My own father, the Bishop called you as the Young Men’s President (when I was around 15). Why he thought a man who had cheated on his wife in the past couple of years made for a good role model to his teenage children I do not know. Or was it God? Was it God who whispered to my father that you were always destined to be my “leader” and be in a direct position to abuse me? If that’s the case, as we Mormons believe God calls men and women to these callings, then I don’t know if I want to know that God.

Sundays, Tuesdays, Friday night dances, Saturday ward activities, you were there, smiling, paying me attention, building trust. And you did an incredible job. Grooming does not even cut it. You were like a big brother I didn’t have, or a father who wasn’t around or interested, you were that to me. I loved you completely and wholly; you represented to me what every good, fun, charming, righteous man should and could be.

Then you began to email and chat with me. You convinced me your wife didn’t love you, that you were incredibly and unfathomably lonely. That broke my heart, you were such a good man who deserved love. You convinced me I was beautiful and special; things I was never told and I never felt. You told me I was “special” – what a cliché! I believed you. I was desperate for love and validation, to be heard, to feel “special”.

I remember very clearly that night at mutual, where the Young Women and Young Men were playing and talking, and you sat next to me on the stage, our legs touching and our feet playfully knocking each other. You leant over and breathed into my ear… “I have a secret to tell you”. My skin tingled and my senses became heightened at the closeness of you, your attention, that I was special enough for your attention and secrets. But I was not prepared to hear your secret… “I love you”.

You got up and left the room, leaving me to feel overwhelmed, embarrassed, flattered, confused. Love as in how? Like a daughter, friend? I didn’t know anything about love, or being a lover. I had never done anything more than kissing, no boyfriend was anything more than a childlike, 2 week long “relationship” where you messily kissed and held hands and then broke up out of boredom.

After this confusing but flattering occasion, your emails increased with intensity; more “love” with things like “soul mate” and “best friend” and “never felt this way before about anyone”. These things undoubtedly felt good, although I was so naive about love and relationships I had no idea where this was all leading to, only that it felt good to be loved and wanted, to be someone’s best friend, and again, to be the receiver of so much flattery and attention. Here you were, this amazing man, very charming and handsome, telling me I was your soul mate.

One week, you asked me to hang out with you on a Friday night. Perhaps to any other 15 year old girl, this would have raised some red flags, but my parents had always allowed and encouraged us children to be alone and unsupervised with men. Either neighbours or men from church, so I did not see the harm in hanging out alone, like we always had done, with you, especially seeing as I was your “best friend” and you were a married priesthood holder.

That night, you kissed me. You didn’t ask me and you didn’t warn me, you just kissed me and then held my hand on the way to the restaurant. I trusted you knew what you were doing and that I was safe – that you wouldn’t hurt me. That night was the first of many nights you would instruct me on how to be a lover, how to be and do the things that pleased you. You bought me a mobile phone, saw me before school (you were my seminary teacher), and ingratiated yourself into my family as a person of trust. You and your family spent Christmas with our family, my siblings loved you, and my Dad thought of you as a son.

Soon you became incredibly controlling – I dropped out of high school because I could not focus on school work or accept a date to the Year 10 formal/Prom. I couldn’t bear lying to my school friends and church friends so I distanced myself from everyone. You were jealous if I went on a date with a young man my age, so I never accepted dates. That was forbidden. You began to DJ at church dances, so you could keep an eye on who I danced with and who I talked to.

You convinced me I was an adulteress, a sin which was next to murder and that made me a very bad person, but it was OK because we loved each other, you loved me, so I at least had you. In this way, you isolated me from my family, friends, and even my God. Everyone would know I was a very bad, wicked person if I came forward, so that was not an option. In addition to this burden, you compounded the secret with the guarantee that your wife would leave you, and take the kids back home to the US, and so I would be the cause of you being separated from your children.

I had NO IDEA that what was happening was abuse. Abuse has connotations of pain or harm, but you loved me, you spoiled me with gifts and affection and attention, and I was incapable of seeing or understanding the abuse as “abusive”. The pain I experienced was great but I understood it as being caused by me – the isolation, loneliness, guilt, shame, the incredible pain of seeing you with your wife – all those things were my fault for being a sinner and an adulteress. Plus, who would believe a young girl like me against a man who everyone loved, adored, and believed as I had believed – he was a good man.

I moved out of home at age 17 so you could have greater access to me. Working dead end jobs here and there and usually quitting if my co-workers were getting too cluey I was seeing a married man, or the work began to impede your access to me. My life was now a shell. I was lies, I was the master of avoidance; always shifting so no-one became too close to me to see the pain and the cracks. I had no real friends, no life ambition, no one who I trusted who I could tell my pain to. Even my family had suspicions from time to time, but when they cornered me, full of spite and anger, I saw their disgust in me, I saw their fear of the tarnished family name at church, I saw their desperation that it wasn’t true, and I did what I had to do to not destroy everyone’s lives – I lied. I said nothing was going on. How relieved they were! How keen they were to attack anyone, including my twin sister, who had any evidence to the contrary (in my dairy when I was 16 or early 17). They did not want to see. My twin sister still blames me to this day for lying.

A little later, a daughter of a Ward member saw you and I kissing near a athletics field. She told her father, who tried to get a hold of my father, the Bishop. My mother did not pass on the message to my father for weeks. My mother did not want anyone to know!! My father eventually found out and asked to see me in his “study” which was code for “interview”. My sister taunted me “ooooh, you’re in trouble, my friend saw you with your boyfriend”. I was petrified. I called you asking what I should do, you said to just “deny everything”. So I did. I was so, so scared of getting in trouble from my father – the authoritarian, disciplinarian, and BISHOP. There was no kindness, love, offer of trust and help, just fear of getting into trouble, and messing up my family, and your family’s lives. So I did what I was used to my then, what you had trained me to do – I looked into my fathers eyes and tearfully lied. I was 17.

Not long after, my mother (who was the Young Women’s President in our Ward) had a talk with me while waiting for an activity to begin. She said my father had once had an emotional affair with a woman in the ward and how it broke her heart. Therefore, I should consider your wife and her feelings in what I was doing. She obviously had strong suspicions there was a relationship but sought to place the blame on me, the mistress. I was 17.

My mother to this day, still refers to the abuse as “the affair”.

When I was 21, I eventually could not handle the control, the lies, the massive highs and lows of the relationship, and my massive shame and guilt at being a mistress – an adulteress, I went and saw my Bishop. I “confessed” to being “in a relationship” with you since I was younger. The Bishop asked how young I was when it started, and I said I was 16.

While the Bishop was incredibly kind and loving, he was completely incapable of understanding the seriousness of what I was divulging to him. He told me;

1. The relationship when I was “younger” was not necessarily my fault, however I would need to repent for the adultery which occurred while I was an adult.

2. I was placed on probation (could not pray, hold a calling, or take the sacrament, go to the temple etc. )

3. I was given ‘The Miracle of Forgiveness’ to read

4. In order to repent, I had to break things off with you and stay away from you (the only sound piece of advice the Bishop gave, but for the wrong reasons).

I was NOT;

– offered counselling,

– told I was actually an abuse victim,

– told that I should go to police,

– told that what happened was criminal and I needed help and support, not the incredibly crushing shame and guilt that a repentance process would bring.

I do not blame the Bishop, I only wish he was more educated, asked more questions, persuaded me to undergo counselling, instead, because I felt incredibly shamed, isolated, and that I was a failure, and unworthy, and that no worthy man would want me now, I returned to THE ONLY person who wanted me.

So I went back to the only place and the only person where I still felt even remotely wanted. I married you 6 months later at age 21. You were 40, and divorced less than a year. My father refused to come to the wedding, and only my mother came. It was horrible from the very beginning. Lies, control, and then violence.

I left 10 months after our wedding, and went back home to a home where everyone was silent (although one sister did verbally attack me for all my lies) and I was a mess. Not only was I a victim of long term sexual abuse, but I was also a victim of domestic violence – both of which I neither understood nor could see, how was I supposed to? I was a sheltered, naive 22 year old who had been fed a sturdy diet of manipulation, lies, and culpability since age 15. Add onto this that I was still on church probation (yes, I was on probation for 18 months) and felt worthless (admitting you are a victim is incredibly difficult for many people, and perhaps it takes some sort of self-esteem I think, and I certainly did not have much at all).

My mother avoided me after I came home, more focused on my brother who was a missionary, my father did attempt to have a semblance of closeness to me, but the subject of my marriage etc never came up. If someone mentioned it, I would break down crying. I had massive anxiety and I believe, PTSD, all undiagnosed because I did not know I could get help.

I thought my anxiety and PTSD was guilt for being a sinner.

I finally received my blessings back, got divorced, and began dating. I was SO scared and didn’t believe I was worth love so it was easier to run when things got a little tricky. My trust was severely shattered, I didn’t know how to function in a normal relationship, so I ran. I did eventually get married to an amazing, supportive man.

During this time of dating, I received a letter from my abuser’s leaders – he wanted to be rebaptised. I was asked whether I forgave him, and how I felt about his rebaptism? What did my forgiveness have to do with anything? I didn’t even fully understand what had happened! If I responded that I wasn’t sure or possibly hadn’t forgiven him, would I be disciplined? I felt these men (my leaders received a follow-up call from his leaders after a few weeks of no response) were pressuring me to forgive someone who had never said sorry for the sexual abuse while I was young and neither for the emotional, psychological and physical abuse during our short marriage.

I decided I had to be the bigger person and forgive him although I did mention in my response that he had never apologised to me for anything. He was baptized and I never heard ANYTHING from anyone.

He remarried within two years and I reached out to her and vice versa. Turns out he hadn’t told her the whole story. The version he told her was that I was 18 and BEGGED him to have sex with me. So much for repentance huh. I told her my story and naturally, she was appalled. BUT she wanted to work it out with him. I told her he had never apologised, and guess what, he wanted to write me a letter.

I wasn’t in the least bit interested in hearing anything he had to say to me. I knew he was only doing it to appease his wife, I knew how this man operated, and I had come so far in my healing without an apology from him, I didn’t want it. I didn’t and don’t believe it would have been anything genuine at all, only something his wife made him do.

It has taken me a long, long time to unpack everything, to let go of some of the shame, to eventually go to police (even though it won’t be prosecuted) and to feel safe around others. I still don’t trust church leaders. This abuse has affected so many aspects of my life (I am no longer active at church), yet he has recently been a High Councilman in his Stake. He has everything, and it’s not fair. There is no justice, all I have left is my voice.

This is my story.

Charmaine