SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

This jumped out at me

because I really didn't like chemistry at all. But in reality, I really don't feel I'm a sciencey type person. In reality, my favorite subject in school was always English.

I'm wondering if you might be needed in your district to teach another subject. I always hear that ESL teachers are sorely needed. Could you maybe take a few classes (if needed) and transform yourself into an ESL teacher? I do that (though to adults) and really enjoy it. Some times immigrants can be easier to work with than natives. Often (but not always of course) they are more motivated to learn/engage.

A change might be reenergize you. Just another suggestion.

Is she an adult or still a teen? I hope you get to meet her eventually.

MorningGlory, she is 35. I discovered her adoptive name by mistake when a document was not redacted properly. I found her when she was 18 and waited until she was 21 to attempt contact. I contacted her parents and her mom basically told me if it was up to her she would encourage L to contact me, but her H did not want it. I contacted L directly when she was 23 and she responded through the adoption agency that she was not ready at that time. She requested that I not contact her and she would reach out to me when she is ready.

It hurts.

MorningGlory, she is 35. I discovered her adoptive name by mistake when a document was not redacted properly. I found her when she was 18 and waited until she was 21 to attempt contact. I contacted her parents and her mom basically told me if it was up to her she would encourage L to contact me, but her H did not want it. I contacted L directly when she was 23 and she responded through the adoption agency that she was not ready at that time. She requested that I not contact her and she would reach out to me when she is ready.

It hurts.

I'm so sorry. You will always be her mother (and so will the mother who raised her). I hope you get to meet her someday.

Your brother is not speaking to you TJG b/c you didn’t attend his father in law’s funeral.

That was just the last incident.

He was mad about the fact you didn’t buy a large enough annuity from his financial planning friend.

He’s probably mad about hundreds of other things too. Things that in his mind are valid.

He sounds like the kind of person that if you disagree with him, he cuts you out of his life. That is very immature IMO.

Sorry this is the sibling you have. Just know it’s not you.

[This message edited by The1stWife at 11:37 AM, Wednesday, June 22nd]

Tjg

Maybe teaching – as in a classroom with kids – isn’t your thing. At least not for now.

Look – life hands out all sorts of traumas and we here on SI have also gotten the extra trauma of infidelity. Each one can chip at our base and eventually maybe impact when and where we fall. So maybe the infidelity chipped at your confidence, added to your brothers abusive behavior, added to the hard time getting a permanent job… all this contributes to maybe you not being capable or able AS IS to portray the confidence and the front a teacher needs. A front that’s basically a shield.

I think there are few things other than feral minks that are capable of more cruelty on this planet than teenagers…

I also think teenagers are capable of immense kindness and good things, but they are capable of the worst of things imaginable. Don’t agree? Well… why is bullying repeatedly leading to some semi-crazed teenager shooting up his old High-School?

If the dominant person in a class has a mean streak and notices a weakness in ANYONE… they can go for it. It takes a very confident and strong person to counter that. It takes the same type of person to turn that around, to impact the positive in the kids. The type of teacher that tolerates no nonsense and impacts the kids life. This spreads… in EVERY class there is a dominant person and that dominance can be both ways – positive and negative.

Maybe – and I say this in the kindest of ways and with the best of intentions – the hits life has been giving you lately simply eroded or chipped that front – that shield. Maybe infidelity, your brothers’ actions or whatever created a visible crack that the students see and are using. Maybe you need time to grow your confidence and find your love for teaching. Where you enter the classroom you need to feel confident and in control – two things your posts indicate you are missing right now in your life.

My eldest daughter is a primary-school teacher and she shares that what I describe is an issue. For her the big issue is that parents are not accepting that there is a need for certain discipline in the classroom. If she sends a kid to the quiet-zone because they are disturbing the class then in many cases she has the parents going ape-shit about it next morning. Or parents will intentionally send their kids with peanut-jelly sandwiches despite a request not to due to allergies. After all – its their "right". She says that these kids with these parents go on to be the disruptive kids throughout their schooling.

That’s the reason I could never teach. At least as a cop I had a baton, tear-gas and a gun and the option of tossing anyone being an ahole into a cell…

MAYBE TJG you should consider a sabbatical from classroom teaching…

Math and bio… two subjects that can be the make-or-break for college…
The only subject I have gone to a tutor for is math. Both in high-school and then later on my first year getting my business degree.

If you budget seriously… Like eat beans and rice and wear two sweaters instead of heating your house…
Could you manage one year tutoring? Or maybe tutoring and teaching yoga? Or delivering papers, tutoring and doing yoga? Or delivering pizzas, tutoring, teaching yoga and delivering papers?

Not as a future career path – but as a temporary phase where you focus on something more important than making money. Namely YOU.

Give yourself some time to ground yourself again. To define your shield. To rebuild from the traumas. That can be yoga, meditation, taking time from the problems, therapy, establishing boundaries and enforcing them…

Give this serious consideration. If I’m correct and your shield is broken all relocating will do is take your problems to that front. The kids will notice the cracked shield within the first weeks. Those kids… they are nasty…

It’s not just the kids, the coworkers smell blood in the water and can be brutal.

In competitive work places, infidelity trauma can be extremely debilitating and un-empathetic and predatory coworkers will take advantage by exploiting your trauma induced weakness and move to cut you out of the heard. They will couch their moves as false concern for your welfare while undermining you behind your back. They also love to use subtle and sometimes obvious passive aggressive innuendos to slice away at your achilles tendons.

I went from employee of the year, dedicated and passionate over achiever with the storybook curb appeal marriage to…Jerry Springer guest loser just barely able to drag his sorry ass to work. My co-workers gave me five minutes to get over it and get my shit together while simultaneously and sadistically rejoicing in my downfall.

It really sucks when infidelity hits you later in life, when you already have less energy, when you’re already in the beginnings of a burnout process. It can be the coup de grace to your career. Infidelity trauma is so absolutely exhausting, from the days leading up to D-Day, to D-Day, through the long reconciliation or divorce process. It’s just all so profoundly exhausting.

And this will absolutely affect your work social life and performance.

[This message edited by RealityBlows at 6:41 PM, Wednesday, June 22nd]

Tjg

Maybe teaching – as in a classroom with kids – isn’t your thing. At least not for now.

But I NEED to teach because I NEED my pension. I have literally nobody to take care of me when I'm retired and old someday! I don't have kids the way my parents were able to rely on me to care for them full-time!

Look – life hands out all sorts of traumas and we here on SI have also gotten the extra trauma of infidelity. Each one can chip at our base and eventually maybe impact when and where we fall. So maybe the infidelity chipped at your confidence, added to your brothers abusive behavior, added to the hard time getting a permanent job… all this contributes to maybe you not being capable or able AS IS to portray the confidence and the front a teacher needs. A front that’s basically a shield.

I think there are few things other than feral minks that are capable of more cruelty on this planet than teenagers…

My eldest daughter is a primary-school teacher and she shares that what I describe is an issue. For her the big issue is that parents are not accepting that there is a need for certain discipline in the classroom. If she sends a kid to the quiet-zone because they are disturbing the class then in many cases she has the parents going ape-shit about it next morning. Or parents will intentionally send their kids with peanut-jelly sandwiches despite a request not to due to allergies. After all – its their "right". She says that these kids with these parents go on to be the disruptive kids throughout their schooling.

I agree, and I know other teachers have had it hard too, but their worst stories still don't compare. I definitely know what you're saying about bratty parents raising bratty kids who turn out to be the most disruptive. It's also mortifying that a lot of these bratty parents are much younger than me, in fact, young enough to have been in my past classes when I first started teaching at that school 20 years ago. I received the meanest, most trouble making email ever from that one girl's mother back when school was in session. She basically told me off, falsely accused me of racism and picking on her daughter, claimed her daughter does almost no wrong, and also CC'ed it to the dean and the principal while challenging the dean's decision to give her daughter a one-day suspension. She falsely accused me of telling her daughter she is "cut from another bread", something I never said. I sent the email to my former colleague friend, and she was really funny because in her private email back to me, she ripped apart the mom by mocking the mom's misspellings, "ghetto talk" (my friend's words), and more. She said that if the daughter is anything like the mom, she can see why I've had such a hard year! Haha my friend is really funny that way. Yes, I agree with you on that!

Maybe – and I say this in the kindest of ways and with the best of intentions – the hits life has been giving you lately simply eroded or chipped that front – that shield. Maybe infidelity, your brothers’ actions or whatever created a visible crack that the students see and are using. Maybe you need time to grow your confidence and find your love for teaching. Where you enter the classroom you need to feel confident and in control – two things your posts indicate you are missing right now in your life.

I know my self esteem is low, lower than ever lately, and usually I can rebound my confidence by having the summer off work and doing the things I enjoy, which is jogging, swimming, and shopping...all the things I never had time for this past school year. I just feel like this summer is getting ruined by this whole force transfer bs. Why did Mr. Trout have to ruin me like that, when he knows I only have 5 more years until pension? Five years tops they had to work with me, that's it. It would have made things worlds easier if I just was able to stay where I was at.

MAYBE TJG you should consider a sabbatical from classroom teaching…

Thank you, and I really deeply regret not taking my former colleague friend's advice months earlier to apply for sabbatical. I really should have done that. The deadline for that passed in April or May, so it is too late now until next year. I really thought that if I went on sabbatical, the principal would still get rid of my position and then I would be stuck still trying to find another school to work in for my return, and worse, have to use my sabbatical time to do the jobsearch process instead of actually using it to focus on rejuvenation and self-care and all that. I thought going on sabbatical would look like I was bailing on them, and therefore make me MORE likely to get my position cut or transferred out. If I knew what I know now, that according to my friend the principal is required to preserve my same position for me anytime I go on any approved work leave including sabbatical, then maybe I would have applied.

If you budget seriously… Like eat beans and rice and wear two sweaters instead of heating your house…
Could you manage one year tutoring? Or maybe tutoring and teaching yoga? Or delivering papers, tutoring and doing yoga? Or delivering pizzas, tutoring, teaching yoga and delivering papers?

I am not sure why you mentioned teaching yoga, as I do not even do yoga so I wouldn't be the right person to do that. I like to job and I go to the gym mainly for swimming in their pool. I heard that yoga instructor training is intense and takes a long time to do. But thank you for the idea though, even though it ended up not being the best fit for me.

Delivering pizzas or papers or anything wouldn't be the best idea right now with gas prices the way they are in my area. The payoff isn't nearly what it used to be.

It is too late for me to go on sabbatical, and I must return to teaching in the fall or else I will be considered "voluntarily resigned" and I will lose all seniority and pension eligibility. I only have five years left. I NEED this pension.