Was my relationship with my youth worker as a teenager weird?

[gregometer]

When I was 15 I was part of a youth group associated with the church that i attended since childhood. I became very close with one of the male leaders who I'd known since I was very small. Nothing actually sexual happened between us and I actually have warm feeling towards him when I think of him now. However when I look at it all as an adult, through the lense of an married women with children, it feels so inappropriate and I need help knowing how to feel about it.
He was very kind to me and did extremely sweet things for me. With it being a church youth group, he was invested in me becoming Christian, although no one in my family was particularly religious even though id gone to church regularly since childhood with my nanna. I think this could be used as an excuse as to why he was so invested in spending time with me, because he wanted to convert me.

But we'd spend so much time together, in his car, chatting for hours after he'd dropped me off. And he told me he would purposely drop me off a little bit away from my house so my grandad and dad wouldn't see us in the car together. He said he knew there was nothing untoward going on but was concerned about how it looked to others.
He'd tell me not to sleep with other boys, when I was around 16/17. This would be framed in a 'it's not what's in gods plan for you' way. And he never hinted that he wanted to sleep with me but i remember going to a boys house one night after he'd tried to persuade me not to and he text me on the night saying 'have fun'. Which in hindsight seems a little off.
When I was a fair bit older and had moved away and came back to visit, I was walking with him, and a boy that I didn't recognise said hello to me, I didn't know who it was and my youth leader said 'probably someone you've had sex with'. Which was all very jokey at the time but again now, seems weird.

This was a man in his 30s, married with 5 children. I was friends with his wife. I'd baby sit for them, clean their house, take their kids to school once of week. Again he was a gentle soul, we had a laugh and a loved spending time with him. But we were incredibly intense together and he was my closest relationship at that time. Now my husband is a dad in his 30s and I'm trying to picture him spending that amount of time with a teenage girl and I can't! I think it would break our marriage. I'd feel sick to my stomach. I'm having a hard time knowing how to think about all this, maybe someone has some wisdom?

Say what,
groomers won’t have one he’ll have many on the go but it’s ok cos she didn’t get molested.

never mind any others eh

He's not on social media and neither am I really.
This will sound naive but I know nothing was going on with the other girls. They were mostly younger or had higher boundaries than me. It was always us that left together

You won’t have been the only one sorry you won’t have been and,you may have left with him but did you go to the church daily as some fellow worshipers are there daily.

I’m telling you this as someone who has completed the Child Safeguarding Course at my church: we were told VERY CLEARLY that we were NEVER to be alone with any of the kids. Ever. The car thing was completely out of order. And the confiding in you. And the accusing you of having sex with the guy you ran into.

Look, I don’t know if his motivations were…grooming you for sexual encounters, an ego boost, using you for free cleaning / childcare…I don’t know. But I do know that it was wrong. All of it. Were your parents aware of what was going on?

Your body is telling you everything you need to know here.

At the end of your OP you say you if your husband behaved as this man did, you would feel sick to your stomach.

Listen to your body, it’s telling you how it feels about this person.

Your mind can do all the mental gymnastics it likes - you know at your core what this man is.

Yes it definitely wasn't right.
I've worked with children all my life and understand just how above reproach you have to be.
I think maybe because it wasn't a youth club with employees but mostly volunteers and was very causal in nature, it just felt very relaxed like we were all just a bunch of friends. I had good relationships with the other leaders too, but obviously this one went further.
The adults who lived in my house had known him for a very long time and knew he was heavily involved in the youth work. They wouldn't have suspected anything untoward. And at the time I didn't think it was weird either so I didn't discuss it with them, it wouldn't have registered to me as a problem to tell if you see what I mean?! It's only now that I'm looking back and thinking it's all a bit off.

That's just the thing - I have no bad feelings towards this man. Rather the opposite, my head knowledge is telling me it was all completely inappropriate and creepy but my feelings towards him and still happy and warm if that makes sense.

Safeguarding for kids really stepped up after Dunblane in 1996.
It was made clear to a colleague around 2003/04 never to be alone with any kids at a youth group.

Who knows what his motivation was but I can see why looking back it's making you uncomfortable.

I’m looking at what you wrote and at the end you say you’d be sick to the stomach if that was your husband. I wonder why?

I grew up in the pentecostal church, and i think this kind of behaviour was rife. Ive got so many examples of things that would raise an eyebrow now.

What year was this? I am an ex evangelical Christian and worked as a Christian youth worker in the early 00s. I look back at some of my behaviour and attitude to the young people I worked with in disbelief.

I trained as a youth worker at a Christian college. The whole aim of my work was to convert young people to Christianity. We were encouraged to get over involved in young people’s lives and become the most important adult to them. We saw them as poor lost souls who needed saving. It was generally assumed that non church young people were only interested in sex and drugs and we needed to get them to church. I realise now how stupid and naive that is!

I look back with horror now, thankfully I took safeguarding very seriously but I definitely got over involved emotionally in young people’s lives. We didn’t really have the correct respect for their parents, especially if they weren’t Christians. It was terrible. If someone tried to spend that much time with my child I would not trust them.

I would say approx 2008- 2011.
Yes you and the next poster to you have both said that it was fairly normal behaviour in churches and was to do with bringing people to Christ and not intentionally sinister even tho inappropriate.A big part of me believes that.

I would definitely have thought by 2008 it would have been well known not to be caught in a 121 situation with a child. Because it can leave the adult in a situation of being open to accusations.

We are 17 years down the line. His defence would be pretty weak if you were to accused him of in appropriate behaviour.

Your family must have known what time the youth group finished, say 9.00 if you weren't arriving home until say 10.00 where did they think you were?

All this is why the NSPCC policy of telling children that abuse is something they find uncomfortable is dangerous and enabling. Children who are abused are often already vulnerable and desperate for emotional validation and attention. Often they feel happy and safe with their (potential) abuser. Otherwise they would not seek out their company or they would report / end the relationship.

I've got a relative who was teaching in the 70's, so that's 50 years ago. She always said - teachers should never be alone with a child. Safeguarding is not a recent thing.

I didnt say that it was ok.
Of course having creepy weird men befriending teenage girls isnt ok, but what on earth is anyone going to do about it now. So many men are creeps to young girls. Its gross.

Our relationship just went further than it should have. By the time I was a young adult I was going to the pub with him and others together and it was more even. I think when I was 15/16/17 it was highly inappropriate just because of my age, but started to become more acceptable as I got older perhaps.

No. sorry. The power imbalance was still there when you were 18. Teachers aren’t allowed to date sixth formers the moment they finish their A levels, doctors can’t go to the pub with their patients, university staff don’t hang out in the student Union bar.

As I say, I understand why you want him to have been a naive, sweet, gentle soul trying to bring you to Christ, but I don’t see that with my outsider’s perspective. I’ve recently had safeguarding training (again) so I’m bang up to date, and none of what you describe in the way this man conducted his voluntary work was okay. He actually sounds like the bloke the Bishop of York is in trouble for shielding- except he has never been caught crossing the line.

Yes I think he absolutely knew he was crossing the line and it could get him into trouble. Whatever he was getting out of it obviously outweighed any risk.

I was a teenager so the adults in my house didn't micromanage where I was and at what time as long as I came home at some point in the evening - I think this was fairly standard for the time.

yes this was inappropriate.
I knew before I opened the thread this would most likely be a church related youth group and most likely evangelical/fundamentalist type.

there were a lot of these characters about in them sadly.

Yes mentoring young people was definitely an evangelism tactic. However I was trained 2004. I would never have been 121 on my own with a young person of the opposite sex. Alarm bells would have rung if any colleagues behaved this way. In my opinion he broke the boundaries.

A lot of male youth workers loved the adoration they could receive from young people. It was sometimes like being (a very lame) local celebrity.

If your home life was difficult he may have seen himself as offering a safe space, so you’d see what safe relationships looked like, and have choices. Ironic really as it was inappropriate even if well intentioned.