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For busy working women, the suit is often the easiest outfit to throw on in the morning. In general, this feature is not about interview suits for women, which should be as classic and basic as you get — instead, this feature is about the slightly different suit that is fashionable, yet professional.
Happy Wednesday! I'm digging this bright blue suit over at Banana Republic. The name of the product is “leisure suit” (wowwwww), and I do agree that it's got a more casual vibe with the cut as well as the color.
They're down to lucky sizes, with pieces (full price) priced at $159–$229.
Psst: Wow.
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Sales of note for 10.10.24
- Nordstrom – Extra 25% off clearance (through 10/14); there's a lot from reader favorites like Boss, FARM Rio, Marc Fisher LTD, AGL, and more. Plus: free 2-day shipping, and cardmembers earn 6x points per dollar (3X the points on beauty).
- Ann Taylor – Extra 50% off sale (ends 10/12)
- Banana Republic Factory – Up to 50% off everything plus extra 25% off your $125+ purchase
- Boden – 10% off new styles with code; free shipping over $75
- Eloquii – Extra 50% off a lot of sale items, with code
- J.Crew – 40% off sitewide
- J.Crew Factory – 50% off entire site, plus extra 25% off orders $150+
- Lo & Sons – Fall Sale, up to 35% off
- M.M.LaFleur – Save 25% sitewide
- Neiman Marcus – Sale on sale, up to 85% off
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – 50% off 2+ markdowns
- Target – Circle week, deals on 1000s of items
- White House Black Market – Buy one, get one – 50% off full price styles
Sales of note for 10.10.24
- Nordstrom – Extra 25% off clearance (through 10/14); there's a lot from reader favorites like Boss, FARM Rio, Marc Fisher LTD, AGL, and more. Plus: free 2-day shipping, and cardmembers earn 6x points per dollar (3X the points on beauty).
- Ann Taylor – Extra 50% off sale (ends 10/12)
- Banana Republic Factory – Up to 50% off everything plus extra 25% off your $125+ purchase
- Boden – 10% off new styles with code; free shipping over $75
- Eloquii – Extra 50% off a lot of sale items, with code
- J.Crew – 40% off sitewide
- J.Crew Factory – 50% off entire site, plus extra 25% off orders $150+
- Lo & Sons – Fall Sale, up to 35% off
- M.M.LaFleur – Save 25% sitewide
- Neiman Marcus – Sale on sale, up to 85% off
- Spanx – Lots of workwear on sale, some up to 70% off
- Talbots – 50% off 2+ markdowns
- Target – Circle week, deals on 1000s of items
- White House Black Market – Buy one, get one – 50% off full price styles
And some of our latest threadjacks here at Corporette (reader questions and commentary) — see more here!
Some of our latest threadjacks include:
- What to say to friends and family who threaten to not vote?
- What boots do you expect to wear this fall and winter?
- What beauty treatments do you do on a regular basis to look polished?
- Can I skip the annual family event my workplace holds, even if I'm a manager?
- What small steps can I take today to get myself a little more “together” and not feel so frazzled all of the time?
- The oldest daughter is America's social safety net — change my mind…
- What have you lost your taste for as you've aged?
- Tell me about your favorite adventure travels…
Anon
How bad it is that I want to lose 5-7 pounds b/c I have suiting pants in a smaller size that are lined wool pants and my ones in a size up are UNLINED? [My skin has become weird and itches now — are there sort of non-shaping liners for pants like a slip for pants? Pantaloons?]
In February 2022, are there lined wool pants anywhere to be found (current offerings, so I could try on and return? I’m a short pear, so sometimes need a petite and often need to size up for hips depending on the cut).
Anon
Here you go: https://www.pendleton-usa.com/product/womens-seasonless-wool-lined-straight-leg-pants/49991.html?dwvar_49991_color=8020&cgid=W200#start=2&cgid=W200
Anon
Yes, slip shorts are a thing!
Anon
Are there any non-lined pants you like enough to have a tailor put in a lining?
Anonymous
In the winter, long underwear is a useful lining alternative. Or tights.
Anon
Get silk long underwear!
Anon
I wear silk long underwear. It doesn’t add bulk under pants, and the slippery finish works well with wool.
Anonymous
Wow weird?
Zero degree weird
Anon
I used to be a photographer and I just want to commend BR for doing such a good job photographing women of any color complexion so that every one of them is well-lit and looks good? It is really hard to do that and they do it very well IMO.
anon
I agree! BR’s photography is impressive.
Anonymous
I wholeheartedly agree?
Anon
Re higher ed funding, in other countries where it is very low cost, can you just go to school for anything? Do you pay for grad school (or is it all free-ish)? And is it widely available (like anyone can choose to go to college vs just those with high test scores)?
In my state, community college is highly subsidized after a 1year period to get residency (and before that, is still not expensive) and many high school juniors and seniors can be concurrently enrolled and many graduate with associates’ degrees (so a 2-year degree, which is really looked down on, but for many kids lets them go straight to work or lets them transfer to Local State U halfway to graduating). It’s not as fun as 4-year residential colleges, but might really be helpful if it were done on a wider scale for keeping costs reasonable and so that people aren’t in shocking amounts of school debt.
CB
I live in Scotland, and HE is free for local students. Which is great with some caveats. Higher Ed is funded, often to the detriment to further education, so non-BA technical, medical qualifications etc. To make up the difference in tuition fees, Scottish universities accept quite a lot of English and international students, as they are a source of revenue. As a result, the spots available for Scottish students, particularly at the most prestigious universities, are more limited. It is also hard for students who leave school without good exam results, to get to university, it’s a really tricky path. Student loans (for living expenses) are repaid as a proportion of income so students have debts but it’s not debilitating the way it is in the US. Post Bachelors aren’t paid for.
Anon
In healthcare, in many states, you need to get a soviet-sounding “certificate of need” for many new medical facilities to be built (not plastic surgery centers, apparently). Higher ed should have to have that, especially for crappy masters and online programs. Also for any facilities in the increasing arms race of climbing walls, lazy rivers, and anything warranting a student fee.
We need to get back to basics. Stuff has gotten insane. I’m all for heating dorm rooms in winter, but it used to be affordable back when you paid for mostly education, not when you paid for 4 years of spring break-type living on top of it.
anon
German public universities don’t charge tuition, besides a short-lived experiment in the aughts. Don’t quote me on exact amounts, but in Berlin, I was charged maybe $150 per semester of general admin fee, plus another $500 for a public transit ticket (great value!). I studied chemistry, so my education wasn’t cheap. Graduate degrees in STEM are paid. In the humanities, you have the occasional fellowship, and a lot of folks who work to make a living.
To qualify for a public cost-of-living loan, your parents need to be below some income threshold. You get a determined amount, half of it is a stipend, the other half an interest free loan. The payments to pay it back are regulated, and several forgiveness options were introduced recently.
This all sounds great, until you learn about the public school system, which sorts kids at age 10, into college-material and not. To push back against this designation usually takes very involved and informed parents, and it’s based on teacher recommendations that have been shown to be biased. So even though you go to college for nearly free, the social mobility is not much different than in the US.
Anon
Right, Americans only hear “University is free in Germany!” without hearing the “but you probably wouldn’t qualify for it if you lived there.”
Cornellian
Yeah, I was an exchange student in the 11th grade (so the first year of the 2e Oberstufe in my Land) and there were a couple students who had tried to make it from the second-level track up to the gymnasium, and one of them was 20 and still in the 11th grade for me. Dividing that early is hard.
anon
Canada – University is a four year program; “college” is more the equivalent of community college in the US. More common to stay at home (or near home) that go across the country to university. Tuition stays around what you could make at a summer job (esp. government jobs) for most programs (e.g., 5,000/7,000). Plus, less affinity for mandatory courses so you can actually get done in four years and the summer term is long (4 months) so you have plenty of time to work. So, if you live at home you could get away without loans, but will have a small amount of debt (low five figures) if you are paying your own away and not living at home. More common to have gap year before starting. Lots of international students for $$$.
test run
I’m from the US but went to university in Canada – my international tuition was comparable to in-state tuition at my state’s [not that great] flagship university. I knew that they mostly wanted international students for the tuition, but I was still very happy to pay it!
Anon
I live somewhere with subsidized schooling and you can’t go to school for whatever you want…you still need to be a competitive candidate and apply for the program and get accepted. Trade schools are also covered which gives an option for non-academic students to obtain a career path. All public institutions have covered tuition at all levels, private schools don’t, but tbh they are incredibly poor quality so people only go there if they have rich parents and weren’t accepted into the prestigious public schools or aren’t interested in trades. People don’t ‘abuse’ the system and stay in school forever because you are still a poor student which isn’t exactly pleasant, it’s just that you’re poor and debt free.
Anon Mom
Europe (which is what people usually mean when they say “countries where it is very low cost”) is a big place with a lot of very different rules and capacity. My daughter has a friend who is a dual citizen and who went back to Sweden for medical school because she could go to school there for free (or at least she does not pay tuition although she is living with her aunt so I assume living costs are not covered). However, the program was quite competitive to get into.
I cannot speak for every state, but in mine (California) the most financially responsible way to get a college degree is to spend two years at community college and then transfer to your closest Cal State campus to finish up while living at home the whole time. And people do that. But guess what? Nobody wants to and very few parents want that for their children. I am (for example) paying out almost $200K for my child to go to an out of state school. She loves it, has grown enormously and is very happy but I would not have recommended that if she had to borrow money to pay for it. One of the issues I see is that schools/lenders do a really bad job of explaining to students and parents the actual amount they will borrow or their monthly payments.
But I also want to point out that while student loans are a serious issue, it is actually not people who attend 4-year universities who cannot pay back their loans (albeit with sacrifices). It is people who attend for-profit 2 year and professional certificate programs. They don’t owe much – but when you make $30K/year a $30K student loan is enormous. Those are the people who are mostly likely to benefit from and receive loan forgiveness in my reading of the political tea leaves rather than people who earn or will earn six-figure incomes.
Anon
Yeah, but those people most likely have private loans, not federal loans.
amberwitch
Different ountries, different flavours, but in Denmark, all higher education is publicly ‘certified’ and funded. Same goes for High school and trade schools. There are a few private (trade) school type educations – fashion design, cosmetology. Either because the public offerings are so competitive and difficult to get into (fashion design) or because the type of education hasn’t been recognised as an official education.
If you are more than 18 years old, you get a living stipend/apprentice salary for attending High School/trade school.
All higher education (except continued education) is free and you qualify for a living stipend for the first 6 years of your studies. My first degree is in engineering. It was free, and accompagnied by a living stipend that was/is fairly generous. After I started working, I got a second degree which my company paid for (probably not the real cost, so still subsidised to some extent), and I obviously did not get a living stipend on top of my salary.
It isn’t easy to get accepted into all programs – design, law, anthropology, midwife are examples of programs that are really competetive so you have to have pretty high grades in High School to get accepted.
The number of students for each program is to some degree controlled by the government so may not be aligned to the demand but to the ideas the government has about what is needful/frivolous, and programs has to be approved, and are regularly audited to keep their approval.
As the programs are pretty controlled, and the curriculum evaluated and aligned across all universities, very few educations need a separate certification program. If you have passed you final exam at an engineering university you are an engineer of whatever flavour. No need to get a separate certification. Same with most trade school education.
Lawyers and high level accountants are exeptions to that – but part of that is that there is ‘apprentice’ aspect to their educations. You get your legal degree, and then after having worked at a law firm for some years, with the requisite breath of experience, you can get a certification to be a courtroom lawyer – probably the equivalent to ‘passing the bar’ in the US
Anon
Speaking of this morning’s “who feels old” thread…who else is unwilling to believe it’s time to recycle leisure suits?!?!
Anon
If they were washable double-knit polyester getups, I’d be all here for it.
Anon
Oh hi Mom! Still loving your Levi Bendovers, I see.
(example: https://www.etsy.com/listing/1133201690/levis-1970s-vintage-blue-high-waisted?click_key=c1d61981b092f390a395a6e43c917a95a85d6af0%3A1133201690&click_sum=0bceab67&ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=levis+bend+over&ref=sr_gallery-1-2&frs=1)
But let’s be honest, she bought the JC Penney knockoffs.
Pep
OMG, my mom wore these to work and had them in every color of the rainbow
ALT
Is it bad that I kind of want to buy these??
Anon
No, not down to lucky sizeS. Only size 0 left.
Anon
Re age thread from this morning:
Putin is 70.
Kim Jong Il is something like 38. Now I feel young. My 38 was not like his (moving like an old man, dressing like an old man, lonely after Thanksgiving after I murdered so many in my family and also co-workers).
Anonymous
TW: diet question
Any advice on being mindful about eating dinner?
I’m great at mindful eating until about 4PM. Then I get tired and whatever dinner I have planned goes out the window. This is happening like 4x a week now. Last night instead of pork kimchi stew I wound up eating cheese and a Shaker & Spoon whiskey drink. (With a big snack of protein yogurt at 5 when I was starving.)
If it were just me I’d do frozen meals, but I have a family of 5 (kids are 4, 8, 12) to do dinner for. Is shredded chicken the answer here? Meal prep?
Goals for dinner: less drinking, something veggie-like, and 30-40g of protein. Preferably under 600 calories.
Anon
Meal prep and planning for really, really easy meals to make. And/or Lean Cuisine.
Anonymous
Have a snack at 4pm!
Anon
i kind of have the same issue. do you eat family dinner? just you and the kids? just the kids? my kids eat early – like 5/5:30 and I realized I was basically snacking/eating half of their dinner and then eating another dinner or some kind of treat to reward myself for making it through solo bedtime once they went to sleep. i’ve started eating dinner with them at 5/5:30 and it works much better for me. what did the kids eat for dinner last night? you could all eat frozen meals or shredded chicken or some kind of meal prep.
Nina
What did your kids eat for dinner last night – did they eat the pork kimchi stew?
Anonymous
two split a frozen pizza
the other is a picky eater so he had beans and a yogurt (sigh)
Anon
This is a fine dinner.
Anon
I think that the key is not to enter my house starving. I eat a giant lunch ( = all of a restaurant lunch) each day so maybe I want a snack by 8 (slice of banana bread or some cheese and crackers) but generally if I’m not hungry, I won’t even bother picking at food. Also, I keep ingredients at home generally but for cheese and breakfast foods and I often don’t want to cook, just emotionally eat. And when there’s nothing to emotionally eat, I tend to move on to a house chore (many, never-ending) to occupy myself. I could do my taxes, but often I just swiffer or do laundry or walk the dog.
Anon
If your body is demanding food at that time, I would listen to it. Have snacks prepped and ready in the fridge (assuming they’re healthy perishable foods), and eat a smaller dinner portion to compensate.
Anon
The most important part of mindful eating for me is eating when I’m hungry. Waiting just makes me hangry and prone to overeating when I finally get to eat Luckily, I don’t have kids, so nobody complains if I just eat the minute that I get home, and now that I’m WFH, I eat dinner even earlier, 2 or 3 pm. The key to making this work is to cook ahead of time so that I always have something ready to heat up or sandwich or salad ingredients that can be assembled in just a few minutes. This is clearly harder with kids, but it doesn’t sound like you’re eating as a family anyway, so I think there’s something you could come up with that would work. If they’re eating random things, why can’t you have a frozen meal or something you prepped ahead of time?
Anon
Agreed.
1. Never enter my house hungry. We used M&Ms as potty training encouragers and I ate them by the firstfull.
2. Always have a meal planned and ingredients under the roof. Not having a plan = too much pizza and chinese food. I’m not good at portion control with a whole pizza. 2 slices is an ideal lunch for me, but only 1 for dinner (certainly not 3, but I go there and then groan in starch-sleepy regret).
nuqotw
We (usually) make a dinner menu and grocery shop on Sundays. We don’t always stick to the menu but it does mean we always have a back up option that is fast and non-controversial in the house (grilled cheese, PBJ, yogurt/fruit, eggs) because we decided we were eating too much macaroni and cheese. (Although this week we (I) didn’t make a menu so we are eating whatever. So far, leftovers, grilled cheese, air-fried chicken because DH had energy.)
I’ve given up on cooked vegetables except for the weekends or a special occasion – we have raw sliced fruit and/or veggies at almost every weeknight meal.
Anon
I think cooking is overrated. There’s nothing wrong with PBJ, fruit, yogurt, raw veggies, hummus or bean dips, salad, sandwiches, etc. being a large part of your diet. I do tend to roast a lot of veggies on the weekend and use them in sandwiches, salads, burritos, etc., but you can eat a pretty healthy and varied diet without necessarily doing that much cooking.
nuqotw
You don’t need to convince me. :) If I were completely in charge these back up options would be the regular choices and we would cook once or twice a week.
anon
Agree with all of this. If we don’t shop and plan on Sunday, the whole week falls apart really quickly. And there are backup options. Fruit is served at every meal. But also, I do much, much better if I have a filling snack before I leave the office. When I’m hangry, I do not want to cook, I want to shove all the food in my face.
Anon
Do you plan to cook and then just not cook? Maybe the solution is that you need some easy meals you can just heat up if you’re really just not going to cook in the end. Where I live it’s a thing – you can buy frozen stuff to heat up at home, either from dinner meal services or catering services. Some will even do weekly deliveries.
Anon
Eat lunch at 2 or 3. Relax your standards about what a good dinner for the family is. Really. They will be fine.
No Problem
It sounds like you might need a different approach to meal prep that gives you fewer things to do in the evening to get dinner on the table.
Have you ever tried doing freezer meals? I’m a singleton so no family to feed, but I follow all these moms on YouTube that do a big day of freezer meal making once in awhile and it saves their butts in exactly these situations. Some are fully prepped and ready to heat up and serve, others are marinated chicken or pork in a freezer bag that just needs to be thrown into a pan to cook once defrosted (so they already cut up the chicken and veggies and measured the marinade or spices into the bag). Other people take the strategy of just doubling a recipe and putting half in the freezer for later use, so it’s not one big day of prep but a little extra prep when they do manage to cook. Good options for both are things like chili and sheet pan fajitas (both reasonably low calorie and incorporate vegetables or beans too!). They also do a lot of crockpot meals and frozen vegetables, and I have also seen people buy those salad kits that come with everything you need (personally I have not found one that I like, but I’m not a big salad person).
And yes, if you’re hungry at 4 pm, eat something at 4 pm. It might mean that you eat a smaller dinner, but that’s fine. You won’t be ravenous at 6 pm either.
But in general, I totally hear you. I can shop and plan all I want, but it usually goes out the window by Wednesday when I’m just TIRED and want to hit the easy button.
Anonymous
that “wow” suit is… wow
Senior Attorney
Heh the upside-down skirt is hilarious.
Anonymous
It looks like the costume for the protagonist in a woman-centric remake of “Falling Down”.
Anonymous
Ha! It looks like one of my home sewing errors, like when I put a jacket sleeve in upside down.
Ses
*snort* Top tips for staying young: sunscreen, retinol, and abstaining from cigarettes and war crimes.
Ses
This may be my best nesting fail ever.
Anon
hashtag “whoneedscontext”
Anonymous
I slept terribly, am very burnt out, and am excessively upset about a thing at work (see problems 1 and 2). So please tell me happy things! I want to hear about your wins, smiles, and excitements.
Senior Attorney
I fired up my new Fitbit on January 9 and have logged at least 10,000 steps every day since then. My husband says he’s created a monster but I am loving it and am calling it a big win!
Curious
This is awesome!!
OP
Go you!
Monday
Yesterday my partner and I found out that we didn’t get the house we’d offered on. (The market is crazy here, as it is many places.) When we told his kids, one of them asked hopefully “well, what if the person who offered more for the house dies?” It made me smile on an otherwise bummer day.
Cornellian
I LOLed
Carrie
So did I…. so did I….
OP
This is a kid ready for a tight housing market!
Anon
My house is shaking from the sonic booms from the latest spy satellite rocket launch.
Curious
I’m in the hospital for chemo and our nanny (we found a nanny! She is awesome!) is sending me cute baby photos. Also I am drinking tea with honey.
Senior Attorney
Gentle hugs, Curious!
Curious
I just realized I didn’t put in the tea. So I was drinking hot water with lemon and honey. Priorities ?
Curious
And thank you SA :)
OP
Congrats on the nanny! Now, go watch The Nanny for some lolz. Sending you healing vibes!
Anon
I have had a bad case of work avoidance, but yesterday I had a big cup of coffee, worked a solid 8 hours, and got about 90% of my most avoided project done.
The challenge of course will be the last 10%, which is tedious stuff, but I’m going to celebrate a win where I can get it.
Curious
It’s a big win!
Anon
This is awesome! Says the woman who’s procrastinating on a simple thing.
OP
I am INSPIRED!
Bonnie Kate
My grocery store started selling Taco Bell Creamy Chipotle Sauce, so now I can make the best burritos and Crunchwrap supremes and quasadillas at home.
OP
Taco on!!!
Anon
I did yoga twice this week. I was going to work in the office today, but changed my mind with the winter storm advisory. So glad I did because I’m working comfortably from my bed on a lap desk. The shades are pulled up so I can watch the snow fall, and I have a cup of hot chocolate as my afternoon pick me up. It’s snowing since 4 am and still going strong.
I remember the anticipation of listening to the local weather radio station when I was in elementary school, to hear if school was cancelled for the day. This is as close as I can get to a snow day now.
Curious
This sounds so cozy! I love it.
anonshmanon
Office is freezing, but I snagged a space heater!
OP
Nice, stay warm!
Anonymous
We are between pets, but the neighbor cat has adopted us; she hurls herself down our fence for a short visit every afternoon.
OP
Yay! Say hi to kitty!
Anon
I love this.
cat socks
I have nine cats in my house! Four of them are fosters rescued from a difficult situation. The house they were living in was destroyed by a fire and they used to be indoor cats now living on the burned property. I’m glad I was able to get them inside before this big winter storm hits the area.
The other five are my resident cats who were also strays and now spoiled indoor kitties.
anon
We finally settled on some art for our family room in an obvious space that has just been empty for the last 4 years! And I negotiated on price! I love, love, love art and one of the fun things about being older and more established career-wise has been being able to buy art that I would have DREAMED of as a teen.
Anon
Ohh, I like this so much.
Anon
Has anyone negotiated a fully paid or partially paid but longer maternity leave? I’m at the last part of offer negotiations and while the base numbers won’t budge much, I am wondering if this is an item I can play with. I’ve never done this before and don’t know the right terms or words to use, or if this is a completely crazy request. Please help! Thanks!
Anon
I know people who have done this. They were already pregnant and last a stage where they were comfortable disclosing that so just said I’m due in X month so would not qualify for the leave so as a term of joining the firm, I would like to be guaranteed Y weeks of paid (or unpaid leave).
If you aren’t yet pregnant, it does seem like a more complicated ask.
Curious
Yeah, if you’re not yet pregnant I might wait to build your political capital and negotiate then.
Anon
I am but only 8 weeks. Does this change the advice?
Anon
I think you’d have to disclose the pregnancy at this point. If you’re comfortable doing that, negotiating is fine.
Curious
+1 to Anonymous. FWIW, I disclosed at 9 weeks because it was pretty obvious I was nauseous a lot. Female boss with kids, all of management has elementary kids, and they all understood the risk of loss. But it helped us prepare early.
Curious
And congratulations and best wishes for a healthy and uneventful pregnancy and successful negotiation :)
Anonymous
I wouldn’t do this unless you’re okay with them pulling the offer altogether. If you bring this up companies aren’t dumb and will know you’re hiding a pregnancy.
Jz
probably not helpful but i got an extra month of unpaid leave from my firm (on top of the 5 months of paid leave) – i simply asked my practice group partners a month before i was due back and they accommodated, but i had been there for 5 years already and had a lot of goodwill.
anon
Is it weird to feel upset and saddened by friends’ divorce? Not just immediately, but for quite a while afterward?
Our couple BFFs split suddenly about 6 months ago. I’ll refer to them as A (woman) and B (man). More to the point, B left A for another woman. It was like a grenade exploded because nobody, including her, knew he was cheating or was planning to leave. I am still mad at B for doing that to her. The divorce has been okay-ish, mostly because B realized he’d better be decent after blowing up his wife and children’s lives. DH and I are still furious with B, and yet miss him and feel sad about the friendship that dissolved overnight. (We have talked to B once, awkwardly and avoiding the elephant in the room, and he has basically cut off contact with everyone in our friend group. I don’t think we’ll be friends again anytime soon.) We’re still close with A and the kids and have focused on making sure they feel loved and supported. But I’m still sad that this couple with whom we shared a lot of adult milestones no longer exists. Facebook memories of couples vacations, concerts, etc. pop up, and I feel sad all over again. And somehow the fun times seem tainted. I think I’d feel a lot differently if it had been a mutual parting of ways, rather than this big, traumatic event. Clearly B wasn’t happy in the marriage but hid it well.
As I type this out, it sounds SO WEIRD. But I am not one who goes through friendship breakups often, or at all, really, and I’m just at a loss about how to process this. There also is grief in knowing that B is apparently not who we thought he was. He left this time but fessed up to having affairs off and on for years. All unbeknownst to A and the rest of us.
IDK, this whole debacle has made me a little bit more cynical. Like how well do we ever really know other people, even people that we love?
Anon
Hello, I’m you a decade or two from now. Many more of your friends’ marriages will fall apart in exactly this way, except maybe less cooperative during the divorce. (Two of my friends had to hire forensic accountants to find the money their ex husbands tried to hide once they started cheating.)
I remain depressed and still amazed that men have #theaudacity.
Anonymous
OUCH. Not looking forward to that. (Kind of amazed some married friends are still together TBH.)
Real question, though: what does it look like when people hide money from spouses if you have joint accounts? Is it always the couple in charge of finances who does it? (This is me in our relationship so I could do it easily but it would be really hard for my DH to do it.)
Anon
The friend I was closest to hadn’t been paying super close attention, but it was also complicated by the fact that her ex was a partner / part owner of a company that was acquired during their marriage. So he got a big payout but it wasn’t strictly cash, and he managed to hide it for some time. When he left my friend for a woman he’d been cheating with, he tried to claim he was broke and that she needed to pay him a settlement.
The accountant found the money and my friend got millions (and based on how he has continued to live since their divorce, she suspect the accountant didn’t find it all.)
This is a guy who goes around telling everyone that he and my friend are still the “best of friends” and that their split was mutual and amicable.
If I saw him in the crosswalk and I was in my car, I think I would not be able to find my brake pedal.
Cat
yeah, you can mourn. There’s no way you stay close friends with both halves of the couple independently, and it sounds like the wife got “custody” of you two.
Anon
As she should!!
Senior Attorney
UGH UGH UGH. I think it would be weird if you DIDN’T feel upset and saddened by this.
And yeah, the audacity. One of our (formerly) close, close male friends has been stalking a single woman friend and it’s pretty much blown up the whole friend group and he has the nerve to carry on as though nothing is happening and his wife of 40+ years appears to be clueless.
anon
What an ass. Why must people be this way?
Anon
When my kids were young (they’re in college now) I read something Garrison Keillor wrote in his Mr Blue advice column. I wish I could find it now. He was giving advice on how to meet men to a 30 something woman who hadn’t dated in a while. He advised her to dye her hair blond, flaunt her breasts, and to stay close to her friends’ marriages, because men don’t go out to sea – they stick to the shoreline. In other words, a man would find the next woman before he left the current one.
That always stuck with me. Most women I’ve known who are over their relationships are looking forward to just being alone, or if with someone else, not in a committed way. They look forward to living alone and not having to take care of anyone else and doing whatever the f they want.
Regardless of what men say, in my experience they have behaved exactly the way Garrison Keillor said they would. They don’t want to be alone and not have someone to take care of them. They just want to swap horses. And they’re invariably attracted to the blonde with the boobs, which, as it turns out, perfectly predicted the “other woman” for both my sister and one of my best friends’ now-exes.
When someone tells you who they are, believe them, including Garrison Keillor who as far as I know continues to insist that the woman he harassed “enjoyed the flirtation.”
OP, the friend you thought you had in B has thoroughly shown you who he is. Believe him.
Anon
Oh man, I knew Garrison Keillor was awful but this really takes the cake. What a gross human being he is, and certainly not suitable for giving advice!
Anon
+100 says this Minnesotan who has heard about lot of Garrison’s behavior for decades.
Anon
When I was younger, I was the blonde with the boobs, even though I didn’t want to be. So many gross men hit on me. I dyed my hair darker (auburn) and my dating life *improved.*
Anon
Having been A in the situation above, your final realization is spot on. You can NEVER know what someone else is thinking, no matter how much you love them or think you know them. That is part of the vulnerability of any relationship (and why they can be so wonderful).
In my friend group, including acquaintances, only one person kept in touch with B that I know of. A few people who were mutual friends still follow him loosely on social media, probably for the gossip factor (and there was one very close friend I asked to tell me about big life events so I could hear from someone I love instead of being surprised at a random time). Although I can’t know for sure if any of them still have a relationship with him they haven’t told me about, I very much doubt it. It was awkward and terrible for everyone. Another person who had been a mutual friend actually initiated a tearful conversation with me about a year after the divorce where she was still sad about feeling fooled by him and experiencing a general erosion of trust after finding out. I say this just to note that your feelings are very normal.
Also having been through this, I have a hard time learning about others cheating in a relationship. I do view someone differently after learning that information, if only because it is hard to separate from my own experience.
Anon
I’m the same Anon— Just adding on that the one person who stayed in touch with B is no longer my friend. It was a mutual drifting because that whole situation felt like it hung in the room every time we spoke. So the person above who mentioned “custody” of friends is absolutely correct in my experience.
anon
OP here, and thank you for sharing this. Yes, the erosion of trust is really hard to deal with. And B is definitely no longer a friend. We wouldn’t have spoken at all except that on one of his custody days, he had to bring his kids to our kiddo’s birthday party. I think cordial but very distant is as good as it’s going to get; we have firmly sided with A.
Anon
“Another person who had been a mutual friend actually initiated a tearful conversation with me about a year after the divorce where she was still sad about feeling fooled by him and experiencing a general erosion of trust after finding out.”
I didn’t have the tearful conversation with my friend but I experienced these same feelings of mistrust and wariness after someone we knew – the husband in a couple we socialized with pretty frequently – was revealed to be a closet drug user who had embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from his company, and ended up having to go to prison over it. The shock and the feeling that I – that we all – had been duped were difficult to process. Nothing he did directly impacted me negatively, but in the shock of the reveal, I took it so personally – this person was obviously a toxic mess, and I didn’t see it. Had no idea. I felt that obviously, I was not the judge of character I thought I was and must have been stupid, or something, not to see what he really was. Even though nobody saw it – not his bosses, not his spouse, etc. His wife divorced him before he went to trial and he went to prison and served his sentence, then moved far away. We’ve never heard from him again, but the shadow still lingers. I have a hard time trusting new people, and a hard time not wondering, when I meet someone new, if they’re really who they purport to be. I don’t want to get taken in again. It’s hard to shake.
Anon
I just going to put out here that things are not always as clear cut as they look to outsiders. I was friendly with A and B and would have thought B was a horrible person who abandoned his wife and hurt his children to enter into another relationship if I just listened to what A said after their divorce but as it happens I also knew that (1) A was already cheating on him before B left – which is something he never mentioned but I found out because his son caught them in bed together and told my daughter and (2) I had heard A talking about B with such scathing contempt that I would not have been surprised he left even if it was not for the cheating.
Should he have left before he found someone else he wanted to explore a relationship with? Sure. Do I really blame him for wanting to build something with someone who was not bringing another man into their house and who did not talk about him like the village idiot? Also sure.
I have never been divorced and have never been the other woman but I do get tired of people acting as if men are always the wrongdoers. That conversation with the scathing contempt happened during a “Moms’ Night Out” happy hour and four of the women there (including A) were talking trash about their husbands and trading tips for getting out of “having” to have s*x with them while another women (with whom I was real friends and not Mom friends) and I stood back and wondered how long their marriages were going to last. Three of them were divorced before our kids graduated high school.
OP – This is not aimed at you! Your B sounds like an a** and you have every right to your feelings.
Anon
Wow, you really sound like you’re Not Like Other Girls. congratulations!
Anon
+1 to 9:09
Anon
Where are you two getting that? I (not the Anon above) have watched both men and women do some really awful things to their spouses. Being a bad person is an equal-opportunity issue.
Anonymous
I don’t think it sounds weird at all. This is what happens when we care about people and they betray us. You lost several things that were really valuable to you (the couple friendship, the long-term memories, the trust you had in who this guy was, etc.) Id’ be angry and sad, too. There’s no way to get any of that back, and there’s no real way to get resolution — he’s very likely never going to come to you and acknowledge that what he did ripped up something for you guys, too, much less apologize to you.
Anon
I think it’s normal to grieve what you thought you had with someone else. If you find a way through that grief and tainted memories let me know. A different relationship but I see many of my own feelings here.
I’ve been so so close with my only living grandparent my entire life. Have not loved near each other most of my life but we talked at least twice a week. Grandparent was the 2nd person I’d want to talk to when good and bad things happened. Living circumstances changed this year that would have allowed us to live closer to each other, and have our family together in a way it hasn’t been in 20 years. But just before Christmas while visiting Grandparent, they came out and told me they were making a choice to move back to where they had been, back to where they wouldn’t be near family, or me. And the reasons Grandparent gave turned out to be lies.
Objectively and from the outside I think this isn’t that big of a deal. But emotionally I feel betrayed, hurt, lied to, cast aside. This person that I love so so deeply, hurt me in a way I never expected or ever anticipated.
I don’t know how to process the memories I have with Grandparent from Before, with this After. How can I keep wearing a necklace with Grandparents nickname on it, one that I’ve wore every single day for over 3 years? Or keep their wedding photo album on display in my living room?
It wouldn’t hurt us so much if we didn’t love them or care about them.
Of Counsel
I always think of it like a death. Even when I stay friends (or at least friendly) with both people involved, the entity I knew as A+B is gone. And it is always hard to find out that someone you thought you knew is not the person you thought they were.(Although I tend to think we do not really know most people as well as we think we do – even the people we are closest to. We see the face they show us and the person they are with us but people are rarely entirely internally consistent)
And as an aside, I do not think I have ever seen a divorce of a long-term couple where they just “drifted apart” and mutually decided to split with no drama and hard feelings. I am not saying it cannot happen but what I usually see is they drifted apart and then someone (usually but not always the man) found someone new, which was the impetus to exit the relationship.
Bonnie Kate
I manage a “B” who’s currently going through a divorce. We weren’t close friends (like I said, I manage him) but were always friendly, and I always really liked his wife and liked them as a couple/family a lot. Now I have to actively be conscious at being professional and friendly in my dealings with him as I manage him, because I know it’s not fair to let his personal life interfere with his career. It’s frustrating and I have found myself sad about the entire situation, and we weren’t even close friends. So I get how you would be legit sad/mourning the friendship a lot longer and deeper.
Anon
I’m sorry you’re going through this, and it’s perfectly normal for you to feel what you’re feeling. It’s a loss of something you valued, which is never easy. It’s also not easy to find out people aren’t who we thought they were. It’s okay to give yourself some time and space to grieve and not be in contact with B while you figure out what you want to do going forward. Which may end up being nothing, except letting the situation play out. You’re entitled to feel your feelings and also offer whoever you want the support you feel you’re capable of giving, and no more. Hugs.
Anonymous
I definitely remember feeling upset by a friend divorce when we’d hung out with the couple a lot. Part of it is selfishness (if it could happen to her, could it happen to me AND social shakeups), part is concern for friends.
Anonymous
Nope not weird at all. Sucks that your friend turned out to be a bad person, I’m sorry.