I am the epitome of Kelly Clarkson’s hit song “Miss Independent.” I spent most of my high school career believing that I could never fall in love and would never need nor want a man to help me through my life. That all changed the summer before my senior year of high school.
Daniel* and I had been close friends ever since I moved cities and arrived at his middle school in the middle of eighth grade. Making the transition from a very diversified school, where my closest friends came from various different cultures, to a very rural one where most students were Caucasian Christians was difficult, especially for a teenager like me who never has considered herself a Christian. There were many times that I felt ostracized in my new world for what were considered my radical Liberal beliefs, but my new friend Daniel never showed that prejudice against me.
Admittedly, Daniel and I never had a completely platonic relationship. We tried the juvenile relationship early on, which included notes passed in class, having to be driven to hangouts by our parents, and, of course, the eighth grade formal. Obviously this play relationship didn’t last, but our friendship only grew stronger throughout our years in high school together.
Daniel began to pursue me romantically starting our junior year. I was currently dating someone else and tried to put off his advances as best I could, though I could never resist the temptation to flirt back. We ended up landing the two leads in our high school’s play while also competing together in state-level debate contests. All this time spent together just left me feeling confused about how I really felt about my close friend, and I ended up breaking things off with my boyfriend at the time so I could sort through my feelings.
This was almost six months before I finally gave in to my true feelings. I was afraid of falling in love, but knew that I had never felt this way about anyone I had dated.
As fate would have it, Daniel and I ended up attending a four-week long Governor’s School over the summer before our junior year. A month before we left for the School, Daniel and I went to a movie premiere together, and it was there that I told him how I felt. He was initially conflicted himself; he had never thought I viewed him as more than a friend, and then there was the part about my being a non-Christian.
After years of friendship, I was well aware that Daniel was very strong in his faith. He attended church multiple times a week and was even president of my high school’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes. There is a saying that we tend to look for traits in our partners that we do not have in ourselves. Perhaps I was looking for faith, but I did not even take it as a warning sign of what was to come when Daniel “had to ask God for the answer” before getting into a relationship with me.
Daniel finally received his answer about a week into our summer program, and we became “Facebook official” to many congratulations from our friends and even teachers. Everyone had always seen us working well together and, at the beginning, it definitely did.
Our relationship started out with us spending almost every waking moment together. Because we were at Governor’s School, we could just walk across campus to visit each other instead of having to get into our cars and drive like we would have to at home. During this blissful month, Daniel and I attended ballroom dancing lessons, concerts, and even meditation sessions together. Many of these activities he did at my bidding and, in return, I attended church with him, as he asked me to. Though I was extremely uncomfortable at his enthusiastic house of worship, I chose to suck it up in favor of our otherwise perfect relationship. Love had blinded me well.
***
There was an almost immediate change in our relationship once we returned home from the Governor’s School. We were entering on what would be a busy senior year for both of us, but I always felt that the bigger problem was his returning to the youth group he had attended for years.
From the beginning, neither Daniel’s youth pastor nor his fellow students in the group approved of me. They would tell him that he was going to go to Hell for dating me or that I would make him “backslide” in his faith. Wednesday nights were torture for me as he would spend hours at his church, yet never tell me what occurred there. Each week, it seemed, new stipulations were added to our relationship. Daniel once went so far as to say that he was sinning every time he kissed me. I responded by saying that a relationship with no intimacy was just a friendship, and that he needed to decide if I was his girlfriend or just his friend. He dropped the issue after that conversation, but I always felt guilty for even holding his hand, and our relationship was never the same.
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I never did attend Daniel’s church with him once we were at home. For over a year, I had to find excuses to avoid the mega-church that no one who truly loved me should have ever tried to force me to attend. Throughout this year we had plenty of conversations about faith. Daniel would cry while he told me that he didn’t want the woman he loved to burn in Hell, that he could never let himself open up to me completely because of my lack of faith, and that he could never respect me completely because I was not a Christian. At some point during our relationship, his words got to me, and I began reading the Bible and listening to online sermons. I seriously considered converting just to save our relationship. This is a very flawed reason, and if his faith in both God and me had been true, Daniel should have stopped me from considering it. He did just the opposite.
A few months before our graduation, Daniel informed me that he would be leaving the first day of summer for a weeklong mission trip to Jamaica with his youth group. Even though it was for such a short amount of time, I spent the next weeks dreading his departure and clinging to him harder than I had anyone ever before.
His date of departure finally arrived. We spent the evening before together, and I was completely reassured of the strength of our relationship. Daniel left the next morning, and I spent the week he was gone working out and buying cute outfits so that I could be at my best for our last summer spent together before I left for college. My school is only an hour away from my hometown and—despite all the contradictions—Daniel and I were going to try to make it work. Our time together had to be special.
The date of Daniel’s return was upon me in no time, but once it arrived, I knew something had changed drastically. His mom, not Daniel, texted me to let me know he had made it back safely. I did not hear from him for an entire two days, and I spent the third day with my best friend, who had never approved of the relationship, trying to ignore my emotional turmoil.
It was the third day when I finally received a text message asking if I was busy. I told Daniel to meet me outside of the movie theater, the place that we had gone on our first date just a year before, that I was at with my friend. He showed up in ten minutes, looking both downcast and invigorated.
Daniel told me that God had spoken to him while he was in Jamaica. God told him that he could no longer be in a relationship with me. He had not been able to convert me and that was hindering Daniel in his relationship with God and his church. He called our serious relationship a distraction and, with that, erased every word that he had said while we were “in love.” I felt both hurt and completely betrayed. I still question if he actually ever loved me or if his only motivation for sticking around was to bring me over to his brand of faith.
The breakup caused me to have much anger and many conflicted thoughts over the next few months, some that I am still struggling with. Time has, at least, allowed me some clarity that I did not have directly after the breakup. I no longer blame all Christians for the actions of this one, nor do I completely blame Daniel for deceiving me. Faith can be a strong motivator, and the persuasive words of a person that a believer looks up to, such as a youth pastor, can hold unimaginable clout that no teenager can combat.
Despite all the hurt, I am stronger for having gone through this experience. I know that it is important to stand up for my beliefs, but also not to try and force them on anyone else. All relationships are two-way roads and, though I now take my time in evaluating the values of those I view in a romantic light, I also stay respectful of whatever they believe.
If you are in a relationship with someone who you feel is trying to change you in any way, please do not be afraid to leave. Change can be scary, but I promise that, in the end, you will be much happier for standing up for yourself and what you believe in.
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Hands holding cross