True Romance: Cheating At Work Christmas Party, Divorce Papers Ruin Christmas Proposal & A Reader's Love Story
We're a couple of weeks away from Santa squeezing his ass down the chimney. The holiday spirit has taken over, Christmas parties are taking place, the alcohol is flowing, and True Romance is all around us.
You can't escape it. It doesn't take the holidays off. Unfortunately, that can lead to some relationship issues. That's particularly true if you have one too many at the work Christmas party.
Suddenly, you're caught red-handed with the waitress at the restaurant hosting your company party. It wasn't planned, you got carried away, and now there's nearly 20 years of marriage circling the drain.
That's not how you thought the end of the year was going to work out, but here you are looking for a bachelor pad right before Christmas and the New Year.
It could be worse.
Try proposing to your new girlfriend on Christmas after your ex signs the divorce papers and gives you second thoughts about proposing by suggesting that the girlfriend is only with him for his money.
Life's unfair sometimes. She didn't have to do that, but she did. Now the proposal is ruined, and your ex gets to put one in the win column. You have to be strong and power through that. Not everyone can.
We're not going to leave this week with a sour taste in our mouths. Not this close to the weekend and certainly not this close to Christmas.
We've got a #TrueRomance story from a reader that's going to have us going out on a high note.
Husband cheated with waitress at work Christmas party
The work Christmas party can go off the rails sometimes. It has the potential to bring co-workers closer together, but it also has the potential to ruin marriages.
Sadly, for a mother and a wife of almost 20 years, this is one of those scenarios where a marriage ends up getting ruined. Her husband went to the party solo and was all over a waitress at a restaurant hosting his company’s Christmas party.
The woman explained that her software developer husband of 19 years attended the work party without her because she had to work. People who were at the party were the ones that tipped her off.
"I found out when people started telling me how sorry they were. I had no idea what they meant until someone told me to check the social media," she explained, reports The Sun.
Man caught cheating at work Christmas party with a waitress (neither are pictured). (Image Credit: Getty)
"There are pictures where he is in the background kissing and all over a woman. Some with her hand down his pants. Not just a single picture but many of them. "
To make matters worse, the pictures of him enjoying the holiday season are all over the company's and his co-worker's social media. She added, "My husband was trying to damage control but when I told him I knew he said he had sex with the waitress."
Everyone knows about her husband’s night with the waitress. Everyone except for their teenage daughter and the humiliated mom would like to keep it that way.
That could prove difficult, because mom also doesn’t want to stick around. She's been cheated on and has no interest in her husband wanting to go to marriage counseling to try to make it work.
She doesn’t care about her husband getting swept up in the holidays or possibly having too much to drink that night. She wants a divorce.
Her gut instinct about the love, the romance, the passion being gone from her marriage for good turned out to be spot on. Her husband eventually admitted to the night at the work Christmas party with the waitress being one of several one-night stands he had during their marriage.
That's not how anyone wanted to see this end. It would be one thing for the husband to have cheated with the waitress, then go on and live happily ever after with her.
That's what you root for. That's the story everyone wants to tell. But the fact that this is one of many tells me he may never find what he's looking for.
Signing divorce papers ruined a Christmas proposal
Let's go from one relationship in the beginning stages of divorce to one that has been finalized with an unexpected dose of reality that ruined a Christmas proposal. Who doesn’t love a Christmas proposal?
Evidently this woman. She ended up ruining one of them and acting as if she had collected a victory over her ex-husband. She fired up Reddit and claimed that she and her ex "were a real love story."
She was in a celebratory mood as she posted after the New Year, "My ex husband and I, both late 40’s were a real love story for 17 years. He was my world and I loved everything about him."
Two years before their divorce, that all changed. He had found real love with another woman. He changed, and she knew immediately that there was someone else.
Another love story ruined by jealousy. (Image Credit: Getty)
"He stopped kissing me good morning or good night. Stopped asking me on dates and always declined when I did. He didn’t doze off with his head in my lap to a movie every evening always missing the end," she wrote.
"Now he even sat on the other couch. He stopped saying he loved me and he stopped texting me during the day. I didn’t know what to do other than wait and see and sure enough after 2 months he told me he was in love and wanted a divorce."
He moved out, started the divorce process, and his new girlfriend, in her early 30s, moved in with him. Her ex-husband is very successful. She made sure to point that out, as she brought it up again when she went to sign the divorce papers and finalize the split.
"I don’t know what got into me, I have kept civil and prideful during the separation. I was surprised that he was with his lawyer because I thought he just signed and didn’t need to be there," she explained.
"I signed and then I looked at him for the first time in 2 years and just without giving myself the time to stop and keep my dignity I smiled and said that he ‘now lost the last woman who he would know for sure ever loved and saw him for him and not for his money or assets.’"
Boom. The smile faded from his face and he started crying. She left and didn’t look back. Then, after Christmas, she received a text message from her ex's new girlfriend. He was supposed to propose, but didn't. The girlfriend blamed her.
"I got a text from his gf this morning with many insults about me, my character and my looks and age. Because he was supposed to have proposed on Christmas with all family present but he didn’t. He now refuses to talk about it with her or any of her family and she means that it was my fault," she said.
"I ruined their relationship. I blocked her but I can’t help but wonder if I really did ruin their relationship. I even wonder if I care. All I know is that he looked so old and pathetic. I wonder if I ever really knew him or loved him."
This is a tragedy. Here we have a guy wandering through life believing that he had found love, until one day he actually did find it, then it all blows up in his face. His ex diabolically implanted doubt in his mind.
Was his younger, more attractive, girlfriend with him for his wealth? How could he ever be sure? His ex had to go and ruin it for him. That's the real tragedy of how this all played out.
#TrueRomance
Last week we found a cheater who had cheated and never done it again. A unicorn if you believe what society has told you about cheaters.
The Once a cheater, not always a cheater headline resonated with a reader.
He was another one of those cheating unicorns who, despite already being in a relationship, answered love's call when his phone rang and never did it again.
His happily ever after is how we're going to wrap up this week. Remember, I wanted to go out on a high note and #TrueRomance is how we're going to get that done.
- Gene in the Rock writes:
Found my lifemate on the second try, but no butt-kicking about what a young moron I was. Her ringtone on my phone is "God Bless the Broken Road" by Rascal Flatts, for a simple reason: Change any tiny, insignificant detail of that moronic journey, and that broken road might have led to a whole different place 20 years ago, not to a chance encounter in an internet spades room which became -- well -- the last ringtone I'll ever need.
That's true romance.
SeanJo
I can’t argue with that. That is in fact True Romance. It can strike at any time. You have to be willing to follow it when it does. You did that, and you're better because of it. Congratulations.
--------
What a way to end the week. Gene came in with a touching story to put us back on the path of True Romance. Remember "once a cheater, not always a cheater."
Get those t-shirts printed asap!
Feel free to send questions, comments, stories, and whatever else you like my way. The inbox is open sean.joseph@outkick.com.