Real Life: ‘When my relationship with my gym teacher was allowed, I no longer felt like it’

Enough girlfriends who had an older boyfriend, but it was NOT the gym teacher. One thing led to another.

‘I was in 4 havo and didn’t feel like doing anything. I couldn’t wait to leave that godforsaken hole. Not that I had any solid ideas about my studies, but moving in with my girlfriends, being free, I just wanted it to happen as quickly as possible. Strangely enough, I didn’t find school boring. If only because it was the place where I could chat, hang out with my friends, and buy croissants at Délifrance during a break (which we sometimes extended by an hour). We thought it was really very grown-up to sit there for a bit. I didn’t find boys my age interesting. Those wispy mustaches, the pimples, arms and legs like rolled-out pieces of clay.’

Maarten was there in the first week of the new year. He was a gym teacher and had just graduated from CIOS. He was 24, I was 16. In all subjects at school, I was a sixes hunter, but gym, I liked that. I biked fifteen kilometers to school every day (I did say I lived in a godforsaken hole?) and back, and I did all sorts of water sports like surfing and water skiing. Man, those upper arms of mine, I can still look at them with jealousy years later.

Maarten made a joke about the attendance list where four of the fifteen girls were listed. ‘All on their period, I suppose?’ and I laughed because I knew my friends‘ excuses. He continued: ’I really encountered some very special specimens during my internship, they were on their period three times a month, unprecedented right?’

I couldn’t imagine wanting to skip gym, I thought it was the best hours of the week. And since Maarten was there, I came a bit earlier and always helped tidy up the thick mat and the vaulting horse.

It seemed like he was always tanned and despite the fact that he didn’t show off his body by wearing short and tight shirts, you could see his muscles through his hoodie.

On Fridays, he finished at the same time as I did, and we often ran into each other as he biked to his apartment in the center and I headed towards the café to kick off the weekend with my classmates. Weeks went by without anything happening until that one Friday in May. The father of a friend of mine had committed suicide, and I was so devastated that I was crying on my bike. Maarten saw it and suggested we park our bikes and sit on a bench. My head quickly rested on his shoulder, and his arm was naturally around me. It didn’t feel wrong. Not at all. Mr. Miselli from French could have done that too. Right? After that, he sent me a text. How I was doing and that he liked being there for me. One thing led to another. Because I was aware of the forbidden component of an affair with your teacher, I told my parents. They reacted very understandingly. I would turn 17 that summer, and yes, there was of course an age difference and I was officially a minor, but on the other hand, I had enough girlfriends who had an older boyfriend. Only it wasn’t the gym teacher.

My parents decided to approve of the relationship because they also knew that you can’t stop a teenage girl. I believe Estelle Cruijff once said: ‘A vagina attracts more than ten horses’ and that is quite blunt, but I think she is right because I just wanted to be with Maarten. If necessary, I would have given up the whole havo and gone abroad with him. I was glad that my parents and I had the relationship in which this could develop. So at school, it was a big secret, my two best friends knew about it and my parents. Maarten could come on vacation, Maarten came for dinner, stayed over. As a positive side effect, I started to do much better at school because there was no better motivation to pass quickly.

‘In the evenings in bed, we fantasized about post-high school life. I looked at programs nearby and would move in with Maarten. We would shout our love from the rooftops and further, and Maarten even mentioned the T-word (marriage!). Our love was great, and this, this was the intention.

Then there were the end parties. The house parties at friends' houses with a swimming pool. The stories about who was going to study where and who was going to live with whom in a student house. I didn’t really participate in the conversations, afraid of revealing my secret. It surprised people that I didn’t want to go to Utrecht or Amsterdam either. I always seemed like such a big city girl.

I decided to study pedagogy in our provincial town. Everything I had longed for was now a reality. I biked to my studies, walked with our little dog (a gift from Maarten for my graduation), did grocery shopping, and waited for Maarten. In the evenings we went to exercise, to the movies, or stayed home. I longed to see my friends on the weekends, but they kept staying away more often. My mother said that the sparkle in my eyes seemed to be gone, and I broke down. I loved Maarten, intensely, but the S of excitement had turned into the S of boring and the V of being in love became the V of predictable.

I did what I had to do and broke his heart.

I still see Maarten sometimes when I visit my parents and go into town with my daughters. Fortunately, he has found love again, but when he sees me, he looks the other way.’

In this unusual time, we asked people for their honest story. To avoid hurting others, Maarten's name has been changed.