Finding a Partner, Not a Pastor

When life gives you a partner who doesn't fit into the "plan"

Photo by Peopleimages.com YuriArcurs on Canva Pro

Note: The story of my faith journey, church trauma, and spiritual abuse is inextricably linked to the stories of my parents and sisters, but this is my story. Their experiences, memories, and hurt are separate from my own and I do not speak for them. Details are also their own and not mine to share, and so I keep the details where they matter only to my own experiences. Because this piece particularly deals with my relationship with my husband, the same is true for him as well.

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“Hey, I get to sit in the back with the chick!”

I looked at the boy crawling into the backseat of Dustin’s Toronado, rolling my eyes as I suppressed a smile. His blond hair fell across his forehead. He’s kind of cute, but really??? I wasn’t sure if he was making a joke, flirting, or if this was just his personality.

My friends Dustin and Will had invited me to go out with them after we closed for the night at McDonald’s. Then they told me that they had also invited their friend Jeff along. My dad had shocked me when I asked for permission to do so, saying “You’re 18 and you’re leaving for college soon. Sure.” After years of fairly strict rules, this newfound freedom caught me off guard. And I’m pretty sure in the months that followed, both of my parents thought twice about setting me loose on the world.

Over the next several weeks, I hung out with the guys at every opportunity. I had made a few friends when we moved to Michigan, but most of those friendships were school friendships. We ate lunch together, talked in class and the hallways, and shared the basics about our lives outside of school. But I wasn’t invited to parties or gatherings for those friends. I met Dustin and Will when we were all in Damn Yankees during the first semester of my junior year. Dustin convinced me to work with them at McDonald’s and now that they were both back for the summer (they graduated the year before), they were ready to have me along for the ride. They just assumed that Jeff and I already knew each other.

Except, we didn’t. Here’s what people find hard to believe: both sets of parents still live less than half a mile away from each other, we graduated from the same class, we had mutual friends, and we still didn’t know each other. After all, his future brother-in-law was in Damn Yankees! Jeff was in band, I was in choir. I was a junior transfer taking a bunch of classes with sophomores our junior year, he was on the standard track at our high school. He didn’t care much about school, I was a studious overachiever packing my senior schedule. He had a serious girlfriend during the two years that we attended the same high school, I was a loser who couldn’t even get a boy to ask me to prom.

My mom’s aunt and uncle stopped at his house during his graduation party when they got lost on their way to my graduation party. Dustin and Will directed them to my house, and we still had no idea who the other was.

We didn’t meet face-to-face until that fateful summer night in the McDonald’s parking lot. He started coming to see me at work when he wasn’t working at a different McDonald’s. When he asked if I wanted to go with him to the July 4th fireworks at the beach, I thought that he was asking if I wanted to go with a group of people.

He wasn’t. He was asking me on a date. And it turned my world upside down.

After two years of living like a social hermit, I found myself having the summer fling of my dreams. We spent every spare minute together. Before I left for OAFC summer training and travel team in mid-July, he kissed me outside my house, leaning against the garage’s brick facade and sending me smiling back into the dark house, everyone else asleep inside.

Jeff didn’t fit the plan. Sure, a summer fling was fun and I was fully aware that I was a rebound, the break-up with his serious high school girlfriend still leaving significant scars. But I also had a plan for my future. I was going to go off to same college where half of my dad’s family had gone to college and established their careers and their marriages. I knew what I wanted: Lutheran, tall, athletic, musical, guitar player, Lutheran, probably a future pastor or teacher or Director of Christian Education, studious, kind, Lutheran.

Jeff, the cute prankster preparing to study Computer Science and follow in his parents’ and sister’s footsteps by heading to Calvin College in the fall, only met a few of those relationship prerequisites. I didn’t want him to be my boyfriend, I just wanted to have fun with him.

When I left for college, we agreed that we would be just friends. We would email each other and keep in touch and see each other over breaks, but we weren’t going to date. Besides, how could we possibly keep a long-distance relationship going?