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Here's the thing, and SI may not agree with me 100% here. She has a right to her feelings. IF she comes back to her senses, and IF she accepts 100% responsibility for the A, and IF she decides to put 100% effort into figuring out why she cheated with a man a decade younger than herself, AND you want to R, THEN you need to be ok accepting her anger. Is it her fault she got fired? 100% yes. Could you have chosen a milder way to expose her A and put an end to it? *possibly*

And that is the key. Possibly. If you want to R, there is a very good chance you'll have to be ok feeling some heat for your decision to expose in this way, WITHOUT accepting any responsibility for her firing. She got fired because she cheated with a coworker. However, could you have chosen just to confront her, see her reaction, then chart a course? Give her a warning you'd expose to her employer unless she came clean? Yeah, of course those were other options. They would have been less effective at stopping the A. But maybe given you more of a chance at R.

You'll see me in agreement. If I'm in another relationship and god forbid I get cheated on again, I hope I have the resolve to go scorched earth and stop it dead in its tracks or at least do a hard 180 and not waffle.

If she comes around and we're in R, but she has some resentment over the harshness I would say, "I tried a softer approach once and lost one woman I loved, I wasn't going to do that again and lose another". It truly is a tough love thing.

Tell her that you're sorry she feels her ability to cheat on you is more important than the truth. Implement the hard 180. Tell her you'll be meeting with divorce legal counsel but will be willing to listen if she ever decides to prioritize your marriage.

This x1000. How is your failure to help her hide her (and his) terrible conduct more terrible than the conduct? She had a responsibility to protect the students from this asshole, and instead she chose to cheat with him. And he's 23???? That's a whole separate issue of inappropriateness there.

Save your evidence in a safe place.

Your wife is potentially a co conspirator by tolerating the OM's lusting over children. If not illegal it's certainly something she shouldn't be proud of.

This evidence may give you the upper hand if you divorce and/or discuss child custody.

In these recordings overhead AP making inappropriate comments about teenage girls he was supposed to me mentoring.

So, he is banging a co-worker married woman and making crude sexual remarks about underage girls he has authority over.

Your wife is mad she got fired for not distancing herself enough from this a-hole when she was caught sleeping with him.

Yeah, just print this off and read it out loud to her. Look at her and ask, "Wait. Sorry, I was the bad guy in this situation. My fault." Shrug and walk away. The silence is brutal after you read off the truth.

If it's proven that the OM was actually in contact with underage girls your WW may be open to civil liability since she did report the incident.

You did the right thing. Too bad your cheating wife had to face some serious consequences for her bad behavior. That's life.

As others have said, none of this would've happened if she hadn't been cheating. This is all on her.

I can't even wrap my brain around a mother not feeling complete revulsion and shame for being involved with a man who makes inappropriate comments about minors. There is something seriously wrong with her. I would be very concerned about the people she has brought around your children.

My first question is "What do you mean by inappropriate?" While many have already presumed the comments to be sexual in nature, there are many ways in which a teacher can make an inappropriate comment about a student. While I can assume that they may have been sexual in nature, there could have been many other things said about the students which would have been deemed "inappropriate". Can you shed some light on that for us?

Also, unless your wife was with a same-sex AP, I question what kind of school district (and administration team) would allow a male teacher to mentor female students. No administrator in their right mind would allow that because of the potential for anything (true or made up) that would be part of a lawsuit.

Having taught in a school which was predominantly female (both students & staff), I made it a point to never be in a room with only 1 other person, to always have classroom & office doors open, made sure my eyes were at the eyes or the floor and nothing else that could have been construed as inappropriate. When I coached softball, I always had a female assistant to handle any "drama" and to talk 1-on-1 with my players. I truly question what sort of school would allow a male mentor for female students.

All that aside, your wife does not comprehend what it means to be accountable. Mine didn't either. She didn't understand why I wasn't Ok with her being at home when the AP came to pick up the rest of the tools he left behind. She didn't think that I was right to "spy on her" after she had refused to go NC and kept secretly texting the AP. She thought she had a "right to privacy". She was wrong.

Here's the thing. You can't hold the family together. You can work on keeping yourself from falling apart, but you cannot hold the entire family together. Your wife blew that up.

Do what is important to take care of you. If you decide to pursue D, request full custody of the children. Protect yourself and your kids from your wife. At this point, she is incapable of making important decisions for herself or the kids.

Take care of you.

[This message edited by CaptainRogers at 8:02 PM, January 31st (Friday)]

Wow- I am floored by the response! Thank you everyone!

A few things to clarify:

They were coaches, not teachers.

While the things he was saying were inappropriate and likely to impress my wife, they were not predatory. I don't think this guy would mess around with a kid. (Was and still is a virgin). Although with the "daughter test" I'd throat punch anyone who talked like that about my little girl

My kids are young (9 and 5) and I don't want to risk other father or mother figures in their lives.

I want to R, but need to figure out how to get my WW to take responsibility for her actions. I'm fully willing to own mine.

Wow- I am floored by the response! Thank you everyone!

A few things to clarify:

They were coaches, not teachers.

While the things he was saying were inappropriate and likely to impress my wife, they were not predatory. I don't think this guy would mess around with a kid. (Was and still is a virgin). Although with the "daughter test" I'd throat punch anyone who talked like that about my little girl

My kids are young (9 and 5) and I don't want to risk other father or mother figures in their lives.

I want to R, but need to figure out how to get my WW to take responsibility for her actions. I'm fully willing to own mine.

I'm confused.

It doesn't even sound like an EA. Just a creepy coach who your W should have reported.

My opinion is a bit different. What is there to come back from here?

Your wife had an affair, ALL ON HER. HER CHOICE.

Every choice we make has a consequence. As someone pointed out "speeding". When I get pulled over (I have a lead foot) which is often it goes like this "Hi Jessica, how are you? Doing well Brennan, do you know why I pulled you over. Yep, I was speeding...

I make the choice to roar through town 20 mile

s over the speed limit. I also accept the consequence that Jessica is going to pull me over and slap me with a 200.00 ticket 90% of the time.

Your wife made the choice to be unfaithful, one of the consequences of that is she was fired. That is all ON HER.

I would do nothing more than to state "I find it sad that you feel this was worse than your infidelity, if you ever make such an irrational statement about this again, I will not respond and will turn and walk away" (This technique WORKS wonders). It's her problem not yours.

The only "issue" I take with the situation is that you wanted to get him fired but not her? Why is that? Is it because of the degrading remarks he made about the teens? Or because of his infidelity with his wife? If the latter, seems a bit one sided. Your wife did WAY more to you that was worse than he did. I strongly believe this, which is why I didn't go scorched earth on the AP and get him fired. I knew I'd have to do the same if not worse to my WW.

Was there physical contact? Is the AP married? What did he say?

I don't think this guy would mess around with a kid. (Was and still is a virgin)

How do you know this? Did the AP just offer this information freely to you or did your wife, who is lying to you, tell you this.

I want to R, but need to figure out how to get my WW to take responsibility for her actions. I'm fully willing to own mine.

If your wife doesn’t accept responsibility for her reprehensible actions you have nothing to work with.

That’s all on her. You’d be smart to stay out of the hopium addiction of wanting her to “get it”.

D – Don’t

E – Even

T – Think

A – About

C – Changing

H – Her.

I'm not a fan of exposure in general, though I do think healing essentially requires outing the A to OBS, if any, and talking about the A with the people whom you want to talk about the A.

Exposure imposes outside influence on the WS, and R simply doesn't work unless the WS is intrinsically motivated to change from betrayer to good partner.

You've taken the action you thought was best. Your WS has responded with an attitude that shows she's not a candidate for R at this point.

You can lay out your requirements for R, and if she signs on, you can start R. If she doesn't respond pretty quickly, though, your best bet is to file for D. Or you can just go straight to filing.

You can change yourself, but you can't change your W.

BTW, are you sure you want to spend the rest of your life with her? If my W had compared cheating to outing her A, I know I would have had many more 2nd thoughts than I actually had.

I want to R, but need to figure out how to get my WW to take responsibility for her actions

Sorry, but you CANNOT "get" your WW to take responsibility. She has to choose to do that all on her own.

And if she won't - what are you going to do about it?

Nope, just nope...if she doesn’t see what she was doing as wrong and drop her fake righteous indignation then show her the door!

Until that happens she will never be a safe partner, and should be treated as such.

You did nothing wrong, stop telling yourself you have something to be sorry for.

Could you tell us a little more about how you found out? Was this an emotional affair (EA) or physical (PA) or both? You say you want to reconcile - you can't reconcile with someone who does not own up to their own actions and is not feeling your pain of being betrayed. There is a saying here on SI - you have to be willing to lose the marriage to save it... read about the 180 (look in upper left hand corner in The healing Library). Make it clear that you will not be in a marriage while she has a boyfriend.