When Amy Cox was just 18 years old, she married one of her high school teachers, 37-year-old Matthew Shane Wester. Amy was just 17 when their relationship began, and at the time, she didn’t really see anything wrong with it. Because she was just a teen, she initially believed their relationship was a friendly one that later turned romantic. In retrospect, she can see that it was “definitely grooming.”
Now, more than 10 years later, Amy has told the story from her perspective in a series of videos. The relationship, which she says later became emotionally and physically abusive, was not a secret — their marriage was widely reported in the news when the scandal came to light. But as part of her healing process, Amy’s sharing the details.
One day, her teacher gave her his phone number.
When this happened, Amy, who goes by @amyncox on TikTok, had already had him as a teacher for several years. In that time, they had formed a bond with each other, but she didn’t really think anything of it. In one of her videos, she explained that several other students found him attractive. When her teacher confessed he had liked her for a couple of years and couldn’t stop thinking about her, she trusted him and didn’t see him as a predator.
At first, she thought their relationship was just friendly, but looking back, she can see how it was definitely flirtatious and inappropriate. Other people at school noticed something was going on between them, as they didn’t do a very good job of keeping their connection a secret.
Though the teacher was married, he told Amy that he was getting divorced.
As their relationship progressed, police got involved.
One day, the teacher warned Amy that detectives would likely be questioning them about the nature of their relationship. According to her, they were both put in separate rooms and were interviewed. She didn’t reveal much. At the time, she just wanted to protect her teacher.
After the interviews, she received a call from an unknown number. It was him. He wanted to know exactly what she had told the detectives.
Later, when the teacher faced legal charges, he and Amy got married.
@amyncox Follow along!
♬ original sound – amyncox
Still determined to protect her teacher, Amy stuck by his side, even when her dad tried to warn her about him. “I was 18, and I was fully head over heels in love,” she explained. So when her teacher proposed to her, she said “Yes.” Now, she believes that he never really loved her and only married her in attempt to avoid legal charges.
In 2015, District Attorney Pamela Casey explained to AL.com that the charges against the teacher came “from an investigation of his relationship with the victim while she was a student and he was a teacher.”
After they got married, the district attorney said, “Now that the legal status of their relationship has changed, we will have to look at our case to determine how we will proceed.”
Amy said the marriage was abusive.
@amyncox ♬ original sound – amyncox
Her former teacher had several rules for her when they were married. She couldn’t go out without makeup because he looked more like her father than her partner, and he wanted her to appear older when they went out together. He also told her she couldn’t communicate with her own dad. Additionally, he told her she had to call his ex-wife and apologize to her for ruining her family.
He also owned guns and would sometimes put one to his head or to her head during arguments, Amy said in one of her videos. Eventually, Amy told her dad about the abuse and was able to get away. They got divorced, and Amy eventually married her current husband.
“My ex never had love for me,” she said in the video. “He had love for himself, and he was only on the lookout for himself.”
