Man in trouble for using robot vacuum to record wife's affair, friends with benefits lease up & hall pass wins

Last week we started True Romance with news of a breakup. The reports of Dakota Johnson and some dude named Role Model calling it quits was fresh, and I followed the scent of romance to heartbreak. This week we're going to restore hope in romance. We're going to restore hope in a professional athlete finding an influencer with an enormous following to share, if only for a short time, part of his life with. After internet sleuths had already connected the dots, golfer Bryson DeChambeau hard launched his new relationship with the internet's favorite hockey goalie, Mikayla Demaiter. ZERO BS. JUST DAKICH. TAKE THE DON'T @ ME PODCAST ON THE ROAD. DOWNLOAD NOW! It was a situation that I and the OutKick Culture Department were monitoring. We saw the selfies from what was alleged to have been DeChambeau's closet and home gym. Then the hard launch happened. It's much better than a soft launch, I can tell you that. It has a way of restoring your faith in the institution of love. If a golfer and an internet star can come together, there's hope for the rest of us. That includes two roommates, who were living together and had the lease on their place and on their friends with benefits situation end. One of them would like to keep the fun going even if they won’t be living together anymore. There's still hope for them. Let's get to this week's action. Go follow True Romance on Twitter and Facebook and keep sending your emails here: sean.joseph@outkick.com (anonymously if you prefer). Man wins a lawsuit but receives prison time for using a robot vacuum to record his wife's affair An affair has finally made its way through the courts in Taiwan and landed the husband who was cheated on a prison sentence. The recent court ruling, SCMP reports, found that he had invaded his wife's privacy by gathering evidence of her affair with the use of a robot vacuum to record her in the act. The couple had been married since 2021 and lived with the husband's parents. They had a home they would visit during the holidays. In late 2023, the man found a used toothbrush at their holiday home. This raised some suspicions about who it belonged to, and he checked the surveillance footage from the parking garage. On it, he spotted a man who had previously driven his wife home. A few months later, he accessed the home's robot vacuum cleaner through an app to talk with his wife using its audio feature. The vacuum's camera caught her in the act with another man. He recorded the footage so he could have evidence for a lawsuit. "The video showed his wife changing clothes, embracing her alleged lover, and moving around the house unclothed, while her partner was seen lying on the sofa," SCMP reported. "Shortly thereafter, the husband used the footage as evidence to sue his wife and her lover for infringing on his marital rights, seeking NT$2 million (US$68,000) in damages." The court sided in his favor and ordered the wife and her partner to pay him a fraction of what he was seeking in damages. The win was short-lived. His wife took him to court for recording the private affair footage without her consent. His attempt to use his civil court victory as a defense were unsuccessful. The court ruled that "marital obligations do not supersede an individual’s right to privacy." He was sentenced to five months in prison and fined for using his robot vacuum to record his wife's affair. There were no winners here, except maybe someone thinking it's a good idea to record your significant other's affair on the robot vacuum. It's not. You could go to prison. A much better approach is to bust in with a camera crew like they used to do on the show Cheaters. Remember that show? Whatever happened to that level of quality entertainment? The confrontations were an art form. Good luck to all those in a relationship with a cheater. CLICK HERE FOR MORE OUTKICK CULTURE COVERAGE This Week In True Romance Follow True Romance on Twitter and Facebook. The lease is up for friends with benefits The question here is, when the lease is up does the friends with benefits situation also have to end for a couple of roommates? She, I'm assuming it's a she, but you never really know these days when it isn’t mentioned, wants the fun to continue. It's unclear if the roommate does, but it is clear that he wants to live somewhere else. She's known him for about a year and is aware that "it’s probably a terrible idea," she writes to Boston.com. That said, they have a lot of the same interests. She enjoys talking to him, and this might be the key to it all. They "were both lonely people looking for some kind of partner." That's what is called a solid foundation. The roommate never wanted anything more than to be friends with benefits. She, on the other hand, did and let him know. Now that they're moving into different places, he wants to remain friends. "I'm already grieving over our connection, even though he didn't really look for an apartment for us to mutually move in together," she continued. "He wanted a new start, I guess, and I didn't." Now she's feeling guilty about asking him to continue being friends with benefits and fears she's making it worse for herself. This is someone she felt she had a connection with. Her friends want her to move on, but she's not sure that she can. This is why the whole friends with benefits thing can be tricky. What happens when one can't quit the other? If she was my friend I'd tell her to wear the T-shirt of his that she stole as much as she could. Take the locket of hair she clipped while he was sleeping, the one that she keeps in the ziplock bag under her pillow, with her and just start popping up everywhere he goes. If it was meant to be, he'll realize how much he misses her. If it's not meant to be, he'll get freaked out and possibly seek a restraining order. I wouldn't take it that far if I was her, but I'd see how it went first. Either she'll get the "happily ever after" she is looking for from her former roommate/friend with benefits or there will be an obvious ending. None of this "he doesn't want to live with me anymore, do you think he likes me as more than a friend?" silliness. Using hall passes doesn't have to ruin your relationship We've all heard the horror stories of hall passes being used and the relationship burning up into a smoldering pile of ash. Many assume that is the only outcome. Well, I'm here to tell you that's not the case. There's at least one example below of it working out for a couple who is working on two decades of marriage. Thank you very much. Here is that story mixed in with a few others from Reddit that try to rain on that parade and offer up their opinions on the matter: Song of the week OUTKICK IS NOW ON THE FOX APP: CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD ------------- That's it. That's how we wrap up the month of August. I'll see everyone next Thursday for another very informative edition of True Romance. Thanks for reading. Keep the emails and the song of the week suggestions coming. You can reach me, anonymously if you prefer, at sean.joseph@outkick.com. And go follow along on Twitter and Facebook.