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As I read your message, I thought it all seemed normal. My husband and I are both professors, and this kind of exchange happens fairly routinely between professors and students.

But then I got to the Meow and Woof part! Good heavens! What is he thinking? That is totally unacceptable, and especially disgusting since those are/were your personal, private inside joke. How dare he share that with another woman!

I agree with others--this is flirting, and he is heading down the slippery slope.

This definitely merits further investigation (sleuthing), and a serious talk, with you decked out in your fiercest bitch boots.

As mentioned upthread, on top of everything else, he is probably breaking a university policy that could get him fired.

To update:

I have a huge headache.

I checked phones, emails, records and found nothing.

We went to dinner and I confronted. He seemed surprised. Then stunned.

Just to give u a little history:

A few years back there was this man in one his classes that gave him the nickname Pdog and that kind of stuck. He and this guy eventually became friends and started a side business together (academic related).

The way he knows the Meow woman is that she marked papers for him last year and she did some marketing for their business as well as spreading the word about the program.

She had taken one of his classes last year.

And she would always meow at her friend who was also taking the class. She mentioned that she was obsessed with cats and he popped in the conversation and said how I call him dog.

So from then on she would do the Meow in the end of her emails. And he would respond with woof.

This is so stupid that I am writing all this to u guys. But I am still upset.

Students like him because he is humorous, approachable and helpful with advice etc but this situation has turned me off.

I still think it's crossing a line.

We have been in R for almost 4 years now and it has been an excruciating road.

The last 2 years have been very good though...

We have not had an affair related fight for 2 years and I felt so good.

But just reading the emails threw me for a loop.

Triggered me bigtime...left me literally shaking.

[This message edited by Audrina at 8:37 AM, March 30th (Sunday)]

Audrina, any explanation your H has does not negate what you are feeling. If you are uncomfortable and do not want this repeated, you have to convey this to your H. If it's inappropriate and unacceptable to you, then he has the choice to stop it now.

And yes, even after 4 years, your H's boundaries need attention. What he may consider no big deal has to change after infidelity. If it's a big deal to you, then let him know, don't bite your lip and cave. It won't help in the end.

Ugh. I feel for you. My wh would try to justify the same way....tell me a long story about how it's fine and I'm reacting to something that is not there. Last time something like this happened (a former coworker who goes by princess xyz emailed him to wish him a merry christmas and he responded w/ his pet name) I got really mad and he was all, "You're crazy". But he talked to his sponsor and he set him straight. He told him he had no business emailing any women outside of strict work email---and no pet names for anyone. Good grief! I can't believe we are even in this situation!! Having to convince our fwh NOT to use petnames???? Geesh. So I was grateful for his sponsor. Does your husband have someone like that? MC?

THe triggery thing is so hard. I could totally see myself shaking after 4 years of recovery. I'm nowhere close, but I can't imagine this kind of pain coming up again.

Wow, I can't believe how many academics there are on SI...I'm one, too.

I think you have all the info. you need at this point, Audrina, but I'll go ahead and chime in.

No, it's not appropriate for him to be this "friendly" with a student, period. It crosses a professional boundary that all profs know about (or should, unless they're boundary-challenged, like unfortunately many of our WSs are).

Right, it could look bad/biased to request "male student assistants only", but...we are always allowed final say in our assistants, and your WS could reject all but the males, if he really wanted to. My university lets us choose our assistants, as do many other colleges, and I always choose women. And given that he's already had an affair with one student, he should be super sensitive about it.

I do disagree a bit with another poster, in that I don't think that it's a myth that students often idealize us, and/or could become infatuated. We are up on a pedestal to them, and many desire attention from us - even if it's more parental in nature. Also, many have hidden mommy/daddy complexes that wouldn't take much of a push to sexualize. We have a HUGE power unbalance with our students, so we have to be ultra cautious in all our interactions. We can lift them, or level them, with a single word or expression.

So it's up to us to have iron-clad boundaries in place, such as: no student in my office with the door closed; no meeting with an individual student for more than 15 minutes (beyond that, it's tutoring and I refer them to a tutor); no "listening to their problems" - if we suspect there IS a serious problem, I hand them a card for the university's mental health services. We are not, nor should be, their therapists. That doesn't make us cold and uncaring. And no opposite sex assistants. Period.

Well looks like there has been some serious boundary stepping that goes beyond "meows" and "woofs". Did he tell you this woman had been hired by him to do marketing for his company? ... and he wants her around again this coming term? I would require immediate NC with her. Something here is just not right. Your radar "pinged" for the right reason, trust it. He is getting something from this dynamic with her (he wants to keep it going), he needs to dig deep and find out what and why. My guess is he likes the "groupie" like adoration and the "what more can I do for *you* prof?" type stuff. There is power imbalance between professors and students. Very slippery slope. He needs to knock it off.

He needs to respect your boundaries, innocent or not, his actions bother you. That matters.

I went through that too, my H used to be a professor as well. Needless to say, he has a new career. Talking to students about non-class related shit so he can be seen as the "cool" professor does not fly with me. Being flirty does not fly with you, he needs to make some changes now, either career changes or boundary changes. Put your foot down.