Did you read this?

Your marriage is dangling with a noose around its neck, but it's a short-term thing.

Is he in the habit of abusing his position? If you keep this a secret, others might fall victim as well. And the chances of recovering your marriage will diminish every day she and your children are exposed to this man.

Hi OOTB,

I think most of us, when we first come here, find it hard to accept the advice to expose affairs to our children - not just because we want to protect them, but also because we have been conditioned to believe that they cannot possibly understand grown-up stuff and we worry what other people will think of us sharing such information. I certainly had all those feelings.

However, I put aside my reservations and followed the advice I got here and told three of my four kids (7, 6 and 5 at the time; the fourth is a baby) exactly what had happened and why their father wasn't living with us anymore. I used simple, age-appropriate language ("Papa has moved out because he has a girlfriend and you are not allowed to have a girlfriend when you are married") and made it clear to them they could ask me any questions they wanted at any time. It was the best possible thing I could have done - and for reasons I didn't understand before it happened.

When there is a conflict between parents, the situation immediately confuses the children who do not know who to sympathise with, or how they should interpret the stress they perceive and feel (even if you think you have shielded them). They know something is going on, but they don't know what it is. Also, what you may not acknowledge from your perspective is that this is an ongoing, dynamic situation that will change over time. So the children will experience a continuation of the stress, perhaps peaks and troughs, and all of it will contribute to an escalating sense of fear, confusion and emotional insecurity as they feel that their parents are keeping secrets from them and they know those secrets are central to family life, but they don't have the information to be able to process what is happening - because you have kept it from them. Furthermore, it is a mistake to believe that you and your wife have a unified view about what has happened - and interpret the events in a way that fits with the moral teaching you want your children to learn from. Wayward spouses ALWAYS twist the story to make themselves seem innocent/taken advantage of/misunderstood etc. But all of these excuses only serve to undermine the fundamental moral message that infidelity is wrong - and if you don't tackle that message now, you will find yourself in a position of trying to convince your children that your version is more correct than your wife's later on. And you will find it very difficult to convince them that something their mother tells them is not true.

The key problems resulting from your approach of shielding your children are:
1) You are not explaining to them things they witness and feel with their own eyes, causing emotional insecurity
2) You are making them feel like they can't trust you to tell them the truth, causing more emotional insecurity
3) You are making it much harder for yourself to explain future developments - and possible separation and divorce - to them down the line, setting the children up for a terrible traumatic shock
And
4) You are not giving them the clear moral lesson they need right now: infidelity is ALWAYS wrong

Please read the exposure to children thread and try to open your mind to the advice here. It really does help you, your wife and your children in the long term. And their reaction is very unlikely to be what you think it would be, if they see you are being honest and trust them with the truth.

PS. They are going to feel VERY betrayed when they find out their extra-maths teacher had an affair with their mother, and that their father agreed for the lessons to continue - no matter how many years later this truth comes out.

Waiting for the OM to move is crazy and has already wasted 6 months of your time. You need to take control of your life and get your family out of that toxic environment.

You are snooping through OM's office at night???

In twenty years from now, do you think you will be glad that you chose to stay mired in the muck and drama because of a job?

You sound like a smart person and I think you know deep down that your plan is not working. Take control.

OOB - you will find many references to an affair being like an addiction. On here you will also find people that were both the betrayed, and the betraying spouse. I hope one of the later will chime in. Despite the sitcom Cheers have you ever known an addict who could be around their drug of choice and not be tempted to relapse?
Sure your wife may have incredible self control - for how long? I stopped drinking almost 12 years ago - I did it before hitting rock bottom, I looked at my family history, and why I was drinking and what it was doing to me, and those around me. I decided I didn't want to take the same risks as others (i.e. my father) and quite. I can go out, my friends can drink - I will be the DD, despite the mental crap of finding out about a WW I have not been tempted at all to drink - but what about tomorrow? Or what about if there is another crisis? How will I react? For this reason I won't take a job in a bar, and I can't tell you the last time I was in one.

Based on what you wrote, you may be able to get rid of this slime by going to his boss with any proof of the bullying, or harassment - heck have your wife carry a VAR when she interacts with him. If he is as bad as you describe (and I am not questioning that at all) he will hang himself.

As for the children - we make choices what to expose them too - correct - I won't let my youngest watch the original Alien movie, but he has seen Deadpool - does that make sense - maybe not.

But we also teach them deep seated lessons (on a sub conscious level) on how we act. By not telling them the truth they will formulate their own ideas of what happened (probably much more accurately than you can imagine) and by not telling them the truth you teach them that dishonesty is ok. Is that your intention?

The children know something has happened, they can see it - they saw the way you and your wife were acting towards each other - and with two of them in the same school they probably saw, heard, or felt something off there between your wife, and OM. And as OM teaches these two what is to prevent him from extracting revenge on them - failing them for example on a test?

If he is close to retiring or moving, he may want to do it now - he isn't irreplaceable, just give him a push - protect your wife, your children and save your marriage.