I once worked in a mall where they played the same pop music over and over (the songs would repeat every two or three days), very loudly, and one of the loudspeakers was hanging right above our unit in that mall. There were also a couple of machines standing around my shop that repeated an electronic tune every two minutes to lure customers. Though I loved the work itself (selling vitamins and sports supplements), and I had a great relationship with the employers, I hated the location, and it really started to stress me out after a while. One day I took scissors and cut the cable of one of the machines, but unfortunately it was repaired within a day. Meanwhile at home, the mother of my two children fell in love with another married man. The day before Christmas, when I was working from 9:00 till 21:00 in that shopping mall, she invited that 45 year old guy over, or he invited himself over. In any case, they kissed for the first time then.
Though I loved my employers, the location drove me mad, so I tried to find another job, and did. But on the night before my first day at that job (in January), my wife decided it was very important to pick another fight with me. Next morning I was too late for work, and was immediately fired. So then the prospect was that I would be home fulltime until I'd find myself another job. Quite a surprise for my wife, and her new friend...
Three months later, after a short legal battle which proved they had no right to fire me and so had to pay me for the three months I stayed at home, I went back to work again, to finish the three remaining months of my six months contract.
At that time I had just become an astrologer (I had obtained my diploma the previous year) and I had bought my first laptop, so I decided to take it to my new job (a two hour train ride). Arriving there, I met my new colleague, and in the course of looking at her chart, I noticed... well, she became my girlfriend a couple of weeks later, to the dismay of my new employers who already hated my guts. I told my ex-wife I was falling in love, and that I was expecting that very soon I would start an intimate relationship (in other words: I told her in advance, I never cheated on her). One or two days later the new relationship started, and I immediately moved out. With some interruptions, I stayed with that girlfriend for about one and a half years. I then moved out and got my own apartment. From the late summer of 2003 till just before the summer holidays of 2007 my ex-wife waited in vain for that 45 year old guy to divorce his wife (and leave his four children?) and become her partner fulltime. All this time she had told me they were no longer in contact, even though their horoscopes told otherwise. In the spring of 2007 I got the chance to go through her email box. I did a search for his name, and found two emails which revealed the nature of their relationship, recountiing past intimacy. My ex-wife kept lying though, to protect him (I had often threatened to tell his wife, and tried but never managed to). But he stopped writing and visiting her around June, only weeks after first introducing himself to my children as Mama's new friend. After the summer holiday he admitted that he had a new girlfriend (his wife had kicked him out of their house) and he's living with her now.
Oops, all of this is quite off-topic. Well, let's say that job at the shopping mall wasn't just a drag at the time, but had severe ramifications down the road.
Just a final note: Since she denied she had a relationship with 'Harry', I had suggested every now and then that we give our relationship another chance. She repeatedly said she would be fine, even though her prospects as an uneducated single Polish mother were dim. In fact it was a couple of days before I met Mara (December 2006) that I practically begged her to reunite our family. She refused, saying she'd be fine. Two years later she's not doing fine at all. But now it's really too late. I and my kids love Mara, and Mara loves all of us. So yes, there is a happy ending to this story. For me at least. I sometimes feel pitty for my ex-wife, but then I remember it was her choice to lie repeatedly and hope for an already married man to leave his wife and children for her. She now understands how stupid she had been all these years, and she feels terribly guilty for the damage she had created, but it's too late.
