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Original poster

What’s your sliding doors moment?

110 replies

Tiffbiff · 29/11/2021 21:48

Just that really! Watched sliding doors recently ( for those that haven’t watched it- a film that follows the life of a women had she caught the train and if she hadn’t caught the train)

Mine is in my twenties I worked a season abroad and met my husband in the destination that I did- if they had sent me Tenerife who would be in bed with me right now?!

OP posts:
Sunbeams09 · 30/11/2021 23:42

I had been working towards a promotion for years in a large organisation. My boss changed and my new boss sat me down and explained that I could already do the job (the one I was working on being promoted into) so I wouldn’t really be gaining anything by actually getting the job, other than a bit more money (which was fine if that’s what I wanted of course). She suggested I applied elsewhere and get some new skills. I decided after a bad day on a whim that she was right, put an application in for a job that sounded interesting 2 grades higher and somehow got it! My career has totally changed, I have so much more confidence and the extra salary has allowed me, DH and the kids to move into a lovely house I’d never have dreamed I could own. I often wonder what would my life be like if I hadn’t got annoyed that day and decided to apply for that job. Probably still be waiting on that promotion!

Welshwabbit · 30/11/2021 23:56

I'm a barrister. There is an application process for barristers starting out in which you apply to a number of chambers and all the offers (if you're lucky!) come through together. I got offers from a couple but was the reserve choice for my favourite. On the very last day for acceptance of places under the scheme, I hadn't heard from this chambers and was about to accept a place somewhere else. My friend persuaded me to ring my preferred chambers before I accepted elsewhere, just in case. It turned out they had left a message on my landline that morning offering me a place - which I couldn't have picked up before the deadline for acceptance.

I've worked there for 20 years now.

Also, this story is much better when you know that the friend who made me ring was Judge Rinder.

RiverSkater · 01/12/2021 00:17

The Midnight Library is a book about this very subject, the main character gets to live the lives she regretted not choosing and many more besides!

Original poster
Tiffbiff · 01/12/2021 21:31

@Welshwabbit haha that’s very cool!

@RiverSkater ooo thank you I’ll have a look at that!

OP posts:
Westerman · 01/12/2021 21:51

I missed out on a job I really wanted, took a different job instead that was less money and less convenient. Met my husband there.

MakeItRain · 01/12/2021 21:58

Mine is the moment that by sheer accident I found out something truly awful about my exh. That ultimately lead to divorce and me moving to my lovely house with my children. We live the most peaceful life. I sometimes wonder who I would be now if I hadn't have found out what I did. I think I would be completely miserable, trapped in that terrible relationship. I think my children would have been unhappy too. I always think someone or some positive force was looking down on me that day even though at the time it felt horrific.

theDudesmummy · 01/12/2021 22:04

My Dh of 17 years now (and and DS) are "sliding doors" people. I was in a relationship with a man who failed to turn up for a lunch date brasuse he was too hungover. I therefore went to visit a friend instead, rather I isse s off. There I met DH.

theDudesmummy · 01/12/2021 22:05

Sorry that should read "rather pissed off"

SleepingStandingUp · 01/12/2021 23:29

@RomComPhooey

Walking back from the beach with DH and my young sons on holiday. The four of us stopped so I could re-do my shoe laces. A driver lost control of their car on a bend up ahead, mounted the pavement we were on at speed and smashed into the wall it ran along about 10 metres ahead of where we’d stopped. DH and DS2 were walking ahead of me and DS1 initially. Both would have been seriously injured or killed if we hadn’t all stopped at that point. DH and I had a few stiff drinks that evening. It still makes me shudder.
😮
MrsToothyBitch · 02/12/2021 05:40

I met DP on Tinder. I had the radius on my Tinder set to about 25 miles I think- he lived about that far away. His was set to within 10 miles. I went on a date within DP's radius with someone else based over that way, and whilst that didn't work out, I was in the right place at the right time to show up on DPs app for him to super like me and start chatting.

I'd also had a couple of good dates with others when I went on a date with him and was pretty relaxed about it as he seemed nice but I had other irons in the fire, just in case. Then I actually met DP and everyone else just stopped existing within 5 minutes. My blood runs cold at the thought of who I might've ended up with instead, if someone else with a wider radius hadn't swiped on me at the right time, we hadn't gone on a date at the moment we did and DP hadn't then swiped at the right time too.

I have others, but that's the big one!

Youngatheart00 · 02/12/2021 05:42

My life would have been a hell of a lot different if IVF had worked. I think about what could have been every single day.

DollyParton2 · 02/12/2021 06:20

Really thought like this last week when joining a motorway (with DD 5 months in car) and though normally put my foot down pretty quickly something forced me to suddenly pull back when joining a new lane. Within seconds another car joining and the car in front of me crashed into his each other in a huge collision. Cars both right offs. If I hadn’t suddenly pulled back - for no actual reason just a weird sixth sense- it would’ve been us too. Avoided it by a few cm/ split second.

Harlequin1088 · 02/12/2021 06:21

A bit like a previous poster, my existence is a bit sliding doors.

My paternal grandmother was with her mother visiting a poorly friend in hospital one day. The friend suggested she go and keep the nice young man in the hospital bed next to them company as he hadn't had a visitor all day. That young man was my grandfather who had been hospitalised following a terrible motorcycle accident where he lost his spleen. He and my grandmother hit it off and went on to marry and have 5 children. All because her mother had dragged her along to visiting hours at the hospital that day!

One of those 5 children was my father. He joined the Police and in those days you were always stationed away from your home town to avoid having to arrest people you knew. My mother came from a different town and she happened to be placed at the same police station as my Dad when she joined the force a year later. If they'd be stationed at different towns then they'd never have met and I'd have never existed!

Roisin78 · 02/12/2021 06:35

@PomBearWithoutHerOFRS

I went to a party on September 20th 1985. I would give anything to be able to go back and tell my teenaged self to stay home!
Whatever happened it's obvious stayed with you a long time, I'm sorry ♥️♥️
groovergirl · 02/12/2021 07:07

Lima, Peru, 1992. I was in the beach suburb of Miraflores, waiting for a bus, when I decided to sit down for a coffee. Then I got nervous about missing the bus, so had a takeaway, caught the bus and left the area. About 10 minutes later Shining Path rebels set off car bombs nearby, killing 25 people and maiming lots more.

Nothing bad happened to me during my next three months in South America, but this near-miss made me even more hyper-vigilant.

JakeyRolling · 02/12/2021 07:44

Meeting DH was technically a "both versions" sliding doors moment.

I met him at a friend's new year party.

However it turns out I'd actually been introduced to him at a bar several months before but he'd gone home almost immediately after as he had a migraine.

So if he'd stayed we might have "met" sooner.

So glad we got a second chance (a la John Hannah's character)

ILoveYouMoreTheEnd · 02/12/2021 08:06

My DH lived just 5 mins walk from me 20 years ago and he said he remembered me as the sexy blonde in the red A3.... why our paths never crossed I have no idea as we walked our dogs in the same places too. Now we are both so happy and we do wish we had met years ago but hey Ho xxx

Tempslidingdoors · 02/12/2021 08:24

I was all set to sign up for an outdoor sport course when at the last minute a friend said they would like to visit so I hung out with them instead. There was an incident and everyone on the course died.

Charley50 · 02/12/2021 08:41

I disagree that all moments are sliding doors moments.. if you met your husband at uni where you had years to get to know each other, that's not a sliding doors moment.

I have a few. First was when my mum met my dad. It was literally in the street passing. She was due to emigrate in the next few weeks. If she hadn't met him and got pregnant I would never have existed in my current form. (He was an abusive bastard who she wished she had never met, but without him I'd never have existed).

The other one was a stupid split second decision I made not to buy a property when younger (had my offer accepted and mortgage in place etc), then got rapidly priced out of the market. When I visit friends with big houses now, it crosses my mind that could be me if it wasn't for that stupid split second decision. I don't dwell on it though.

funinthesun19 · 02/12/2021 09:22

Back in very early 2012, I wanted to leave my ex because even in the earlier days of our relationship I saw all of his red flags. At the time we had 1 child together.
He persuaded me to stay with him and so I did for another almost 8 years of my life. Even if I didn’t really want to.

What would mine and my eldest child’s life have been like if I’d have taken that big brave step and left him at that point? How different would those 8 years have been?

But then if I’d have left him I wouldn’t have had my younger children. And they are the reasons I don’t kick myself.

But I still wonder…

funinthesun19 · 02/12/2021 09:23

*If I hadn’t have left him, I wouldn’t have my younger children.

funinthesun19 · 02/12/2021 09:24

Oops ignore that. I’ll try again. Blush

If I HAD have left him, I wouldn’t have had my younger children.

Stillfunny · 02/12/2021 10:10

I was supposed to meet friends on NYE 1988 in a pub . Couldn't get in do went to a nightclub instead where I met my STBX .Wish I had gone home. Sad

sleepyduvetcat · 02/12/2021 10:21

When I got my a-level results I’d secured a place at my first-choice University. When they wrote to me, I’d been assigned halls with a shared bathroom and it totally put me off (in fact I had quite the panic attack about moving away, it all seemed very sudden) and I didn’t go. I said I’d take a gap year and work and met my current partner a month later. I never did go to University. I often wonder what it would have been like if I had.

IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads · 02/12/2021 10:21

My parents met when DDad had gone to pick up his gf from work. Gf was stuck in a meeting, DDad took DM out instead!

Years later, I had funding and places at 2 unis for an MSc. When I’d gone for interviews it had been sunny in one location and rainy at the other. I went to the place that had been sunny, for a one year course, and stayed for 7 years. Met DH. Been married over 20 years. 2 DC.

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