OW encroaching

[Trifleguzzler]

Hi all,
I haven't posted for ages but need some advice on this as I don't know what to do.
Bit of background, H left me for a much younger woman 4 years ago. It has taken me this long to heal from the trauma of it all. I was left to raise two SEN children totally alone while he shacked up with a girl half his age.

I didn't make anything difficult for him I cracked on best I could even though I was utterly devastated and was deeply depressed for quite a while. It was all very traumatic. Did the whole of lockdown totally alone, WFH full time and homeschooling.

Anyway, I have never met her. I keep them both at a distance and my children see him and her every other weekend.

My daughter has really struggled with the break up, along with starting secondary school ASD diagnosis. She was in a really bad way last year I honestly thought she would do something bad to herself. It has taken all my fight to get her on an even keel and she is finally at the end of year 8 doing okay.

Anyway, OW was sacked from her job 18 months ago, I don't know why but I didn't ask. And has been unemployed since, so I have been managing without any extra from Ex as he has been bank rolling her for the entire time.
She has now decided she is going to train as a teacher.
I found out last night she is doing it at my DD secondary school.

I feel so uncomfortable about it all mainly 'cause it feels like my terf as silly as that sounds, but I am quite involved with the school regarding my own job etc.
What also worries me is what information she will have access about me and my DD who has had intervention and counselling at school due to the divorce and OW situation.

I know I probably can't do anything about this. But I feel like she infiltrated my marriage and family and now she is working her way into the school life. She might end up teaching my friends kids and possibly my DS when he goes next year.

I just want to get on with my life and not have to worry about bumping into her on a daily basis while I collect my DS from the primary next door.

Anyway not sure what I am asking just needed to get it off my chest.

Most schools would not let parents teach their own children or stepchildren due to the perception of bias - even without the additional history here, the school probably wouldn’t want here teaching their classes.

She isn't teaching her class she is teaching 2 years below

MorrisZapp

fwiw I agree with you
this is is no slinky Mrs Robison esque seductress OW
its another woman being fucked up by the ex
now it’s totally 💯 normal for OP to hate her

but some other comments here are off

It's normal and traditional to judge womens morals this way, it goes back to the Old Testament and thrives today. But it is not an employers business, nor a school's.

This is a private matter and the only aspect of it the OP needs to clarify is that of information confidentiality.

MN is home to many women who think the whole world will punish and shun any woman who 'steals' their husband. Gossips will always be gossiping, but no employer will be interested.

It's up to your husband to protect his relationship commitments, nobody else can do it on your behalf.

The husband was violent, took cocaine and preyed on a vulnerable women much younger than him. But 'karma' is watching her be punished?

Karma would surely be her leaving him for a younger model?

MorrisZapp

agree ! Bit sadly she probably won’t as she’s a hot mess sadly

there is one person who deserves karma more and that’s the exDH

A couple of points. Any note the school has tour husband actually has a right to know about unless there's a court order. If you think he won't tell her stiff, unfortunately youre wrong. It's a shit situation but I think you should just hold your head up high. Act like it doesn't bother you and if you do see her, either kill with kindness or walk past like she doesn't exist.
I highly doubt she will last in this job anyway. Trust me she will find an excuse to stop working. Can't remember whether you said he was paying through CMS. If so as hard as it is that's all you're entitled to. I feel for you OP but you need to try and be string for the kids.

OP is worried about her teaching her DS next year.

Yes DS goes Sep '24.

No it’s not.

A lot of this doesn't ring true. If it's a SCITT she absolutely could have applied directly to that school and I'm also not buying that she'll only be teaching Y7s. She'll have to demonstrate she can teach across the age ranges to gain her QTS/ PGCE. I also wonder if she disclosed her MH issues and self harming. I certainly hope she doesn't start sharing those experiences with pupils.
With regard to her accessing your contact details, the moment she ever sends you a message etc immediately contact the school and report her. It would be a serious breach of confidentiality.
I, along with others on here don't think she'll last long. Best of luck OP.

@triffleguzzler As a teacher I am surprised she is only teaching year 7 as you have to demonstrate teaching various year groups.

I’ve also never heard of a drama teacher who only teaches one year group - what would she do for the rest of the week? Most schools do not employ 5 different drama teachers….

I suspect she might be starting with year 7, but doubt that will be the situation for the whole two years.

This what I thought aswell and with lack of teachers too, they are teach all over. They even have some secondary school teachers teaching over at the primary regularly for subjects like drama, music and sport.

I think they were doing the cocaine together, he got violent with me when I found his stash in his wallet while he was at my house. She won't have seen that side to him yet, I doubt. But she will if she tries to call him out on anything she doesn't like.

So she sleeps with married men, breaks families and is a coke head. I wouldn't want that person educating my child.

They may be just saying she will be in your daughters school. Most placements are not known until a couple of weeks into the course. The students we have often don't know until a week beforehand.
As the course won't start until September, take what they say with a pinch of salt.
If it does turn out to be true, tell the head of year so she/he is aware.

So, given the OW is older than the OPs young vulnerable autistic daughter, does that mean she's preying on her by showing her self harming scars to a child and deliberately planting ideas in a child's head?

Where does victimhood end and accountability start?

It's so incredibly patronising to women that we've got into the mindset that we are always the victims and not accountable for our own actions.

It is highly inappropriate that this woman is actively trying to take a job at the kids school when she has played a central role, along with their father, in causing them significant trauma. She wasn't manipulated into making the choice to do her teacher training there, she has actively applied for it. There is nothing whatsoever related to being a manipulated victim in that situation. It could be some weird power play, but who knows.

So yeah, I'd say karma is due for both of them. Hopefully her wake up call will help her make better choices in the future.

The self-harm chats with your vulnerable DD needs to be addressed with the SLT at the school, @Trifleguzzler , without a doubt. As someone whose own traumatised son was influenced to self-harm by an older peer - I can see how the "look at my scars/this is how I did it/this is why I did it" chats would have had a massive influence on your daughter. Luckily, my son's influence was a fellow student a couple of years older than he was, and he was doing it to get her attention/impress her... and quickly saw sense. But if it had been the OW in my relationship with his father who'd influenced him...? Or a teacher...? Or the two combined...? I would have been stood in the school's reception for however long it took to get the safeguarding lead and the full SLT involved with intent to prevent her from setting foot anywhere near any of the students. I have had longer than 4 years to try to come to terms with the end of my relationship, however, and it's been 14 years since I last had any meaningful contact with my ex (our son is 18), so I would have less to "lose" than you do, I guess. The fact that your DD then started to self harm after these chats from the putative teacher, a supposedly responsible adult whom parents are meant to entrust their own impressionable teens into the care of...? The head and governors definitely need to be made aware. Perhaps Ofsted, too. Because as she's "vulnerable", and seemingly very unstable, they might well be opening themselves to potential lawsuits when she encourages other vulnerable/impressionable teens to follow her lead...

I'd also be wondering, given that she wants to teach drama, at the actual validity of the panic attacks. I suffer from them, but I shoulder on through so that family days out aren't ruined (often to my own detriment) - whereas my own daughter (27) also uses the ones she claims to have been diagnose with, to draw attention fully onto her. She has personality disorders, though, but I've lost count of the Christmas/New Year/Easter/Birthdays (apart from her own, of course) that she's ruined by throwing "I can't breathe!" tantrums, often in public, to get everyone fawning over her, rather than... say... her little brother or her toddler stepdaughter. Reading your posts, OP, the more you explained - how she's very young, has never been independent, lost her job 18 months ago - the more I could recognise my own daughter (it's not my daughter, though...) in what you were saying. She's set herself up against your children through her own insecurities, I would think, so she'll likely be exaggerating her MH issues/panic attacks in an effort to keep your ex's attention fully focused on her, rather than where it should be - his children. And given their own vulnerabilities, i personally think that her potential to do this is despicable. If she's genuinely vulnerable herself, then she ought to have more empathy for your SEN children.

The cocaine use also needs to be disclosed. Including your husband's reaction to your having found it. That's a drug that the craving alters the brain to ensure that you're never truly "clean" of your need for it (or so I'm told).

Overall, your worries are founded in fact. And you're perfectly within your rights, as a mother of two emotionally abused (by this OW, never mind your ex/their excuse for a father) to take it through every doorway possible. Even if you phrase it kindly, you do need to disclose everything that you know (factually) to try to prevent her becoming a teacher. Because not only is she unsuited to the job, she's already proven herself to be insidious and dangerous when it comes to vulnerable adolescents, who because of their SEN are more impressionable than most (who are impressionable, anyway, because of their brain chemistry!).

You can do this in confidence because of the abuse your ex is known to deal out when he doesn't get his own way (he does sound like he's still using drugs, to be honest, I'm afraid). And if I were you, I'd be seeking a way of reducing their contact with your traumatised children.

and .

I have always been painted as the nasty ex wife who won't be friends with the OW because I am bitter and twisted. It's cool I am too old to care what people think anymore. It's always been a air of poor vulnerable OW, she thought you and her would be friends one day.

The kids tell me when they have big family meals with his family etc there's a lot of eye rolling going on she had a panic attack at his dad's birthday meal apparently.
so I am the reason that we're aren't all pals. I saved up, and took my kids for their first abroad holiday on my own last year. We had the best time us three. And when we got back obviously the kids were telling him all about it, we went snorkeling etc. And he said maybe we could all go next year?! Mum, dad, kids and OW! We all just laughed, I think they are both totally deluded.
Maybe it's just easier for them to not recognise the horrendous pain they caused.
I don't know. Either way they are nuts.
Also, my boss is a governor st the school, we have a meeting Monday, so will get advise.

Well quite.

She confused the icing sugar with the coke.