The Advice Column IV

749

Advice Request
This person is beginning to feel uncomfortable with someone who helped them through a rough patch in life.

Answered Submission
Hello,
I'm sorry to hear about your situation. Moving to college is a big enough change as it is. The last thing you need right now is to then be stressed about something else, especially something like this.

My first piece of advice to you is to change the password to your email. He has absolutely no good reason to have access to your personal email, and you should on no occasion send pictures of yourself to him. He's your previous teacher, and that is a slippery slope I do not recommend trekking.

Hun, this sort of thing is not a situation anyone should want to be in. It's confusing, and when we're confused we tend to overthink and that just makes everything so much harder. But let me tell you how I see it. In a situation like this, if you find yourself overthinking about his intentions, that's a good sign to let that person go. And I know that's really hard for you to do. He was very important to you and your current progress in life, but you need to know that you don't owe him anything for that. It is his job as your teacher to help you, and give you skills necessary to tread early adulthood.  I also need you to know that you have no reason to be guilty about anything. You've done nothing wrong. You sought out comfort and support from a father-figure in your life. That is perfectly normal and perfectly acceptable especially coming from a person with a strained home life like yours. And I would  argue that it was much healthier for you to seek that help than for you to entirely internalize your stress from home, and as your teacher he is there to help you. Teachers are meant to be another level of a child's support system. They're there to teach curriculum and life skills, and a part of that is being there for them if a student comes to them for help emotionally or physically. It's not their main job, but it is a part of it. So you did nothing wrong there, hun. And whether or not he got the wrong idea, that does not fall on you. He is a grown adult. He is married with kids. If he decided to interpret a student coming to him for help and support as anything beyond just that, then he has a series of issues that he needs to deal with, and none of them have anything to do with you or anything for you to be guilty of.

Ultimately, love, you have done nothing wrong, and have no reason to be guilty. If he misinterpreted your seeking support for something romantic or otherwise that's on him, and as a teacher that is entirely inappropriate. I'm sorry you've found yourself in this situation.

So to go over my advice to you once more, the first thing I suggest you do is change your email password. He should in no way have access to that for any means. Second, I think it is very important that you start to let him go. And that doesn't necessarily mean cutting him out of your life completely or immediately if that's not something you feel you can do right now. Keep him at arm's length. Don't be the first to reach out, and when you talk with him keep the conversation extremely casual. The safest topic would be school and how your classes are; things that a student would talk to a teacher about.

Unfortunately dear, I can't promise that things will go back to normal, certainly not if he has misconstrued your relationship with him. That is unfortunately something you and I have no control over. The only thing I can do is try to give you adequate advice to get you to a better situation, and from my perspective a better situation is one in which you don't have to stress about whether or not this person is alluding to more in your conversations, and again from my perspective the best way to solve that problem is to remove the stressor. Your old teacher has become a stressor in your life, and that isn't something you need to be dealing with. I hope this helps, love. If you ever want or need more advice, feel free to reach out to us again.

Stay strong,
The Advice Column Team