Junia’s Story
“Junia” alleges spiritual and emotional abuse at the hands of a CFC pastor’s wife.
When my marriage started going sideways, when the silences and solitudes between the two of us were only broken by his shouts of disappointment in me, I began sending messages. Facebook Messenger messages.
I needed witnesses to this tragedy that I could no longer avoid by praying more and loving more and hoping more and taking more hits for this team of two. I needed witnesses, so I sent messages.
I needed validation that his behavior was wrong and that I did not deserve it. I needed assurance that the things I wanted were ok for me to want and that I was not crazy. So I sent messages.
I needed to be able to go back and read what I said to my friends and what my friends said back to me. Anyone who lives in an abusive situation knows the confusion and self-doubt that plagues you. I needed things to be written down as reminders and for reference. So I sent messages.
I began to see the need to keep a record of what he did on which day, a calendar of the progression of his more and more out-of-control behavior.
So I sent messages.
Lots of messages.
To close friends, my sister, and to my pastor’s wife.
All in one Messenger group.
They were my warriors.
They had my back.
We all chatted back and forth about what was hard and weighty and painful and dying, from difficult relationships to scary diagnoses. It became a place for more than just me to cry out my pain to others who would pray — it was all of us, using this safe space to talk about all the disintegration we were experiencing. I purposely kept this chat just for those hard conversations, to the point that I then created the Shenanigans chat for all the goofy things that we shared.
I wanted it to be clear that when a
notification came up on our phones
from the Warriors channel, it was serious and we needed give it immediate attention.
All of us serving one another.
Or so I thought.
After I moved away from my husband, I met with my pastor and his wife on multiple occasions. Was it as bad as some of the stories I’ve heard about when a woman leaves an abusive marriage and her church leadership disapproves? No. But it was also not done well.
And here’s the thing: there were times when I broke through to my pastor. He actually became curious about what I knew and asked me what I thought on more than one occasion. He heard me and believed me and let my words and theology have weight with him.
So it wasn’t awful. The awful came later. From my pastor’s wife.
I ended up moving across country to be closer to my family. Since I’m a words girl and since I love the Word, I processed my marital loss by writing. There was this gorgeous, lengthy season of reading the Word with new eyes and hearing Him in a new way and questioning what I’d been taught for all those years; this beautiful season of just Him and me and no pastor telling me I was wrong to walk in this lovely liberty He died to give me.
My writing began to take shape and outline and chapter. There were so many books out there on Christian marriages gone wrong, but this one was mine, and my heart seeped onto every page and found its healing in doing so. And the words were true to me: vibrant, vivid, cluttered, thought-provoking, messy, candid.
The chapter I wrote about those counselling appointments after I left my husband was a tough one to write. I was gracious toward my pastor because in the end he heard me and believed me and I was grateful. I was gracious toward my pastor’s wife even though she never told him about the abuse that was going on in my marriage, that I was close to breaking or that eventually my husband broke me without ever laying a hand on me. I wrote her silence off as some code of conduct in the pastor’s wife handbook.
Looking back at that writing today, I was too gracious. I have learned much in the interim.
When I was done writing that chapter, I sent it off to my former pastor and his wife for feedback. I had done this with other chapters and other people, longing to have any blind spots pointed out and filled in.
They said they were so excited to get it and so excited to talk about it, and so excited for the phone call to discuss it and really appreciated my desire to have this conversation because, you know, Rick and Darlene were in a book too and it was not good. They so appreciated this opportunity.
That is the number of times my pastor’s wife lied to me about how she really felt about the chapter I had written about them and how she really felt about me. It was the number of times she lied to get me to take part in that call, where she would blindside me.
Because, when the truth was finally told, she was offended. She was offended at my guess as to why she did not tell her husband about my abuse, totally offended that I would write about her like she was some pansy “wall-flower pastor’s wife.”
And the excuse she gave on the call that day for not filling him in on my plight?
She never read those messages.
When she spoke those words, they ripped me open. I was bawling. I couldn’t catch my breath between sobs, let alone speak. In those messages to the Warriors group, I had dared to say out loud what was happening to me, I dared to share my shame before godly women witnesses and her excuse for not speaking up for me was that she NEVER HEARD ME?
She quickly finished her glib confession with a cheery, “But it’s ok, I forgive you!”
I clapped my hand over my mouth so she would not hear my gasp. She forgave ME?
My eyes flew wide and frantic as I tried to anchor the implications of her words to anything solid or real.
When people do this,
This blindsiding and abrupt confession and quick apology,
All in one breath,
It is a control maneuver.
They get to be the humble one
And the forgiving one
While giving you no room to speak,
No voice whatsoever.
Because if you question any bit of their apology
You are accused of being bitter and unforgiving.
It is a narcissistic powerplay.
The offense to her was that I guessed poorly about why she kept her silence and that my guess made her look bad. She remained totally unaware of the brutality of her words that she never even heard me, hadn’t bothered to listen.
And she’s unaware that this is lie number five and I can prove it.
Because I still have those messages. Those conversations in which she took part. Those times she used my Warriors for her own prayer needs. Those times I needed immediate prayer cover for wisdom in a difficult situation with an angry man but couldn’t get caught messaging so I’d message a few quick words and she’d reply, “praying” almost immediately along with everyone else.
Her excuse for not telling her husband, my pastor, that one of his sheep was in trouble, was a lie made up to cover her own reputation.
As I’ve tried to tell this story, the toxic convolutions have made it almost impossible for me to keep things straight. The line I use to describe myself is that I’m a checkers-girl in a chess world. I like simple and uncomplicated. I take things at face-value.
So I consulted my friend whose mind thinks in chess moves. And all the lightbulbs came on. It was DARVO.
DENY: My pastor’s wife lied to get me onto the phone call and blindside me. She denied we were at odds. Everything was all good and so ‘exciting’. Also, her quick forgiveness was another denial that there was a problem between us: “But it’s ok, I forgive you,” when things were seriously not ok.
ATTACK: She took my poor guess as to her motivations for not speaking to her husband about my situation very personally. She was offended by a guess that was really not the point of the writing but more of a side note to explaining my pastor’s lack of awareness. And then she attacked: She is no pansy, wall-flower pastor’s wife, as if I had lied about her in order to make her look bad, which leads to . . .
REVERSE VICTIM and OFFENDER: She quickly and weightlessly forgave me for being so offensive to her, completing the DARVO process: I was now the offender and she was now the beneficent victim, all while turning a blind eye to the lies she told in the process of flipping our roles, and the wounds those lies inflicted.
With both my pastor and his wife, there was always a push to meet face to face and talk face to face.
“So much can get lost in messages and texting, let’s meet face to face! Let’s go have coffee!”
And now I know why: when you meet face to face there is no record of who said what and who heard it. And there is no way to later prove anything was said.
With face to face meetings, there is no record. And there are no possible future witnesses. That may be the very best reason that I sent all of those
MESSAGES.
Be aware of those who don’t want things written down
Those who don’t want witnesses.
Be aware of pastors
And their wives
Who don’t want a written record.
Or who pull you aside for private conversations
When the privacy is not about protecting you
But protecting them.
They will claim Matthew 18
As they pull you off out of others’ hearing.
This is not a male only/pastor thing.
This is a power thing.
And don’t forget for one minute
That the wives are in on it.
“But when a culture is toxic, priorities change and truth-telling often takes a backseat.
Eventually, however, though it may take a very long time, the truth will come out. When a congregation learns that all the denials, all the spin and alternative narratives were a lie, the church’s culture is unmasked as toxic, and the pastor and elders and deacons and other leaders are shown to be complicit—and even intentionally deceptive at times.
The word most often on the lips of Jesus for this was hypocrisy.
When pastors tell lies, the truth quotient in a church collapses—leading to cynicism, mistrust, and betrayal. When people sit in church on Sunday morning, looking at the pastor and thinking, “What’s he hiding?” or “What’s the full story?” or “What’s really going on with this guy behind closed doors?” the church’s credibility collapses.”
~ A Church Called Tov, Laura Barringer and Scot McKnight
