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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Wordsmithery · 17/11/2023 11:07

Well he was of age before anything happened, so technically she did nothing wrong. But it does feel a bit weird, if you start to think about it. They were at completely different life stages. But if it works for them, then...

NotJustThat · 17/11/2023 11:12

Of course it’s creepy. It makes no difference that it’s a woman, she should have created distance and not got involved with him.

Cumberbiatch · 17/11/2023 11:14

Absolutely weird, given the pupil/teacher dynamic and the fact that her son was his classmate. I married someone under similar circumstances (gender swapped) and now that I'm out of it, I don't think that the dynamics of the relationship were, or could ever be, healthy.

SENDhelp2023 · 17/11/2023 11:15

You cant compare her to Gary Glitter but yeah its well dodgy

ClarkeWGrisswald · 17/11/2023 11:15

Yes it was definitely troubling.

I mean, it's water under the bridge now isn't it? He's 45 so decades have passed and clearly they were meant to be together

But yes - a 40 year old adult 'falling in love' with a 15 year old is just exploiting them all day long

Scruffington · 17/11/2023 11:19

Isn't it widely accepted that it's creepy as hell?

As for 'Were she a man, she would be vilified as similar to Gary Glitter.'

Please.

Ever heard of Bill Wyman? He's out there living his best life despite what he did to Mandy Smith

Crunchymum · 17/11/2023 11:21

Same age gap as Trump as his wife (granted he didn't meet her when she was 15 nor was he her teacher in any capacity)

TheThingIsYeah · 17/11/2023 11:24

@Scruffington

Ever heard of Bill Wyman? He's out there living his best life despite what he did to Mandy Smith

Yep. Mental isn't it? Yet if he was to send a mildly offensive tweet woooah that would be it. Game over.

As an aside, what happened to that Russell Brand thing? That all blew over quickly.

XDownwiththissortofthingX · 17/11/2023 11:30

Brand hasn't "blown over".

Pending civil case in the States, and a police investigation underway in the UK.

ManateeFair · 17/11/2023 11:34

It's certainly odd, yes. But given that it was 30 years ago and they're apparently very happily married and he's now the President of France, I can't get terribly worked up about it. Of course a middle-aged teacher shouldn't be going after 15-year-old kids, and it should never have happened in the first place, but ultimately this appears to be one of the very rare cases where no harm was done.

Also, looking at the article, it seems that they didn't actually have a relationship until he was older.

You absolutely cannot compare it to Gary Glitter. Gary Glitter assaulted much younger kids solely for his sexual gratification and kept a stash of child sex abuse images of the worst and most sadistic kind. This is nothing like that at all.

Bear in mind that around the time Macron met his wife, Bill Wyman was also in his 40s and dating his future wife Mandy Smith, who he met when she was 14, and married four years later, and his career as a Rolling Stone was completely unharmed by this (and still continues). If that happened now I suspect he'd be on the sex offenders' register, but at the time... nothing. The tabloids made a few snarky digs and called Smith a 'wild child' and that was all. Attitudes were very different at that time. I was a teenager myself back then and looking back, I'm often amazed at some of the things that went on and were considered acceptable.

HibernianHibernator · 17/11/2023 11:34

It's deeply strange and a disturbing way for a relationship to begin, absolutely. I think what interests me is that his parents knew (and were horrified) from pretty much the very start, and it was locally fairly public knowledge -- people were commiserating with them etc. Though his grandmother seems to have been a supporter from early on. So it was very quickly something that other people knew about it, not something only involving two principals, and Macron was from a high-achieving, middle-class family (parents a medic and a senior academic), and was himself extremely ambitious and high-achieving from his schooldays. He wasn't a vulnerable figure from a deprived or dysfunctional background, or someone who didn't have other choices, as demonstrated by his career since.

Also important to distinguish the age gap (which is the same as Donald and Melania Trump's, as has been pointed out a million times) from the fact that he was a minor when they met.

Brigitte Macron is not herself a public figure. She isn't asking us to vote for her, buy her records, approve of her past decisions etc. And I think it's entirely different to Gary Glitter, who has been convicted in several jurisdictions for downloading child abuse images and of having sex with a thirteen year old girl (to mention only two) of multiple charges, added to the sex offenders register in the UK for life, AND imprisoned for 16 years, AND recalled when he broke the terms of his early release.

Gary Glitter is clearly a dangerous predator. Brigitte Macron, whatever you may think about the circumstances of the start of her long and apparently happy relationship with EM, is not a paedophile.

Headshoulderscheeseontoast · 17/11/2023 11:35

How could any woman that age find a teenage boy attractive or appealing? Makes me feel sick at the thought

ValerieVomit · 17/11/2023 11:44

SENDhelp2023 · 17/11/2023 11:15

You cant compare her to Gary Glitter but yeah its well dodgy

I'm not comparing her to Gary Glitter, but I guess there would be people who would.

OP posts:
Ihaventgottimeforthis · 17/11/2023 11:47

You literally compared her to Gary Glitter...

HibernianHibernator · 17/11/2023 11:48

Headshoulderscheeseontoast · 17/11/2023 11:35

How could any woman that age find a teenage boy attractive or appealing? Makes me feel sick at the thought

Well, I didn't, even when I was a teenage girl! Which is why I lost my virginity to a 47 year old, which people would also find deeply problematic (though actually, it was my choice and a good experience...)

HibernianHibernator · 17/11/2023 11:48

ValerieVomit · 17/11/2023 11:44

I'm not comparing her to Gary Glitter, but I guess there would be people who would.

Your OP directly compares her to Gary Glitter.

Janeandme · 17/11/2023 11:50

I think lots of people find it troubling. The fact they are still together doesn’t change it. I cannot fathom what a woman in her forties was doing with a young teen and feel you’re right, if the genders were reversed she’d be on the sex offenders register.

cornflower21 · 17/11/2023 11:51

That is sickening.

ValerieVomit · 17/11/2023 11:57

Obviously I worded my OP badly. I don't think she is a female Gary Glitter, but I meant that many would think that. I do think she has problems however and should be ashamed of herself. Emmanuel Macron is only the one we know about.

OP posts:
Elastica23 · 17/11/2023 11:57

Yes, nothing like Gary Glitter, but it certainly was highly inappropriate when he was a teenager, she should have completely discouraged him.

If they then met again when he was 25 and they were both free, c'est la vie, but it sounds like the sexual relationship started when he was inappropriately young.

Janeandme · 17/11/2023 12:04

If you read up on it it is Really very bad, they met when he was 15 and by 16 were publicly dating, she was 41 at that point, his parents moved him to school in another city, to get him away from her, and there was a huge outcry where they lived.

they both maintain they didn’t get physical till he turned 16 and it was legal, but a 41 year old teacher dating a 16 year old pupil sits well with no one, well no one other than those who are into that.

if my 16 year old daughter was dating her 41 year old school teacher, with rumours about them from the age of 15, I’d be fucking furious. I’d want him arrested and jailed.

hjytrjulykuyh · 17/11/2023 12:14

It is truly sickening, turns my stomach honestly.

"I had many brilliant pupils and none had his capability. I have always admired him,' she explained"

her saying that now... even though they've had years as a couple, just goes to show her sick mindset. She knew he was her pupil, and yet she was grooming him as 'her special student' from the start. Funny how a fifteen year old was so 'brilliant' and capable as to stand apart from the rest to a forty-something teacher who no doubt had social ties to academics her own age.

I think part of what is so disturbing is the knowledge that this predator still has her prey. Of course he's a grown man now, but being groomed and sexually used by a much older adult at such a young age can cause untold harm to a person's psyche and stunt their maturity. So it's certainly possible that even though he's intelligent and has a lot of power, he's still a victim of her and may not ever extricate himself.

He had no chance once she set her eyes on him. How any forty-something can look at a fifteen year old as anything other than a literal child they have a duty to educate and be professional with is beyond me.

The sad thing is his parents knew and tried their absolute best to prevent it but there was nothing they could do. And even once it was out in the open, she took years to divorce her poor husband because the feelings of her children were apparently important to her, never mind her victim who was unable to find love with someone his own age.

I was in a safeguarding course a few months back and this was used as an example of the way abuse and grooming can hide in very plain sight and isn't any less worse just because the victim is male.

MabelMaybe · 17/11/2023 12:15

It reminds me of Naveen Andrews, the British actor who became a father at 16. The mother was one of his teachers. It's a very imbalanced relationship, however long it's lasted.

ValerieVomit · 17/11/2023 12:18

I know a college teacher who at 47 had a relationship with a 20 year old student. She knew him from 18 and said too he was special and uber intelligent and set apart from the rest of the pack. It's years ago and over now and he has married a woman six years younger.

OP posts:
Shadowonasun · 17/11/2023 12:19

Of course it's creepy. And disgusting.

I have a 11 year old DD. To think that in mere 4 years she'd be in a relationship with a FORTY year old teacher.. I'd want him castrated, not just jailed!

There's something very very wrong with a woman/man who'd look at a 15 year old teen in a sexual way. That's just not normal. I'm 35 and I'd rather shag a lamppost than a 15 year old kid, it's just gross.

And as odious as Trump is, his situation is not comparable. He wasn't Melania's teacher and they met when she was an adult. She wanted his money/clout, he wanted her body, a transactional marriage, both willing adult participants, it's their business.

Mr.&Mrs. Macron are also adults now and their marriage wouldn't be any issue, if not for the disgusting 'falling in love' story.

She's not Glitter, but not that much far from him, in my mind.