My boyfriend of two years and I have recently moved in together. However, as rent in our area is not cheap, we both need to be working full-time. I am a math teacher at a private school, and my boyfriend has been unemployed and living with his parents since he graduated from college. Now that he’s living with me, I expect him to pitch in financially.

It’s a bit like pulling teeth at first, but soon, he starts applying and getting interviewed for jobs. He’s a pretty smart, easy-going dude who just needs to be pushed a bit to get out of his comfort zone. After a few weeks of job hunting, he receives an offer for an executive assistant position at a local law firm, which he accepts. It’s excellent pay for the honor of running errands, making copies, and getting the lawyers’ coffee. Plus, it’s good hours, so he still has lots of time to chill out at home.

My boyfriend has a sense of humor that is very hit or miss. He’s accidentally burned some pretty important bridges in his life, due to not always “reading the room.” I’ve been working with him a lot on that, and the night before his first day of work, I remind him not to get too chummy with his new coworkers and superiors and keep working on understanding social cues. Then, I pack him lunch because I love him and see him off the next morning with a kiss.

I head to work, which wraps up about two hours before he’s done, and drive home… only to find my boyfriend sitting on the couch, eating dry cereal. I ask him without hesitation what happened.

Boyfriend: “I got fired.”

Me: “What?! But you only just started!”

Boyfriend: “I know.”

I’m ready to raise h*** in defense of my boyfriend… that is until he tells me the whole story. It turns out that one of the lawyers’ sons works the front desk at the firm and also happens to be on the spectrum. [Lawyer’s Son] is good at his job, but his father warned my boyfriend about one thing.

Lawyer: “We have a no-dog policy because of [Lawyer’s Son]. That means that no clients bring dogs in, no photos of dogs, nothing. He’s deathly afraid of them. Even the sound of a dog barking can set him off. He’s had a bad history with dogs, so please be mindful.”

That’s not too bad of a restriction, I think. My chill, seemingly awesome boyfriend can handle these instructions, right? Wrong. Turns out, as he was leaving for his lunch break, he thought it would be hilarious to show [Lawyer’s Son] a video of a young puppy squealing for its food. It apparently caused such a meltdown that [Lawyer’s Son] needed to go home early, and my boyfriend was fired effective immediately by phone call as he was ordering his lunch.

As soon as he’s done regaling me with this shocking saga, he looks up at me as if expecting sympathy. Au contraire, mon ami. I am f****** LIVID.

Me: “So, let me see if I got this. You managed to land a job that pays you well, has flexible hours, and even provides you benefits. I tell you to remember to be respectful on your first day. And you promptly traumatize a f****** coworker mere hours after you start — whose dad you work for, mind you — and you think that’s gonna fly?!”

Boyfriend: “I didn’t think it was that serious!”

He had every excuse prepared for me — that the phobia couldn’t have been that bad, that the puppy in the video wasn’t threatening at all, that [Lawyer’s Son] was overreacting, etc. I didn’t buy any of it. He slept on the couch that night, and I deeply reconsidered the whole arrangement.

HE ultimately broke up with ME because I was “too harsh on him” and “acted too much like his mom” when he subsequently slacked off on any further job hunting.

Last I heard, he was living in a mobile home with some college buddies, making minimum wage. I wound up rooming with a woman whom I ended up marrying. I eventually stopped by the law firm to apologize for my now ex-boyfriend’s behavior. It turns out that [Lawyer’s Son] volunteers for a cat shelter — he has no problem with our feline friends — and my wife and I have adopted two cats from the same organization based on his referral. Livin’ the dream!

This story is part of the Readers’-Favorite-Stories Of-2022 roundup!

Read the next Readers’-Favorite-Stories Of-2022 roundup story!

Read the Readers’-Favorite-Stories Of-2022 roundup!

My boyfriend and I are on vacation for a week, staying at a hotel on the beach.

Boyfriend: “What do you want to do today?”

Me: “We can go to the beach.”

Boyfriend: “It’s gonna be too hot out there.”

Me: “There’s [Amusement Park].”

Boyfriend: “Too expensive. And probably super crowded!”

Me: “The mall?”

Boyfriend: “We have a mall back home! I want to do something fun and different.”

Me: “Okay, there’s the aquarium, the zoo, or the nature reserve. We can go—”

Boyfriend: “No, they all sound stupid.”

Me: “Okay, well, you figure out what you want to do. I’m going to the lobby for breakfast.”

Boyfriend: “Can you bring me—”

I walk out, angry. When I get back upstairs, I find him sitting in bed watching racing.

Me: “This is what you want to do today?”

Boyfriend: “You didn’t offer up anything else, so yeah, I guess this is what I’m doing.”

Me: “I offered several things and you turned them all down.”

Boyfriend: “You offered stupid things.”

I walk out again and go to the beach by myself. We repeat variations of this song and dance every day that week until it is time to go home.

Boyfriend: “What a boring vacation. We could have done the same thing at home and not paid for the hotel.”

Me: “Yes, we could have. “

Boyfriend: “Why didn’t we go anywhere fun? I swear, we just stayed in the hotel room all week.”

Me: “You did. I went to the beach and the zoo and shopping.”

Boyfriend: “So, basically, you spent a bunch of money and left me alone.”

Me: “Yup. Best vacation ever.”

We broke up when we got home. I’m pretty sure he still blames me for having such a boring vacation.

My brother broke up with his girlfriend when she wanted to get married after three months of dating but he did not. A few weeks after, she sent me a message via social media.

Ex-Girlfriend: “Hi, [My Name]. Do you have a minute?”

Me: “What’s up?”

Ex-Girlfriend: “I’ve been doing some thinking, and I want to be honest with you.”

Me: “Okay…”

Ex-Girlfriend: “I have decided to break up with your brother. It’s a difficult decision, but we are not in the same place in our lives, and I need someone who is more mature.”

Me: “[Brother] broke up with you weeks ago. Are you okay?”

Ex-Girlfriend: “I care about him a lot and I know you’re very close. Because of this, I do not think you and I should be in contact anymore, either.”

Me: “Okay, then. Best of luck to you.”

She unfriended me, as well as my whole family. I asked my brother if they had reunited or something, but he said he hadn’t talked to her since he dumped her. I still have no idea what she thought she was doing by telling me she was dumping him.

When I started working for a restaurant, they made it crystal clear (even at the job interview) that unexplained tardiness without a phone call would not be tolerated. The first occurrence was a write-up; the second was an automatic termination. Period.

It was only three weeks before I bagged my first write-up after some cop stopped me, thinking I matched the description of a mugging suspect. They took their sweet time at the dispatch office to confirm my identity and eventually let me go… aaand I then saw that my phone was dead.

The following day, I discovered that my girlfriend had been cheating on me. I was so upset that I spent the entire night wandering the town because I couldn’t sleep at all. As dawn began to roll in and I had an early morning opening shift, I was concerned that it would take too long to walk all the way home, grab my uniform, and then walk to work since the busses didn’t start running until 9:00 am on Sundays. I figured it was better to just walk directly to the restaurant since I was about fifteen minutes away, hang out there until they opened, and just ask the shift manager for a fresh uniform to change into.

I walked over, sat next to the door, closed my eyes, and soon dozed off until the shift manager walked up and gave me a playful kick with a cheerful, “Rise and shine!”

The following day, the general manager called me into the office with a somewhat unamused look on his face.

Manager: “I know that you were warned that if you were late again, you would be fired—”

Me: *Going into panic mode* “I WAS ON TIME! I know I was! I was actually here before everyone else was!”

Manager: “Oh, yes, we all saw that!”

He then pointed to his computer screen, which showed an email containing a screenshot of surveillance footage… of yours truly, knocked out in front of the restaurant door.

Manager: “Putting aside the giggles you’ve provided everyone in the corporate office and throughout the restaurant chain, can we kindly ask for you not to camp out on the premises to avoid being late? Especially two hours before your shift begins? This is just a restaurant, not the freaking Marines! I’ve spoken to [Shift Manager #1] and [Shift Manager #2], and they said they would be more than happy to come and scoop you up for the early bird shifts since you don’t have a car.”

Me: “Yeah! Thanks! I appreciate that!”

He kept an annoyed look and tone of voice.

Manager: “You’re quite welcome. And thank you for at least taking that warning so seriously. As an added favor, I tossed your last tardy write-up.”

The other managers found that photo amusing, as well, and posted it on our bulletin board with the caption, “Now THIS is dedication!”

Surprisingly, the corporate office did away with the “two-strike” policy shortly after that incident and simply left it up to individual management to decide what appropriate disciplinary actions to take for tardiness.

It always cracked me up how a purely unrelated series of events inadvertently painted me in a completely unintended favorable way and ultimately ended up changing an ultra-strict policy!

My brother-in-law got engaged to a girl after dating her for six years. The entire relationship, she had been not-so-subtly hinting at getting married and renovating the house he owned. She was there five nights a week and had a lot of say in who was allowed over and who wasn’t, but she adamantly denied living there because it wasn’t Christ-like to cohabitate before marriage.

When they finally got engaged, [Girl] immediately went out and booked a high-end venue, purchased an expensive dress, and started renovating [Brother-In-Law]’s house. She purchased all new furniture and dishes, had the deck completely rebuilt, and repainted the walls so they were all white instead of the pale blue and green they had been. All of this was either done with my brother-in-law’s savings account or his credit cards. She didn’t pay a penny because she didn’t have a job; she spent her days going to a community college and volunteering at a local drug and alcohol rehabilitation center.

About two months before the wedding, [Girl] started staying late at the center. Then, she would go in early. Then, she wouldn’t come back for days at a time. Her phone was always turned off, or she claimed it had died.

Then, a month before the wedding, after being unavailable for four days in a row, [Girl] showed up while my husband and I were over. She pulled [Brother-In-Law] aside and said that God told her they shouldn’t be together.

Brother-In-Law: “Get out of my house. Immediately.”

She gave him the biggest puppy dog eyes.

Girl: “Please don’t! Sleep on the couch, and I’ll take the bedroom until I find a place! Please!”

Brother-In-Law: “I’d like to remind you that you’ve always said you don’t live here. You have no choice but to leave or I’ll call the police and press charges for trespassing.”

[Girl] left that night and moved in with someone she met at the rehab. Two weeks later — two weeks before she was supposed to marry [Brother-In-Law] — she was engaged to this new guy and planning on getting married the same day she was going to marry [Brother-In-Law].

[Brother-In-Law] called the venue she had booked and asked if he could get any of his money back at all. The person who answered seemed very confused.

Coordinator: “The wedding is still on, correct? I just saw [Girl] two days ago, and everything was great.”

Once the coordinator was up to speed with everything, he refunded [Brother-In-Law] most of his deposit and canceled the reservation; after all, it was still in his name. [Brother-In-Law] then called the company that was holding her wedding dress and repeated the same thing. He called the caterer, the DJ, and everyone who had been hired for their wedding. They all said the same thing; they had just spoken with [Girl] and she had never hinted that anything was different. All total, [Brother-In-Law] got back about $75,000.

The day of the wedding came and [Brother-In-Law]’s phone would not stop. [Girl] called, she texted, and she tried reaching him through every single social media he had. Then, she tried to publicly shame him, tagging him in post after post. Her life was ruined because of him! How dare he cancel her dream wedding with the love of her life?! What a monster!

[Girl] married her new fiancé at the courthouse the following week. She seemed much less enthused about this little wedding but went through with it. None of us were invited, of course, but we have mutual friends who kept us updated.

They were together for less than six months before they quietly divorced and [Girl] moved in with someone else. [Brother-In-Law] now has a beautifully renovated house on the market, worth twice as much as he bought it for.