Boyfriend told me something bad

[In2minds88]

My boyfriend told me something from his past that I’m really struggling with. When he was in his 20s, he left teaching to pursue a relationship with a 6th former. This was 20 years ago and he was a lot younger and obviously very stupid. I just don’t know how to take it. WWYD?

@TheHideAndSeekingHill

Depending on context I do think it's fine for teachers to date their students

Just like with many of these issues there are grey areas

If it's purely based on power imbalance there are many teachers who work with a student but have 0 'power' over them. They could be doing a class where it's 100% external marking, or not even their specific teacher but just working at the school.

What many on this post fail to understand is Grey areas exist, and it does matter

Again, you'll struggle to find many consensual 17 year olds relationships with a 22/23 year old teacher being taken forward by the CPS. Just like you'd struggle to see the CPS willing to continue a prosecution against a 16 year old having sex with their 15 or even 14 year old girlfriend - despite it being against the law.

Using 'but it's illegal' as your barometer for what's ok isn't always sensible

@LongLivedQueen

Who is blaming anyone

Merely asking for the double standards to be dropped by some on here

It's also incredibly infantilising to say every 17 or even 18 year old who sleeps with a teacher or anyone older is groomed as well

You keep getting more vile with every post.

Luckily, as a society, we prefer to protect children, and so these things you think are fine are completely illegal. It isn't fine for teachers to date their students, no matter what you think.
There are no grey areas here. Teachers fucking children is wrong. Amazed that has to be said, but there you go.

Usng its illegal for your barometer is very sensible, when there are people with notions as disgusting as yours about.

In 1996 when I was at Uni I was a plus one at a wedding. The bride was 21, the same age as me, and she was marrying her old PE teacher. My friend was at school with her. They had met while she was a pupil. The wedding was actually held at the school.

I think that you've had to ask on here means you need to throw this one back OP.

Totally agree

@pickledpotato Your sexual preferences and morals are your own business and I have no opinion on them but you seem to think that they should somehow have an impact on the clearly established and codified legal and ethical boundaries that exist to protect students and teachers.

Morals are individual; ethics are systemic. You are trying to use the former to refute the latter.

Teachers fucking children is wrong. Amazed that has to be said, but there you go.

There do seem to be a lot of relationships among older people where they clearly met when she was at school and he was a teacher at that school. Very grey area now, but it must have been quite common for a teacher to take a girl's parents aside at speech day to ask permission to court the daughter.

How judgey

@pickledpotato

As teachers at 6th form don't really have 'power' over anyone

What would you honestly think if your 17 year old son or daughter started a relationship with their teacher? Even if the teacher was in their twenties?

Genuinely, how would you feel about it?

Being judgey is a good thing when the thing being judged is teachers fucking school kids, don't you think?

why tell you...... how would that come up.......I assume he no longer teaches? I wonder is there a court case somewhere or he can't be vetted to work with under 18s??

One of our teachers had an affair with a pupil back in the day. Think it happened at most schools. He’s been honest. And left teaching which was the right thing to do. Think it’s a bit of a non issue.

Just in terms of people who say the moral code has changed over the past 20 years...

I teach 6th form and recently I realised that I know one of my colleagues from the past. She started a relationship with a friend of mine 20 years ago when she taught him for A level. They are still together. She has been promoted since.

As a 6th former then their relationship freaked me out, and as a teacher now it freaks me out even more. Was not acceptable then or now. And it shows that something is fundamentally 'off' with that person's boundaries/moral compass to have ever been fucking about in that fashion with a pupil. If it's early in the relationship I would cut and run tbh

@TheHideAndSeekingHill Absolutely or better yet to THEIR kid! They'd probably want to cut his kahunas off with a rusty knife. I know I would!

back then we didn't have terms like 'predatory' and 'grooming'

In the early 2000's? I think you'll find we did...and it was well known that teacher/student relationship were very wrong.

That’s a lot of words to say you are fine with paedophile teachers fucking schoolchildren.

As a 17 year old who had a relationship with a man in his mid-late twenties, I can tell you over time that he was very much a danger to children or vulnerable people due to the power aspect. The fact OPs BF thinks it might "come out" means it's probably very dodgy and he's trying to make it look like he was honest with you and therefore you must take his skewed perspective when this truth does indeed 'come out' later on and he doesn't want you to believe others version. Asides from that, there is a power imbalance. Even in university it's considered wrong for lecturers to date their students. A 17 year old is nothing like a man of 25-27 year old. No mid twenties man should sexually pursue any teenager. That's more than a red flag. A lot of maturing happens after 21, which makes anyone over that age dating a teenager to be gross and i'd hate that to happen to my own teenagers.

Female teacher, must have been in her 40s, had a relationship with a sixth former when I was in school - must have been about 30 years ago. So no, not always men.

I haven't RTFT but I think I would want to speak to family/friends to gauge opinions, as well as have some time to think about it. I'd also wish that I could speak to the girl involved however obviously I wouldn't dream of approaching her. It would just be something I'd wish I could do.

Usually I'd say follow your heart, but on this I'd advise following your head

If he hadn't told OP and it then came out, you'd be suggesting OP be FURIOUS for him not telling her

Definitely. If he had to leave the profession, one he trained hard for at great exense, then yes that suggests the real story is rather darker than what he has said.

Totally this. So many apologists for creepy predatory men. Then again quite a few posters have said they met their DH when they were schoolgirls and the man was mid 20s so little wonder they may try to normalise it as surely their DH wasn’t a creepy predatory bloke seeking out school girls.

The noughties wasn’t the dark ages either and we were aware of grooming and predatory men going after schoolgirls.

A golden rule of interaction with men, nearly always proves to be correct: if a new man tells you a story from his past that makes him look bad, that means the real story would make him look really, really bad and he is trying to get in there with his sanitised version before you hear the truth somewhere else. And if there is a risk you'd hear the truth somewhere else, that means the real story was enough of a big deal to have traces somewhere, perhaps there were legal or at least serious professional consequences for him, perhaps it was in a newspaper article somewhere etc. People generally don't share unflattering/embarrassing stuff early on when dating if they don't absolutely have to.

These threads tend to attract their share of men defending their own fantasies unfortunately, so i think some posts need to be taken with a pinch of salt.