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?