A Reddit user who works at a mall shoe store shared her experience of unexpectedly seeing her ex-boyfriend walk past with a new partner while she was stuck behind the register.
She started her post by writing, “Today in the middle of the afternoon, when it's completely dead, my ex just walks right past the front of the store holding hands with some girl. He didn't see me. I was stuck behind the register doing a return for this lady, and I kind of just stood there and watched them all the way down to the escalator.”
She said that she was with her ex for about a year and a half following her divorce and that they broke up in May. The woman wrote, “Honestly, I always thought seeing him would wreck me, but it really didn't.”
She wrote that she has two autistic sons from her marriage, ages 6 and 9. “They're so funny and so sweet, and they're also a LOT, especially my little one, so our house pretty much runs on a routine, and if the routine goes, then everything goes,” she wrote.
Describing her ex's relationship with the boys, the woman wrote, “He was so good with them, like actually good. He figured out on his own that my older one has to have the same blue cup, or dinner just doesn't happen. Nobody told him that; he just noticed.” She also added, “When my little one had a meltdown, he would go sit on the bathroom floor with him and wait it out, and he never once made me feel like it was a big deal. By the end, my little one was even letting him do bedtime, which he doesn't let anybody do except me.”
She wrote that one Sunday her ex told her he was not ready for the relationship. She revealed, “We'd just had a couple of really rough weeks, the kind I don't really talk about, and I think that was the first time he saw what a bad stretch looks like when you're in it every day instead of coming over for dinner.”
The woman then wrote that her ex had moved his stuff out of the house that same week. She said she was not angry with him at the time and remains that way. “I think a lot of people just aren't built for it, and at least he figured that out before he moved in all the way,” she wrote.
The woman wrote that her only regret was letting her ex get close to the boys so quickly, as they did not have a say in any of it. “So watching him walk past today, I thought I'd feel jealous or sad or something, and mostly I just felt kind of sorry for him,” she wrote.
Concluding her post, the woman wrote, “He had something really good with us for a while, and I'm pretty sure he knows it. My youngest still asks where he went sometimes, and I still don't have a good answer for him.”
On a positive note, the woman shared that she grabbed a roasted chicken after work because it was the one dinner both of her boys would eat ‘no matter what kind of day it’s been.’
One commenter praised the woman’s ex and wrote, “I don’t think it was good for him. He ended the relationship because he realized he couldn’t handle what caring for autistic children fully entails, and that’s okay too. I commend him for being in-tuned with himself enough to know this and honest enough to communicate it to you and make the best decision for himself. He cared though, that much is clear and it’s good that you all got to experience that even if for a short while.”
Another commenter sent love and support to the woman and wrote, “I think you handled this with a lot of grace! He clearly cared about you and the boys, but caring about them and being able to handle the reality of your life are two different things <3 and I think the fact that seeing him with someone else didn’t wreck you says a lot about how far you’ve come. i’d still feel sad for your boys, though, especially knowing how attached your youngest got to him. Sending Love!”
The Daily Dot was unable to independently verify the events described in this post. The details above reflect the account as shared on r/GirlDinnerDiaries. The identities of the poster and the individuals described have not been confirmed.
