I bartended at a spot a few blocks down from where ex-gf was a waitress. Our spots are owned by the same people and they started letting employees at her location cross-train to get shifts at my bar/restaurant. I was informed she was going to be picking up shifts soon after we broke up, so I foolishly went to her spot by myself a few days later just to ask that we can still be workplace professional even though the breakup was very recent.

When I see her I simply say "Hey, can we talk?", but she pretends not to see me and I say "Please, just hear me out for two seconds." Her friend/co-worker tells me to fuck off because she doesn't want to talk to me, so I say fine and leave immediately. Next day I'm called to the GM's office and he says she claims I physically assaulted her. He believes me when I tell him what happened and the next day tells her she needs to behave like an adult and is expected to work cordially with me if she were to get shifts.

Ex doesn't like that and serves me with a TRO a couple days later at my other bar. Reading it, she claims that when I went to talk to her, I barreled through her friend and tried to grab her and force her to look at me. This is along with various instances she says were 'emotional abuse', because my depression/drinking apparently triggered her and she said she "feared my self-destructive behavior would escalate to violence against her."

Anyway, I had to pay $5,000 for a criminal defense attorney on retainer because she wanted to stick a permanent order on my record. If it was just about never seeing her again, I'd have let it stick, but a permanent order could screw up a lot of future opportunities.

We settled at the hearing, because even though I didn't do anything, she had four of her best friends at work arrive to the hearing ready to speak on her behalf, and the lawyer advised we come to an agreement outside the courtroom because I'm already at a disadvantage being the guy and she has prepared witnesses. My lawyer convinced her she'd lose at the hearing because she was representing herself, so she agreed to extend the TRO for a period of one year, which stipulates 100 yards away at all times and no attempts at contact. I thought that would be the end of it.

Nope. She cozies up to one of the owners of my spot and within the month I'm suddenly suspended and put on an investigation before being terminated outright with a vague 'multiple incidents/complaints involving you'. Not long after, I was offered a job elsewhere on the same block at another bar. I had one half day of training until one of my ex's coworkers found out I was there through the sidewalk window, and then my ex goes apeshit and contacts my lawyer, saying she's gonna have me escorted out of my work by police if I don't leave immediately.

So first she leaves me for another guy, shrugging and saying 'I checked out', then files a TRO, then gets me fired, then tells my lawyer that if I'm fired it's because of my own actions and says I can get fucked.

I thought you had to be married in order for a woman to make your life hell. Now just learned about weaponized restraining orders and how people are so quick to believe the woman and shun the guy. I'm so reluctant to ever be in a relationship again.