Sliding Doors.......

Tygermoth

There was a thread on here which asked about regrets. A lot of people were unerringly positive about not looking back with regret.

However, same vein but different aspect…. do you have a sliding doors moment where your opportunities could have gone in a whole different direction and sometimes you wonder, not regret, but wonder how different life would be like?

My sliding doors moment was a house purchase where I was horribly gazumped by a greedy vendor (the morning we were due to exchange/complete). Had the sale gone through I would have stayed in my professional job and taken the promotion offered. I probably would have stayed with my long term partner of the time (he is a great bloke who I still get on great with) I would have paid off my mortgage by now as it was, with my deposit, the mortgage was only 180 per month. I would be more financially sound, that much I do know. Happier? Who knows but that was a day where my life irrevocably changed.

As it was I ended up taking a job halfway up the country as they offered accommodation and I needed it urgently and at the time it seemed like a godsend. And then the circumstances outlined in the regrets thread unfolded……

(sorry for the large txt - I have to type outside MSE and it goes large when you paste in)

ciderwithrosie_2

It always amazes me how one seemingly random act can set off a chain of events that can change the course of your life.

For me it was dressing up as a 'serving wench' for New Year's Eve in the pub where I worked. It culminated (not by the end of the evening) in me leaving my partner, job, friends and family and moving 200 miles away to start a new life.

DS4215

Every event in your life, no matter how trival can have a lasting effect - that extra cup of coffee in the morning can you leave at the wrong time to be involved in an accident, or be held up in the chaos behind it? There is a theory that every decision every made forms a parallel universe that goes off along that tangent. So somewhere in the multiverse is a world where you made any other choice...

indebtinsussex

my sliding doors moment would have to be when I was 20, applied for a better paid job in finance, and two weeks before I was due to start was taken into hospital for 3 months. I have wondered what would happen if I hadnt become ill, but I wouldnt change my life for the world

rachbc

going out for a cig with my mate one day at work- getting chatting to now OH

vesper

Mine has to be the night I was begged to be a taxi driver to two of my friends so they could go clubbing. I didn't want to go but got dragged (literally) out and ended up in the club with them. This bloke started talking to me but I didn't want a relationship, and he was hugely drunk. So when he asked for my number I tried to get the fake number my friend had given me and ended up giving me the real one. The next day my phone rang and I hit the wrong button, and answered it.
Nearly nine years later we are still together and are now married.

Turns out he was drunk as he had just been made redundant from his job 200 miles from where we were and decided to come back up here to see his parents for the weekend. So was commiserating. He was never meant to move back here, but decided to after meeting me.

Could have ended up so differently.

Steel_2

My sliding doors moment was buying a half bottle of champagne on the way home from work on the spur of the moment instead of walking past the threshers as I had done every day for three years.

I sat in the bath drinking a half bottle of champagne as a treat for getting through a truly horrendous day and was reading Marie Claire. In it was an article about internet dating and someone's experience on one particular site.

Light headed from the champagne I got out of the bath, signed up to the site and put up a profile.

Within 24 hubby emailed me

aliasojo

It's funny you started this thread as I had the 'sliding doors' talk with my OH just last night. We are trying to decide whenther to stay where we are or move back where we came from.

Our daughter's education is important and I have visions of her having a good career if we choose one option or a job in MacDonalds if we choose the other. Our choice now, may well affect the way her life will pan out.

Oh to have a crystal ball.

katerinasol

ciderwithrosie wrote: »

It always amazes me how one seemingly random act can set off a chain of events that can change the course of your life.

For me it was dressing up as a 'serving wench' for New Year's Eve in the pub where I worked. It culminated (not by the end of the evening) in me leaving my partner, job, friends and family and moving 200 miles away to start a new life.

Well, that certainly sounds interesting! Details?

moneypuddle

Accepting a job I didn't really want - met OH on my first day there so was a good decision in the end.

Lunar_Eclipse

aliasojo wrote: »

Our daughter's education is important and I have visions of her having a good career if we choose one option or a job in MacDonalds if we choose the other.

Sounds like an easy choice. Of course we don't know what life has in store for any of us so you never really know whether a particular environment or experience would change anything, for better or worse. (I'm curious as to which is which btw, where's the better school?)

My sliding doors moment is had I not messed up my A levels first time round (complete shock to everyone which meant I was not going to university that year as I thought, felt like a total disaster at the time) then I wouldn't have had a gap year during which I met DH at a Summer job. We've been together 22 years.