get a lift to a train station to get to work, I met my now dh on the train, we've been happily married for years now and very happy.

I thought at the time my life had ended as I lived in a very rural location, was single with two kids, something very good came out of something I did that was very stupid

On tummywhy that's terrifying for you.

After MANY situations where I could have met my husband (from age 12 to uni years, I even have a blurry picture of him on a train in a tourist town, miles from home, I took it age 16 and we were at some music venues at the same time). I actually met him in my 30s. I met him because after a speed awareness course I agreed to give a lift from that town to a friend's girlfriend (I didn't know the girlfriend). Anyway, they made me dinner to thank me. Husband was housemate.
So I guess we did meet eventually, but his coincidences with a different housemate were more spooky. Maybe he should have met the housemate

Whilst at University, I travelled from my University city to another for a job interview. I set off late, which is really out of character.

As such the whole thing overran and on my way back, I ran for a train only to see it pull out of the station.

The train was involved in a really nasty crash where some died and had very serious injuries. Mostly those sitting in the last carriage which is where I would have been if I had managed to get on.

Oh for the grace of God and all that.

Mine was back in the early 90’s.
I decided against going to uni to take a full time job (from a work experience placement that I originally hadn’t wanted to take)!
My job saw me through the recession and gave me the opportunities to work overseas and make lifelong friends, travel the world and experience such things as a flight on Concorde! Truly blessed

Mine is a sad one and happened when I was a toddler, so it wasn’t a decision I has made. My dad was popping out for something and I was screaming and crying wanting to go with him. I was just about to but it was decided at the last moment I should stay at home with my mum. I don’t know who decided that. On his way back home he had a car accident and died instantly. On an anniversary of his death(I was a teenager) I overheard a conversation about this between his siblings. How I wish I never heard that. For a long time- and it still crops up now and then-I couldn’t get over the thought that if I had gone he may have taken a different route or done something differently. So many what ifs. My family are not aware that I know. I’m in my 40’s now. Gosh that was hard writing it down.