Q. Husband had affair with former student: Several weeks ago, I discovered that my husband of 12 years had been having an affair for six months with one of his former high school students, who is now 21. It was an emotional and sexual affair, and he took great risks, such as taking two days off work to spend time with her and going to see her on his lunch breaks and planning periods.
He has been a teacher for a decade and has always been liked by his students, co-workers, and administration. However, after an infidelity early in our relationship that centered around my husband only being able to get his self-worth from attention from women, I expressed my uneasiness about him teaching older high schoolers. He was, of course, offended, and he still says that he has never been attracted to one of his students, although I’m unsure of what I believe now, with him dating someone only six years older than our teenage daughter. His administrators know about the affair, but because she was not a current student, his job is secure.
I have several problems with him continuing to teach as we work through this, even though he says that what sounds a lot like a midlife crisis is over and “the fog has lifted.” We have been in marriage counseling for four months, the same length of time I have been seeing my personal therapist. He has seen his therapist for two years and is now being honest with him about everything, so I do have hope, but I don’t want to place unnecessary stumbling blocks in our path. We have three children, and I want to preserve our family. My issues with him teaching are: The line has already been crossed once, although not as egregiously as it would have been with a current student. Still, I fear that this will make it less taboo and easier to rationalize if an opportunity with a junior or senior presents itself. With a midlife crisis it is so common to end up with a much younger person, and high school is full of girls on the cusp of womanhood and at their physical peak. They’re also usually idiots about men, and I’ve seen a lot of easily impressed teens fawning over how smart or cool or different a teacher is, perfect for an ego that needs stroking. Plus, there’s the age-old teacher-and-student fantasy on both ends to consider, although I can’t imagine what someone that age would see sexually in someone who is almost 40. He has said that he would change careers to keep our marriage but does not want to because much of his identity is tied up in being a teacher. Am I correct that this is not a good environment for him? I believe that he is sincere about wanting to manufacture his own positive self-esteem rather than having someone feed it to him through attention or sex, but there’s no reason to make it harder than it has to be.
I am also worried about his drinking, which had been an issue years ago, with him blacking out nightly until I begged him to stop. It is his way of relaxing now, he says, but he started meeting this former student out at bars and formed the relationship with her there. Alcohol makes people more flirty, sexual, open with secrets, and it makes sharing inappropriate things so much easier. Bars are where single people go to get laid, especially in the city that we live in. It just seems like such a bad idea for that to be a favorite pastime, especially because the infidelity early in our relationship was partially blamed on being high and not thinking clearly.
He’s taking responsibility for his actions, and I’m letting him, but teaching high schoolers and continuing to drink just seem like unnecessary risks to take while we’re trying to save our marriage and family. Am I wrong?