My first day at the church was by an invite of a friend. She wanted me to join her church choir so the two of us could form a duo. We were both members of the school choir and when school was over, my friend thought we could still be singing together.

After church that day, she introduced me to the pastor of the church. She said, “Papa, here’s my friend I’ve been talking to you about. She has the voice of an angel and could help our choir a great deal.” The pastor picked a lengthy conversation with me and sought to convince me to join my friend in the church choir.

Eventually, I said yes and started going to church every Sunday and attending choir practice every Saturday.

The pastor’s interest in me was very obvious from the beginning. It was Papa and daughter affair until the texture of the relationship started changing. I saw it coming but the sad thing was I had no idea how to stop it.

On a phone conversation one night, he made his feelings very clear to me. He claimed it wasn’t a choice he made out of the flesh but it was the doing of the Lord. I didn’t say yes immediately. I discussed it with my friend and her advice was only this; “If you’re not ready to become the mother of the church, kindly don’t accept his proposal.”

I accepted the proposal not because I was ready to become the mother of the church. I genuinely liked him as a person. I liked his depth and I liked his charisma.

It wasn’t an open relationship. Very few people knew about it. He was concerned about how the church was going to perceive the affair and asked for us to keep it secret until the relationship became official.

As the leader of the choir, I followed him to every branch he visited. I traveled with him to long places where we had to spend a day or two together.

We broke all the rules you would expect a pastor and his girlfriend to keep in their relationship. I mean, all the rules the Bible speak against when it comes to the relationship between a man and a woman. I got pregnant and for obvious reasons, we had to let it go.

He always assured me of the future and how we didn’t need to jeopardize it until it was attained. He also brought up a marriage discussion and encouraged me to attend a bible school to groom myself for the future role as the church’s mother. I knew he was the one. I prayed about it and asked God to make all things beautiful in his time.

A year and a half into the relationship, he traveled abroad upon the request of one of the church members living there. He told me about plans to establish a branch there. He spent three months and came back. Over the next year, he traveled abroad frequently on “a mission of establishing new branches and extending territories of the Lord” as he usually told me.

Things started changing. The biggest of it all was the distance that came between us anytime he traveled. He would barely call or text. The excuses became too many and I was constantly left alone. I remained steadfast. I believed the intentions of his heart. He was my pastor and I believed he wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.

He returned from one of his travels one day without my knowledge. He was in Ghana for three whole days without my knowledge. On the following Sunday, he was in church but I had traveled to another branch with one of his junior pastors. That was when everything unfolded.

He stood in front of the congregation and introduced a half-cast lady to them as a woman he recently got married to while abroad. “She’s the chosen of the Lord so we didn’t want to waste a lot of time. We had a small wedding there and signed the marriage document and now we are here.”

When my friend called that day to inform me, I nearly collapsed. I didn’t want to believe it. I called the pastor’s phone all day but he didn’t pick. I sent him messages but no reply came.

Something in me wanted a revenge. I was so angry I wanted to hurt his reputation. Two days later, I sent him a text; “You can’t get away with this. Your church will know who you truly are.”

Some minutes later, two of his junior pastors called, I didn’t pick. They came to my house in the evening pleading with me not to cause a scene. They told me the pastor was ready to “settle” me and I should name an amount.

“I want him to talk to me, that’s all I want,” I told them. He never came to see me. Two weeks later, he left with the wife. I was broken and didn’t know what to do. All I wanted was to hear him talk about it. I was desperate for answers but he never gave me.

How She Set Me Up So She could Leave And Marry Her Ex One of the junior pastors reached out to me one afternoon and told me the whole truth; “He lied to you from the beginning. He’s been with that lady long before you even joined the church. You didn’t know because the woman was living outside.”

That truth was all I needed. I wasn’t part of his plans from the beginning. I only fell for his lies and allowed myself to be manipulated. I Forgave myself and moved on. I left the church with my friend and started a new life in a different church. Since then, I’ve learned not to judge side chicks because many of them don’t know until too late.

— Patricia, Ghana