SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Block him. Period. WHY are you still engaging with a married criminal?

[This message edited by annb at 10:35 PM, Sunday, August 28th]

To clarify, it's not that I feel sorry for him, moreso myself because he keeps blowing up my phone and leaving voice-mails and angry messages on the landline answering machine. It's distracting and interfering with my work and concentration. I haven't answered his calls in hours now because I need to get back to lesson plans.

You opened that door when you gave here permission to investigate him. Now that you don't like what she found, she's the bad guy. Somehow you and now K are the victims. Did it ever occur to you that if you stopped painting yourself as such a victim you'd avoid all of these situations? Don't play the victim if you don't want your friend to react to that.

Don't just brush away your insensitivity and bad choices using work stress as an excuse. Sleeping with a married man has nothing whatsoever to do with work stress. When I had to go through annual audits as the Finance Director for my city I'd be so stressed I'd actually lose tons of hair. I didn't say "I'm so stressed I deserve a romantic relationship. Who cares if he's married." And I didn't get summers off. In fact, I had over a thousand hours of unused vacation when I retired 5 months ago. The fact that you are taking his calls screams "Who cares if he's married. I deserve this." Don't try and sugar coat it.

Why didn't you tell him,before he left your house the other night, not to contact you again,because he's married?

Block him.

Turn the ringer off on your house phone. Turn off or silence your answering machine.

Well...it looks like he's not going to want anything to do with me anymore anyway, without me doing anything on my end.

Sorry? Is that what we're supposed to say? And "without you doing anything on your end"?

Just...I got nothing.

Except to say--it could be worse. Could be his vengeful wife blowing up your phone. And your life. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Good luck tomorrow.

because he keeps blowing up my phone and leaving voice-mails and angry messages on the landline answering machine

How does he even have this option? You should have immediately blocked his number on all your lines.

Just as your ex should be blocked on everything as well.

I would even have a cease and desist sent to this new guy. He has demonstrated red flags from the get go and his now showing you the red siren.

For the future, do not go out with anyone you do not do a thorough investigation on first. You have exposed yourself to a very dangerous person here.

You have seen it 100+ times on here, damaged attracts damaged. I am not trying to hurt your feelings here (we have all been the damaged one) but please - please get some IC to heal so you do not continue this cycle.

I don't know what to do at this point, how to respond.

Teacher, the response is plain and simple, something like this: "I don't date married men. Period. It's over." You'll feel empowered and strong. Will be a start learning setting up boundaries.

Why do you feel sorry for yourself when you dodged a major bullet?

Seriously, if this experience doesn't help you accept that IC might be very useful to you, I don't know what will.

Cat

Your lack of clear and decisive action is why your friend took this further than you wanted. You were open about being intimate with him at first, but when Hellfire asked point blank, you didn’t answer, that’s the answer. You want to find a justification to keep it going and your friend blew it up. That makes you no better than him.

Like someone else said if this is what you want then you don’t belong on SI.

Good luck to you and your school year. I hope you follow the advice here.

How was your first week back to work?? Have you told this guy to leave you alone yet? Sorry he turned out to be a jerk. You deserve so much more.

TJG, I am very sorry about this. Truly. Hate to say but I had bad feels about this from your first post. Not because of him, but because of you. You JUST broke up with a dude who treated you like shit for 20 years and have done no real healing work on you yet. You deserve to heal and IMHO you should absolutely take the time and put in the effort to do it. You are worth it.

Hi, my friend who offered to "research" him got back to me right away yesterday and unfortunately it is not good. 😔 Long story short she found out he is in fact still married, and also has quite a long rap sheet of prior convictions for assault and fight-related stuff. She also found some theft related convictions too. She sent me screenshots of everything. I feel so defeated and devastated. I really started to like him a lot! She is urging me to ditch him, naturally. Where do I go from here?

Where do you go? AWAY from this douchecanoe. Far far away. He is a CHEATER. He is a CRIMINAL. Why the actual fuck would this guy still seem in any way appealing to you after those two facts?

The reason I let him in was because he was already there, and I wasn't going to just be rude. I wanted to at least give the politeness and get him to answer my questions.

YOU DO NOT OWE THIS MAN POLITE. He is cheating on his WIFE with YOU. He's a fucker, and we do not owe cheaty fuckers politeness - we in fact owe them whatever rudeness we want. Also as others have said, if you engage with him further you are willingly being an affair partner. That should really not sit well with you.

I don't know if being nasty is the best way to handle this

If he won't take a polite hint to kindly fuck all the way off? Then yes, nasty is perfectly okay.

Well...it looks like he's not going to want anything to do with me anymore anyway, without me doing anything on my end.

Without you being an affair partner? Yeah, bummer for him that you're so mean to not want to be an ap.

It turns out my friend (same one who offered and did the investigating for me) called him today and told him off, making some goofy Star Wars reference while telling K to leave me alone. I've had to hear her ranting all about it to me for most of the afternoon. She's mad because K called her back and threatened her, and in response she got into a yelling argument with him over the phone, and it seems that led to her husband taking the phone and engaging in an all-out yelling match with K on the phone too. She's been ranting all about how she doesn't want K to show up at her house, how she's saving his voice-mail threat to her, etc.

This is a damn good friend you have here.

To clarify, I did not put her up to this or encourage her to contact him. She did this all on her own. Now I hope he doesn't retaliate on me or my property as a result.

Fact is, YOU should have done this for YOURSELF. And if he tries to retaliate, call the police. He's fuckin dangerous girl.

All I wanted was a happy summer, and perhaps a nice summer romance for once, but it seems I couldn't even get that. I feel so defeated.

I am sorry you're feeling defeated. But you defeated you. You won't find happiness and nice summer romances with assholes honey.

Every time they text him some snarky text, he ends up blowing up my phone leaving angry voice-mails or texts about them snarking at him.

Duuuuude WHAT? Mr cheaty McCreeper over there feels like he has any right to act like he's the victim here?? Fecking WHAT?

To clarify, it's not that I feel sorry for him, moreso myself because he keeps blowing up my phone and leaving voice-mails and angry messages on the landline answering machine. It's distracting and interfering with my work and concentration. I haven't answered his calls in hours now because I need to get back to lesson plans.

So BLOCK him. Boom, problem solved.

I don't know what to do at this point, how to respond.

*gets on box with megaphone* *ahem -tap- -tap-* Tell him to FUCK ALL THE WAY OFF. Then block him.
Or you could just send him this then block him

Look TJG, I think you sound like a very kind and gentle and generous woman that any good man would be very lucky to have. But until you heal yourself and take off your victim hat, you will just keep finding the same assholes in different faces. And until you decide that you damn well are worth more than this shit, this is what you will keep on getting.

Very well said Ellie

Ellie, I want to print that image off and hang it on my refrigerator. On second though, my front door. LOL!

Hello everyone. I hope everyone has had a wonderful weekend. I am sorry for not writing back sooner. Work at this new school is really kicking my, um, hate to sound crass saying it, but it's really kicking my butt! This new school is so damn stressful. I really got screwed over when the principal at my previous school decided to let me go. Now I realize in hindsight that my friend (yes, yes, same friend who keeps wanting me to hang out with her and go to bars with her, and same one who also prank called K after I permitted her to investigate him) was right, the principal probably did have more of a say with who stays and who goes than she led me to believe. My friend was also force transferred by that same principal from the same school that I previously worked at up until recently. She has had a bad taste in her mouth about the principal ever since, mostly because when she wrote the principal a friendly email months later while expressing her desire to come back to the school if another teacher vacancy ever opened up there again, the principal never responded, which my friend calls "ghosting". It seems that my friend has far less tolerance and more grudge holding about ghosting than I've had. Now that I'm seeing just how awful it is at my new school, I am starting to wonder if my friend's grudge holding ways might be the way to go. :(

This job sucks. That's the best way I can sum it up. It is in a far part of the city, my section, which is mostly white and looks not much different than the immediate suburbs, and it's only 15 minutes from where I live. However, it seems that they don't just have kids from the surrounding neighborhoods, but they also bus in kids from other areas of the city too. The kids are out of control. On my first day of school, the administration really crammed a lot of students in my classes. I didn't even have enough desks for everyone! They kept changing around the rosters last minute, squeezing kids into my class that weren't even listed on the roster or roll list. The union apparently states that the class size is capped at 33 students, but in some of my classes I have as many as 40 or 42! It's been awful. The kids are out of control, constantly talk over me, and I can't get any teaching done at all. One of the vice principals came in to do an informal observation last week and she also commented quite harshly that I really need to work on classroom management. It seems that nothing I do or try is ever right. I am again the last teacher to leave the building for the night each night, it seems. They don't even let me stay as long here as I did at my other school. The janitors lock up the building around 5:30 or 6, which doesn't even give me enough time to get everything prepared for the next day. Also, speaking of preparation, they don't even provide us enough paper. They expect us to have emergency lesson plans with copies made for every single student, but they only give us 2 reams of paper for the entire MONTH. This is nuts. I literally spent over $100 just printing out materials for emergency lesson plans. I am sad more than ever that I got the boot from my previous school, which wasn't good to me but definitely not nearly the hell this place is!

As for my love life...or lack thereof, sigh...it seems K is backing off ever since the altercation with my friend and her husband crank calling him and arguing with him about seducing me. I can't be bothered with him or the drama surrounding it when I am already falling behind with all the new work demands at this job. He started distancing himself anyway right after my friend and her husband taunted him for still being married. Or as my friend would say, the trash is taking itself out.
I've been polite and friendly if contacted, but lately I haven't answered the phone at all because I am just over my head with work to do for this thankless new job. I know he's a bad guy and all that, but is it wrong that I still feel a little sad about the outcome of everything? I really thought he had potential, and he was so handsome. (my friend disagrees strongly but I still think he's handsome) Recently R called again to see how I was doing. It's at the point where my friend keeps badmouthing K so badly, she said even R looks good compared to K, and that's considering she's always seemed to hate R! I feel bad because I feel like no matter what I do to try to make a dating life for myself, I keep screwing up unintentionally and getting the guys who are deceptive.

So that is my update, I wish it was a happier one.

How would you feel if you were married,and your husband cheated? Then you find out he occasionally still calls her,and they talk?

Stop being an OW .

You need to dump K and R. Forever.

Also, you have a fantastic friend. She didn't prank or taunt K. She called him out, and threatened to tell his wife if he didn't back off of you. She did that because she knew you wouldn't.

You desperately need IC. You need to work on gaining some self esteem,and getting a backbone.

It would help you in other areas of your life. My daughter is a teacher. She works in a school that sounds just like yours. Except,she has control of her classroom. Because she demands it. The students don't listen to you,because they know you won't do anything about it. You must command respect.

Stop chatting with K. Being an OW is a nasty look for any woman. And,yes, as long as you have any communication with him, you are the OW.

You need a good therapist. You know what you are doing is wrong but you are letting yourself do it because you want to bargain with reality. The guy isn’t good, who gives a shit if he’s handsome, and he’s married and a criminal. You need to wake up & please could you expect even the bare minimum for yourself? Therapy will help with that.

In one of your posts you said

Also, I admit I am still heartbroken over this and have nowhere and no one to turn to. It's not like I have supportive people in my life.

Before any dates with any person at all, you need a support group. Meetup has tons of groups. Walking, hiking, games, parents, teachers, etc. Find a group and focus on friendships with people, especially women. You will make the next guy your whole world again if you don’t have your own circle. Get a life and then add a man to it, or the man will become your whole world. Every time. Get off the merry go round.

It's not like I have supportive people in my life.

The friend that you're mad at,because she broke you and your boyfriend up? She's supportive. She just wouldn't support your relationship with a married man. She's your best friend.

I haven't responded to any of your posts in quite some time, because my continued message seems to be ignored.

But..... in case you are listening STOP being a victim in all aspects of your life. Your work you are a victim. In your private life you play the victim, life doesn't happen to you, you make life happen and until you start taking steps to do so you will always be overwhelmed by work, by personal interactions, and just getting day to day shit done.

PLEASE contact your EAP plan through your employer, and get your ass into therapy to deal if with the work trauma, and challenges.
The kids are behaving in a way that they know they can with you. Until you put your foot down, and let them know you will not tolerate the behavior they will continue. Yes some kids will act out regardless, but others will tow the line when you throw kids out when they act out.

STOP being a victim. You need tremendous help w/ that, and the initial 6 visits w/ a therapist through the EAP will only scratch the surface, but it will give you time to find one in your area that have evening hours, and accepts your insurance.

Teacherjoggergal – what relevance does the "mostly white" line have in your unhappiness with the present job and the busing in of kids from other neighborhoods and the unruliness of the kids? That comment might be seen as racist by many reading here, and I do hope that’s not what you are implying.