How to F- your life up in a few easy steps.

I was sitting in the train on the way back from town today, and while waiting for it to leave the terminus I overheard a conversation between two passengers. As you do. And the story that one told to the other was typical for Essex - And just like a TV soap storyline.

Apparently, one of the passengers has a lodger who is sleeping on her floor and is being fed by her - The lodger being a 50 year old man, who's fallen on very hard times.

He married a 30-year-old woman, who had recently split up with her ex-husband, who was always stalking her - And this made her nervous, so she constantly phoned him at work, and I think they said he worked as a nurse in the A&E department of the local hospital - Something you can't really be continually interrupted while doing.

Rather than dealing with the problem rationally and via legal means, her constant phone calls to him eventually got him fired from his job, so he wasn't making any money. On top of this, she got pregnant by him as soon as he moved in with her before he got fired. Babies are expensive, and she also loved to spend money on material crap that she didn't need, he couldn't find a new job since jobs are scarce here, she was too irrational to get a job herself, so they both spiralled further and further into debt, and tension between them escalated, eventually resulting with her throwing him out despite it being her fault that he was fired.

To get back with her (he had a kid with her after all), he stupidly took an early retirement and cashed his pension - About £18,000 in a lump sum. So of course she accepted him back into her home again, ended up spending his pension in about 3 months while seeing other men behind his back and spending his money on them, then promptly threw him out again, leaving him with all her debts.

So now this guy is stuck sleeping on a friend's floor. 50 years old, facing a mental breakdown, his only living relatives being adult children from different relationships who don't care for him, can't get jobseeking benefits because of being retired and having too much debt, can't declare himself bankrupt because he can't afford the legal fees, no pension because his ex-wife spent it all, can't get legal aid to sue her because that was recently canned by the government...

Supposedly though he did get his old job back, but they're only allowed to have him work for 16 hours a week legally because he's retired. So of course what little he makes immediately gets swallowed by his debt. And that's him pretty much screwed for the rest of his life - Especially since he's an old man and will only be able to work for so long before he can't anymore.

The lesson to be learned from this is to leave people when they start fucking your life up like this - So I don't have much sympathy for the guy. Allegedly it was also his third wife so it's not like he didn't have experience.

Just be glad you're not this poor bastard.