I would like to understand (very long)
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| Wed, 04-20-2005 - 4:31pm |
I have never had an affair. I am here because DH began to step over the line, thought better of it and backed away. Even though nothing actually happened, it hurt like hell when I found out. I would like to understand OW and maybe have some idea of what to expect from her. I feel like I am missing a big piece of the picture that, if you all are willing, you could give me. I don’t want to offend anyone and if I am not welcome here, let me know and I will disappear.
Here’s the story: DH is Prof. and one of his students, 28 year old single mother, has been “going after” him for over a year. Very subtle stuff that was difficult to confront without looking like a fool. He knew what was happening, and so did I, but I wasn’t worried. She did things like being the last to leave after every class she had with him. Waiting for outside the classroom for him after classes she didn’t have with him. Visiting him in his office even during semesters when she didn’t have a class with him and during the summer (DH teaches summer classes and also takes classes), sometimes bringing her toddler DD with her "just to talk". Some of his other students do this occasionally, he is a popular professor, but she ALWAYS did these things. She invited him to watch her dance last summer. He went, but took me along. She was upset that I was there and let DH know that this was the first time her DD wasn’t with her at a dance and that she was going to ride home with friends, read “its too bad you are here with your wife or I would have gone home with you.” There are many other little things that add up to an unmistakable invitation to DH. But, he had her firmly in his student schema so neither of us was worried.
So, then our family began a very trying period (understatement), this on top of an ongoing mid-life crisis made DH very vulnerable. At a party, he got stinking drunk and flirted heavily (not normal behavior for him) with several women, and she was one of them. She was the only one who took him seriously. She made a dream catcher for him, she told him it was the first one she had made since she was 13. She started coming by his office for tea 3 or 4 times a week in the morning, and dropping by once or twice in the afternoon. Recently, I found out that she yelled, literally yelled, at a mutual acquaintance for not inviting her to her wedding, that took place the day after the party, after finding out that DH had attended. This friend then asked another, closer friend if something was going on between the two of them. During one conversation she and DH had, he told her that he could not reply fully because as a husband and a professor, he would be crossing several boundaries. She told him that she didn’t have the same boundaries that most people had. She sat right next to him in the lectures they attended together despite the rows of available seats. My SD who was attending the same lectures could tell something was going on between them from across the room. DH actually called her a couple of times when she didn’t show up in class to see how she or her DD were. This is also something he has done for other students, but never more than once in a semester.
During her campaign, DH pulled away from me both emotionally and physically. No one’s marriage is perfect, but we were good before this started despite our other problems. DH said he felt side swiped, like a deer in the headlights. This went on for a month, and, for a moment, DH considered an affair, but could not do it. He began to back off, not reacting beyond what he normally would with a student, and not being in his office when she would normally stop by, which frustrated her and she began to act “weird”, but didn’t back off. He sort of let me find out for sure by letting me “catch” them in his office (nothing was going on besides talking), and she could tell what I thought was going on. The next day, I called a number I didn’t know on his cell phone. It happened to be hers. After that, she simply stopped everything. I guess she couldn’t handle being found out. He saw her in the bookstore after not seeing her for a week and she was cold rather than making him feel like he was the only person in the world at that moment. He wanted to ask her if she had found some boundaries.
Each of your situations is unique, and I am not here to judge any of you or anything stupid like that. I would like to benefit from your perspective as I feel I am missing a big part of the story. I just hope you can give me some insight as to why she went after my DH, and what I can expect from her now. It seems to have been an ego/power thing, we suspect strongly that DH is not the first Prof she has pursued, and friends have said that she is already working on another. Do you think she will try again with DH? How should I behave when I see her next (I WILL see her again)? I am not foolish enough to think that she could learn any lessons from anything that I could say or do to her, and I don’t want revenge, I just want to do what is best for my family. I will confess that there is a part of me that hates her and hates that she gets to walk away with only a bit of cognitive dissonance as a consequence while I have to deal with a marriage, and a man who has been badly shaken all because she needed her ego stroked.
I want to know, from your perspective, what is the best way for me to proceed. Any words of wisdom and insight would be appreciated.
About the Prof/student thing, it is not as much of a taboo as it used to be if the age difference in not huge. If she were 18, it would be a huge problem, but because she is 28, and is "experienced", DH could not legally have experienced any consequences. There could be other consequences if she decides she wants revenge, she could claim harrasment, although nothing could be proven, except maybe the other way, or just drop a word to DH's enemies, of which he has a few, ironically because he thinks the non-descrimination policy should include sexual orientation at the private catholic college where he teaches, who could use it against him.

Pam
Don't have much time right now but would like to suggest that you need to realize that most women that get into affairs don't go out and hunt a married man the relationship often build below the surface and sort of explodes one day, in your husbands case he may be dealing with a emotionaly disturbed\troubled person.
You and hubby may be more benefited by focusing on way HE choose to move his boundries what you both can do to deal with the issues that allowed that to happen.
Good luck
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