It Took Time to Realize That Adult Clergy Sexual Abuse Wasn’t an Affair
In the weeks after my husband discovered I was emotionally entangled with my Christian counsellor, I struggled to process what had happened, One moment, my counsellor was helping me work through some marital issues and the next, through a series of - what at the time seemed unimportant events - he was on the phone confessing his love for me.
Although, I now feel my own sense of betrayal from this counsellor, everyone around me told me that I was the betrayer in this “affair” and they treated me that way, so I took that on as my identity: an unfaithful wife.
Intervention was needed
What my husband and I both needed at that time was someone to intervene and explain that this was abuse and we had both been victims of my Christian counsellor.
I needed an advocate to step up and gently educate me while understanding that my emotional entanglement with the counsellor would keep me from seeing the nature of the abuse for some time.
My husband needed someone objective to step up and encourage him to not see me as the enemy or the perpetrator of this. We both needed someone to help us walk through this mess together.
Months later, a mentor from the Hope of Survivors retold me an analogy that she had heard Diane Langberg share:
The abuser is himself sick on the inside. He throws up on the victims and now they stink on the outside - to others and to each other and yet the abuser does not stink on the outside because his sickness is internal. He walks off leaving the couple in ruins.
Yeah, this fit well. No wonder we were both turning on each other. My husband trying to feel safe again and me trying to defend my honour. It was a catastrophic mess.
Was I to blame?
For months, I felt I was to blame for my counsellor sexualizing the relationship. That’s because I though that I must have been too friendly or flirty. I had been naive. I had shared too much. I had a million reasons why it must have been my fault, the biggest of which is that the people around me told me it was my fault.
In actual fact though, it was my counsellor who was to blame. He was the professional. He pulled down safeguards. He crossed boundaries, and he sexualized the relationship.
I responded for a number of reasons that I’ll talk about in another post. It’s true though, I chose not to tell my husband, and I felt like I had become a willing participant. In the aftermath, no one said any different. It became my identity for months, and even to this day I continue to shed the left over residue of those lies.
My husband and I did well during our affair recovery sessions because I silenced the growing feeling in me that I had somehow been wronged, and I focussed on being the unfaithful wife and giving him what he needed to heal. Let me be clear, I never wanted to deny him safety to recover from the trauma, but I do not think it should have been given at my own expense.
It was around 7 months after my husband had discovered the “relationship,” that I read a post on Instagram and it referenced an online organization called the Therapy Exploitation Link Line (TELL). What I found on that website would drastically change the trajectory of my healing and I’ll even say, my life.
Whoa! Are you telling me this was not an affair??
They were. They wrote with clarity and confidence. There was no maybe. I had been taken advantage of in what would be considered a crime in many places.
I began to read scholarly articles and victim stories of therapeutic abuse followed by clergy abuse. I saw myself in the stories as I began to see scenarios similar to mine. It didn’t matter if the exploitation was emotional or physical, online or in person, the experiences were so similar. Some of the pieces of the chaos of the past seven months started to make sense. I devoured everything I could on that site and scoured the internet for more.
I eventually found another organization called the Hope of Survivors. They are a support network for victims of clergy abuse. The amazing thing about this site was that they addressed adult victims and once again it was made clear to me that there could be no mutual consent in a relationship with a power imbalance and without mutual consent there is no affair, only abuse.
Finally! Someone understood my experience.
I connected with a few people at the Therapy Exploitation Link Line and they emailed me back and forth, listening to and validating my story. They helped me make sense of what had happened and challenged me to see it from an objective viewpoint.
I also had phone conversations with a lovely volunteer from the Hope of Survivors and again, having someone eloquently speak about experiences and emotions that I too had experienced, was very needed and appreciated.
Honestly, it was like for the first time in months, I was able to breathe again. Although I would need to hear it over and over and from many different sources, I learned I had been abused.
I am so grateful for these woman who spoke to me and guided me through this critical time.
Who could I trust with my story?
In a month’s time, I was dying to share what I’d learned but my husband did not feel like a safe option and in the end I spoke to one of my best friends. She had known about the “affair” since the day my husband found out and her response to me on this day was affirming.
She told me that her and her husband had been discussing it and truly believed that I had been taking on blame that wasn’t mine. This added to my confidence that I was not responsible for that counsellor’s behaviour and I felt the smallest bit of freedom.
I have spent the months since then searching, reading and learning about the abuse of adult women in the Christian church. I continue to learn more and unfortunately, I still need to advocate for myself with my husband. I hope will ultimately be able to advocate for others.
If you are a woman and you think that you may be a victim of abuse by someone in authority over you, please reach out. The making of one single connection can do wonders for the soul in a time of crisis. I’m here if you need to talk.