Another story of pupil and teacher relationship. Is this abuse?

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  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 79
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    I don't think she's being deliberately vindictive but she does sound very much like many people I've heard discussing failed relationships / marriages. Except in the most amicable of break-ups, the comments always tend to be in the same vein... "I wish I'd never met her in the first place", "he robbed me of the best years of my life", "I look back now and can't imagine what I ever saw in him", "all my friends and family warned me she was a total b*tch but I was too stupid and naive to listen", "I'll never be able to trust anyone again"...

    Due to the fact that he was her teacher when it started and the current publicity around teacher-pupil affairs thanks to the Forrest case, she has an extra stick to beat him with. If they'd met when she was 20, married, had 2 kids and then split up, would her feelings be any more positive about the whole thing? Somehow I doubt it.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 79
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    On the other hand, one thing she said did strike me - that deep down she was hoping that the school would intervene and "take it out of her hands", which does suggest that on some level she wanted out but didn't know how to end it herself.

    Of course, that's hardly specific to students or young people. My sister was in that position in her 20s with someone her own age - she kept trying to leave but he begged her to stay and for more than a year she always gave in despite wanting to walk out. If there had been some legal impediment to their relationship so that someone could have "taken it out of her hands" and broken up with him on her behalf, I'm sure she would have been thrilled. But I digress.

    I don't know if that's actually how this woman really felt at the time, or if it's just how she feels now in hindsight. I'm not saying she's consciously lying, but our memories of how we felt about things years ago are notoriously unreliable and more influenced by our present perceptions than anything else.

    BUT if that was really how she felt, it does indicate that the relationship wasn't truly mutual and she was emotionally out of her depth, and would have been relieved to have it ended for her by the school / authorities.

    It also provides an interesting compare/contrast with the Forrest case, where the girl has had it taken out of her hands, and has had the relationship ended by the authorities on her behalf - for more than 9 months now. She doesn't seem too thrilled or relieved. Instead, her attitude seems to be "would you mind terribly getting your noses out of my life, oh and can I have my boyfriend back please?"
  • bluebladeblueblade Posts: 88,859
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    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2361309/Carol-married-teacher-seduced-schoolgirl--Only-decades-later-does-realise-exploited-her.html

    This lady started an afair with her teacher when she was 16. She married him when she was 22. She had kids with him when she was 28 and 30. Now she is saying she was abused.

    What are your views on this? In my opinion she is effectively telling her childen that they are the product of abuse. Whilst I cannot reconcile her actions during her adult life with her views now, putting my opinion to one side, surely she should keep her mouth shut for the good of her childen?

    She's probably jealous of his new relationship, so is now happy to call what happened between them "abuse" ~ possibly getting her cue from the Jeremy Forrest case.

    He stood by her when she had a brain tumour, whereas a lot of guys would have walked.
  • hopeless casehopeless case Posts: 5,245
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    What do you think should happen in cases where someone is in a emotionally or physically abusive relationship? Should they stay together for the sake of the children, not say a bad word about their abusive spouse for the good of the children, etc. Lots of people get divorced and poison their children to the other spouse even when the relationship was not abusive.
    But very few go selling their story to the press, shouting from the roof tops, etc.
    I would hope the children will not be too emotionally scarred.

    First, I apologise for starting a thread and then abandoning it. There was an emergency which I had to attend to. Thank you to everyone for your replies.

    To the specific question above, of course someone shouldn't stay in an abusive relationship because of the children. But I do not see this as an example of that. They were together for 12 years before the first child was born. She does not complain of physical or emotional abuse as being the reason she stayed with him (i.e. coercion) but that the fact of the relationship was abusive.

    I think she is an intelligent educated woman. Not a halfwit. However manipulated she feels she was, or was, by the time she was 28 she should have either left him or decided that any children she bore were as a result of her own free will.

    I personally think it is an unreasonable position to take now, and I would go further (in accordance with other posters) to say that she is abusing her children by taking and publicising this view. I second your wish in hoping the children are not scarred by this. An extreme case of Parental Alienation Syndrome in my opinion.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,294
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    The modern fashion to describe undesirable or regrettable sexual encounters as 'abuse' only serves to cheapen the meaning of the word.

    People bandy about words like 'abuse' and 'abuse of trust' without giving a moment's thought to what those words or concepts mean.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 11,313
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    Does she have a sob story to go with every decision throughout the relationship that she regrets? What a vindictive 'story'.
  • d'@ved'@ve Posts: 45,452
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    I personally think it is an unreasonable position to take now, and I would go further (in accordance with other posters) to say that she is abusing her children by taking and publicising this view. I second your wish in hoping the children are not scarred by this.

    Hardly! This all happened 20 to 30 years ago and her children are adults.

    I can't see it being a case of vindictiveness after all these years and with both of them in senior teaching positions, it's more of a moral crusade kind of thing IMO. But you never can be sure about these things so I won't be dogmatic about it (though I agree with the points she's made about teacher-pupil relationships).
  • hopeless casehopeless case Posts: 5,245
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    d'@ve wrote: »
    Hardly! This all happened 20 to 30 years ago and her children are adults.

    I can't see it being a case of vindictiveness after all these years and with both of them in senior teaching positions, it's more of a moral crusade kind of thing IMO. But you never can be sure about these things so I won't be dogmatic about it (though I agree with the points she's made about teacher-pupil relationships).

    The children are 15 and 17. Anyway, does abuse limit itself to age? Is trying to poison an adult child against the other parent not serious?

    I suspect she does have strong views on teacher-pupil relationships. She had one herself which didn't work and she is a teacher. However, I cannot see anything other than vindictiveness when she says that it "deeply concerns her that he is still in a position of power over teenagers".
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 4,095
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    The children are 15 and 17. Anyway, does abuse limit itself to age? Is trying to poison an adult child against the other parent not serious?

    I suspect she does have strong views on teacher-pupil relationships. She had one herself which didn't work and she is a teacher. However, I cannot see anything other than vindictiveness when she says that it "deeply concerns her that he is still in a position of power over teenagers".

    This is the bit that bothered me, she is suggesting he is a danger to children.
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