Spouse Swapping

The majority of adulterous affairs begin by relationships that were established through work. Last night, I went out to dinner with my friend Allison. I told her about the pattern of infidelity at my current place of employment, which, by the way, far surpasses similar patterns at other jobs I've had even though I've worked for much larger companies than this one. Another counselor in my department is a married to a teacher here. When they met as employees at this school, he was married to someone else and she was engaged to someone else. Both of those committments ended when they found each other instead. The varsity field hockey coach that I worked with here is also a homewrecker. He has successfully managed to get another teacher who he met here to leave her husband and two young children for him. She is not even divorced yet and the two of them have just purchased a $650K home together not far down the road from where John and I live. The athletic director here has wrecked his own marriage by telling his wife that he wants to be a bachelor again. He left her with her with their child and moved in with the husband and kids of the teacher who the varsity field hockey coach ran off with. We have so much drama here that they may as well rename this school Days of our Lives.

Even though I, and all of the aforementioned people, work in education, and one would think that the leaders of the school would want to show the students an example of a happy marriage in light of everything else that the students see going on at this place, it turns out that the quite the opposite is true. My husband and I both work at this school, but we never see each other unless we go out of the way to see each other. At the beginning of the school year, we ate lunch together every day (eat lunch, not hold hands or kiss or coo sweet nothings to each other, nothing inappropriate at all). Then our principal saw us and told us that such behavior is forbidden. At first I thought this was because as a counselor, I do not get a lunch break (or a planning period whereas the classroom teachers here have a lunch AND a minimum of two planning periods). But then I read in my contract that I am entitlted to take lunch. Just not with John, apparently. I don't see these other adulterous relationships being dealt with and they all occur under this same roof. Yet John and I are punished for wanting to be with each other instead of someone else. The majority of adulterous relationships begin at work. From my perspective, John and I should be encouraged to spend time together during our breaks so that we do not create another scandal in this school. But that's not the way our leadership sees it. Maybe spouse swapping is the new family value system that our school wants to show our students. Or maybe there are so many unhappy couples that they don't know how to handle a happy one.