Dating My Employers

I recently realized that my résumé reads more like a history of failed relationships than a collection of professional accomplishments. On the surface, you’ll see “Experienced Insurance Professional.” Under the surface…

Well, let’s just say if my career was a movie, the script would read something like this:

Kat: I’m NEVER putting up with that kind of bullshit again!

Narrator: She did in fact put up with that bullshit again. Repeatedly.

To be fair, I was raised to believe in loyalty to an employer, putting your head down and working hard, and above all else, maintaining as much stability as possible. My father spent 40 years with the same employer. My mother spent 35 years in the same career.

They did not adequately prepare me for the corporate dating life of the 2000s.

Satan’s Butthole

Ah yes…the Butthole. He was quite the suitor, with his fancy pants and sterling reputation.

I was set up on a blind date with Butthole by a friend of The Husband Dude. He told me the Butthole was always looking for people like me. After a few dates, Butthole asked me to be his girlfriend. I was flattered and excited.

Those first years were great. He put a lot of time and money into grooming me into a worthy trophy wife. He even sent me to Finishing School in Bumfuck, Illinois so I could learn to be the perfect socialite.

After five years, he proposed. “I know you’ve been putting money in a 401K, but now I have something special for you.” He handed me a gorgeously wrapped box. Inside was the company retirement plan.

“You’re vested, sweetheart,” he purred. “Now we can plan our future together. Spend the next thirty years with me and then you can retire with a beautiful nest egg and guaranteed monthly payments for the rest of your life.”

Naturally, I married him on the spot.

The next few years were great, even though we had our bumps. I grew restless and bored, so I suggested we spice things up by trying some new positions in the bedroom. Apparently, he was willing to experiment with other people, just not me.

“Mmmm…no, I don’t think so.” He shook his head.

I tried doing some workshops and classes to be more like he wanted, but I was raising a child, dealing with The Dude’s layoffs, and my mother got sick and eventually passed away. When I told him I was tired of remaining stagnant and wanted to try new things, he brushed me off again.

“You haven’t been spending quality time with your professional designations,” he admonished me. “Why should I invest time in you when you’re just doing the minimum?”

Apparently, not crawling up inside the Butthole and eating shit for dinner was holding me back professionally.

When he announced he was going to be working out of town, he said I could stay at his twin brother’s house and help keep things going there. I would have to learn about a whole new house with different rules. He assured me there was a good place for me and that it was finally my opportunity to try new things.

Brother-in-law was a douchebag. On top of curfews and monitoring phone calls, he would write out everyone’s perceived infractions on a whiteboard for the entire house to read. We called it the Board of Shame.

My prenup with the Butthole mandated that the longer I stayed, the bigger my settlement would be if we separated. He had placed golden handcuffs on me without me even knowing it.

Shortly before our sixteenth anniversary, he made an announcement that the entire family would be moving away. I could stay in this house for two, maybe three more years. He made it clear he did not care if I came with him to the new place because he could easily replace me with someone half my age who would not expect as much.

I told him I would not follow him. The marriage, clearly, was over.

Déjà Screw – Part One

I met the rebound guy while I was recovering from surgery, but still with the Butthole. Bestie, who was not yet my Bestie, had left the Butthole a few months earlier. She knew I was looking for a new situation, so she set me up on another blind date.

As it so happens, there were a lot of Butthole refugees hanging out with the Screw. He was not as old as Butthole, not as much of a big shot. He was kind of a big fish in a much smaller pond, but he made big promises.

More freedom. Financial rewards for being a good partner. Less control over my day-to-day activities. He showered me with gifts. The red flags didn’t start until later.

He had buddies who were loudmouths and who drank too much at parties they hosted. He said nothing, even when those buddies were abusive to me and the rest of the household.

When I suggested taking the relationship to the next level, he chose someone else instead.

Twice. I had to hear about it from someone else.

Apparently, he didn’t mind getting in bed with me. He just didn’t want to be seen in public with me.

Then he asked me to help acclimate the one he chose over me.

Ummm…ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY NOT.

When he kicked Bestie and another friend out of the house permanently, I started planning my exit.

Nepotism & Son, LLDF (Limited Liability Dumpster Fire)

You would think I would learn my lesson about blind dates.

You would be wrong.

Some friends and former coworkers from Déjà Screw introduced me to Nepotism & Son, LLDF.

I could, and probably will, write an entire book about Nepotism & Son. Unfortunately, there’s not enough room here for the entire family court transcript.

It turns out I signed up to date the whole family, and nobody was on the same page.

Mama and Papa owned and ran the place. ManBaby, their son, pretended to help run the place. Everyone else pretended too.

I moved up the ranks of the family twice within a year and a half, ending at Director of Babysitting the VP. Papa tasked me with patrolling ManBaby’s office, assigning him projects to keep him awake or keep him from fucking off. Guess who usually had to finish those projects?

Papa expected me to run my household staff like a drill sergeant.

“You’re one of us now, not one of them.”

Mama micromanaged my email box, my claim reviews and probably a couple of my bowel movements.

Because shit was her specialty.

I had already started looking around and literally had a date lined up with someone else when Papa broke up with me after three years.

“I’ll never get you to think like me.” He shook his head, almost forlornly.

Inside voice: You got that right, motherfucker.

Outside voice: “Can we move this along? I’m late for a lash appointment.”

There were no further questions.

Fuck My Life Mutual

Less than a week after leaving Nepotism & Son, I jumped into my next relationship.

I found Fuck My Life Mutual on an app. I had made up my mind I was not going to date or marry for love anymore. I wanted a sugar daddy.

We dated a couple of times before deciding to get into a relationship. The honeymoon phase was very brief. 

He showered me with money, then expected complete submission. No authority to make my own decisions, even with things I had two decades of experience doing. Twelve- to fourteen-hour days were the norm.

As before, my attempts to change things up and switch roles resulted in a resounding “no.”

For all his flash and wealth, Fuck My Life Mutual was a cheap motherfucker. People would treat him to Angus steak, and he returned the favor by taking them to McDonald’s and then stealing packets of ketchup while he was there. I couldn’t stomach it anymore.

After fourteen months of this, I was desperate.

Déjà Screw – Part Two

I reached out to a trusted friend from my Butthole days and asked if she knew anyone worth dating. As it so happened, she was hanging out with my ex, Déjà Screw.

She assured me the Screw had gone to rehab, gotten therapy, and thrown out all the trashy people.

Fuck My Life Mutual was slowly killing me, and my friend was very trustworthy. She made the reintroductions. We started seeing each other again.

Those first six months were great, but then a new friend entered the picture. He was a hot shot who liked to surround himself with yes men and young, pretty women. The Screw slowly started acting like his old self again.

My trusted friend left. Their breakup was bitter. Things got tense.

Money got tight. The household had to start tightening its belt. Screw kept dropping people. I thought for sure I was safe because I had enough experience to do the household chores for myself and several others if called upon.

I was wrong.

On a random Wednesday in early November, I got a phone call on TEAMS just before lunch.

“We’re going to have to break up. I just want you to know, it’s not anything you did. It’s me. I just can’t do this anymore.”

Did this fucker really just say, It’s not you, it’s me?

Worse, he was keeping the yes people. The much younger, much less experienced yes people.

After the call, I stared at my laptop screen. We had just learned that The Husband Dude was going to need a very serious surgery and our insurance, provided by the Screw, would be going away at the end of the month.

The Dude came home from taking The Kid to work and found me crying in my office. He confided later that my reaction made him seriously think somebody had died.

In a way, somebody did. I had spent over two decades of my life chasing something that never treated me well and didn’t seem to really want me.

How the Hell does a fifty-four-year-old woman who has been through some shit rebuild AGAIN?

It’s Complicated

I’m not going to lie. I allowed myself to wallow for a few days, eating lots of junk food while binge-watching Sons of Anarchy for the third time. The Screw sent a friend over to pick up his laptop at my house, and I resisted the urge to throw it in the driveway and back over it with Xena, my 4RUNNER, so that he could pick it up in pieces.

A friend got me a date with someone right away, and things looked promising. The Dude and I drove to Oklahoma City through a monsoon, and this prospect and I had a great conversation. I thought I really stood a good chance with them, but then they just sort of ghosted me.

I put myself out there on all the relevant apps, but got no bites from anyone.

It wasn’t until I was sitting in the hospital during The Dude’s recovery from surgery that I got a phone call from a new guy. He had seen my profile in his inbox, and someone there had known me at Satan’s Butthole and recommended me.

He didn’t shower me with money or make big, stupid promises. He just offered real talk, a new house to live in, and laid-back vibes. He even offered to pay for those designations that Butthole was so pissed off at me for not getting.

The strangest part? He actually trusts me. Apparently, some relationships are perfectly capable of letting a grown woman manage her own affairs. Who knew?

Is this The One? Current Job and I are taking things slow.

We’re just friends with benefits right now.