My Experience With Being In A Spiritually Abusive Relationship

Warning: This post is not for the easily offended; if you are one of these I suggest you check out my other posts instead. I am digging deep in a tunnel of pain and hurt that has been bottled up for the last few years so I may finally heal from it. My intentions are not to discriminate anyone regardless of their religious and spiritual beliefs.  This is simply MY experience and MY story. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, however, negativity will NOT be tolerated in a space where someone is trying to heal.

Hey Friends!

So this post is a tough one for me to write about. I am not one to express feelings much anyway, but in order to be authentic with you all on this one I have to bring up a lot of pain and hurt that I was once put through.  This might be a little all over the place so bare with me as I try to break it down as much as I can without writing a novel. 

I was in a religiously/spiritually abusive relationship with my ex boyfriend. I will keep all names private  BUT if you personally know me I am sure you can pinpoint who is who.

A little background story on my religious views:

I would identify myself as Catholic when it came to religion. I was a convert from protestant to Catholicism. I studied LOTS of denominations and other religions before I made this decision and I picked the one that I related to and was the most passionate about. I was very involved with my religion all throughout college. I considered myself actually very religious at that moment in time to a certain point. However, I never shoved my views in other people's faces or condemned them for not believing in the same thing I believed in - that to me is a low ball and I am not about that kind of life. I have always had friends of different backgrounds, religious beliefs, cultures and I loved it because I would l always learn so much from them and it made me a better, more understanding person. So different point of views were always welcomed into my spiritual world and most of the time it made me appreciate mine even more.

Then I met my ex.

He knew nothing of Catholicism and what he heard was all of the untrue rumors that have been surrounding the church for centuries. It provided me an opportunity to dig into my faith even deeper to educate him the true teachings of the church and how unique she was. I  was open to his view points as well. He was VERY religious HOWEVER he had no education of theology nor studied scriptures... he would just go off of what his pastor and what his parents said.

This is so off topic but keep in mind he was ten years older than I was - it will help you connect the dots later.

At the beginning we would go to church every Sunday -  both morning and night services. He always had a goal to attend a different church every week for his own personal reasons. He would always give all his money to each church as well and it was not until later on when I found this being a problem. Trust me, it is coming on why this is an issue.

When I got introduced to the family the first thing that was asked was "Are you Christian? What church do you attend?"

Of course I think nothing of it because the people I am always around are so welcoming and I told them I was Catholic.

The look on their faces was terrible. They looked at me like I was a walking demon.

"Why do you want to be a part of a molesting loving community?"

Once again, I have to defend my faith that I have worked so hard all of my life to become a part of. 

Fast forward a little because I am trying not to make this a book:

Tension rise as I learn more about this man. He was in his thirties and could not make one decision without his parents' permission and if he did not ask them for advice beforehand they made a big deal about it. The more friends that came around the same question was asked "Are you Christian? Oh, you wouldn't say or act like that if you were a real Christian. You don't go to church every Sunday? Oh then you are a terrible person." 

Yes, they were like that. Basically if you did ANYTHING and talked about anyone they would not believe you were good unless you were a Christian. If you were of someone of a different religion or culture they stuck their nose up to you and refused to speak to you. They would claim that living off credit cards, charging everything, going out to eat three meals a day, not talking to people who are the same religious views as them, and attending church every Sunday are the only things that made you holy. 

I tried to convince him not to follow suit with that line of thinking and  encouraged him to learn and pave his own path.

 It worked for a while.

When we lived together the entire apartment felt like a church. It was always full of crosses, bible verses, and Jesus photos EVERYWHERE. I was not allowed to have any of my own decorative tastes out in the public areas that did not agree with 'the rules of Christianity'. I was not allowed to say "I hope for so and so" I was always condemned to "you should always keep everything in prayer, be prayerful when you say these things".

AND OH MY, GOD FORBID that I had a lifelong struggle of depression and anxiety. I got so much 'ish' from ALL of them. I got told "If you were Christian enough you would not have those issues. God is punishing you and I can't blame him since you want to follow those Catholics". 

I was required to host a weekly bible study for all of our friends using these stupid books that he knew nothing about except for it was on sale at Life Way and he got it because he only had to pay $0.50 for it.

I could not have a normal conversation with him without him mentioning God or Jesus. 

Then it got to the point when I was working full time after college and I had to pay ALL of the bills in the house because someone had a vision that God said to give all of his money to church instead of paying for his responsibilities. This is what put me into the credit card debt that I just now finished paying off.

He would never pay rent on time. I would always have to fork it out and I got lucky if he gave me his half to replenish what I took out of my own money. Yup, you read that correctly, this thirty something year old man would not pay his half of the bills at our apartment because he said GOD told him not to.

It gets worse.

It continued to be God this and Jesus that for a very long time. I got so tired of having religion just constantly thrown into my face 24/7. I got to the point where I would leave the house for hours just to get away from it. I remember thinking that this is not the God I know and worship. This is not what true Christianity is. The God I follow is loving and caring and would not want me to feel the way I currently do.

One of his great friends came out of the closet about their sexuality and he went nuts. I remember him yelling at him saying God hates gays and that he was going to burn in hell and blah blah. I imminently ripped the phone out of his hands and laid into him big time - that was a huge fight.

Your friend trusted you with something very sacred  and you just judged them and went off on them . That is wrong. Put your personal beliefs aside and be there for your friend!!!

This really opened my eyes because I am personally a HUGE supporter of the  LBGTQ community.

What he did to his friend just broke my heart and really challenged my views on religion as a whole. This is not loving your neighbor as yourself. If being a Christian means being nasty to others just because they love their partner differently than I love mine then I want NO part of it. The God I know is supposed to love us no matter if we're gay or not.  

When we would go out he would put us in dangerous positions just to give someone a bible pamphlet - with this I mean going into the not so good parts of town,  he would pick up people off the corner of the street and drive them where ever they wanted to go not caring if they had a gun on them possibly ready to shoot him or MYSELF!

He put me in a LOT of dangerous situations and got mad at me for complaining about him wanting to spread God's word. This dude has drunk the kool aid and is too far gone to be saved.

I realized that after he basically told me my safety and well being did not matter that it was time to end things with him. I could not take the abuse anymore. I would get screamed at about how awful of a human I was by not only him but his family. They would make fun of me constantly, they told me I was never good enough, and that everything I believed in was wrong.

They (his family) did not even come to my grandfather's funeral because he was murdered! They  said they did not want to be associated with an event like that because of how he died. I just want to point out that I was there with them through both of their grand parents' deaths.  My blood just boiled and tears just filled my eyes after writing this line. 

The icing on the cake happened when I moved to Memphis:

He quit his job to come down there with me. I was about to call this relationship done because I was exhausted. My soul was hurting. I was sick of the bashing. I was sick of always having to put myself into more and more debt to support this bum because he wants to give all his money to these churches. We did not work anymore and I had not been happy in years.

The first week of him being down in Memphis with me was the last. He did not even attempt to look for a job. He ate ALL of my groceries and kept all of my lights on 24/7 running up my electric bill. He sat on the couch the entire time and watched TV all day. He went to a few churches out there and when I came home from work one night he kept saying, "We should not be living together this is just unholy and it is un Goldy. God is going to make me pay for this."

"You don't want to be here anymore? Do you want to go back to Nashville?"

"This is un Godly I cannot be living with someone anymore."

"We have separate bedrooms as we always had." 

"It doesn't matter God does not want us doing this it is not what he wants me to do in his visions to me. God is telling me to leave you so I have to go I cannot be here anymore."

I laughed, went upstairs to pack his stuff and put it outside. I told him to get out and that the abuse ends here."God is telling you to walk out on me? Cool, then go!"

It was a bad fight after that. He cried, I kept laughing. I have been wanting to release the negativity for so long and now is the time. 

After a few hours he was gone back to his parents' house.

He kept most of his stuff up in the second bedroom for almost an entire month. I had to threaten to throw it all away just for him to come get it. The day he came to come and get it he even tried to give me another religious  talk. "God still loves you even though you don't accept me as his prophet." 

"Are you serious? Get out of my life!"

From there on, I went back to try to dig more into my faith and cling to God as much as I could... I went through a season of depression when I was in Memphis and to be honest, God was nowhere to be found for me. NO matter how much I tried to dive more into my faith, I kept getting rejected. I kept having the door slammed in my face. That is when I began to distant myself from religion all together. 

I tried not to but the more I cried out for help the more people told me to "pray about it" so I did, and the more that I did the emptier my soul felt. It never worked for me. Was this being a follower supposed to feel like? Empty? Suicidal? Hopeless?

I finally gave up.

Fast forward from then to now.

I have not attended mass in over two years. I don't talk about religion anymore. When a family member brings it up I become very uncomfortable. I just nod and agree so they can quickly change the subject. 

My current boyfriend is so patient with me and he understands the abuse I went through when it comes to this subject. He considers himself agnostic. He believes in God. He believes there is a God out there who built all of these amazing things and that protects us... he just doesn't know if it is the Jewish God, Allah, the Christian God, or whichever. He has  a huge issue with organized religion as which as I do as well. Organized religion has damaged my faith.. I cannot get behind to support it anymore. It is all just a business scheme to me. I'm not sorry either that I refuse to be a part of it.

 Every single time I went for help they have slammed the door in my face and told me I was not welcomed.

Today, I do not really know what I believe in anymore as far as religion. I believe in God, I believe in Jesus, and I even believe heavily in the Catholic Church still but I do not believe in all of the aspects that are being taught in  Christianity. 

I have became very spiritual since these hard times have been passing. Since I have been in therapy, I have been practicing a lot of mindfulness. I have learned a lot about spirituality and how the human divine comes from within yourself. I've used this to control my depression and anxiety now. Me learning these tools on how to control my thoughts and emotions is so much better than 'praying' about it and expecting it to magically disappear.

I guess if I was asked today that because of everything I have personally been through in reference to religion I would classify myself as spiritual and just a little bit religious. I have attached a diagram below explaining what that means:

I believe in doing good to others. I believe in Karma. I believe that the Universe will reward you for doing good and helping others when you can. Again, I do believe in God and I do believe in Jesus. I also believe in different aspects from other religions as well - the unalome from Buddhism, the mindfulness techniques and yoga practices from Hinduism just to name a few.. The ultimate thing though is I believe in treating others as you want to be treated, The Golden Rule is in every religion and spirituality belief.  I believe in opening my heart and giving the very best of myself when it comes to my work. I refused to be spoon fed this CRAP anymore that you must do so and so  so that you may be forgiven and live life as a good person.

Again, I am not downplaying Christianity or any other religion. I just want to encourage you to find the beauty in everyone's beliefs and respect each other even if they do not believe in the same god as you do. Please do not be like my ex and destroy people's views on religion..

If you have been through a similar situation I hope you tell your story because it is so important to do so in order to heal.