'My (32F) husband (33M) is maybe cheating with a student (18F), what do I do?' UPDATED

"My (32F) husband (33M) is maybe cheating with a student (18F), what do I do?"

I am freaking out right now. My partner is a high school math teacher. He has been teaching now for a decade now and generally has been praised by students, parents, other teachers and admin for how he does his job. We have been together for 7 years. We got married in 2023. I have never worried about him being interested in his students.

We have even talked about teacher/student relationships and he has never expressed anything other than disgust and how it’s a manipulation of power, even if the student is an adult (not to specific instances IRL, just movie instances and general topic discussion).

He has never been called out for being inappropriate (that I know), never engaged with students over the weekend/summer (unless it’s school related, but even then ALL contact is through school email or with parents).

He generally refers to his students as his ‘kids’ and actively keeps a distance from developing too close of a relationship, because he is young, attractive and other male teachers recommended he do so. Okay, here’s what happened:

Around March, we were at the movie theatre one evening and I noticed a gaggle of girls staring and pointing. I notified my partner, assuming they were his students, and he told me I was right. We did not go over to say hi (we have seen his students before out and about and he says hi on a case by case basis but typically doesn’t initiate) and they did not come to us.

But, I noticed the rest of the girls playfully shoving one girl with lots of whispers, and the girl was staring at my husband sheepishly. I immediately thought she probably had a crush and honestly, thought nothing of it after until last weekend. We were celebrating Canada day at a BBQ with family and my husband was pretty wasted.

At one point, he went to the bathroom and didn’t come back for so long I was worried he was getting sick, so I checked on him. When I knocked and said it was me, he said he was okay and would be right out but didn’t unlock the door. He stayed in the bathroom for another ~10 minutes. Super unusual for him but it could have been anything. Later that night, I woke up around 3 and he wasn’t in bed.

Worried again, I got up and found him on his phone in the living room. This is also unusual. When I asked what he was doing, he was definitely surprised and hid his phone screen. He said he couldn’t sleep and didn’t wanna wake me up by watching videos next to me in bed. We both went back to sleep together. The next morning, he was hungover and slept in. I went through his phone.

I have never not had a reason to trust him, so I have never gone through his phone. I found nothing of interest, except for the Snapchat app, which was not logged into. He used to use snapchat but, from what I knew, hadn’t in years. I honestly assumed nothing finding the app and figured I was reading too much into things. Last night, I saw a snapchat notification pop up on his phone while we were watching TV.

It was out of the corner of my eye but the logo is too recognition to mistake. My heart dropped, because, knowing he was logged out last week means he is definitely using it secretly. I pretended like I didn’t notice and a couple minutes later he got up to “take a long poop”. I cried while he was in the bathroom. Shortly after, I said I was going to bed early and he stayed up without me (he’s on summer break).

When I got up for work, he was still passed out. I went on his phone and found no Snapchat app. It was then that I knew something was shady for sure and when I looked up Snapchat on the home screen, it was there, just hidden in a folder of apps disguised as cooking and workout apps. He had not logged out of Snapchat and when I opened it, there was one conversation with a real human and it was a girl.

There was no evidence of conversation between them because, for those who don’t know, snapchat deletes previous messages for good. I was ready to confront him for cheating with basically 0 evidence but decided to keep snooping for something concrete. In that same disguised folder, I found that he had OF downloaded.

The only content creator he was subscribed to had the same username as the woman on Snapchat, but it’s his student. The one from the theatre, who was blushing. I have never clocked a face so fast. I am 100% certain. We make fun of OF simps all the time so I was already disgusted but I actually threw up when I found this.

I was scared I was going to wake him up and genuinely didn’t know what to do so I put his phone back and left for work. At work, I did some sleuthing and was able to find the girls Instagram/Twitter accounts. She’s 18 and from grad photos I can tell with certainty that she attended my husband's school. The same link was in her twitter bio.

He has texted me normally throughout the day and I have not responded to any but to tell him I have to go to my parents tonight but in reality I am still at work because I don’t know what to do. The reality is that this is messed up but she has graduated. Is this now just the same as any old affair? I don’t even know if she was in any of his classes. I don’t know what to think.

I don’t know what to do next? Lawyer? Should I ask my husband and see what he says? Should I ask her? Edit to add: Does anybody know how to/if you can tell when an app was first downloaded?

TLDR: My teacher husband is snap chatting/subscribed to OF of a student of his school who is 18. Help.

The internet kept it honest in the comments.

BLUECAT1011 wrote:

This will not stay a secret for long. If the other students know, this will come out sooner or later. Someone will post something, her parents will find out, but eventually it comes out. Best to protect yourself and get your own legal advice as well as counseling. Your husband is not who you thought he was and that's a really hard thing to accept, so take the time you need to figure that out.

However, you don't know if this was the first time he did it or the first time he got caught. Either way, he should not be working in a school ever again and should be reported.

Wrastleguy wrote:

At the very least he’s talking to her and jacking to her.

You don’t need a pile to evidence to divorce. If you know, you know.

mamachonk wrote:

"I have never worried about him being interested in his students. We have even talked about teacher/student relationships and he has never expressed anything other than disgust and how it’s an abuse of power, even if the student is an adult (not to specific instances irl, just movie instances and general topic discussion)."

Nope. This is 100% awful. I was in a slightly different situation but I think it applies here. My (now ex) husband was in a band. He used to tell me stories of this musician and that musician and groupies, low-key condemning their behavior.

I KNEW in my heart of hearts he would never do such things. Turns out, he was telling me what HE did. Whether those other guys also did or not, I don't know, but if so, they were way more discreet. He had multiple affairs, including one with an 18-year-old girl when in his late 40s. He started talking to her when she was 17.

I almost threw up when I found out. We had been married for ~15 years. I am so mad he wasted that much of my life but really glad I didn't allow him to waste even more. Don't waste more of yours with this AH. It doesn't even matter if she was in any of his classes, this is wildly inappropriate even if he wasn't married.

She's barely 18, he's technically old enough to be her father. Him snapping/following an OF account of anyone's while being married is inappropriate. See a lawyer and do what they say. Preserve any and all evidence you have. Do not tip your husband off until you've seen a lawyer and figured out your options.mAnd I'm so sorry you're going through this.

Even_Budget 2078 wrote:

Mmm, ok, so you saw her at the movies in March and her friends were definitely acting like something was up with her specifically? When does the school year end in Canada? Meaning, did she just graduate in May or June and would have been at the high school in March? You need to see a lawyer. Do not talk about this with your husband for now.

Do NOT talk to her. Please don't do that, that is not a good idea at all. Are you considering divorce or are you mainly concerned about ramifications to his job? I think you should talk to a lawyer about divorce, but that's me. For his job, OP, this is up to you and I will not judge you if you don't, but please consider telling the school.

I'm sorry, but you now know your husband is a risk to his female students. I'm not saying it's a sure thing that he'll prey on another one. But, he is a risk and I think you know this. So, if you know this, what is your obligation to girls at his school? Maybe just to add that it is not ok for teachers to groom students but not act on it until they leave.

A day later, OP shared an update.

My post blew up and there were many updateme comments so I wanna to update. I read every single comment but there was too much to reply to.

To clarify some things:

No, I didn’t have pictures or screenshots of the snapchats or OF. I was so upset I didn’t even think about it until afterwards and I thought there would be another chance to get them. I realized I messed up.

For some of my early comments, my brain was still reeling. I am 100% leaving my husband, to make it clear. It took me some time to come to terms with what was actually happening and the fact that I was in denial but reddit helped me get there, so thanks.

The comments were about 50/50 split between talking to a lawyer or my husband first. The reality is that I didn’t think I had anywhere else to go at the time and I was so emotional last night and felt like I needed to know. I wanted to confront him and rip off the bandaid. He called me while I was still at work and I ended up telling him we needed to talk.

He seemed thrown off by this and cancelled plans to stay in. I didn’t get home for almost 3 hours after that, crying and deciding wtf to do. Ultimately I went home. If you’re ever in the same position, don’t do what I did. I wanted to follow the advice of many comments by basically saying “I know about her,” but I really wanted to get pictures of the evidence first.

So I planned on playing it cool, saying never mind all is okay, until we went to sleep and then sneaking back on his phone. I shouldn’t have said anything on the phone but my emotions got the better of me. But when I walked in the house, I immediately felt like he knew that I knew. He said “What’s up” super standoffishly, just seemed off and whatever I said on the phone must have tipped him off.

Either that, or he was able to tell that I was on his phone in the morning somehow, pretending to be asleep? I’m not sure. So I couldn’t control myself and got super emotional and confronted him on the spot. I asked if he had onlyfans (it was the first thing out of my mouth) and he literally said “No. What did you want to talk about.”

I told him I knew that he did and he denied. I told him I went on his phone this morning and scoffed and walked away. I followed him crying and screaming that I knew he had OF and snapchat that I was leaving him and finally cried out something about cheating with his students. When I said that he immediately turned around and asked what I was talking about.

I told him that I knew about The Girl (18F) and his face genuinely turned into somebody I don’t know. He immediately began yelling in my face that I don’t know what I was talking about, how dare me accuse him of sleeping with his students, that I’m crazy and trying to ruin his life. I was screaming at him back.

I told him to open his phone and prove it and he laughed in my face about how stupid somebody would be to do what I’m accusing him of and basically threw his phone at my face and said “knock yourself out." As people can probably guess, there was nothing. He definitely knew before I got home.

He was logged out of snapchat and when I asked him to log in and stop lying, he logged into a different account and asked me if I would “drop it now”. The first one had just 18F and a few AI account things. This one had all his old college group chats and other people (including me). He gaslit me and swore he didn’t have another account. He even suggested that I dreamt all of this.

At one point he finally “admitted” that he subscribed to an OF for a streamer during one of our intimacy lulls but never a student and he swore he lied because he loved me and doesn’t engage in that kind of behaviour anymore. It was just hours of lies and gaslighting. He said that he knew which student I was talking about but that he’s never spoken to her or taught her.

He didn’t recall the movie theatre incident and accused me of imagining it too. He denied receiving a snapchat at all a few nights ago when I first saw it. He denied acting shady the days before. He denied everything. I was absolutely disgusted by him the whole night.

As the conversation went on, he started to talk about how he’s going to get us marriage counselling, that my trust issues can be worked on and he would leave teaching if it’s what it took for me to stay, but never admitted to anything with a student.

Admittedly, I was starting to get a bit of a gaslight fog about the situation, believing some of what he was saying, but when he volunteered to leave teaching, I KNEW it was worse than I knew. Because teaching is his everything, he gave up an amazing opportunity which would have made him 3-4x the money and way more recognition to teach and has never complained about his job a day in his life.

We both know he loves his job more than he loves me. If this was truly all a misunderstanding, or if it was a one-off with a graduated non-student, I just think he would do more to protect his job and his career, he wouldn’t just leave over crazy behaviour from me. That immediately told me everything I needed to know - that he was panicking on the inside about me leaving and me telling people.

Maybe because more happened with 18F than what I know, maybe because he’s done this before, I’m not sure. But he messed up bad. It’s so late I was so exhausted and I feigned agreement in working through it and told him I could move past it but I was obviously lying. I need time to get stuff in order. He is sleeping in the guest room tonight.

I told him I would need a lot of space and he said he was okay with that. He left is phone in our bedroom for the night as a “peace offering”. I hate his guts. I have so many things on my mind right now: what to do, how to get a lawyer, if i should tell my family, if i should tell the school, the fact that I have no proof but I KNOW what I saw. Ugh.

The fact that I’ll be 33 and divorced. Above all - the fact that my husband may have slept with this girl (that’s my gut telling me, because he kept repeating that he would never sleep with his students, over and over, when I was using words like cheat with, look at OF or flirtily text with).

So that’s the update. I was gaslit and lied to. I got no sleep last night but still went to work this morning to get away from him. He hasn’t texted me or called all day. I want nothing more than to go to the school with this info, my heartbreak is gone and I’m just angry and disgusted and want to right his wrongs, but I need him to admit to it so I can know how bad it is and I don’t think he will.

I was thinking of telling him that I reached out to the girl (I’m not going to) and see if that freaks him out enough to come clean, but what if she doesn’t know/he’s using a fake account? Or just saying I have proof, even though I dont. Anybody have any good ideas? In the mean time, looking for divorce lawyer asap.

TL;DR: I found proof of husband snapchatting/subscribed to students only fans, but now all evidence is gone and he gaslit me. Have no idea where to go from here besides start the divorce process.

The comments kept coming.

throw_RA099 wrote:

Your husband is having an emotional affair with this young girl, which has also likely turned physical based on his reaction and gaslighting. Instead of being calm and trying to alleviate your concerns, he became defensive and angry when you were getting warm as to what was happening. Speak with an attorney to initiate divorce proceedings and look up Grey rock and 180. I'm so sorry this happened.

StinkyKittyBreath wrote:

If he never taught the student and didn't remember the theater incident, how did he even know which student you were talking about? I used to teach. Unless a student spoke with me after class or something, I didn't really know the names of students I didn't teach. The only exception is if they were causing trouble and coworkers talked about them all the time.

trishsf wrote:

First. Get an attorney. Follow the advice of said attorney. Second. Any chance of contacting this girls parents? I’m sure they would have a better chance of finding proof and have every reason to want to do so.

OP responded:

I thought about contacting her parents. I don’t know if they would care though, she’s 18 and my husband works at a school with a lot of disadvantaged kids. He teaches advanced maths and said she wasn’t in his advanced classes/she’s never been in his classes and she’s “not a smart student” so he would never had a reason to interact with her.

If that’s the case, who knows what the parents would think. I’m also scared it’s overreaching in that she could get in trouble for having an OF if I tell her parents. I will ask the lawyer this once I speak to one.

SnooWords4839 wrote:

Talk to a lawyer and get a PI involved. You will get your answers, he can't completely hide everything.

OP responded:

Leaning towards the PI. I understand everybody saying to divorce him, I don’t need evidence. I am. 100%. I don’t know how long this whole process will be but that WILL happen. I will probably have to live with him in the meantime, we both spend the majority of our income on our house. But I do not plan on being intimate with him ever again.

The thing is that he is BELOVED in the community. I genuinely think people would believe him over me. I do. Maybe I’m wrong but his family would never believe me I know. Even my own family will be shocked. I want to hurt him like he’s hurt me and maybe even hurt other people so I want proof. I think I’ll look into some PIs, is there PIs which can investigate somebody online though? Or just real life?