Is revenge sweet?

When I split with my husband, he was a gambler, he took several weeks to move out. He had a decorative blind hanging in our living room. One of the cats sprayed it with wee. I just took it down and rolled it up and put it in the shed for him, ready for when he left.

Ah, The Woolwich Sussexborn, my BIL worked for them for several years and they treated him appallingly in trying to oust him out too. But he moved on to bigger and better things.

Not exactly revenge but a senior manager with a national company told area managers to effectively bully staff so they would leave rather than be made redundant and have to be given payouts. At a huge staff convention a young man was asked to stand up and the senior guy said “now you know how big a piece os sh1t is. This was a man with newborn twins who used to go home every night and just sob uncontrollably. They inspected my OHs office and the only offense was not having a blank note book that none of the other offices had either. They took him to a tribunal over this and he defended his position for over an hour so they adjourned it. A secretary told him most of the staff were in and out in 10 minutes and came out very upset and often crying. He kept his job for a while but one morning two people were on the door step, took the keys and sent them all home.

Not long after we heard that the manager had been showing off whilst celebrating that he had now got rid of enough staff so he would keep his job. In his exhilaration he jumped over a low wall only to find a 6’drop on the other side. He broke both of his legs. It couldn’t happen to a better chap IMHO. This is all happened via the Woolwich Building Society!

I don't think I ever have, because it all seems such an effort, and someone who has done something so bad isn't worth the energy it would take to hatch and carry out a plan.

I have never taken revenge. The best revenge as the saying goes is a happy life, without them in it.

I've never taken revenge on anyone but not because of being the better person or believing in karma, it's because by the time I think of anything it would be too late! I did have a revenge fantasy though of meeting someone who stole money from us (a lot to us at the time) when I was out shopping. I would conveniently have had a box of eggs in my bag which would coolly have been emptied over his head! It was never going to happen as he stole from other people and had to move out of the area but it made me feel so much better at the time. It wasn't even about the money but the abuse of friendship which upset me. Generally though I agree with the saying 'two wrongs don't make a right'.

When I was just starting secondary school in the late 1960s, I was tall for my age (5 ft 4) and a bit overweight. All the boys in my year group were smaller and lighter, as were most of the girls. There was a particular boy in my class who was extremely small. I was an early developer and he was probably a late developer- as I was born in early December, he was probably on reflection about 9/10 months younger than me, which makes a difference at that age.

One day, during a Geography lesson in the first year, I was called to the front of the room. The teacher (a male in his forties) then invited the smallest boy in the class to join me. We were supposed to point out various countries on the map on the wall, but the boy started to play the class clown and pretended to be “frightened” of me because of the difference in size. Of course, he got all the laughs when he pretended to run away from me. All I felt was humiliation and wanted the ground to swallow me up. The teacher just stood and laughed along with everyone else. I was totally mortified.

This person continued with the teasing (bullying?) most of the First Year, but as I progressed into the the Second and Third Year, this stopped. I remained at my original height and lost the weight but he continued to remain small. By the time I reached 4th or 5th Year all the boys, except this particular boy, were taller than me and I even had a “boyfriend” in the 5th Year.

In my last year at school, I moved to a different town in the same area and started a secretarial course. I lost contact with most of my old school friends and made different friends at College. One night, with three friends from College, at the local Palais when I was 18, I came across this school bully. I noticed him looking across at us from the bar with two friends. He swaggered across to us with his friends and tried to engage me in conversation. By this time (of average height and slim with two good-looking friends) I pretended not to recognise him, but instead smiled up at one of his friends who immediately asked me to dance. The taller friend asked one of my other friends to dance, which left my small bullying former classmate with my other friend. When I looked across the dance floor after a few minutes he was gone. My friend had seen him off. Not wanting to leave my other friend on her own I made a note to return to the table after my dance but she was soon asked by someone else to dance so I need not have worried.

When we all returned to the table, I asked my friend why she had sent my ex classmate away. She said she bluntly told him that she couldn’t dance with someone under 5 ft 7 (shallow, I know, but remember we were 18 year old girls and he was 5ft 5 at the most). I remember seeing him alone at the bar looking somewhat dejected but didn’t feel guilty as I felt that karma had taken place.

I still see him from time to time (mainly at the supermarket) and I still pretend not to recognise him. I’m always polite but always very vague and once when I was with my partner and he asked who he was, I replied (in a voice the ex-bully could hear) that I really couldn’t remember him at all. I don’t really think about this person much at all, but this thread got me thinking what did to me as a 12 year old and the effect it had on me. He is still small, divorced and looking for another partner (so he told me) whilst I am happy with my partner. He was the class clown - who has had the last laugh?

PS I feel more hatred/contempt for the teacher who allowed the teasing/bullying to take place. It wouldn’t happen today.

Sometimes the best and most powerful revenge is to say and do nothing! It certainly worked with my cheating first husband, he thought he was Gods gift to all Women, and some fell for him hook, line and sinker! With him though he would never change, so when l knew he was moving in with someone who had been hooked, l simply said nothing. Three marriages and Three divorces later, he’s no longer got the looks to be the oldest swinger in town, and lives alone. He’s on Benefits, having lost all his money and investments in Divorce settlements, and the last wife he had openly bragged that she was only with him whilst her children from a previous relationship were young, he was a cash caddy until they had flown the nest, after which she took off with her long term lover, claimed half the house they lived in, and sent him back to live with his mother. I knew exactly what her game was for a number of years, she was notorious for it, but the sweetest revenge for me was simply to remain silent on the matter!

notanan2

Exposure is revenge for many women who have had their lives blighted by coersive abuse. The abusers are control freaks, very dangerous people to challenge and expose but if the victim can get exposure via media (as MEtoo are doing) then they regain their confidence and respect from the lies said about them.

For men in that situation, they find it very hard to expose cruel and controlling wives/girlfriends and that abuse often goes on forever. So we hear more of women taking revenge.

I was a lone parent. I moved to a new house and met a fellow lone parent along the street. She seemed nice. Our friendship grew over the months until one day my children got too much for me and as I had no family within 400 miles I asked her to look after them for an hour or so so I could regain my sanity.

When I went to pick them up they were both crying and pale faced as she had laid into them verbally about their recent bad behaviour. I hadn't asked her to do that and was understandably cross.

The result was she sent me a foul letter full of abuse. It upset me and ended our friendship.

We still live only 12 houses apart but we do not speak.

The man she is with now is a horror. Foul mouthed and aggressive.

I feel that's enough revenge for me, although a bit of me does feel sorry for her. Silly woman.

I still snigger to this day about my 'revenge' - my (now ex) husband was approaching his 40th birthday and I heard on the grapevine that his girlfriend (yes....) was organising him a surprise birthday party.
A male friend of mine phoned my ex and introduced himself as a friend of the girlfriend and enquired as to what time was the party starting on Saturday?
Simple but oh, so effective!

Ok I’m not proud of this now but it was a spur of the moment thing. My sister died a few years ago. Her live in partner didn’t treat her the best, he was more interested in having some mates round. Any way after she died time was taken up sorting out her funeral following the guidelines that we thought she had wanted.( this was very important to us as it was her last request).

To cut a long story short, we were at her house a couple of weeks after the funeral to remove her bits and bobs ready to sell her house. Her partner was meant to come and help but didn’t arrive until very much later. I was sitting in her bedroom going through some paperwork when I came across a couple of A4 pages with my sisters writing on. I sat and read them and to my absolute horror, realised that it was the format of how she wanted her funeral to be. I told my younger sister but didn’t have the heart to tell my mum, I was absolutely gutted. As I went into the lounge to finish up as almost everything had been done I saw her partner had plastic wallet on a box with passport, driving license and birth certificate etc etc. Before I thought about it I took the folder and put it in a black sack with other rubbish to go to the tip.
Obviously it was then lost forever.
I know that I shouldn’t have done it but I was seeing red! He had openly lied to us saying the papers he had given us were what my sister wanted.

I am sorry that I did it now but it made me feel better at the time.

Nightly of late I lie in bed hatching vengeful plots against our builder, whose conning talk has meant that stupidly we’ve paid him for the complete refurbishment of our new bungalow and is currently 5 months past schedule and looking like never finishing! I doubt that I can actually do anything legally or in reality but need those fantasy’s to keep us warm when we move into a touring caravan on site next month as can’t afford to rent any further.

Oh and when I hosted a French
student, who I got on well with, he told me 2 of his friends were not treated v well by their host family so they had bought a kilo of fresh fish and put it behind the fridge freezer. Another student deliberately broke the shower when he left as he wasn't allowed in the lounge to watch TV

Me and a friend were talking about revenge a while back. She took revenge on her mother and an elderly neighbour when she was a teenager and has regretted it all her life. I have taken revenge on 2 friends who were just using me by just not bothering with them anymore despite repeated friend requests, unanswered phone calls etc. Also, when someone quarrels with me my motto is 'they will need me before I need them' and invariably it's true.

My friends husband worked away, and left her for a woman he met on his stag night. (Less than 2 weeks after they'd married, and with nothing at all in for Christmas, as they had been going to get a big shop when he came home)

She phoned his works office, and told them she urgently needed to speak to him, which meant someone going to find him, pulling him off the building site where he was working, and driving him to the office.

She did it a few times a day, until the office woman asked what her problem was.

Once informed, the office woman was more than happy to go along with it.

MadeinYorkshire in the version I heard, the Husband took the curtains with him when he moved out so the smell followed him to his next house.

My husband bought a new, very large car and I had extreme difficulty reversing it into our garage in the manner he expected. I said as much and was told it was all in my mind.
Fast forward to ironing day: again, he liked his clothes ironed nicely.I was still smarting from his remark and as a purely personal protest decided to press his clothes on one side only. Many years on and I still do- so satisfying.

It can be lovely to talk abou'karma' and 'what goes round, comes round'. Problem is - it is rarely true.
When someone (an adult) was particularly nasty to one of my young teenage children, I made official complaints against this person to everywhere I could. I was delighted when, nine months later, her husband phoned me to ask me to stop as it was all making her life dreadful and stressed. Did stop - but felt that I had achieved something.
Some years later an ex-employer played a really dirty trick on me, quite deliberately. Worse as previously she had been a very close friend of mine. I managed to deal with the problems she caused, but then took my time in getting revenge, and managed to get some large contracts moved from them. I was very happy about that.
No revenge on ex-hubby, except living a much happier life than he has, and having a far close relationship with our children.

I unpicked the rear seams of my ex husband’s trousers, including his uniform (Royal Navy). He was having an affair and had bought himself all new designer underwear, so I thought it would be a shame if only his mistress could see it!

Oh hell yes it feels good!

Years ago I worked "away" mon-fri as I was on loan to another branch of my office. I lodged in a shared house with two other people and the resident owner. As lodgers we had few rights back then and landlord hadn't drawn up a lodgers agreement.
The owner was always after more money - first he said that he needed extra for council tax as he could no longer have the single occupancy discount, we all paid up ,(fools!). Then he started saying other things were extra eg use of the washing machine; the person with the bike had to pay extra to keep it in the shed and so on. We just ignored most of the demands and then we found he was telling a that b&c paid extra for this, and telling b that a&c were paying for that. The daft thing was that he didnt realise that we talked to each other and compared notes about his demands.

Anyway we got on really well and decided to move out together, something we managed to organise on the quiet. We overlapped the two properties so on the last day we seemingly just went off to work as normal before he was up. What was different was the three rent books left on the counter with three letters saying we had moved out (and no forwarding addresses)

The only regret was that we weren't there to see his reaction!!

I find usually that what goes around comes around so no need to take revenge.

I know that living a happy life after divorce can be the best revenge, and when the opportunity happens (such as weddings, Christenings) let the ex's new girlfriends see how carefree and hyper glam you are after leaving HIM.

They both left HIM, in time too, when they discovered why I was so happy.

It is neither Granniesnet nor Grandadsnet but GRANsnet, which is common to both, just as the letters G R A and N are in both words.

I for one would be very sad to be robbed of the input of the men who have contributed to this forum, and I wish there were more of them. Their personalities vary, just as those of the women on here vary, but that reflects real life, and a different viewpoint often gives a three-D effect to a subject. If someone doesn't appeal to you, it is because of their personality, not the fact of being male or female, and the more someone posts, the more you appreciate their good points.

I must confess that when Grandad1943 first joined Gransnet, I found his style rather dry and a bit OCD - but after reading more of his posts, I see past the formal style and admire his usual good sense and high principles. Don't let a few posters with prejudices chase you away, grandad.