Part of the Seven Deadly Sins Short Story Series. What is it?
This is the story of Cliff and Sarah.
The story format is Instructable.
Part I
How to Ruin Your Relationship
Hello instructable users! Are you in a stable relationship and are looking to royally fuck it up? Are you tired of people giving you “life hacks,” when they themselves can’t seem to put a pair of pants on alone?
Then look no further. Thanks to my asshole husband (soon to be ex-husband), I have a step by step process of how to ruin your relationship together. I’ll show you how somebody can go from an ambitious and upstart “man-of-the-century” to fat, alcoholic, degenerate who can’t pay his phone bell. For the sake of protecting his name for the next round of our lawyers and child custody, I will call my husband “Cliff.” Why? Because that’s what he fucking fell off of over the last six months.
My name is Sarah. This is my life instructable.
Materials:
- A once-ambitious man/woman (for this scenario, we will use “Cliff”)
- Real life people problems
- A child
- A high-powered job or profession
- Home mortgage
- Copious quantities of alcohol
- A sizeable severance package
Step 1: Meet a Significant Other

The first step is the most important of all! It might seem obvious, but I want to be as thorough as possible for this instructable. I think those are the ones that get the most votes, after all.
Anyways, it’s important for this process to find somebody and fall in love with them. You don’t necessarily have to get married to them, but it surely helps. That is what Cliff and I did a mere eight months after meeting each other in a coffee shop. More on that later. I thought we married for love. I never thought it was for “convenience.” That should have been my first warning sign. Unfortunately, that is an entirely different instructable.
As a side note to this first step, I want to tell you: Don’t have a favorite song. Just don’t. Don’t listen to it. Don’t dance to one at your wedding ceremony. It’s the first thing you’ll do as a married couple, but the last thing you will want to remember. Once it’s over, you will end up hearing it in your car in the days and months ahead (see the final step if you want to spoil it.) For your sake and your sanity, don’t have a favorite song. Our song was “God Only Knows” by The Beach Boys. Fucker.
Step 2: Make Lots of Money to Complicate Things

Okay. So you have a new man or lady in your life. Things are going great. Every kiss was new. Every fuck was a new feeling and sensation you knew couldn’t get any better. You were right.
The honeymoon period has a way of putting a haze over your eyes to the realities of the situation at hand. Everything was going smoothly in our new marriage. At the time, Cliff was a hedge fund manager at a big fancy company in Washington, D.C. I was just a barista who handed him his venti latte every morning at 7:30am sharp. Every morning. Remember that.
Once we got married, I had the option to “take a break” and finish school. His salary allowed us to find a new place in the city. It was my dream home. I was literally living the dream. For a failed grad student working at a Starbucks, I felt like I was married to Prince Charming. He swept me off my feet in that first year. I had time to pursue cooking, go to school, and be there when Cliff got home from work. Part of me felt like a 1950s housewife, which I secretly resented.
Step 3: Have a Baby

If you really want to screw things up, why not add a baby to the mix?
As a result of the fairytale, I got lazy about birth control and got pregnant when I didn’t want to. I was too busy being a homemaker and student, I guess. We were married and very happy on the surface, so we decided to stick with it. We converted my “study” to a nursery. Thankfully, the home we bought was big enough to incorporate our baby with room to spare.
To make a long step short, we had the baby. We will call her Jane for the sake of her privacy. It was only after the baby that everything really happened. Everything fell to shit. That’s when the drinking started. That was the beginning of the end. The fairy tale was over before it even began.
To be continued…
(all images courtesy wikimedia commons)
“Shut the door, Ted,” he said. Trump proceeded to take his shirt off and add it to the small pile of clothes on the floor. His look was strong and determined.