Thoughts on Things Eight Years Later

When I was 23, I fell in love. We met at my favorite local bookstore. Nora Ephron herself could not have directed a better meet cute. It was instantly that can't-eat, can't-sleep, reach-for-the-stars, over-the-fence, World Series kind of stuff.

Warner Bros.

Right before we met, I accepted my dream job working for a Christian non-profit in France. He was finishing his bachelor’s degree in Youth Ministry, while working as a youth pastor at our church. We quickly decided that the distance would be nothing for our love—he would simply move across the pond once he graduated and join me.

It was Fall 2016, and my entire life appeared to be falling perfectly into place.

I made sure that the world knew how perfect our relationship was. I bragged about him to all my friends, his picture was my phone’s lock screen, and I wove him into every conversation. I needed the world to know that I was happy. I needed the world to see that I was in love.

This was, at least I had been told, what I, as a Christian woman, was meant to aspire to—a relationship. After years of praying, I thought everything I had hoped for was finally coming true. 

Keeping my eyes on the prize (an engagement ring), it was easy to push away any feeling of doubt that might have crept in. It was easy to write off the moments of potential gaslighting because he was stressed with seminary. Perhaps I was remembering something wrong. The way he spoke to me could be categorized as locker room talk, and who was I, the submissive girlfriend, to tell him that what he was saying was unkind? When I accused him of not respecting me physically, he said it was my fault, and I ended the night by apologizing to him. 

But all of this I pushed aside. I was working for a Christian organization, he was working for a church, and surely what we had was love.

I moved to France, excited about our future. We wrote each other letters and FaceTimed almost daily; my life was unfolding as it should. 

And then he abruptly ended things over FaceTime one week before I came home for Christmas. To say I was depressed is an understatement. For weeks, I couldn’t eat, barely got out of bed, and cried all the time. In muddled French, I explained to the cashier at my grocery store what had happened, and she looked at me like I was insane. 

And I was a little insane. Looking back now, after suffering other heartbreaks, I know this was not a rational reaction. This loss felt world-ending.

When he told me that he loved me, I believed him. I didn’t question his actions. I didn’t question the way he spoke to me. I didn’t tell my friends what was going on. Because this was what love was, right? 

It had to be. At this point, I was 23, had already been a bridesmaid in eight weddings, and desperately believed it was my turn for a fairytale ending. I was following the script that the church had handed me. I pushed aside the pieces of myself that questioned his actions.

Almost a year later, and slightly recovered, I was scrolling through Twitter when I saw Alyssa Milano’s “#MeToo” tweet. If you were not on the internet during this time or need a refresher, Twitter was overrun in October 2017 with women sharing their #MeToo experiences. It was a moment of solidarity that was as powerful as it was heart-wrenching.

Scrolling through the thread, devouring the 180-character summaries of abuse, I saw myself. I am unsure how long I sat there, reading and rereading these women’s stories. They were putting into words what I had just experienced. 

I grew up believing that my value as a woman depended on my ability to find a husband, get married, and have children (see my previous post about being a childless dog lady). This was the outline; there was less direction on how to fill it in. 

But the #MeToo movement opened my eyes to a different reality. I read these tweets and felt paralyzed. I knew what I had experienced; I now had words for what I had experienced, but seeing how the church responded to the #MeToo movement, I didn’t know how to talk about what had happened. I didn’t know if I would be believed. I was working for a Christian non-profit, which, in my mind, meant that my life and my romantic relationships were meant to be different. I was entirely unprepared. I was thousands of miles away from my family and felt so alone.

This was eight years ago, and I still feel the weight of the experience. 

It is eight years later, and I am telling you about my abusive ex-boyfriend because he worked for my church and when I told him I was going to tell the church leadership what he had done to me, he told me that I was selfish because he had a future and I had none. He told me that I was crazy. He told me that I was emotional. He told me that I would never find love again. He didn’t say that my accusations were wrong. He didn’t say that he regretted what he had done.

For so long, I believed him.

When I see the overwhelming number of Christians who voted for Trump in 2024 because of the party he represents, I don’t think reporting my boyfriend to our church in 2016 would have made any difference. 

Because how can one vote for someone whose actions are violating a group of people on a Tuesday and return to their religious job on Wednesday and fight for those same people?

I don’t think it’s possible.

On a larger scale, if a man can talk about women like Trump does and be elected president twice, what’s stopping the guy at the bar, on the sidewalk, on a dating app, from talking to me like that? From talking to your daughter like that? Your sister? Your cousin?

Grace and me circa 2000

We as a nation have proven twice that there are no consequences for these actions.

As a nation, we watched a man say things on TV that I will not type here because my dad reads this blog, and I could never use that type of language around him. 

Eight years ago, the world watched as a man accused of multiple accounts of sexual assault was elected president.

Eight years later, people still tell me that while they don’t like how he talks about people, at least his policies are good.

It is eight years later, and we say that if someone shows you who they are, believe them. Over half the country heard what he said on the Access Hollywood mics, shrugged, and said, “boys will be boys.”

And while if a woman accuses someone of sexual misconduct, she is shamed, questioned, and doubted, a man says something damning while mic’d, and half of the country, the majority of the American church, will still vote for him. So, what’s the point of putting oneself through the emotional labor of speaking up?

The point is the hope of something different. The point is that together, we, those willing to share our stories publicly, can give courage to those who can’t. The point is that even when there are no institutional changes, we are still standing, we are still speaking, and we are still hoping that maybe, if not for us, for those who come after us, things will be different.

It is eight years later, and I want the American church to say something. To say, “That is not how we love and talk about our neighbors, whether they be immigrants, women, or people of color.”

But until the church does, I will.

xx