Katherine's Story of Having Been in a Secret Relationship with a Church Leader
My guest contributor today is Katherine Ma. She has decided to share her story with us wishing that others may somehow connect to what she’s gone through and know that there is hope.
If you know Katherine personally, or know of the people she mentions in her story, please be prudent with what you do with this information. It may be helpful to send a message to check-in on them or let them know that you’ve read this story. It would not be helpful to use this as an opportunity to speak unkindly of anyone in this blog post.
Reading Katherine’s story as a survivor of abuse has helped me to connect and I hope that if you’ve experienced something similar, you’d be able to connect also.
Trigger warning: This blog post contains a story about sexual abuse and coercion. This blog post also mentions ideas of self-harm and suicide.
I call him my ex but we were never really in an official dating relationship. It was a secret... Something. We cycled between days or weeks of passionate codependency and cold distance. In the former, I felt like I was loved and seen in a way that I never had before. In the latter, I frantically tried to restore that high that I achieved when we did things that we never should have. It had the semblance of an addiction but sometimes I thought it was my lifeline.
I came to church as a young teen, wide-eyed and infatuated. I had never been able to attain warmth and community anywhere, but here I thought I really saw it. Everyone was willing to discuss their commonality of faith - this faith which called everyone Brother and Sister, Father and Mother. Coming from a fractured family background, this gave me new definitions to those terms. One of the people who I looked up to was a boy only a few years older than me. Yet despite his age, everyone treated him beyond his years.
I felt so fortunate to be taken under his wing and for him to eventually become my closest friend. I confided in him about the deep insecurities and distress I experienced in my life, coming from a home where the children were caught in the crossfire of the vitriol of two parents who could not stand to live on the same floor. I told him about my social anxiety and my feelings of alienation among my classmates. The more I divulged, the higher on the pedestal he became. I remember feeling like he didn’t deserve to have these burdens dumped onto him by someone such as me, yet I was so fortunate that he stuck around. This feeling was at its strongest when he confessed his romantic intentions for me.
Despite his admittance, he did not want to get into a dating relationship with me. I was pulled back and forth in waves. I couldn’t help but to return his feelings, of course, because in my eyes he was near perfect.
Still, my mental health was suffering under the burden of my childhood instability and biology, and I was declining deeper into depression. I clung to him as the answer like he was the rope in a dark pit. I started asking for him to spend time with me more and more.
Eventually, we ended up watching shows together under a blanket in the night, which I felt was so new and bristling with romantic naivety. But I noticed hugs started to feel strange. Fingers crept under clothing. I was caught off guard but not willing to consider the conflicting feelings I was experiencing, and generally laughed it off.
Yet he persisted and eventually I relented. I let him touch the most guarded parts of me.
I remember feeling something like a panicked snap of realisation when he was finished. The rush of fear, anxiety, confusion, betrayal, hatred to him, hatred towards myself. I cried and shook and I pushed him away.
I refused to touch him until I realised he was not going to reach out to comfort me, and I still desperately needed his approval so I pulled at the edge of his shirt first.
We talked about it. He said he was so sorry. I said it’s okay - but to not do it again. He was almost begging for forgiveness and affirmation from me, and who was I to refuse it to him?
…Who was I?
Of course, it happened again. And again, and again, and again. The first dozen or so times, I would do the same routine - the snap of realisation; the pushing away; the crying and shaking.
And often, I would also be the first to begin the reconciliation. And he would apologise so sincerely. I think I remember he used to say he wouldn’t do it again each time, yet eventually he realised there was no meaning in those words.
So I lost meaning in my own words. I stopped saying anything against it at all. In fact, I sometimes was the initiator. Before this, I didn’t want to even hold the hand of a boy I wasn’t dating. Yet, it is almost comical to me the lengths I allowed him.
Throughout the entire year and half that we had this Thing, no one knew.
Only a few people suspected or were told there were romantic feelings between us, but they all thought it was largely one-sided on my part. I was the sad puppy younger girl following the benevolent and wise older boy.
He was a big leader in the church despite being hardly in his 20's and no one could conceive that we had a secret pseudo-relationship. It was not really a dating relationship in my eyes because there was no commitment or stability in it.
Perhaps one week we would have our secret relationship, and the next week he would be repentant and changed and would speak to me with an implied distance. It was a strange dance I felt in my head, where I had to test the waters at the beginning of every conversation to be able to tell which version of him I was going to receive that day.
On and off we went, until the part of me crying out for help eventually divulged a crumb of information to a mutual friend. Slowly, he began to let people know what happened, in the convenient vague term of Sexual Sin. For some reason, no one needed to know much more.
I always had excuses when I noticed the hypocrisy between his words and actions. I would think that he’s trying his best and I ended up making other excuses for his behaviour. I never paused to think if someone’s effort to be their best excused the fact that their best could still wound others.
I breathed a metaphorical sigh of relief when I felt it would continue no more. It just seemed to fade off - most likely because now other people’s eyes were on him, although they did not know the extent of the truth. There was some freedom now. Unfortunately some of that was freedom to introspect. What happened? What now? I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know.
I felt my world crashing down. No longer could I flee from the questions. I came face-to-face with the monster chasing me. I disappeared from the church and from my own friend group. I maintained spotty contact with the only ones that would reach out despite my flat-out refusal to respond at times.
I self harmed almost every day. For some reason, I could still regularly go to work, but I would spend my work week thinking about plans to end my life on some impending date.
Eventually I swam to the surface above the depths of my suffering. I wouldn’t always remain there, and some days now I still sink a little bit below. I’ve told many people fragments of my story, but I rarely rethink the whole ordeal.
I felt invalidated after I shared my experience with my former church but it was the love and grace of my current church that helped me gain clarity. I’ve now experienced the love and tangible care when it came to my church walking alongside me through this.
While it’s true that many church leaders will seek to maintain the guise of status quo and minimise the experience of abused victims, there are church leaders who seek to surround victims with true healing support.
It seems there is a constant stream of stories like mine. But, I wonder if there is a point to telling others. What if it’s more harmful than it is good? What if it’s spreading gossip and dissent in the church body?
Perhaps in part I am writing this to the Me of all those years ago. To tell her that what happened to her is sexual abuse and coercion. To tell her that it was deeply evil, but to tell her that she is deeply worthy of more. She is beloved, so she deserves to Be Loved. Not abused.
And then I think, there must be others out there who still need to hear the same. So I’ve decided to put my story out here, and let God do what He will with it.
If you or someone you know is in need of help from a similar situation there is a Resources tab on my website that is made available. In addition, we would highly suggest confiding in a trusted friend and church leader, if possible.
Unhealthy relationships can be very harmful and oftentimes it may feel like there is no hope, but that’s not true! If you’re currently in a similar situation, I pray the Spirit would direct you to the right people and help you to look to Jesus - our Comfort and Strength.
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