Affair with student

[yellowdungarees]

I received a Facebook message from a woman who claims that she and my husband of 10+ years have been having an emotional affair for the past 3 years. H is a college professor and she is (or was) a mature student. The age gap between them is 28 years which makes me sick to my stomach. He is 56.

This woman has said thing in the message that there is no way she could know about unless he’d told her. Personal things about me, our marriage and (worst of all) our children. She claims that they never slept together but that they were involved emotionally and there was definitely a sexual element to it in that they fancied the pants off of one another and that they had things in common.

I confronted him and he admitted to it (how could he not?!) but stated that she is mentally unwell and that she leaned on him for support so he wanted to help her. But 3 years?! Even after she graduated, they carried on seeing each other. He’s been to her house several times. They’ve been on days out together. She said that he told her that he loved her. He said that she was obsessed with him and the only reason he carried on is because he was afraid that she would kill herself.

I can’t eat or sleep. I can’t take care of our children. What do I do?

We need to stop this absurd power play of making grown women children so we can punish men for some womens foolish choices

How is this man being unfairly punished for a woman's choices?

His wife has found our he's had an affair and is quite understandably gutted and blindsided.

What punishment has he had at all?

Quite notable how he calls a woman who's exposed him as a cheat, a lunatic.

And you call women who call out your misogyny, lunatics.

Birds of a feather eh.

so we can punish men for some womens foolish choices

Lol.

Only the women's foolish choices, apparently.

Losing his job would be his punishment for his foolish choices.

And foolish is the nicest possible word that could be used.

It's bizarre you don't even recognise OP as a victim of his behaviour.

You know the mistake were making is to even reply to her/his posts.

I know it's so op sees it, but at this point ....

On a general slant, along the lines of the "these types of women" arguments by certain posters in this thread, I'll say that in my experience men who go for significantly younger women are often a type.

Op is 15 yrs younger but having having significantly younger partner (and Mum to his 2nd family) was still not enough to stop him involving himself with even younger women, nearly 30 yrs younger in this case.

And he's possessive, jealous towards op as well .... enough said.

“You are a hand maiden, ally and toxic male apologist (and yes a misogynist)”

Good lord😂

@wellhelloitsme

None so far but I’m referring to the posters who are making the 28 year old to be his victim and wanting him punished by anyone other than his wife

How are you holding up today OP? I think its a good idea to talk to your sister if you can.

I completely understand why you are still communicating with this woman. She is giving you all this information and I think if I were in the same sitaution I'd need to know as much detail as possible, however horrible it was, but thats just me. I hate not knowing.

I also understand why you are not feeling resentment towards her. yes of course she went into this affair knowing he had a family, but also he lied to her, telling her how horrible his home life was and how he was struggling mentally. I can imagine he painted a picture of you being the uncaring wife, and she fell for it. 3 years down the line shes woken up and smelt the coffee and realised he is fullof shit. And got mad. And probably relaises now you are not the ogre he described.
Regardless of her reasons for contacting you, at least you now know the truth.

And unfortuntely I suspect she is not the first. He seemed to know exactly how to draw her in. I wonder how many other nude photos of students he has accumulated over the years. The fact he does not seem to think its a big deal, or even apologetic, could be because he has been doing this over a much longer period of time and its just normal for him.

Make him leave for as long as you need to. This is now all about your needs, he has lost the right to having his needs acknowledged, so make sure you put you and your dc first every single time while you are processing this.
And if he even starts to put any of this on you (you may get the classic lines of you don't understand me, I don't get affection from you and the rest of that shite) don't listen to a word. None of this is because of anything you did or didn't do.

Try and stay strong. If you need to cry for the next 3 days, do it. That does not mean you are not strong. This man does not deserve you.

If he's broken ethical guidelines at work they will be explicitly written into his contract and was to be 'punished' with a warning, investigation of gross misconduct dismissal (basically whatever consequence is outlined in his employment contract) that punishment would be entirely his own fault, not that of the woman involved. Just as you say adult women have free will and consent, so do men. The professional consequences of his actions are entirely his responsibility and he is solely accountable for them.

I'm not sure what other 'punishments' you're referring to that would be the fault of 'a woman's foolish' choices rather than his own?

And he does deserve to lose his job.

@wellhelloitsme

Yes indeed knowing the possible consequences at work it is his fault. I’m just not a believer that it should be, not because I don’t find him sleazy but because I don’t like what it says about adults being able to make choices of their own free will.

Although this thread has been hijacked by ideologues, the simple point remains. This man has had an emotional affair of some kind and OP needs to deal with it. How she does depends on how she sees him (and only she can know). Is he a eternal sleaze who has probably repeatedly cracked onto students (possible some are) who are impressed by him and want that kind of (consenting) relationship? Or is he a man in a mid life crisis foolishly flattered by the pursuit of this mature age student who has now turned into a misty and started trying to ruin him?

If it’s the former I would say there’s no coming back, if it’s the latter I couldn’t leave a marriage with children for that, though I would be mightily pissed off. Life is long, very few multi decade marriages will go by without at least some kind of flirtation in some kind of setting - I think this guy just got unlucky that when he tried to end his non physical flirtation he found out that the woman who had started it was quite unstable.

Is he a eternal sleaze who has probably repeatedly cracked onto students (possible some are) who are impressed by him and want that kind of (consenting) relationship? Or is he a man in a mid life crisis foolishly flattered by the pursuit of this mature age student who has now turned into a misty and started trying to ruin him?

Or is he a man who was flattered by a mutual attraction with a mature student, which then turned into an emotional affair and later included him pressuring her into sending explicit photos of herself when she said she didn't want to do so?

He says she was suicidal and vulnerable (as he says she has terrible mental health). He says that. So he is either lying again about her being those things or if we go by his description of her plus the evidence OP has been presented with in black and white, he was pressuring someone vulnerable and suicidal to send him explicit photos of herself.

If you wouldn't leave your relationship for that it's obviously entirely your prerogative but my god that's a low bar!

@wellhelloitsme

He says she’s unstable now - and he may well be right. However that doesn’t mean he saw her as unstable from the outset, the instability may have only became apparent after he ended whatever they had or may have emerged later and been the catalyst for him ending things.

That is just as likely if not more so than him intentionally engaging in a emotional affair with an unstable woman - if he really always believed she was unstable then the exact thing which is happening now (her trying to destroy him) would have seemed a possibility - so I’m inclined to think he didn’t realise how disturbed she was until later and then ended things. Which means he wasn’t intentionally preying on someone vunerable but rather that someone with a serious mental issue hid it well and now is trying to victimise him.

@HippoLover2

OP has seen evidence of her husband pressuring a woman for explicit pictures of herself despite her saying she didn't want to send them.

Do you think that is something a decent man does?

Do you think that is something a man who respects consent does?

I'm not sure what your motivation for seeing that behaviour as anything other than coercive is.

If he is so confident of his innocence in all of this, he too should be more than happy for his Dept Head and management being fully informed.

I wouldn't hesitate to use the above to get him the hell out your home and marriage.

Although this thread has been hijacked by ideologues

Wrong.

It's been derailed by you (and to a lesser extent momDD) with your misogyny and flea limbo dance pole standards.

With your nonsense adjusted every time another damning piece of info about him is discovered.

Anyone else would bd ashamed of their earlier posts and piss off, but not you.

@wellhelloitsme

”pressuring” equals asking once then asking again. Good luck in relationships if you can’t withstand that type of “pressure”.

OP I'm sorry your thread has been hijacked by some 'poor menz' posters.

You have proof that your husband has been sexting and coercing nude photos from a much younger student of his. That they have had an emotional affair for three years that most likely would have become a physical affair if he weren't impotent. That he has been lying to her about you and your marriage, and lying to you about all of it. That he has done things that, if exposed, would cost him his career and hurt your family.

Those are the facts and everything else swirling around this thread, this faux debate about free will and so on, is really irrelevant.

I don't think most women would stay married to a man who did all of the above. You can never respect or trust him again, and without that, a marriage is dead.

”pressuring” equals asking once then asking again. Good luck in relationships if you can’t withstand that type of “pressure”.

He didn't do that.

Can you not comprehend written information either?

I think you are being remarkably balanced, OP. The woman here did not make any promises to you, your husband did and it is his responsibility to keep to them. And if he has groomed and pressured her in this way knowing she was vulnerable, who knows what the hell he has been up to with other students.

This.

He's a piece of work.

How's is acted is unforgiveable and you'd be better away from him.

You'll also have the opportunity to have a decent shag with another man, as a bonus.

I'd also urgently work out finances for yourself and your kids, because if she shows the uni those messages, he might lose his job, and have difficulty getting another.

he tried to end his non physical flirtation

Non physical flirtation.

First off they kissed every time they met and he touched her sexually, though over clothes.

Clearly the word flirtation has also changed for the 21st century if it lasts for 3 years, and involves you saying saying want to perform oral sex on them, pressure them for nude pics of the self and presumably wank over them. Not to mention sending them porn nd requesting they send porn deducting thru preferences to you.

What an interesting use of the word flirtation.

When will the BS from you ever end.

*deducting their preferences to you.