50s sci fi 2 men/2 universes change places

I think this is from the 50s or 60s, maybe a short story. One man is overweight, bad teeth, chill blains and unhappy wife. Second man, though identical, has perfect health, good physical condition and is from futuristic society. Could be it's not 2 universes, but two times. Anyway somehow they change places and pick up each other's lives. Never got to finish it, so don't know where it went from here. Any ideas gratefully accepted.

This is probably not it, but I want to throw out this suggestion: a short story called Backtracked by Burt K. Filer, first published in 1969. It's about a man who wakes up one day next to his wife and discovers that he's ten years older than when he went to bed, and a lot more muscular, too. Turns out he's been "backtracked", i.e. he's lived through ten years of his life, then was transported back into time until that particular morning, but his memory of those ten years was wiped, so he does not know why he's been transported back.

Sounds like L. Neil Smith's The Probability Broach. A Denver cop from "our" universe gets transported to an alternate universe where America developed on libertarian principles, thus leading to a very advanced society. He meets his alternate universe counterpart, though I don't think his counterpart crosses to "our" universe.

ETA: This was written in 1980, though, not the 50s.

Thanks but those are not it. There were definetly two men had the same name but I'm not sure if they were from different time or alternate universes and somehow changed places and took over each others lives. I don't remember how it ended.

How about Bob Shaw's The Two-Timers? It's from 1968, and in one of the timelines Jack/John Breton's wife is dead, though she isn't in the second one.

There is also David Gerrold's The man who folded himself: The main character travels through time/parallel universes, takes up his alter ego's life, while the alter ego is banished to the previous timeline.

Touchstone The Man Who Folded Himself.

>7 mitchellmom: Thanks. (the touchstone was working in the preview)

Thanks! I'm pretty sure it's the Two Timers! Thanks for all of your help.