Kennedy News and MediaA woman whose husband ran off with her best friend got the ultimate revenge by leaving her wedding dress on their porch along with a note welcoming the mistress to her ‘secondhand goods’.
Karen Dineen, from Essex, was understandably furious when she allegedly discovered her husband Terry Lovell, 53, was cheating on her with her friend of 25 years, Carol Mitchell.
The couple had been together for 19 years and socialised with art teacher Carol and her then husband long before Karen says the affair started – and even Karen and Carol’s children were friends.
Kennedy News and MediaKaren claims she suspected an affair for months before confronting ‘narcissistic’ Terry, and the pair broke up as soon as she read the secret exchanges on his phone between the pair.
So when she came across the wedding dress she had married Terry in as she cleared out their home, she decided to donate the dress to her former pal.
Alongside the dress, Karen left a savage note reading:
Hey Carol, I know you love secondhand goods, so thought you might like the dress I wore when I married your boyfriend. Love, Karen xx
Karen then drove the strapless cream dress to Carol’s house and left it abandoned on her porch, after posting the note through the front door.
Essex-born Karen, who describes her ex as ‘the spawn of the devil’, said she saw the dress when she was packing up her house and thought ‘she can f*cking have this’.
Kennedy News and MediaThe 57-year-old said:
Leaving a wedding dress and putting that note through the door I knew there was nothing they could do. I was shaking like a kid at Christmas with excitement.
I’ve got nothing to hide, it was he who cheated. That bird was a friend of mine for 25 years. I was with him for 19 years.
I’ve been single for four years. When I chucked him out I got a chihuahua, who is cleaner, more loyal and more faithful. I got the better end of the deal there. Win-win.
It was the betrayal of a husband and a friend. Neighbours and friends knew about it and never told me.
You can’t imagine how f*cking humiliating it is to have all these people know it’s going on and not say anything to you.
The mum-of-two claims she first suspected the builder was cheating after she noticed him getting dolled up in the evenings before making excuses he was heading back to work.
Kennedy News and MediaBut after she found receipts for two identical bottles of her perfume but was only given one, along with a £700 ‘guilty’ diamond ring for Christmas, Karen claims she knew Terry had another woman.
Karen said:
I knew something was going on at the end of 2014. He was a builder, and he would come home from work, get changed and say he’s got to go and look at a job.
He used to ring me and say he had to look at a job in all his work clothes.
He started coming home, having a shower and getting tarted up, and saying he was going to look at a job.
I wondered what was going on because after living with someone for so long years, any little changes you notice.
He could have stood there waving a flag saying, ‘I’m having an affair’ and it wouldn’t have been more obvious. This went on for a while.
I make a brilliant friend but a terrible enemy, and he was making such an enemy of me. I knew he was seeing someone from Christmas.
After realising he was cheating on her, Karen worked out the password to Terry’s phone and grabbed it while he was in the shower, locking him in the house before driving off to read the secret exchanges.
Kennedy News and MediaKaren said:
So, I was scrolling through all these text messages between Carol and him.
It was all, ‘I can’t believe last night, it was wonderful’. ‘Yeah we made up for not seeing each other’. ‘Don’t give her any ammunition’.
At that moment, Terry rang his mobile from the house phone.
I answered it and said, ‘hello huggy bear, been shagging your s**g have you?’ because that’s what she’d called him in a couple of the messages.
He said no. He didn’t realise I could open his phone. He was still lying to get out of it.
Since breaking up in 2015, Karen has moved and attempted to break off contact with Terry and Carol.
Although her cheating ex refused to pay for a divorce, Karen paid to change her surname by deed poll from ‘Lovell’ to her maiden name ‘Dineen’.
Kennedy News and MediaKaren said:
I didn’t hear from Carol [after I left the wedding dress] because I changed my phone number.
Don’t get mad, get even. I was just thinking, wait until he shows his true colours. She has no idea what she let herself in for. The grass is always greener on the other side.
He won’t pay for a divorce. He committed adultery so I think he should be the one to pay for it.
I changed my name though. I’m no longer Karen Lovell, I’m Karen Dineen. It was cheaper than getting a divorce.
When contacted for comment, Terry said:
Ask [Karen] what she’s like to live with and then you might get a real story on why people do cheat on her.
When you do eventually go and get in touch with her, tell her to go and get a life.
How many people have affairs every single day of their lives? People have affairs every day.
No love lost there then.
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Emma Rosemurgey is an NCTJ trained Journalist who started her career by producing The Royal Rosemurgey newspaper in 2004, which kept her family up to date with the goings on of her sleepy north east village. She graduated from the University of Central Lancashire in Preston and started her career in regional newspapers before joining Tyla (formerly Pretty 52) in 2017, and progressing onto UNILAD in 2019.