My ex-husband Max invited me to his wedding with a cruel message: \u201cBring a +1, but we both know you don\u2019t have anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
After thirteen years of marriage, Max had left me for his personal trainer, Claire, constantly criticizing my weight before the divorce.<\/p>\n
I almost skipped the wedding, but our daughters wanted me there.<\/p>\n
So I asked my coworker Edward to pretend to be my boyfriend.<\/p>\n
When Max saw us, he laughed.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one would date you,\u201d he said. \u201cEspecially someone like him. Did you pay him?\u201d<\/p>\n
Edward calmly smiled and said he had brought Max a wedding gift.<\/p>\n
Minutes later, he returned with a large cardboard box.<\/p>\n
Inside was an enormous pair of trousers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were mine,\u201d Edward explained.<\/p>\n
Years earlier, Edward had been much heavier. One day at work, he refused birthday cake and insulted his own body. I had told him, \u201cI don\u2019t like hearing you talk about yourself that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
He never forgot it.<\/p>\n
Edward told Max that I hadn\u2019t inspired him to become thinner\u2014I had reminded him that he deserved respect before changing anything.<\/p>\n
Then Edward asked Max one question:<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re so happy with Claire, why are you still trying to prove Veronica is undesirable?\u201d<\/p>\n
Max stopped smiling.<\/p>\n
Later, my daughter asked why I had pretended Edward was my boyfriend.<\/p>\n
I admitted I wanted Max to think someone wanted me.<\/p>\n
She simply said, \u201cBut we wanted you here.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was the only answer I needed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My ex-husband Max invited me to his wedding with a cruel message: \u201cBring a +1, but we both know you don\u2019t have anyone.\u201d After thirteen years of marriage, Max had left me for his personal trainer, Claire, constantly criticizing my weight before the divorce. I almost skipped the wedding, but our daughters wanted me there. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10213,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10212"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10214,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10212\/revisions\/10214"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}