I can't face my daughter's teacher, as my husband had an affair with her

'Should it be your child who pays the price for her parent's transgression?': Mariella Frostrup advises a mother still resentful about her husband's fling. Photograph: Alamy

The dilemma Three years ago I?discovered my husband of 10 years had an inappropriate relationship with a?teacher at our children's primary school. He has always denied that the relationship was sexual, but it certainly involved a lot of secrets and lies. It nearly destroyed our marriage, but we found each other again. My way of dealing with the teacher has been to ignore her, even though I "see" her regularly at the school. I?really do?not wish to have anything to do with her, which is my way of coping with her still being around my family. But now she will become the class teacher for my six-year-old daughter, probably for more than just one year. I?am thinking of finding another school for my daughter but am heartbroken for her, since she desperately wants to stay at the school – her friends and siblings are there. I cannot see how I?could communicate with this teacher in a?healthy way and cringe at the idea of having to give her responsibility for one of my children (again). How could I ever trust this person?

Mariella replies What a nightmare scenario! And how tricky for you. You ask me how you can ever trust the teacher, and I?have to say: in the same way as you've learned to trust your husband again. She is simply expected to educate your child, and I presume that's something she is competent at.

Three years is a lifetime in love, and unless this duo are enduring romantics, their shared past is most likely an uncomfortable memory, not a?tinderbox waiting to be re-struck.

It's always seemed peculiarly illogical to me that when it comes to affairs and deception the person we blame is most often the third party, not our trusted partner, though obviously we have every right to question the morality of a?person who decides to embark on an affair with somebody else's lover.

Holding those around us to a?strict moral code is all very well if we're convinced we can live up to it ourselves. I remember many decades ago being berated by a girlfriend for an ill-considered affair with a man who was already spoken for and old enough to know better; quite rightly, she questioned my motives, my lack of responsibility, my immorality and so on and, impressionable as I was in my late teens, I reacted to her tirade by ending the affair. A year later she got together with the same guy, whose marriage was by then a total shipwreck, and they got married.

I mention it only to highlight the dangers of judging others before our own motives have been similarly scrutinised. You can't police your husband's encounters with the opposite sex forever, even if he has?forfeited the right to be trusted. Relying on your ability to keep temptation at a?remove rather than on your partner making the right choices is no way to live a?life together. It's a position rock stars' and actors' partners – too often women – occupy. What a squandered life choice, standing guard outside the on-set trailer on set or at premieres, gigs or dressing-room doors. In the many instances where I've witnessed such poor souls sacrifice themselves to policing their beloved's potential for liaisons, the controlled member of the union has invariably made a dash for freedom on the arm of the first person who managed to break through the human cordon.

A cuckolded woman told me the other day that she was best friends with the husband who abandoned her a decade previously, but despite second marriages and shared custody of the children she had never spoken to her "love rival" or forgiven her for?"stealing" her husband. In black-and-white print we can all see how misguided that enmity sounds. You can't steal someone who doesn't want to go unless you kidnap them, which is a criminal offence rather than a crime of passion. The person who vowed to love and honour you did the real betraying.

So back to you. Keeping your enemy close seems very like very good advice. The nicer you are to those who would betray you, the harder you make it for their dastardly plans to come to fruition. You now have the perfect opportunity, in the name of good parenting, to lay out the olive branch, befriend your kid's teacher and show both parties how mature and magnanimous you can be. Whisking one sibling out of school is just not an option unless all the others follow suit. Should it be your child who pays the price for her parent's transgression?

My sense is that the hangover from this affair (whatever form it took) will be vanquished the moment you elect to bury the memory and douse?the embers of resentment that still burn. You've got your family intact and can afford to rise above the legacy of the past. It's not the easiest route to take, but it's definitely the smartest, and surely worth it to experience how good that higher ground feels, particularly when you may be the only one standing on it.

If you have a dilemma, send a brief email to mariella.frostrup@observer.co.uk. To have your say on this week's column, go to guardian.co.uk/dearmariella. Follow Mariella on Twitter @mariellaf1

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Top 3 Reasons Why He Had an Affair

Having an affair can be one of the worst things to happen to a relationship. If you find out that your other half has been cheating on you with someone else then it can be devastating, and sometimes so bad that the relationship can never been fixed again. People have affairs for many reasons, but at the end of the day they all boil down to 3 major problems. By knowing these main problems you can help prevent keep your relationship safe and strong.

The First Problem: Fights and Arguments

Fights and arguments are very common in a relationship, and aren't always bad things. Sometimes they can be very helpful to get things out in the open which is the first stage in fixing them. However in other cases they can lead to the affair starting. This is because if you have been fighting with your man then he may feel very angry and want to either vent his anger or get his own back on you for hurting him. This can sometimes lead men to go out and find a sexy lady somewhere with whom they can start an affair with. Sometimes this is a secret thing which he does try to and make himself feel better after the fight, or in other cases he might make it very public what he has done. This is his way of getting his revenge on you, his way of saying "this is how badly you hurt me, you made me do this".

The Second Problem: Feeling Unloved

In a relationship, one of the worst feelings is the feeling of not being loved or cared for by their partner. Unfortunately these feelings often develop within relationships very frequently, and can be caused by many things. These feelings can be caused by things such as long-term relationship going stale after a long time, because people can get too familiar with each other and the spark can go out. They can also be caused by things such as pregnancies or babies, because they take your attention away from him. If he isn't getting the same attention he is used to then he may want to go and find someone else who will make him feel loved and that is how the affair can often start.

The Third Problem: Boredom

Relationships are things that can last for years and years. When they first start everything is new and exciting and you want to spend every minute together, you also want to try new things and get to know each other in every way. However after a long period of time you start to grow too familiar with your partner, the excitement starts to die down and you know everything about each other. This can cause boredom in the relationship. This could make your man go off and want to start an affair because they miss the excitement. The affair could also be caused by old age starting to make the two of you feel less physically attracted to each other, which could make him go and find a younger sexy lady who he can have an affair with, to make him feel young again.

For more information on learning how to melt your man's heart and understanding what gets men all excited about their women, click here to understand how to build a deep emotional connection with your man.

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Don't tell me my affair with a teacher was abusive – I'll be the judge of that | Bernadette Rooney

'There is a massive difference between accepting that Jeremy Forrest (centre) should be barred from his chosen career for life and accepting the kind of narrative being drawn around this story.' Photograph: Dan Dennison/Getty Images

My affair with my 27-year-old English teacher started in the second week of my English A-level course, when I was 16 years old. He had driven a group of students back from a production of Macbeth and went a strangely convoluted route which involved dropping me off last, parking up the lane of the farm next door. There followed a memorably glorious snogging session. The affair lasted about nine months until he unceremoniously dropped me in favour of a gorgeous new arrival.

This teacher broke my heart, landed me in serious trouble with disapproving teachers and friends, and went on to have similar affairs with countless sixth formers. But despite all that I am utterly dismayed by the five-and-a-half -year prison sentence given to Jeremy Forrest and the way this tragic story is being discussed. As seems obligatory, let me preface my remarks by saying that I am not advocating teacher-pupil affairs, and my husband, a deputy head of a sixth form, points out the tough rules banning this conduct are there for good reason.

However, there is a massive difference between accepting that Forrest should be barred from his chosen career for life and accepting the kind of narrative being drawn around this story. He is a being widely talked about as a "paedophile" or "pervert" who "abducted" a 15-year-old girl. And nor can we just blame the media – child protection and education experts are vying with each other to find ever stronger language to condemn him. He had "groomed" his pupil, exploited his position of power, and committed "abuse".

Jon Brown, head of sex abuse prevention at the NSPCC, told the Guardian that it was "an abusive relationship" irrespective of how the pair may feel, and chartered educational psychologist Alan Mclean says "It's an asymmetrical power relationship and the teacher is always the abuser."

And while the teacher is being presented as a monstrous sexual predator, so the pupil is painted as a vulnerable victim who will suffer long-term "damage". The experts' concern for the girl, however, does not extend to listening to her side of the story or respecting her repeated claims that the relationship was loving and consensual. Instead, experts like Brown specifically state that her positive view of the relationship is "an illusion". Brown goes on to stress that the dynamics are the same whether the girl is 10 years old or 15, and generalises to say that these relationships are "invariably" brought to a grinding halt that can prove extremely traumatic.

Well, I can certainly remember the traumatic end of my affair but that's where any similarities end. Unlike all those the press have uncovered, I was not damaged by the experience, and have thrilling memories of the excitement of a relationship with an older intelligent man who inspired my love of literature.

Nor I am alone. There are plenty of examples out there of young women who had affairs with their teachers and lived to tell the tale. Some teachers even go on to marry former pupils and live happily.

But such is the hysterical framing of this case that none of us are even allowed to say that. When Matthew Parris did the newspaper review on The Andrew Marr Show he tentatively admitted to feeling nothing but sympathy for the couple, only to get a tongue lashing from fellow reviewer Polly Toynbee, who made it clear the only acceptable position was condemnation of an older man abusing his power. Uncharacteristically, Parris sheepishly fell into line.

The BBC's Saturday Live responded to the story by interviewing a couple who told a moving and poignant story of being happily married for about 30 years after they hooked up as pupil/teacher. Going on to interview the couple's grown-up child, now a teacher herself, the presenters pressed her to denounce pupil-teacher relationships even though everything about her existence rests on a happy one.

I have no idea of the real impact of this relationship on these two people but it's safe to say that any damage will have been exacerbated by the punitive prison sentence and the outpouring of bile from all quarters.

I for one refuse to let the commentators and experts define my relationship with my teacher. I was not a child who was damaged by an abusive relationship with a paedophile. I was an intelligent young adult with the power of reason who knew what I was doing and I don't regret a thing. That I was dumped and had my heart broken was of course just good training for later life.

‧ Bernadette Rooney is a pseudonym

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