Hey reddit,

I am not quite sure where to go right now for advice, so I thought I’d come here. The title kind of says it all. We all worked as TAs as part of a graduate program - me and his ex are both in our final year, but he has already graduated and just recently got a full time faculty position. Here are a few more details that complicate things:

1) Biggest problem: A different woman filed a complaint against him for sexual assault 3 years ago. While at a party, he touched her breasts while performing a magic trick. He thought she had confirmed that she was OK with this and it was all for fun, but apparently she saw it differently (everyone was drunk, it was in front of a group of people who all thought it was “just for fun” too). He realizes now this was a dumb thing to do. He apologized and he faced disciplinary action and had to complete extra sexual harassment training but ultimately was allowed to keep his job (this is when he was still in the program as a TA).

2) His ex girlfriend knows this, and she knows that a second complaint will likely cause him to lose his current job.

3) She broke up with him last year, then wanted to get back together a month later. He said no thanks, but they could be friends. As the friendship developed, she began to think they were back together, and made sexual advances, which he all turned down. Eventually, he began dating me about 6 months ago, at which point she stopped speaking to him. She filed the complaint about one month after he got his job (before this job, he was unemployed and struggling to find work, so this job was a huge deal for him).

4) It is unclear what she means by “emotional and sexual abuse,” as the complaint did not say. From my point of view, this is ridiculous, as he is one of the kindest, least controlling people I’ve ever met in my life. He told me that their relationship had BDSM components, but they were all her idea, and he constantly asked her if everything was OK and she always said yes (I believe him, because our relationship has BDSM components as well and he has always been overly cautious).

5) In the past she has done similar things. For example, during the first few months when they were dating, she told him she thought she had been molested by her stepfather as a child. A few months later, she changed her might and said she realized she hadn’t been molested.

6) He is significantly older than both of us. He is 45, she is 27, and I’m 21.

He thinks that the fact that he has had a previous complaint filed against him and the fact that he is significantly older than her will convince the university to fire him immediately. Right now, they’re conducting an investigation. He’s convinced that they will fire him regardless of the results of the investigation.

I don’t know what to do right now. I can’t talk to anyone about it because I’m technically not supposed to know. All signs point to the fact that she’s making this up, but there’s no way to prove it. Should he get a lawyer? Has anyone dealt with a situation like this before? He’s not perfect, but he doesn’t deserve to be fired. If you guys have any advice at all, I would really, really appreciate it.