Did you have to deal with your ex working in the same office?

Oh, worse than that.

Over forty years ago when I was young and foolish – okay, younger and even more foolish, because less experienced – I was married (for the first time) to a hot young firecracker who made for six months of heaven and hell. We broke up one day when she told me that she wanted to go to the Cape (Cape Cod) with a guy that we both knew … and I wasn’t invited. So, that was clear.

We broke up.

However … we had been living in my parents’ house while they were away for the summer just after our marriage, but working together in a nearby city about seven miles away. One day during the “not complete hell” period while we were hitchhiking to work – we literally had nothing at the time – we were picked up by an older guy who liked our look.

We started talking on the ride in to town, and it turned out that he lived in the city, had a house where he lived downstairs there and had recently finished an upstairs apartment that he was interested in renting out, and we seemed like likely candidates, if we were interested. So we visited, and he was as good as his word: the apartment was lovely, and even furnished. He offered it to us at a very reasonable rent, which we could barely manage, and I signed a lease that day.

A few months later was when she came to me with her “offer” that she was leaving for the weekend without me. She made plans to move out that day, but she hadn’t really thought things through, and didn’t immediately have a place to go. So … she mentioned it to the landlord … and he offered to let her stay in a spare room that he had in his own apartment. (I know for a certainty that there was no romantic interest between her and him; what he might have felt about her was his own business. She was a beauty, so I wouldn’t blame him for any fantasy that he might have felt.)

Of course, my wife and I and the landlord weren’t the only players in this little psycho-drama. The guy who had invited her to the Cape was a player, too. Apparently, his parents had not known that the “girlfriend” he was inviting to their place for the weekend was a married woman, however she felt about that state of affairs. They hit the roof when they found out.

I’m not sure if they threw him out (he was living with his own parents at the time, I think) … but my landlord, still trying to be a decent guy (at least, to them) agreed to let him live with my wife downstairs from me.

He soon regretted his decision. He used to tell me all of the things about them that he didn’t like: they left the kitchen a mess, they didn’t pick up after themselves, and they weren’t very nice to him in general.

Oh, and we still worked together, too. So we had that bonus as well. Working together was one thing, and I could have dealt with that, but living upstairs from her and hearing about her constantly was more than I could manage without violence to myself or to them, so that had to change.

That all became intolerable in short order, so I quit that job, got a new one that paid better, and soon moved out of the apartment (on good terms with the landlord), at which point I think those two moved into the vacated upstairs apartment and got on with their own lives.

Yeah, fun memories.

I worked with my first husband in the same department. We had different roles but I often had to give him work to do. Later we worked in the same business. Working together wasn’t a major issue. However, I think we were lucky. I wouldn’t recommend it for most couples and I like having a separate career to my second husband. He has his own business, I have my own career outside that business. We have a lot of autonomy in our individual work so we can travel together, but we’re very independent in our careers.

My ex in New Zealand, we owned an house and an accounting practice together for over a year before we settled and divorced. When we separated, I moved cities, though. A year later, my mother got sick with cancer and I spent a few months in the States and he stored all my stuff and looked after my dog while I was over there helping. When I got back, I didn’t have a job or a car or a place to live, so I moved into the house that we both owned together. It was under renovations (that we had planned together when we bought it) It was only for 5 months and I had a plan to leave. We had separate bedrooms and he was gone for work quite a bit and when he was there, he was tolerable. I planned my immigration to Europe and he got catfished by someone in Africa. I laughed and laughed. He was always tolerable, but a clown that I couldn’t trust with money or future plans.