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...

DP and I were both spending the weekend away, but separately, him on his motorbike for a bikers weekend, and me visiting my parents. His bike broke down, so I went to pick him up early, and we ended up unexpectedly together, on a weekend I was ovulating, without condoms, and decided to "risk it". (We'd agreed we'd try for a baby the next year)

As it is, we now have a 2 year old, and I'm so glad DPs bike broke down!

@CheetasOnFajitas totally agree, that’s exactly what I feel about meeting DP, too.

@ScissorsBike loads of cool stuff has happened in my life, but the OP asked of examples of Sliding Doors moments, and meeting my DP was mine, as is the same for many other posters. There’s nothing grim or embarrassing about that, FFS.
Why is there always one who tries to divert the thread, even when the thread is about nice stuff 🤔

I was offered a job abroad - the final part of the interview which was basically a formality was at the company HQ in that country. The same day I was offered a job in London (where I was already working). If I'd left London I wouldn't have met my DCs father's...my life would have been based in a small Scandinavian city, and completely different.

I met my OH online. I'd been single for a long time and was done with dating sites. As a final roll of the dice I decided to pick 10 men with nice well written profiles (fairly rare, I had to widen my search area to find 10!) and message them. OH was one of the 10, he was outside my area so I would never otherwise have seen him. He got my message the day he was logging in to delete his profile as he was fed up with it all. It doesn't quite end there - we started chatting and I was optimistic, but was also messaging another of the 10, who I arranged to meet for coffee but he stood me up. Which annoyed me at the time but if that date had gone well I might not then have gone on a date with OH and had the great relationship I have now.

If my twat of an ex hadn't used the term 'don't wait for me' after breaking things off with tales of being drafted overseas (operation bullshit) I wouldn't have been furious enough to join a dating agency for the first time in my life (the odds are good but the goods are odd & all that ) just to prove that I wasn't going to wait for him and then wouldn't have met DH or had DS.

My DP and I have been friends since we were 11 & 12. Now 27 & 28.
When I was 17 I had a controlling boyfriend who did not like me talking to DP. We didn't speak for a year or so. I broke up with my ex before heading off to uni. Whilst out one night I heard a familiar voice call my name, it was DP.
We've been together 8 years now and have a DS.
My ex must have seen my future for me I reckon!

If I hadn't let my (happily settled, nosey but lovely) work colleague have a look on my phone at 'what that tinder was all about' one lunchtime, I never would have matched with one particular guy. I have a long commute, as did he but from the other direction, and we both had our search distance set in a way that would have meant we never would have crossed paths on the app had we both been at home. A bit annoying when we found out we lived 80 miles apart but we made it work and we've now been together for 6 years! He moved in after a year which made life much easier

I had 2 job offers at the same time with a significant difference in pay, I opted for the job with the lower salary because I enjoyed the type of work more, asked myself more than once that night why the hell did I do that?!

Met a lovely colleague straight into the job, this colleague is now DH, we were both young and had nothing then, now we have our house, 2DC and a lifetime of happiness. Best chance I ever took.

Was advised by consultant at age 25 not to have another child, my son was 4 and I was in a great 3 year relationship with a lovely guy who treated my son as his own, his entire family had accepted us both and things were heading towards getting married. I knew my boyfriend wanted kids and I also knew he loved me and would tell me it dudnt matter and that my son was enough but I couldn't do it to him. I never told him the truth, I lied and said I'd fallen out of love and split up. Two years later he got married and he has two daughters now, I got married eleven years after we split, I sometimes wonder how things would be if I'd told him the truth. I really hope he's happy.

I don't place too much importance on these 'sliding doors' moments. Every X is caused by Y. If I hadn't gone to the shop for bread the other day, I wouldn't have had a bacon butty for lunch. If my auntie had balls, she'd be my uncle.

So here's the thing .... Maybe if we avoid our destiny by making a different choice, it still catches up with us anyway? I'm not woo at all, I'm saying this because of how I met my husband. It was his first week at Uni and he came along to an open day the society I was in was holding. We chatted a bit, he wanted to ask me out for a drink but was a bit shy and while he was summoning up the courage, I spotted someone I knew and went off. To me he was just one of the crowd of students attending the open day. We then didn't see each other again for 8 months. But when we met again, through a mutual friend, we both remembered each other quite clearly. He didn't hang around that time! In fact we were engaged 5 months later and we've been married 35 years. We often say we must have fated to get together.

If I hasn't forgotten my shopping!!

I worked in Tesco as a student and used to do my shop, then my shift and leave my shop in the staff room.

So that night I got in my car late at night started driving and thought bugger no food! I turned around and went back.

On my drive home a car came around a bend too quickly and crashed into me.

Long story, I was ok ish, but had an injury claim of a few thousand and I used the claim money to travel overseas to work in a different country after graduating. This hadn't been an option without the money, 2 years later I met my DH in the country away from the UK and 25 years on have two DS and back settled.

I always think, if I'd remembered my shopping that evening none of this would of happened.

I had to pick between two men! A proper red trousers wearing hooray Henry - nice, decent, sort of man I grew up with. He was heading to Sandhurst with plane to be an army officer.

Or a somewhat flashy American from New York who wanted to go into politics and change the world.

I picked the American. I could see exactly what my life would be like with the Hooray Henry and didn't fancy it. Now I live in NYC, a world away from the Home Counties and I wouldn't have it any other way.

A month or so after finishing my exams in my final year of uni I was living back at my mum and dads, being a typical slob and having a massive lie in on a week day. My phone rang and woke me up, which was strange as I always put it on silent overnight but had somehow forgotten to do it the night before. It was a recruiter who had found my cv online and said they needed an assistant with my degree to fill a 3 month temporary position, but that I needed to start the next day. I felt like declining it as I couldnt be bothered starting work the next day but decided to accept it to get some money.

7 years later, I've been promoted 4 times and I'm now head of the department.

I massively suffer from imposter syndrome as it feels like a total fluke

My Great Grandmother refused to sign the papers to allow Grandad to sign up to fight in the Great War before he was 18.

My Grandmother's sweetheart was killed.

There are at least 29 people here who might get not have been. ( Lost contact with cousin's children who might have their own kids now)

@Lottle

Just wanted to say great thread!

Watching that film gave me some sort of mental issue! Almost every day I think to myself something like, I wonder if I set off now instead of in 20 seconds time whether I'll have a car accident etc. I kind of wish I never had watched the film!

Have you seen the adjustment bureau too?

If I had not been in that pub on that night and the drink did not get spilled, I would not have met my bloke, not in a million years.

He had been living alone for a long time. He never went out unless it was for work. It was Christmas and he reluctantly agreed to go for a drink which got spilled on me.............

And the rest is history.

I met my DP through tinder. He first messaged me in the week between Christmas and New Year and we exchanged a couple of introductory messages. I was talking to a load of other people as well and just decided I was bored of tinder and decided to stop using it for a while. The first week of the year I was hanging out with a friend who was also on OLD and after helping her pick potential candidates I decided to give it another go myself.

I messaged now DP with an apology and some bullshit excuse about having been busy and we went on our first date the following week. As soon as I clapped eyes on him in person I was absolutely mad for him and we had the best first date I've ever had and have been happily together ever since. I often sit and think about all the ways that might not have happened. If I'd never went back on tinder or went back on but didn't message him again or if he decided to ignore my message because I hadn't replied to him in over a week or if he'd met someone else in the time I was AWOL etc and it knocks me sick to think I could have so easily missed out on him.

I went with my then boyfriend & his mates to buy tickets for an FA cup semi final, we hadn't been able to buy them officially but we knew that there would be touts selling outside the ground & nearby pubs. The touts were wanting more than double what they wanted the year before so me & my boyfriend decided to not bother, he went to mess with his car & I went to town, we arranged to meet later.

The semi final we wanted to go to was Hillsborough, 96 people died in the stand we would have been in, my boyfriend's mates got back at 8.30pm in deep shock from what they had seen.

My whole life has been full of sliding door moments, from being in care and then adopted, to being dragged unwillingly to a friend's gig, where I met up with a former flame, married now for hundreds of years...
I refused a council property, when being evicted from a London squat, which I could later have had the right to buy (fool); sooo nearly went to India in a bus full of hippies that picked me up hitchhiking from Hastings to the ferry; started talking with some environmental protesters in the middle of a forest and ended up devoting five years to it, plus making an incredible bunch of friends, still close twenty years later.

Two men, B and J, are chatting at work. B says his daughters are desperate to go to a festival but can't get a lift. J says his son and best mate are going, and perhaps they could give them a lift?

B and J are my late grandfathers, my late dad was J's son. His best mate married my aunt.

[quote ProfessorofCunning]@CheetasOnFajitas my dad’s office was round the corner from Russel square. He had decided to go to work early that day, but normally didn’t get in until 9. I worked in Piccadilly Circus at the time, and remember frantically trying to call him. Horrible hour, until I was able to speak to my mum at about 10 as he had sent her an email to say he was ok. His sliding door moment. London was equally frightening and the most amazing place that day. Felt like the whole capital was walking home that evening in a show of solidarity.[/quote]
Not my story either, but a friend's brother - he was taking medical exams that day, and he should have been on the bus that blew up but had decided to go early instead, to ensure he wasn't late. Consequently he was already there when the bus did blow up, and he and several other doctors who were taking exams were first on the scene. He has never spoken about what he saw to my friend, he can't.

Two from me - one happy, one sad.
The happy one first. If I had said "sorry, I've had a bad day at work and am really tired" instead of agreeing to go out for a drink with the couple who had just moved into the flat above mine 30 years ago, I would have never have met my DH or had my children.
The less happy one. If I hadn't stopped to buy a drink at the shop just outside work one day I would have been home 10 minutes earlier and not been hit by the car that came round a corner too fast on the wrong side of the road. That set off a chain of disastrous events that I really would prefer not to have occurred.

@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.

Getting married is a pretty major life event!

I joined an online forum when I was sixteen. That forum led to another forum, which is where I met my ex, for whom I moved to where I live now, which is where I met my husband. It's also where I got my first job in my sector, and now my employer is paying for me to study for my qualification. So that forum led to a marriage, a baby, and a career.

I do wonder what would have happened if I'd not joined that forum, but I think I got the happy side of the sliding door.

I trained as a teacher (late second career) but didn’t like the stuff that goes with a permanent position so did daily supply while thinking about next move. Accompanied a friend to a party and got chatting to a complete stranger waiting for the loo. Stranger was retiring deputy head of a school near me and said she would put in a word for me re supply. From a couple of days’ supply I was made permanent in a entirely different subject from my specialisation. Would never have thought to apply through normal route or would have been accepted for interview as no experience in that role and would have been considered too old. Was several years ago and have never been happier -fab job, location, colleagues and kids. From a chance conversation just to be polite.
Always talk to strangers!