Forever Changed

In September of 2018, my life was forever changed when I sat down with leaders in my church and told them I had been involved in a sexual relationship with our pastor.

In 2009, my family moved back to our hometown and began attending the little Methodist church that my husband had grown up in. That summer our church was appointed a new pastor. He and I started working together more closely throughout the years because I served in many areas in our church. I eventually took over leading worship and worked directly under him. I became close friends with his wife, and he and my husband were also good friends. Our families spent a lot of time together outside of church.

Five years ago, he became aware of a very difficult area in my life and agreed to counsel me. We began counseling sessions on a regular basis for the next three months to discuss problems I was having in my marriage. During this time he became aware of my many vulnerabilities, insecurities and struggles. Over the years, the pastor paid special attention to me in a way that others noticed. He gave me gifts, and cards, and was always encouraging me. He arranged for us to work together on many ministry tasks and events and invited me to go on a mission trip to India with him and a small team from our church. He was always asking me if I could come to his office to meet and talk about ministry. At one point, our praise band needed a drummer and he came to me and asked about joining and he ended up becoming our drummer.

In time, we became closer and he began to reveal and share very personal things about his life; from ministry struggles to family issues. We would have very long and deep conversations about our lives and about our faith. He also told me many personal confidences that other church members had shared with him. I knew whom he liked and didn’t like at the church. All of this began to strengthen the trust I had in him and made me feel special. The last couple years, our conversations became more frequent. He started slipping in comments and asking questions about aspects of my sexual life. He would say negative things about my husband and husband’s family (who attended the church). It was so subtle I didn’t even realize he was beginning to drive a wedge between me and them.

He also knew I struggled with depression and would call me asking me to talk to him about what I was dealing with. At this time, I thought he was just being a good friend and pastor. I trusted him, in many ways more than I trusted myself. He had cemented himself in my life in a way that I began to depend upon him for affirmation and validation. He became my very best friend and continued to mentor and counsel me on various life issues.

In November of 2017, he revealed to me that there was an attraction and I had realized a few months prior that I was emotionally attached to him. I was never physically attracted to him, but I had grown to need him in my life and was very emotionally involved. While I had been wrestling with this for a few months, he revealed to me that he had been dealing with his feelings for me for years. I had no idea that he had felt that way. We discussed it and agreed we would still be able to work together in ministry and that nothing would happen. He would still call me to his office wanting to discuss our situation. He started instigating physical contact that usually consisted of long hugs. I would eventually pull away and tell him I needed to go. On a few occasions he let his hands wander. On one occasion, I grabbed his wrist to stop him from going any further. The attention, I’ll admit, was nice. He noticed me in a way that I’m not sure anyone ever had. The entire time I never thought we’d cross any lines, I thought we’d always be in control.

Eventually he steered our conversations in a sexual direction, and I went along with it. During this time, I was extremely confused. I was dealing with an array of emotions. There was a part of me that was very flattered that he felt this way about me. This was a man I had the utmost respect for, and he loved me and cared for me. I was also dealing with guilt and shame, knowing that what I was involved in was wrong. In late December of 2017, a physical line was crossed. I allowed it to happen. Afterwards I told him that what we did was wrong, and he told me that it wasn’t any worse than drugs or alcohol. In January of 2018, a sexual relationship began.

Over the next 7 months, we would be involved in what I thought was an “affair.” I began to convince myself that I was in love with him. During our relationship, we would meet and often have physical encounters in his office and in the parsonage where his family lived. He told me about his marriage problems and that his wife was cold and distant. He said that she also has physical issues that affected their sex life. I felt sorry for him. He said he couldn’t remember the last time he felt wanted. I really saw a different side of him that I never knew about. He confided in me that when he was younger, he had frequented strip clubs and had looked at porn. He made me promise not to tell anyone about our relationship. He repeated over and over that he could lose his license to pastor and that his family would lose everything and become homeless. He also said it would destroy the church and hurt a lot of people. I promised him that I would never tell.

I attempted to end the relationship a few times to only have him talk me into staying involved with him. I didn’t understand the influence and control that he had over me. I just knew I didn’t want to hurt him or reject him. I went along with things he asked me to do even though I didn’t want to. He was always wanting to have sexually explicit conversations through text and wanted me to send pictures to him. He then started sending pictures of himself to me. I had this need to please him. And the sad truth was I didn’t want to lose him. I compromised everything about myself for him.

In August of 2018, his wife discovered old emails and confronted him. This began a series of lies and cover up orchestrated by the pastor. He believed that if he could lie to his wife about the nature of our relationship, she would eventually be able to move past it and the church never needed to know. He lied to her and then he asked me to lie to her always reminding me of the promise I made to him to protect him. The following weeks, I realized I could not keep this from my husband, so I confessed to him the whole truth about the nature of my relationship with the pastor. The pastor lied to church leaders and took a leave of absence hoping to escape the fallout from his wife finally learning the truth about our relationship. I then met with church leaders and told them what had been going on.

The next several months were the most difficult time of my life. Higher representatives from the Methodist Church got involved and placed the pastor on suspension and removed him from the appointment at our church. My name got out and everyone knew it was me who had been involved with him. I was the one who came forward with the truth and yet much of the anger and blame was directed towards me. I was asked to step down as worship leader by the leaders in the church.

I was appointed a victim advocate who helped me see that my relationship with the pastor was not an affair but an abuse of power, manipulation and exploitation of the very worst kind. I realized after I ended contact with the pastor and emerged from this fog, I felt I had been in, that I really didn’t love him that way, that the entire time I had been manipulated into believing that I loved him.

I filed a formal complaint of clergy sexual misconduct against the pastor and after many meetings with Methodist Church representatives and painful and difficult months, he surrendered his credentials under threat of formal charges of clergy sexual misconduct. The pastor went to people in the church, even though he was instructed to cease contact, and made up lies and spread rumors about me and my husband. He controlled the narrative of the story and blamed me for everything that happened. He never apologized to me or my family for what he did to us. My family has left the church—the church my husband has been a part of for 40 years, the church that I faithfully served and loved for 10 years. We have been shunned, ostracized, and treated less than human by many that we once considered to be “family.” The local church body offered us no help, none of the church leaders reached out to us to minister to us. They turned their backs on us and most defended the pastor. I deal with a lot of anxiety when I must go out for fear of running into someone we used to go to church with. I was suicidal at times and even wrote a suicide letter believing it would be better if I wasn’t alive. I felt I had lost everything. This has also caused problems in my husband’s family as well.

There is a severe lack of understanding about clergy sexual abuse and where the blame lies. My husband and I are in marriage counseling, and even our counselor understands that what happened was an abuse of power.

My pastor, this man who I trusted and respected, targeted me. He told me during our involvement that that for seven years he had been trying to get as close to me as he possibly could. He wrote me a letter and talked about how he used to watch me and learn things about me and how he veered off into stalker territory. This man wrecked me, and I am still struggling with the pain, and the guilt of what has happened.

In the Methodist Church there are rules that are to be followed when a male pastor counsels a female congregant. The pastor is never supposed to counsel a female alone behind closed doors. There must be a third party in the room, or the door must remain open. All doors in the church office buildings must have a glass window as well. During our involvement the pastor put blinds on his window, and no one said anything to him. He also met with me countless times behind closed doors with no one else in the room. The sad reality is, if the rules had been followed, this would have never happened.

I am continuing to grieve the losses I’ve endured. I’ve lost so many friends, my faith community, and my reputation. However, God is working and restoring so many things in my life. Most importantly, my marriage. My husband has been an incredible support throughout all of this. Once he understood that this was abuse, not an affair, he has stood by my side. Counseling has been the best thing for us.

Even during the most devastating thing that has happened to me, God is still so good. I thank Him for bringing me this far. I know I have a long way to go, but I also know that God will work this out for His good and His glory. I am so thankful for The Hope of Survivors, I have connected with other victims of clergy abuse and I realize now, that I am not alone.

Author: J.

If you are a survivor of clergy sexual abuse, we would love to hear your story and possibly make it available on this web site for others to read and renew their hope. You can use a pseudonym if you choose and rest assured that all personal information will be kept private and strictly confidential. Please contact us.

Please note We do not necessarily agree with or endorse all the information contained in the survivor’s stories. We do, however, feel they have some valuable information that could be useful to you in your recovery. It helps to know you’re not alone, that others have shared your pain and have healed, by the grace of God, in their own time and way.