Sliding door moment

[tankcrossing]

Did you ever have that sliding door moment, the one thing that could change your life or not?

Mine happened over 30 yrs ago.

My first love, who I had been in a relationship with for almost 3 years was working up North (Scotland). I was living and working in the south. He moved around a lot with his job, so Scotland was only a temporary posting for him and I would travel up on a Friday night after work and weekends were always a really great fun time where we would relish every moment together.

Well, on one of these weekends he told me that his mum had phoned and asked him to come home for a visit. He was not UK born and his family were still in their home country (EU country) I had never met his folks but they knew all about me. He on the other hand had met all my family and everyone liked him.

So, he went to visit family for 2 weeks.

When he came back to Scotland I phoned him to arrange my next visit and he dropped his bombshell. The reason for the trip, all contrived by his mother, was to get engaged to a nice girl, from his own culture who incidentally he didn’t even know.

I went to see him anyway because I was absolutely convinced that this was a huge mistake and we could correct it. Unfortunately it was no mistake, it was deadly serious. We had an horrendous 2 days where we both cried, I roared at him to ring his family and call it off. He was unable/unwilling to go against his family and so by Sunday afternoon I was back on the train travelling home distraught and now apparently single.

He phoned me a few times, we both cried and I had to tell him to stop ringing me as it was too painful for us both.

Within the year I had met and married a man and moved away from my home town to start my married life. My new husband knew all about my ex, he knew also that I was still grieving for my lost love and he said it was ok, we would be ok.

Unfortunately we were not ok, the marriage was very shaky and within the first 6 months we were struggling.

Mum rang me and said a letter had arrived for me and it was postmarked Scotland, what should she do with it.

Without hesitation I told her that I didn’t want to know what was in the letter. I said if you read it, never tell me what it said and she should throw it away. This is what she did. I think this was my sliding door!

My marriage rumbled and stumbled on for 20 yrs, we had 2 children who were now in their early teens and I was truely ready for a divorce.

We were now in the early years of home computers and mobile phones. I received an email from my first love, he had tracked me down and gave me his his phone number and asked me to please call him. I told my husband straight away and I told him I wanted to make the phone call. For 20 years I had wondered if he did marry that girl, I had to know the truth.

As soon as I heard his voice I was transported back to that weekend in Scotland where we cried and let each other go.

He did marry that girl and they had 2 children, the marriage failed ultimately and he never remarried. He had thought about me for the past 20 yrs and deeply regretted letting me go. Then he asked if I had received a letter from him, I told him the truth that I chose not to read it as I was by then married to my now DP.

I asked him what was in the letter, he said oh it doesn’t matter now and wouldn’t tell me the contents.

We shared a few more phone calls and then I had to tell him to stop. It was all too emotional and I had to concentrate on my real life and my marriage. The Marriage was irrecoverable, we eventually divorced and once again I was single.

2 yrs later I met my now DP. I buried all thoughts of my first love and I powered on with my new relationship. I absolutely adore and love my DP. We have been together for almost 10 years.

About a year ago, my first love popped up on my FB. I can honestly say that I was happy to see he was still alive and healthy, however I have finally put to rest the what might/could/should have beens.

We are both getting old now and I have since moved countries. I don’t suppose I will ever see him again in person. The thought of one of us dying without this happening is too sad to think about but I know that I have now made peace with the past and my future looks bright. I am with a man who loves me and who would never let me down. A heart can only take so much and mine is full of joy and love for my DP, although there will always be a small place in there that my first love once occupied.

note, I should add, mum has long since passed away so I can’t ask her if she read the letter of more than 30 years ago.

if you read all of that, well done!!

Some wonderful uplifting stories here. Have to wish good luck to @strof

Thanks .it's going great atm

Please dont impose any more eriting on anyone else, its so badly written. Nobody says "i roared" at anyone

You write beautifully OP. Thank you for sharing. I was completely absorbed by your post.

I think I have a sliding door moment. Or maybe more of could have been moment.

I was with exdh for many years before we got married, but even during those times we had our ups and downs. We backpacked for many years, stopping off at places to earn some money to move on to the next place. It was just he and I and although we met so many wonderful people on the way, we were travelling together and agreed no matter what happened, we would never leave each other in a foreign place.

We were moving on to our next destination when our plane was hit by a bird strike, and we had to do an emergency landing at a really random airport. We didn't quite know what was happening as it wasn't a English speaking country, so we were just hanging about waiting for some news. I went to get something to drink, and there was this man, also hanging around for his flight to a different country. He helped me to get water from the machine and we started laughing about it as it was just such a silly reason why I couldn't use it. Then we just sat there and spoke. But he didn't speak English and I didn't speak his language, so I say spoke, but it was more communicating. With hand gestures and body movements etc.. He knew which plane I had been on so there were amateur dramatics of me explaining what had happened on the plane, of birds, smashed windows... you get the idea. Obviously this was many years before mobile phones and Google translate. I was so drawn to this man, and I just felt so at ease with him, bearing in mind we could not even have a proper conversation. What seemed a short time later, my then dp came over and said we had been called and our flight was due to leave so we had to go. I said ok I was just getting some water, and introduced him to the man. I thought I had been sat there for maybe 30 minutes, to find out we had been there for hours. Dp went to get our bags, and I said goodbye to the man. He asked me if I would think about changing my mind and come to the place he was going to. He was also backpacking, so in those days plans were not usually set in stone. It had happened quite often that we changed plans at the last minute, but I looked over at dp and knew I had to go with our plans and get on that plane with him. I had made a promise.

We married after doing our travelling, and I knew on my wedding night that I had made a mistake. I didn't marry for the right reasons. And we are now divorced.

I have thought about this man so many times since that day. The fact that I met him and could have quite possibly have died all on that same day. How would my life have turned out if I had changed my route and gone to the place he was? I thought about heading to that country, but I couldn't do that to DP, and it didn't help that he took the piss out of me for years because of what happened that day. But, it also gave me hope that one day in the future, I will feel a spark like that again.

It hasn't happened since though, and I do often wonder, had I gone with him that day, what would have happened in my life.

I suppose like what was in your letter OP, some things we will never know.

@abyssiniam8 thank you, I guess not everyone has that special event in their life and they can’t understand why those of us that do, can carry it with us for years.

These are our stories, clearly not everyone thinks they are great, but to those of us who have lived them, they are huge.

Someone on here thinks that my story is rubbish and my writing is a bit crap, well that’s ok. It’s not a writing exam, I didn’t progress beyond o level English and even that was 50 yrs ago.

I was just interested to know if anyone else had experienced one of those crossroads in life and wondered whether they took the right turn or not.

@abyssiniam8 I sncerely hope you find that special spark with someone else. Thanks for sharing your story. X

I think I have a couple but not relationship related. I used to be a police officer. Can clearly remember exactly where I was, who I was with, weather conditions etc when we saw a car shoot a red light and went after it to stop it. It pulled over when we requested it to. I got out of the car and walked to the driver, to ask him to get out. Our eyes locked for a second, and when they did, the car shot off. I ran back to my car, and in the same situation on any other night, I would have 100% perused that car. But something in me told me it would be a grave mistake if we did. I told my partner to let it go, and we carried pin our shift. The next day I had a call from a detective in a neighbouring force as they had the record that I had run the reg through the police National computer. That car had gone on to be involved in a serious firearms incident the same night.

The second incident, I had just come on shift and would usually have taken over the first call sign on our rota. I was behind with some mandatory annual training so a colleague from the early shift instead took a call that 99 out of 100 times I would certainly have taken. Unfortunately, without giving too many outing details, that colleague was attacked and died on that call. To this day I carry a lot of guilt about it. I truly feel I am lucky to be alive

@Restlessinthenorth that gave me chills

Thank you, glad you are still with us x

Ok yeah sure

Bored by any chance? Mean for being means sake....definitely. The irony of being told their writing is poor by someone with poor literacy 🙄. Everyone else enjoyed it. Take your selfish misery back to your corner.

@Fallingthroughclouds
I dont have literacy issues, i have fat finger typing issues!
Op is a bad wannabe writer who has read too much Mills and Boon in her youth. Its not even a real sliding door moment.

@bruffin don’t be ridiculous. I put a post on mumsnet, which I am entitled to do. If you don’t like it scroll on.

I am not a writer but thanks for comparing me to mills and boon, I will take that as a compliment.

Clearly you are still here so it must have had some entertainment value for you.

And you are a very unpleasant person. Bitter that others are enjoying this thread. Sorry your days are so shit that you have to ATTACK others for absolutely no reason. Don't like it, scroll on. Pathetic.

Hypocrites!
You must be incredibly bored to get your kicks from dodgy threads on MN.
MNetters get more gullable every day.

Gullible.

Your lack of correct grammar and punctuation is nothing to do with 'fat fingers'.

But it is a sliding doors moment.

The moment is the letter.

If she'd had the letter opened her whole life may have been different than if she hadn't.

My, I went out with a Greek for four years, never heard about arranged marriages. My ex-boyfriend would have laughed his head off. In my case, I left him so I haven´t pined after him, although, for curiosity sakes I have wondered what happened to him in the 23 years after our break up. I have seen his brother on Google as he publishes medical research articles, but nothing about him, anywhere. He did send me a letter, three years after we broke up (they seem to have a penchant for this) where he basically told me that I was his one that got away. I did not answer. My brother received the letter at my mum´s home and mulled over whether he should give it to me. He did. But I did not answer.
I think I made choices and so did your ex. Choices. That´s what made it so difficult for you, you have this relationship idealized, and him idealized.

It isnt a sliding doors moment.

Sliding doors was pure chance. No choices. What would have happened if she'd got on that tube or not.

In this story there were choices made by both. OPs unrequited love made a choice not to be with her. He chose family pressure over her.

She chose not to read his letter.

Both involved conscious choice not to engage with the other.

Sliding doors was pure chance and this isn't such a story.

That was a decision supposedly taken by OP . It was a deliberate act that affected the course of her life.
A sliding door moment is a seemingly inconsequential decision that turns out to affect your life. Think about the old saying "For want of a nail" where something tiny, ie not fitting a proper nail in the horse's shoe, the consequence of which finally led to the loss of the war and the kingdom.
Being late to work in the twin towers on the day of 9/11 because you forgot something, is a sliding door moment.

The sliding door bit was him calling me over and over to tell me he’d made a mistake and was coming back, but I’d thrown my phone away so missed his calls. He couldn’t find me when he got back.

Embarrassing- didn’t mean to post that! Sorry!