Premarital Sex, Our Pastor, & The Church
Submitted by Splash! on September 03 2000 04:58:28
In reply to Premarital Sex, Our Pastor, & The Church submitted by Derek on September 01 2000 01:59:27
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This post is in reply to Derek's comments: "When reading your story, it was clear to me that if I were looking at the situation from the outside, without knowing your feelings, I would say that the relationship where you were struggling was the one with the boy's mom, not with the boy. It would look like your relationship with the boy was very healthy and beneficial to him, and rooted in purity. However, your relationship with his mom contained quite a bit of sexual impurity... Considering your feelings/desires, I'm not sure what this means, other than you've been extremely successful at controlling your desires towards the boy." I can barely remember how my sexual relationship with his mother had begun. I'm pretty sure that she took the initiative most of them time in the beginning, and I was slow to stop her. I was excited about becoming the boy's mother's boyfriend. It was even more exciting to know that I had become so accepted by the boy's mother that she was comfortable with acting out sexually with me and making me a regular part of her and her children's lives. The whole family and I started to do everything together -- go to church, go shopping, go out to eat, go to the park, take the kids to the doctor, go on trips, visit her family, etc. A couple times when we'd go out, I heard other people say, "What a beautiful looking family." Though it bugged the older kids to hear that, I thought it was great -- I had actually become a part of this family. Becoming part of the family changed my mentoring role with her son. I no longer had to get calls about his bad behavior -- I now saw his bad behavior. I was able to catch him in the middle of making a bad choice and talk to him about it. I saw how he acted on a daily, even hourly, basis. My discipleship became more effective. I was able to use examples from his own life to guide him and teach him lessons. This made the reality of Christianity much more clear to him -- it was now becoming a part of his daily thoughts because I was causing him to think about the things I was now witnessing him doing from day to day. I was studying the Bible with him and helping him learn verses, and I was praying with him much more regularly. Of course part of me felt like a hypocrite because I was being a great spiritual influence in his life at the same time as having lustful thoughts about him. I felt guilty about this all the time. This guilt may have led me to respond more passionately to his mother's sexual advances. At least it was the lesser of the two evils I could have chosen. She and I attended the same church for many years. I never once thought I'd ever be anything more to her than a brother in the Lord. I was actually closer to her husband, and when I say "closer" I don't mean to suggest that I was attracted to him -- it is very rare that I am ever attracted to any man. Her husband and I used to share notes during church, and we'd often back up each other's comments during Sunday school. We had a couple ministries together. We talked a lot about things going on in the church and general questions about the Bible. One year I went on a Christian retreat with his wife and several other people from the church. He told me how much he loved his wife and how great she was, and he hoped that we would enjoy the trip. He was staying home to be with the kids. I didn't spend much time around his wife during the trip. The men and women were pretty much kept separate from each other the whole time. But at one point, I got on a bus with her. She was the only person I knew on the bus who had a space next to her. So I sat down next to her. We made light conversation, but she seemed irritated with me and kept looking out the window most of the time. I left her alone for the rest of the trip. No one would've ever thought at that time that we'd ever be a couple. It wasn't until I developed a friendship with her husband, and an even stronger friendship with her son, that she started to take note of me. The more she got to know me, the more she got to like me. We started to spend more time together, and she'd sit next to me at church during the weekday Bible study while her husband was away at work in another state. On Sundays, I was usually the last person that her and her husband spoke to at church since all her kids would gather around my car after church. That's when they started inviting me over for dinner, or we'd all go to see a movie together. Some of the other church members took note, and they also noticed how her kids really liked me and always seemed to be surrounding me after church and during church get-togethers. One weekend I was asked to babysit the kids while their parents went to spend some time together. I already discussed this in detail during an earlier post. About a month after that, I got a phone call from the kids' mother. She said, "I just wanted you to be the first to know that I've decided to get a divorce." I was actually very upset with her -- after all, I was a Christian brother who was close to her family and I saw no reason for the divorce. She said, "I was hoping you'd be my friend." I asked her, "How can you do that to the kids?" And she said, "Well, I still want you to be there for my son and the other kids." The church took the side of her husband since she was the one wanting the divorce. It would later come out that her husband had been living a double-life by having sex with other women, gambling away a lot of his paycheck, and stealing products from his company while selling them on the black market, among other things. But during the entire divorce process, the church took his side and shunned his wife. The rest is a huge story, so I'll only touch on some of the highlights. I'm sure that I will eventually get into more of the details in future posts on this forum. Anyway, I was the only one in the entire church that gave her any support. I called her and visited with her. I gave her food, and helped her make the house payment. Her husband did absolutely nothing during this whole period. Also, the church never called to see how she and the kids were doing. She had attended that church since her oldest son was in diapers. Her husband got saved there. Her kids grew up there. But not one person from the church checked up on her and the kids. Her husband and I talked on the phone a lot during these times. I'm sure his phone bill was enormous since he had to call long-distance because he had left the state entirely. He left a message on my answering machine almost every hour of the day. One time he had to come into town for something, and he visited me at work to talk about the divorce. He was actually using me. He knew that he had been involved in a lot of bad things, but he wasn't sure what his wife knew, and he wanted me to find out from her and tell him exactly why she was getting the divorce, and what evidence she had, so that he could defend himself in court and among their mutual Christian friends from the church. I have never been the kind of person to tell another person what one person had confided in me. Her husband became very frustrated with me. I wasn't giving him the info he asked for. He changed his strategy. I had already been taking the kids to church on Sunday since their mother wouldn't go, after being shunned by the church. Now their father started to show up just on Sunday morning to take the kids to church. He wanted to make the church believe that he was the good guy, and he wanted the church to think that *I* was the reason for the divorce. A mutual friend of ours tipped me off to his plan -- he wanted to make a scene with me in front of the other church members. I made sure not to go to church when he showed up. Others told me that when he'd come, he'd act very nervous and keep looking back as if he was waiting for someone to walk into the church. He was waiting for me. It must've appeared strange to the church. One Sunday I'd take the kids to church, and the next Sunday he'd take the kids to church. He told other church members that I was forcing the kids to go to church with me since they really didn't want to go with me. This was wrong. Some of them saw it as wrong. They watched as the kids all sat next to me and talked happily with me. My young friend sat right next to me. I told him, "You don't have to sit with me. You can go be with your friends." But he said he wanted to stay with me. The other kids said the same thing. During one of the worship songs, with my young friend standing right next to me, I heard him singing. I had heard him sing many times before (for church plays and other programs), but this time he sounded like an angel. I was surprised he was even singing since most kids don't sing during adult worship. I never wanted to forget that voice, and I made sure to burn that memory into my brain. I talked with him later about it, but he has never sung like that around me since then because I had made such a big deal out of it. I wish I could've recorded him. Anyway, I had avoided the kids' father at church. His strategy was to make it look like he was angry with me and that the kids didn't like me. I stayed away from church the Sundays he picked up the kids. So he went through with the rest of his plan and told several members of the church that I was having an affair with his wife and that the kids were telling him bad things that I was doing with their mother. He'd been going to that church almost twice as long as I had, and many of the people he talked with took him seriously. Several of the church members invited him and the kids over for lunch, and that's where he would go into a long story about my affair with his wife and what the kids saw happening. My young friend told me some of the things his father had been saying about me. (I went into some detail about these things in an earlier post). Nevertheless, their father kept calling my apartment and acting friendly with me during this time. I'd get a call right after talking to him by someone in the church who would tell me about things he had been saying and I'd say, "Well, I just got off the phone with him and we seem to be getting along pretty well." I couldn't understand what was going on. Some church members would say, "He's mad at you for being at his wife's house the other night," and I'd say, "He knows I was at his wife's house the other night. I talked to him about it before I went. He told me that I should be there to comfort his wife and children during this difficult time. Here's his number... you can even call him and ask him." I later found out that he'd call one of his neighbors (after knowing that I would be at his wife's house) and tell the neighbor if my car was over there. When the neighbor said, "Yes," he would act all mad and talk about me having an affair with his wife. My closest Christian friends would attack me with the things he had talked to them about. I would have to stop them and ask, "Shouldn't you ask me if that's true before getting mad at me about it?" They wouldn't. They couldn't believe that another Christian had lied to them, and since I was the one having the supposed affair, then I was the one who had something to hide, and I was the one who had to be the liar. Eventually, the pastor set up a meeting with me and the associate pastor (since he would be out of town). I had become a good friend of the pastor's. He had two grown daughters and I know that he often saw me as the son he never had. He liked me a lot. It was strange that he was setting up a meeting between the associate pastor and me. The senior pastor was using the excuse that he would be out of town as a way to not have this meeting with me himself. I had a good idea what the meeting was about. I loaded up all my ministry materials in the back of my car, and went to meet with the associate pastor. There's not much to say about this meeting except that the associate pastor pulled my ministries from me, and he was surprised to hear that I brought my ministry materials with me. I said, "I have them in the car; I'll bring them in." As I was doing that, the senior pastor's wife arrived and yelled at me about my Christianity. I felt she was totally in the wrong, and I didn't say anything. I still went to church and Sunday school on Sundays (no longer bringing the kids). I was beginning to feel unwelcome. No one was being nice to me. No one was saying "Hi" to me, and no one was walking up to me. I still answered Bible questions during Sunday school, and some people were impressed with my knowledge, but I could tell that they were uncomfortable with me being there. When I went home each Sunday, no one shook my hand or said, "Goodbye, have a good week." I walked out to my car without anyone saying anything. One time, okay. Two times, strange. The third time, I knew something was up. The senior pastor called me to meet with him. The kids' dad had been calling him pretty regularly and crying to him. I never called the pastor back to make the appointment. I already knew that he had become a victim to the rumours and wanted to discuss them with me. I was angry that he'd even consider the rumours to be truth, but I still went to church. At the same time, I had been going to my young friend's house during the week -- bringing them food, and fixing up the things around the house that his father never had time for since he had always been gone during the week. The pastor had called his mother and she told him about all the things I had been doing around the house and what a great influence I was on her son's life. The pastor invited her back to the church but she told him that she could no longer be a part of the church because of the way the people viewed her. She didn't feel that she had friends there anymore. One day when I was at work, the pastor came in. He had never come to my work before. He told me, "You don't know how much I love that family!" He was almost in tears. He stressed that I should make that meeting with him. I respected his feelings and had the meeting with him. He told me, "I feel that you are doing what's right in your own eyes." He talked to me about my involvement with my young friend's mother. He said I wasn't setting a good example for the kids, and he told me that if anyone was going to help her and the kids that it should be the men's group and not me. (By the way, the men's group never asked if she needed help. In fact, no one did from that church. Another church stepped in instead). He also told me that if I ever thought about being her boyfriend that I couldn't be, even after the divorce. I was told to stay away from her house and not have any contact with her. I explained that I had been discipling her son for quite some time. The pastor suggested that it was best that I had nothing to do with the family. I thanked him for his words and left. When I showed up for church the next Sunday, the pastor gave me a hug. I felt as if he was hugging me in a way that welcomed me back to the church. The pastor had thought that by my showing up at church that I had agreed with his suggestions. Not true. I was not going to leave that family alone, especially not after seeing that no one else was there for them. A couple weeks later I got a letter from the Board that my membership had been pulled. The letter said that they had been shocked by my recent behavior. I continued to go to church for a couple more weeks, but I was being totally ignored, so I left for good. Within a week or two, I took my young friend's family, along with his mother and my nephew, to another church. We went to that church for a few months. It was tough finding a good church, and being a spirit-filled Christian, I was looking for another "spirit-filled" church. We often ran into other people we knew -- most of them couldn't understand why her husband was gone and I was now with the family. It made for an uncomfortable situation. We went to many churches -- many of them felt dry or dead. We finally ended up going to a Baptist church where we felt very comfortable. It was important for the kids (at least) to be going to church -- to know the importance of staying in touch with God and having a continuing relationship with the Lord. It was now at least three months after the divorce, and I had been dating the kids' mother for awhile. No less than three men from the previous church called the kids' mother to make a date with her. I found this to be very hypocritical of them since they had shunned her at the time the divorce was announced and not one of them called her to see if she and the kids were doing okay. One of the men who called her, visited her, and talked sexual with her was a married elder from the previous church. And I was the one to get *my* membership pulled? She and I started doing a lot of things without the children. We'd take off to the park for an afternoon, walking alongside the river and holding hands -- sometimes bringing a picnic lunch. We often went out to eat and to the movies. During the movies, we'd hold hands while weaving our fingers in and out of the other person's fingers -- this actually started us to become more passionate with each other. We did a lot of touching in the dark during the movie. It was one of the few places where we could do anything with each other. At the house, the kids generally weren't ready to see their mom (recently divorced) and me (a longtime friend of the family) becoming passionate with each other. And in public, we had to be careful about having our own friends (mostly Christian friends) seeing us act sexual with each other. We were already dealing with the rumours of us having an affair, and both of us were angry at our church and pastor for shunning us based on rumours. There was a Bonnie Raitt song that was playing a lot on the local Adult Contemporary station called, "Let's Give Them Something To Talk About." And that was how we started to feel. Our friends thought we were doing things we weren't, and a whole church had shunned the both of us. We felt compelled to give everyone something to talk about. This was about the time that we took our passion to my bedroom. My apartment was a private place -- a get away from the world, and a retreat from the kids. All we had was each other. Our trust and faith in other Christians had been seriously damaged, and we felt that God gave us to each other for comfort. In fact, our thinking had become warped, if it had not been previously. It wasn't too hard to be sexual with each other -- it made us both feel loved and accepted when nothing else seemed to be doing it for each other. We were alone in the world, together. And we were going to fight our inner demons, together (besides the one in me that she didn't know about). About 5 years earlier, I had been involved in a very dramatic and sexual relationship. I had promised myself that I would no longer make sex the focus of another relationship until I got married first. This promise was born out of a new love for the Lord which came about through my being involved with the church and many ministries. I intended to live a holy life, and had succeeded pretty well up until the point that I was rumoured to be having an affair. I felt like my whole Christian life had crumbled, and as a result of that, I found myself more vulnerable to temptations. Society makes it seem natural for a man to have sex with a woman before marriage. I felt okay with it after leaving the church and having no Christian friends that I could trust any longer. In fact, I justified my relationship with her in many different ways -- many of these ways seemed to be of God. I thought I was going to be her strength, the kids' strength, to get through this rough period of their lives. I had a bunch of feelings. This was a very climatic (excuse the pun) time in both of our lives. It was how we found comfort. I don't mean to make excuses for having sex before marriage. I am guilty for acting on these temptations and falling into immorality. I am only telling this part of my story to help others at least understand how a Christian leader could fall to this level. Also remember the inner sexual attraction I had toward her son who I often fantasized about. This root of sin was also tearing me apart as a Christian. And it was an exciting idea to have a sexual relationship with the divorced mother of a boy I loved -- I was going to be moving in with him and maybe become his stepfather. I was going to become VERY close to him through my relationship with his mother. Maybe I subconsciously (or consciously) used his mother as a way to get to him? I'd like to think that I was sincerely concerned about her and in love with her also, but it's so hard for us as humans in the flesh to figure out our motivations when so many of them, if not all, are based in selfishness. I'd be interested in hearing about other boylover experiences regarding the church. I have yet to tell a pastor about my sexual urges toward boys. However, I am thinking about making peace with the pastor above and many of the church members in the very near future. One of the things I need to talk to him about are the times that he called my girlfriend and made sexual advances over the phone. She thought it was fun to encourage him. I was sitting nearby during one of these conversations, and I couldn't believe the things they talked about. He asked her to write e-mails to him and then decided that she shouldn't since his wife often sees the e-mails he gets. She thought it was fun that a man of God would be willing to sacrifice his marriage and his church for her. I told her, "He is accountable for a whole church. If you bring him down, it will also destroy the whole church. It will destroy his marriage and his family. And you will be responsible for that. You better leave him alone." The problem was, he wasn't leaving her alone. After he found out that she had shared his conversations with me, he stopped calling. I broke up with her about a year later, and she got involved with the pastor (not sexually, as far as I know, but they did meet alone together at least once). She even went back to the church because of her new-found friendship with the pastor. The pastor finally realized the danger and had the Board write her a letter telling her that she could not come back to the church or have contact with the pastor until she subjected herself to questioning by the Board regarding her past behavior and current relationship with the Lord. (She gave me a copy of the letter soon after we got on speaking terms again). Anyway, I'm seriously thinking about meeting with this pastor again. A couple of my friends who go to that church say that the pastor has really changed lately and is on-fire for the Lord. It seems as if he's come to repentance about the whole situation. Also, I know he was concerned about me and loved me like a father, and I think I owe it to him (and to my relationship with God) to meet with him, discuss what I have against him, ask forgiveness, give forgiveness, and come to some kind of closure. I may even decide to go back to that church -- it was one of the best churches I'd ever attended and it had a lot of opportunities for ministry. I'm thinking that many of the church members are more understanding of my situation after seeing the fruit that came out of it and seeing how far the kids' father has fallen. I know that many won't express their love or forgiveness toward me, but I also know that it's their problem and that's "on their heads" as the saying goes. Anyone have any thoughts about this? Well, I'm going to close this post for now. Derek, you brought up some good questions, and I'd like to expand on a couple other points you brought up, but I will have to do that in another post. Thanks for being honest with me even though you felt it may not have been seen as "positive" by me. I appreciate it. ~Splash* |
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