Pastor Dan?" I heard a quiet voice on the other end of the phone.
"Yes."
"This is Ted. I need to talk to you—bad. Something's happened." He was reluctant to talk over the phone, and sensing the urgency I agreed to meet with him.
I saw him coming as I peered out my office window. Gone were the familiar bounce in his step and mischievous smile on his face. Ted entered the room and slumped in a chair. His eyes were bloodshot and his face drawn.
Covering his face with his hands for a few moments, he slowly withdrew them and let out a long sigh. Then he began quietly. Lisa, his wife, had been on a business trip recently. Upon her return Ted found evidence suggesting that she'd had a sexual encounter. Lisa denied it at first, but then confessed.
"I can't believe her anymore, Pastor. I feel like I've been violated. And when I told her I knew about the affair, she lied. And the worse part is when she finally admitted it, she acted like it was no big deal. She told me I needed to 'get over it.' She has an affair and I just need to get over it!?"
I listened as I had been trained, with quiet compassion, wincing sympathetically as the sordid details poured from his mouth. His body heaved with quiet sobs. Tears flowed freely.
After I spoke some comforting words and prayed with Ted, he asked if I would meet with Lisa. I agreed, and he thanked me profusely. It's always comforting to be able to truly help someone when they need it. That's why I entered the ministry.
When Lisa came into my office, she was very tentative. The atmosphere was charged. Will she admit the affair? I wondered. Will she deny it? I smiled and motioned for her to sit down.
"Lisa, you know I've talked with Ted. Why don't you tell me in your own words what happened?"
Her eyes filled with tears. "Well, Ted probably told you this already, but on a recent business trip I met an old acquaintance. We've kept in touch over the years. We just agreed to meet and have a drink together. We've always had so much fun together, and I was really tired of fights, and—
"We didn't plan to have an affair, it just kind of happened."
She spoke quietly at first. She apparently wanted some relief in the presence of someone who had always treated her with kindness. The affair was a one-time event and she had no intention of carrying on the relationship, she confided. But then her penitent mood changed. She began to get angry.
"You know, Pastor, Ted and I haven't had a good relationship for a long time. For years Ted was hooked on cocaine. Did you know that? He just kept spending all our money and would never tell me what he had done with it. He worked late hours and then after work wouldn't come home. He'd promise to be home by six, so I'd make dinner and the kids and I would sit there waiting for him. He'd show up at eleven or twelve.
"He is such a liar!" She said it with a vehemence that surprised me. It was, I would learn, an accusation they would hurl back and forth for months.
The more she talked, the angrier she got. My eyes must have been getting wide at this point. This is why we are taught by Scripture to listen to both sides of the story, I reminded myself. Again, I winced sympathetically. When she finished I said a quick prayer and began:
"Lisa, I had no idea of what Ted had been involved with and the struggles he's had. This must have been very difficult on you. But you need to know that doesn't justify what you did." She nodded slowly, but her body language communicated that she wasn't so sure. This wouldn't be easy, I could tell.
As I met later with Ted, I shared what Lisa had revealed to me in counseling. He grew quiet. He agreed that it was true, but made it clear that he did not consider his offenses to be anywhere near as serious as hers. That was history; this was the present.
I broached the issue of forgiveness. I reminded Ted of how much Christ had forgiven him. Even were he to divorce her, he would need to forgive her. Suddenly his anger subsided.
"No, Pastor Dan, I love Lisa. I always have and I always will. We were meant to be together. She made a mistake and I'll have to forgive her. I mean, I'm not perfect myself."
I was greatly encouraged. With this kind of attitude there was real hope for their marriage.
I was also naive.
The theater of conflict
Matt, another church member about Ted's age, took me aside one Sunday.
"Pastor, I was talking to Ted and he told me what was going on. We talked for a couple of hours. He's really hurting over this." I sighed inwardly. "Yes, he is hurting, Matt. Thanks for being there for him. Let's try to keep this as confidential as possible."
Matt agreed and kept his promise. Everyone Ted talked to kept his confidence—everyone except Ted, who seemed intent on talking to everyone. I saw this at first as a hurting man reaching out for comfort, but soon it became clear that Ted was doing more than that. It seemed, as in most wars, the theater of conflict was broadening.
Lisa quickly countered by telling her close friends the "real story." Soon a P.R. battle was raging in our church, with both Ted and Lisa rallying their troops. Never have so few said so much, to so many, in so little time. Ted and Lisa's marriage became the soap opera of our church, each vying for the title "victim."
I quickly spoke to them both about it and urged them to keep confidences if they had any hope of repairing their marriage. While some of the people they were talking to gave them godly advice, others were immature themselves and their advice could be dangerous. They both agreed—until one or the other broke the truce and then all bets were off.
Call it a police action
Despite all this, I thought the marriage had a chance. Ted actually tried doing something I suggested and reached out to Lisa with tenderness. And Lisa, battle weary, responded, open to any glimmer of hope.
I was encouraged when Ted came to counseling one morning with a bounce in his step and a smile on his face. Lisa had recently told Ted "I think I'm falling in love with you again." Unfortunately, Ted took that as a white flag, and set about to reassert his dominance and moral rightness.
The new "love" didn't last the week. Things got ugly again. Then I got a call.
"Pastor Dan?"
"Yeah, Ted."
"Lisa had me arrested."
"She had you what?"
"We were having an argument last night and she called the police and had me arrested. In front of all our neighbors and my own children, I was led away in handcuffs."
As it turned out, Ted was not actually arrested. The police gave him a good talking to and released him. But Lisa won a restraining order and Ted was forbidden to come within 100 feet of his home or children. This situation was getting out of hand, and the more I tried to help the worse it seemed to get.
What feels like leeches
During this time, Ted was involved in various men's discipleship groups I led. I encouraged this at first. But he always arrived late, and when I left he was always bending someone's ear. This was just another opportunity for Ted to build support. One day one of our elders, Tom, called me.
"Dan, Ted came up to me and asked if I'd mentor him." Great, I thought. Someone else to drag into this mess.
"Are you going to do it?" I asked.
"Yeah, I think so. But I'm making it clear at the beginning that I'm not interested in counseling him or talking about his marriage, but in helping him grow in his relationship with Christ." I could have hugged Tom.
"Thanks, Tom, that's exactly what he needs."
But predictably, when Ted realized he had no opportunity to gain sympathy with Tom, he neglected his homework, missed appointments, and Tom eventually gave up.
Lisa, meanwhile, deepened her friendship with Sally, who became her "mother protector." This threw Sally and her husband, Hank, into the fray. Knowing that Lisa was confiding in her close friend, and wanting to plead his side, Ted showed up at Hank and Sally's home one day unannounced. Lisa happened to be there.
Hank met Ted at the door. Then, as Lisa and Ted exchanged barbs and Sally came to Lisa's defense, Hank found himself drawn into a war he wanted no part of. He was one of many unwitting soldiers.
Kicked out of his house, Ted was reduced to sleeping in his car or sometimes a church member's extra room. Ted's business began to fail, but what little money he made became a new weapon against Lisa. Their bills were going unpaid, their car was in danger of being repossessed, the electricity was going to be turned off, and they couldn't even afford food.
When I brought this up to Ted, he shot back, "Pastor Dan, let me tell you what Lisa has done with our money—" and proceeded with a new set of accusations.
This put our elder board in an awkward position. The church had a benevolence fund, but who should we give the money to? It offended Ted when he found out we were paying his bills. Eventually we just paid the bills and kept Ted out of the loop.
The restraining order placed us in an another awkward situation. Technically, Ted wasn't to be within 100 feet of his wife or children, but they both attended our church. I fretted over what to do if they both showed up one Sunday. Who would I ask to leave? Fortunately, it never became an issue, but that tension followed me every Sunday morning.
No-fault pastoral care
The melodrama began to take its toll on me. Ted was bitter, needy, and self-absorbed. Lisa was just plain bitter.
Besides meeting with me weekly, sometimes twice weekly, for many months, Ted began to call and ask if I had "five minutes" to speak with him.
I initially agreed. But then his monologue would go on for an hour, sometimes an hour and a half. He rarely took a breath.
He didn't want to change. I grew tired of Ted. I grew tired of Lisa. They were human leeches sucking me dry. I had imagined if I ever left ministry, it would be because of opposition from a group within the church. Now I contemplated leaving ministry just to get away from Ted and Lisa.
At some point, I had allowed their marriage failure to become my counseling failure. I had not been able to "fix" them. As a result I felt that I had placed the church itself in danger. I lived in constant fear that the church would take sides and destroy itself.
Secretly I hoped, for all our sakes, that they would just get divorced and leave the church.
At my lowest point, several things kept me going.
First, I had several wonderful and mature friends who saw what was happening and encouraged me. One couple who had counseled Ted and Lisa invited my wife and me over for dinner. The conversation turned to our church soap opera. I tensed. Couldn't I have one evening free of Ted and Lisa?
"You know, Dan, Ted and Lisa ruined their marriage. You didn't," the wife told me. "You can't fix it for them. They've got to want to make changes and they don't."
The husband agreed. "It's not your fault, so don't beat yourself up about it."
That was one of the most freeing things I ever heard. I knew it was true, but I desperately needed to know that other church leaders felt the same way.
I was also encouraged by other marriages that I was helping. One couple, Ron and Mary, had struggled for years. When I shared how they could honor Christ in their marriage, they responded. The changes they had to make were every bit as difficult as those Ted and Lisa refused. Yet, Ron and Mary made them. Their marriage was saved and even thrived. My counseling wasn't the "kiss of death."
I also began to realize that I was not the "church counselor." I was only one part in God's plan to work through and in their lives. Many in the church had given wise counsel to Ted and Lisa without taking sides. And I was proud of the way our church responded.
Though they eventually divorced, and Ted moved on, we all tried, as best we could.
And we survived Ted and Lisa.
Copyright © 2002 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
