Fer and Rubén: "Love stories, because they end, do not cease to be"

This article starts a long time ago.

In 2009 I went to the wedding of Rubén Paz and Fernando Fernández, a couple of friends I had known for several years and who had set up, from a very young age, several successful drinking venues in Pontevedra: The Fly, La Juguetería, PTV .

As soon as I found out that this summer my partner Natalia Junquera and I would repeat the series of love stories, I immediately thought of them.

They had been, that I calculated, about 20 years of relationship, and not only: they shared personal and professional life, 24 hours together, seven days a week.

They got married not only in 2009 but also in 2018 in Las Vegas and in 2019 they renewed their vows.

What was the secret?

The first weekend of July, in Pontevedra, I ran into Fer on the street.

I told him the idea.

He told me that, unfortunately, he and Rubén had broken up a few weeks ago, and that they weren't up to the job.

That same night he called me.

He had been thinking about it, he said, and theirs had been a love story that a breakup couldn't spoil.

“It lasted a long time and it was beautiful, and we are very proud that it was so.

Love stories, because they end, do not cease to be ".

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They met in 2002 in a friendly pub in A Coruña.

Rubén was dancing on a stage and Fer noticed him.

They hooked up that night.

“It was nothing romantic, a one-night stand, only that night lasted more than two decades,” Fernando began to tell me a few days ago on a terrace in the center of Pontevedra.

He is alone.

He has spoken with Rubén, who, more introverted, prefers not to participate in the article, although he agrees to let Fer do so.

Fer and Rubén, in a photo provided by the couple: “We are excessively daring and enterprising, and we focus on what obsesses us.

We soon became obsessed with work, and we complement each other perfectly."

Fer, when they met, was studying Fine Arts in Pontevedra, and Rubén worked in A Coruña.

Everything was intense from the beginning: they saw each other almost every weekend.

And soon, the opportunity arose to work as a manager of an atmospheric pub in Pontevedra, Bolboreta.

Before, remembers Fer, they were living in London: “They gave me a scholarship and we were there for five months.

He came with me because he was unemployed.

We rented a room, we were in Kingston.

And when we came back was when we started working.”

In 2007 they set up their first store, a place that soon became emblematic in Pontevedra: The Fly.

They soon found out that the same synergies that worked with love worked with business.

“We are excessively daring and enterprising, and we turn to what obsesses us.

We soon became obsessed with work, and we complemented each other perfectly.

The first year of the Fly was crazy billing and we decided to set up a second location: La Juguetería, which was also like a shot and we decided to set up a third with two more partners, the Leblanc”, says Fer.

The crisis sank the night in a way that Fernando summarizes as follows: “What we usually invoice on a Tuesday was what we were beginning to invoice on a Saturday.

With which we had three premises in crisis.

Three rents, three electricity and water bills, three premises with salaries”.

They reacted by leaving one of the premises and adapting the license of one so that it would work more during the day.

It was a pickle.

“We had a handicap”, says Fer: “all our friends were common.

What does that mean?

That I didn't have my own gang and he had his, but we had the same one.

When we made plans, we all made them together.”

After their stage at night, they reinvented themselves and set up a wedding organization company, El mono con sombrero.

If there began to be a crisis between them, there it got a little worse.

“It started to burn us at the stress level.

The volume of work was a lot.

And it's a job where you don't have a schedule, you don't rest, you come home and you keep talking.

And that, in my opinion, really wore us down: that our conversations outside of work were also limited to work.

Ideas that we had, projects that we could start up, perfect everything”, says Fer: “We couldn't get home and ask ourselves 'how are you?'

because we came home together and we had spent the day together.

I mean: we didn't count the day."

If they took a trip, they worked unconsciously.

In New York, they would visit a cocktail bar and see what was good and what was not, what ideas they could use for their business.

“We are workaholics, both of us,” concludes Fer.

“We love our work and it has always been our passion.

And when something has gone well for us, we thought of setting up something else”

“We love our work and it has always been our passion.

And when something has gone well for us, we thought of setting up something else”

“We love our work and it has always been our passion.

And when something has gone well for us, we thought of setting up something else”

Fer and Rubén, in a photo provided by the couple: “We had a handicap”, says Fer: “all our friends were common.

What does that mean?

That I didn't have my own gang and he had his, but we had the same one.

When we made plans, we all made them together.”

The monkey with a hat was a

.

“We were considered one of the five best companies worldwide as a

.

We appeared in international magazines, many clients from abroad began to call us”, says Fernando.

Today they have two large restaurants with various environments facing the sea, Los tres monos, one in Samil (Vigo) and another in Aguete (Marín), which was the first and quickly became famous for receiving visits such as Dulceida, one of the

with more followers on Instagram from Spain.

Restaurants are going from strength to strength.

The workload multiplied.

There was a moment when, in the midst of that maelstrom, Fer went bankrupt.

He was diagnosed with a depressive picture, they recommended that he disconnect, they gave him a sick leave with which he continues —although he cannot help but keep an eye on the restaurant he runs— and he went to Barcelona for ten days to freshen up.

“The possibility of separation arose a long time ago talking to my therapist, and he told me that it was not the right time to make important decisions because I was not well enough to decide something so

.

But well: the tragedy was chewed.

We both knew that it was no longer the same, that we were the best friends in the world, the best partners in the world, that we rowed in the same direction, that we supported each other and had each other for everything, but that this was no longer a marriage.

Have you ever, or how many times, since you started your relationship had problems for being homosexual?

“There were, yes.

Even at a local table they left me written with the key 'shitty fagot'.

But I always passed a lot of the subject.

It is also true that Rubén and I hardly ever show each other affection in public.

If I'm here with my husband and I kiss or snog, and the lady next door looks at me with disgust, she makes me feel bad, she ruins my day.

To avoid conflicts, not to feel bad or not to give a bad answer.

What I'm telling you is bullshit but we did it that way.

It is true that we are not a very cloying couple either.

When Fernando returned from the days he spent in Barcelona, ​​the breakup became apparent.

“It was as if suddenly, being separated, we could lead another life, with more freedom.

I perceived it in Rubén.

Everything had changed."

They live apart, they continue to talk daily (they are still partners) and Fer does not dare to think about what will happen in the future either.

“Ruben and I have always loved each other.

We were the ones who always gave each other the biggest piece of steak.

When he had a fever and was pachucho, I preferred to be the one who was pachucho and had a fever so as not to see him badly.

And he does the same with me."

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