All I can say is wow! Thank you for your honesty and for sharing. Sadly, I can see myself in the exact same situation as you describe. I don’t want to ruin anyone’s life (my family, his family, his ministry) yet here I am struggling with the situation. I’m finding it very difficult to keep control of my thought life…staying clean. Nothing physical has happened, but I see we’re playing with fire. Because of this, I recently opened up to my husband about the fact that I’ve had some inappropriate conversations with the pastor (nothing outrageuous, but inappropriate nonetheless). He is very upset with me, watches me like a hawk and has basically crucified me. This makes me very angry as I have not done anything in the realm of his multiple betrayls. Though extremely childish and selfish, a part of me feels like I’m glad he sees how it feels to be mistreated. Even sadder, I’m now concerned that he will feel that my indiscretion now gives him the green light to go back to his old ways. It’s all really messed up and I’m upset with myself for getting myself in this ridiculous situation. I would have never thought this in my wildest dreams…that’s why I know it’s the enemy. I have to just get back up and get back inline, praying and trusting that God will me through this. Please pray with me for strength and courage to move where ever God wants me to be.

My past unfortunately includes an affair on my part several years ago, with my new boss and freshly widowed pastor while I was his secretary at the church. I have suffered (and still suffer) terribly from this ordeal, which eventually led to my family leaving the church I was raised in and had served so well and loved so much (and where some of my family STILL attend).

I am convinced that my experience is not uncommon or unique! However, had I chosen to be honest about my developing feelings with him either with someone inside the church (elder perhaps) or my ever-emotionally estranged husband (albeit still “together” if only in the physical location sense), prior to deepening my involvement with this individual, I could have spared a lot of people a lot of pain, especially myself.

What I envisioned to be the worst thing in the world (confessing these feelings, leaving the church) would have been WAY better than what happened, which was a 1 1/2 year affair in secrecy; out-of-the-blue the pastor leaving his position (and the church) COMPLETELY unexplained to me; guilt & shame like you wouldn’t BELIEVE over what I perceived to be MY FAULT EXCLUSIVELY that this very gifted and effective pastor, teacher, and leader had resigned.

I internally and emotionally took (and carried for a long time) 100% of the blame for the complete loss of their beloved pastor, who had pretty much turned around and grown this struggling church, which was by then thriving. Unbeknownst to me, his resignation had to do with another affair from his past (while his wife was still living) which had surfaced. I knew nothing of this at the time.

Trapped into a position with NO explanation (or contact with me incidentally FROM that pastor), NO WAY OUT. At that point the church, more than ever, needed my organizational and administrative skills to pull them through, and the youth pastor (moving into replacement), who was not very administratively inclined :>), truly needed me to help deal with the aftermath of this blow and carry on the ministries of the church in the midst of the shock.

My marriage relationship was so non-existent at that time, that confessing was out of the question, if for no more reason than for my childrens’ sakes and the effect that would inevitably have on their lives. Had I confessed, someone would be hurt, lives destroyed even (my kids, husband, the pastor, etc). The affair was over and I kept it like a “thorn in my side,” viewing that as the most unselfish thing to do. I kept that hurt and carried it for a long time. Never was there a person in more torment, more trapped.

After a period of a few months, the pastor returned as a parishioner and resumed attendance, eventually marrying our close friend (newly divorced) who had worked very closely in the ministry with us through it all, furthering my torment (she had origins at the same church as him). I had become removed from her and was deeply grieving this friendship loss as well, as she also was coincidentally scarce in the church, and her volunteering, during his departure and the aftermath. Rumors abounded, which I stoically refused to believe at the time. I just kept picking up the pieces of the church, even as the pieces of my heart continued to fall, long after I didn’t think there were any fragments left!

During the months after his departure and up to and including “their” return to the church, I endured CONSTANT conversations, exposure, etc. within the realms of my job from church members and visitors to the office about reasons for his resignation, rumors about their relationship, his possible return to the ministry and steps necessary for him, proper/improper way he dealt with it all, etc., etc., etc. All while trying to hide my knowledge of our deception and betrayal.

(To complicate things even further, my sister had become the secretary at the nearby church where these two individuals had originally come from, and where the original and alleged affair with someone else had actually transpired. I also endured hearing innocently and totally unknowingly from her at the time, about specific indicents, including the feelings of that woman’s family members, and all the rumors at that church as well!)

God performs miracles. It is no small miracle at all that I am even here today after all of that. I know he kept me alive during some pretty isolated and suicidal times, maybe just for people and situations like this! (depression, 98 pounds, enough said!)

God worked immensely through the Youth Pastor and his wife and they ministered INCREDIBLY to me after God revealed this situation to them. Eventually I confessed to my husband (who unbelievably forgave me, no questions asked!), then to family members, to the church elders, and to the Conference Minister. That youth pastor, a year or so later, was asked to resign, which (although unfairly executed) provided the opportunity for me to leave it all behind. At that point, 1 1/4 years later, my family left that church forever.

I see that pastor’s resignation as the gift of God that it was, the answer to my many fervent prayers to remove me from my conflicted soul while in the affair, and the forced resignation of the second pastor as the freedom I so desired and prayed for at that time.

I liken my experience to my first car accident – I was a young driver and slid on the snowy road going around a corner, crossing the opposite lane of traffic, hitting a parked truck head-on, on the other side of the road, just as two men got into it. I remember thinking as I was skidding, “pump the brakes, pump the brakes, pump the brakes!” (This was before anti-lock braking). But I did NOT do it.
– DO YOU KNOW WHY I DIDN’T PUMP MY BRAKES? Because I remembered thinking that anything coming in the opposite direction would head-on collide with me. There was nothing coming in the opposite direction!!!! I totally could have avoided the entire accident!

Everything in dangerous situations happens so fast, it seems.
When you later reflect on your thoughts and feelings, sometimes it reveals the foolishness of them. Confession of feelings is better than confession of actions taken on them! There are no consequences like your betrayal of others, except the betrayal of your very self!

Causing to Sin
42″And if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck. 43If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.[c] 45And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell.[d] 47And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, 48where
” ‘their worm does not die,
and the fire is not quenched.’[e] 49Everyone will be salted with fire.
50″Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other.”

It is not possible for me to be at peace with that pastor and see him the same way, knowing the way he chose to deal with things (hiding, cowardice). I have forgiven him for the betrayal, the affair, the exclusion, etc. The one thing I continue to struggle with forgiving is the hiding of the sin, and continuing to act as if nothing happened, instead of coming forward and confessing, confronting, and allowing God’s cleansing to take place in the situation.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE get out of that church! Read the above scripture again. It will be very difficult for you to see that pastor differently on your own. It would be better to find a way to leave the church. If you don’t, you are playing with fire. It is difficult enough in today’s world, in a STRONG marriage (which I STILL do not consider myself to have), to resist having feelings for someone else – even more so if you are in a struggling one and have experienced betryal, as you say you have. I believe (and have experienced) that only God can change our feelings for our spouses. And for others. But it will not be without cost.

Please don’t be offended by any of this. I have suffered greatly through my experience and wanted to share for the possible benefit of someone else. Believe me when I tell you, I was the LAST person to have thought of having an affair. It came out the blue, completely unexpected. I am the one who knew that if anything ever happened to my husband, God forbid, that I would NEVER get involved with another man EVER again, the hurt was (and is still) so great in my marital relationship.

I have learned since how really vulnerable we ALL are, and how to more effectively get things out in the open (especially my feelings), regardless of how they will be perceived or reacted to. You see, the alternative is so unacceptable, so despicable, that there is no excuse or reason to not be forthright and open and brutally honest in all that we do, especially our marriages. The church is the one place on earth we should be able to live that way.

Please ponder all this, and pray about it, and most of all be blessed by it!