Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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:
Aria2015 · 16/11/2020 21:33

My brother persuaded me to go for a drink on Christmas Eve many years ago. I really, really didn't want too but he went on and on and guilted me into going. That night I bumped into my now husband. I was due to move away from where I lived. I'd booked my flight and everything. It all got cancelled because I chose to stay and see what happened between me and my now husband (gut feeling told me it was something worth staying for).

I often wonder what I'd be doing, where I'd be and who (if anyone) I'd be with now if I had stuck to my guns and stayed home. I wouldn't have been with my husband that's for sure as I was moving (far) away and so no future chances of bumping into each other. I'm glad I went for that drink though!

ChaBishkoot · 16/11/2020 21:37

Met my DH as a teenager in the U.K. (I’m from Asia and he’s from the southern US). He was American. He then went back to the States and we drifted apart a bit for a year although we kept in touch. He met someone else. Was going to marry her eventually or so he thought. I then moved to the States a couple of hours away from him. In the first semester I went to a conference at his University. We met for breakfast, didn’t stop chatting for hours. There was clearly a spark and we were extremely good friends. I didn’t want to cause trouble so didn’t say anything. But he broke up with her because he realised he missed me, got back in touch and asked me out. On the day he called me, that morning, assuming that nothing was going to happen and DH and I were going to just be friends I had agreed to go out to dinner with another guy on my PhD programme I quite liked. He was utterly lovely. DH called and in his usual awkward way (tbf he’s autistic) asked me out again. I didn’t know what to do, because DH was hard work because of his autism but we had some common bond that was inexplicable. Turned down the other lovely guy, said yes to DH, and now 2 kids later we live on the US East Coast.
The girl DH thought he was going to marry? She became a physician and married a classmate and then pregnant with their first child died in a car crash.

BangersAndMush · 16/11/2020 21:37

As someone who has lived in several different countries all over the world, I think about this a lot. It can be scary if you dwell on it for too long!

TheGreatWave · 16/11/2020 21:37

My Mum and Dad

Mum lived in the Midlands - was going on holiday to place A, went to book it and then at the very last moment decided to change to place B.

Dad up in Yorkshire, was going on holiday, a friend convinced him to change his plans and go to place B.

Mum was told not to go on a date with him because he was too short. She did anyway.

On their return to England, first weekend, Dad came down with nothing in case he wanted to go straight back home.

50 years ago that was - golden anniversary next year.

ChaBishkoot · 16/11/2020 21:38

And DH and I have now been together for 22 years...married for 12.

greeneyedlulu · 16/11/2020 21:39

I met my current partner of 3 years 23 years ago and we are stupidly happy but I often wonder what would have happened if we actually got together all those years ago, how many kids would we have had etc. We are so happy now that a part of me is sad that I missed out on 20 years of this instead of the bullshit I did have.

pengin567 · 16/11/2020 21:39

I had (but not seruiously) considered a career in nursing when I was younger.
I happened to look it up randomly on the internet one day, and found out it was the last year of diploma courses, before it went to all degree.
I could get onto this with an NVQ level 3. My work at the time was advertising for people interested in working towards NVQ level 2, which I did in the hope it would lead to a 3 (it did)
On the open night, I decided to study learning disability nursing, after it was discussed.
10 years later I am working s a mental health nurse (which I could do with my learning disability qualification)..I would never have guessed I would end up where I am in life, especially as I didn't apply myself as I should have earlier in life

FieldsAndSun · 16/11/2020 21:42

Going to a houseparty where I met DH, if I hadn't gone that night my whole life wouls have changed, it was a one-off meeting as he didn't live near me

Theatrically · 16/11/2020 21:43

I have two moments like that. One is that I started a medical degree after I left school. I was wracked with self-doubt and ended up becoming really depressed and dropped out of the course. I then did a completely different course and I occasionally wonder what my life would've been like if I'd finished the course and become a doctor after all. It's still a regret of mine, but my life would've been so different that it's hard to imagine.

The second one happened years later when I got a job offer in a different city. I resigned from the job I was in but strangely, made few other preparations to move. A few days out I decided on impulse to turn it down. I guess deep down I hadn't been ready to make the move, and although it threw my career off course, by staying in the same city I met my DH just a year later. Funnily enough he'd also had a job offer in the other city which he'd turned down too. I guess it really was meant to be!

NotanotherboxofFrogs · 16/11/2020 21:51

My car was in for service so I took the bus into town, at the bus stop a man asked me the time and we started chatting and chatted all the way to town. We exchanged numbers and went our separate ways. That afternoon I got a text from an old work colleague who asked me out. I felt I wanted to see where it would go if anywhere with bus man, I wasn't sure about old colleague anyhow. Busman came round to mine the following night and we have been together since, I'm still with busman 15 years later and old work colleague is serving a prison sentence for murder and manslaughter of two of his family members.

GabsAlot · 16/11/2020 21:51

i dont have any but i always think of the people who missed their flight on 9/11 and the ones who sadly didnt

ItCouldBeBunnies · 16/11/2020 21:52

mammylamb I wasn't far from you. I'd been on the same trip not long before but with the Brownies. Probably a similar route actually. My sister was a Guide at the time. I've never forgotten it. I remember my mum being really upset. Even my dad. We weren't directly affected and we didn't know anyone who was but it was so awful and so close and just sad. I still think about it a lot. Really sorry Flowers

GabsAlot · 16/11/2020 21:54

shit notanother thats a close call

MarshaBradyo · 16/11/2020 21:57

Being ‘approached’ in Hollywood getting embarrassed and running away. No idea what the situation would have been. Dastardly or otherwise

FortunesFave · 16/11/2020 21:57

If my boss hadn't given me a warning, I never would have walked home through the West End and gone into a theatre on a whim...then I would not have been offered a job there or met DH.

TalesTheCat · 16/11/2020 22:00

Was out with my friend in a pub and planning to go to a club at the other side of town. Whilst in the pub we got talking to a group of guys who asked where we going next so we told them. As they were leaving one of them flashed us. We decided not to take the risk and stay at the club attached to the pub we were In. That night I met DH, 22 years and 2 kids later im pretty grateful the guy flashed me 😂😂

Benjispruce2 · 16/11/2020 22:01

Left my job training to be an accountant and temped at a bank. Met my future husband. 25 years happily married.Best decision.

BluebellCockleshell123 · 16/11/2020 22:02

If I had worked a little bit harder at school I would’ve got my predicted grades. Instead I missed my no1 Uni choice by 1 UCCA point and ended up at a different university than planned.... where I met DH! We’ve been together ever since (25years) and are still very happy. I remember how disappointed I was at getting a B in that exam. Turned out it was the best thing to happen to me.

stschiap · 16/11/2020 22:03

If I had stayed at home (which was what I actually wanted to do) instead of being persuaded to go out to a village festival I would never have ended up snogging my ex and probably had a way better time in the last seven years as he turned out to be a piece of shit.

Scarby9 · 16/11/2020 22:06

A friend and her friend borrowed a trolley from the railway station to pull their trunks up the hill to their college (early 1960s).
They decided to ride the trolley back down the hill and ran over a naval officer.
Reader, she married him.

Wherrsmaclickypen · 16/11/2020 22:07

Our forever home. We decided to start looking in a completely new area to get a feel for what was out there, with no urgency, expecting the process to take forever, certainly a few years.

On our first ever tentative viewing we got stuck in a horrendous motorway accident on the very long journey - which left us stationary for a couple of hours. We were never going to make it, and were due at a big family party. I am a huge stickler for punctuality so by rights should have texted our apologies to the homeowner and pressed on to the event as quickly as possible. But no, completely out of character and against the proteststions of dh, I spoke to the owner who said, no worries, come when you can. It would be our only chance to see it. We arrived very late in the pitch dark and had our viewing then shot off to the party rather stressed, very apologetic but also rather giddy.......

Our offer was accepted two days later 😬 The house was perfect and purchasing it years before 'the plan' forced us to change our work, and our lives, for the better. Still have no understanding on what made me keep that viewing.

BitOfFun · 16/11/2020 22:11

In 2005, I'd invited a good friend to visit, and planned for us to go to an art exhibition before hitting the bars. On the morning she was due, she cried off, so although I understood, I was mildly peeved as it meant staying in, being too late to arrange an alternative. At the last minute, I thought "Bugger it, I'm going anyway", and I went to the exhibition alone, despite being really nervous and scared of looking like a spare part.

It was the night I met my husband. If I'd taken my friend, I probably wouldn't have even spoken to him. So, thanks to her car's dodgy clutch, and my leap of faith, I've had fifteen years of being incredibly happy and madly in love- excellent result!

Mammylamb · 16/11/2020 22:12

@ItCouldBeBunnies. It impacted the whole community; everyone was debated, so even if you didn’t know anyone on the bus, it still makes you cry.

The press were absolute vultures: on the way to one of the girls funerals they were right in my face asking if I was on the bus (I was wearing a guide uniform, as were all the guides). My dad told them to fuck off or he would punch them (and he would have), but there was a huge amount of kindness too. Donations came in from over the world: they gave all of us new uniforms as some of the girls on the bus uniforms were destroyed (I’m sure you understand why), and they didn’t want them to stand out: and bearing in mind Drumchapel is a deprived area, parents didn’t have lots of cash to shell out.

It was such a lovely guide group: In the years before the crash we went to France and Holland with them: paid completely from bag packing in local shops (this was the first time abroad for almost all of us, and an opportunity we never would have been able to afford)

Rachellow · 16/11/2020 22:13

At freshers fair I randomly signed up to volunteer at an education charity but nearly didn’t go to the selection event due to crippling sinusitis. Volunteering there made me change my entire career path from corporate law to KS1 teaching couldn’t be happier tbh

SoulofanAggron · 16/11/2020 22:14

When at 25 I got with a married man who was quite a bit older, with disabilities. He left his wife supposedly for me.

I wonder now and again what my life would've been like if I'd left him to his wife/not got involved.

My sex life would probably have been a lot better. Grin

My life is probably more sedate than it would've been.

We're not a couple anymore but still are best friends, often live together, and see each other most days.

I have bipolar so it could well've been that he's kept me on the straight and narrow and saved my life. Without him I'd probably have had a much more unhealthy lifestyle and dodgier people around me.