You May Have To Leave (If Co-Working With Your Ex Love Becomes Unbearable)

Office Romance Problems Effects & Etiquette (DOs & DON’Ts)

You May Have To Leave
(If Co-Working With Your Ex Love Becomes Unbearable)

The 3rd thing that happens, when your office romance ends, is:
3. You must de-tangle your “Brangelina” joint brand to become, once again, an individual professional, rather than one half of an office couple.

This is a prerequisite for becoming a real contender, assuming you still want to have a shot at that promotion, and/or pay raise, you so wanted, all along.

Indeed, you need to undo the damage of the diluting, and the blurring, of your own your personal brand, which occurred in the process of dissolving it into the “Brangelina” joint brand, you had with Schmoopie. This takes time. And the longer you were together – the more so.

The no. 4 thing that happens, when your office romance ends, is:
4. One of you may need to leave Leave the team…
Go somewhere else in the department, the floor, the organization as a whole…

Why? Because:
a. everything I’ve described above might become unbearable, and
b. a new image you do not want to have, might stick to you, through the Grapevine, if you stay.

How so? Well, if you were labeled the “villain”, i.e. the one who cheated, or the one who initiated the break-up. This will chase you wherever you go at this office, and you will have to always start any interaction, from a covertly and an unspoken negative starting point, from which you will have to climb yourself out, to dig yourself out each and every time and prove yourself a “non-villain”, in the eyes of each and every beholder –

So you would be spending a lot of mental and emotional and behavioral energy on just digging yourself out from this minus whatever-number-of-feet underground you were relegated to, just to back to zero, to ground level, and only then would you be able to start off any new interaction at this office.

This is especially true if – and here I’m going to say something some of you may not like, but I call it as I see it – so this is especially true if you are a man, in an office romance break-up situation. Because, as of now, there is a cultural bias against you, meaning, that being a man in a relationship, lends itself more easily, to being perceived as the villain, when a break-up occurs, and in an office relationship – all the more so, because everybody knows Schmoopie also, and she’s a woman in this case.

(Just to emphasize the cultural bias issue, and why it is relevant here: Culture always seeps in into the workplace, thus the workplace is a reflection of culture and society as a whole, thus the cultural bias is bound to be reflected in the workplace, as indeed it is.)

If however the Grapevine has labeled you the victim of the office romance break-up, this is also extremely bad for you, if you’re a man, because it goes against everything you are supposed to be, all the more so for one who is seeking a promotion to a leadership position –

In the case of men they want men who take charge not who are victimized. They won’t say it but they’ll think it: “What a wimp”.

If you are woman, however, the situation is the inverse: A woman does not lend herself easily to being perceived as a villain, even when she deserves to be. (Check out Amber Heard and Johnny Depp, allegedly). And if she is perceived as a villain, despite of the tendency to the opposite then, as of now, she is more likely to be lauded and cheered with a “you go girl” which may actually contribute to her candidacy for a promotion and a pay raise because she’s such a “bad-ass” “Boss Babe” and that’s what we’re looking for.

(I don’t like any of these terms but, again, I’m just calling it as I see it I don’t care about PC culture and you should know by now I abhor it.)

The same inversion applies true if you are a woman who has been dumped by her office romance Schmoopie so the Grapevine has labeled you the victim. In such a case, because being a woman lends itself more easily to being perceived as a victim, (first and foremost by women themselves unfortunately). This will not have any negative effect on your brand in terms of your promotion and pay raise chances – it will not detract from it – from your brand.

Moreover it might even win you some points as somebody who needs to be supported and compensated to offset the predicament she has just suffered in the break-up of her office romance, buy her villain ex-Schmoopie. So FYI (for your information).

By the way, this distortion and bias against men, and for women, exist in workplaces nowadays, regardless of an office romance – but that’s a whole other issue.