How It Began
It started with an “exit interview.”
I met Erik for the first time in August 2022. He was the Dean of Theological Research and Publications at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. He was my boss.
I had been hired for a coordinating position at the seminary, but the role wasn’t quite what I had expected. By the end of September that same year, I left. On my last day, HR asked me to share my thoughts about my immediate supervisor, which I did. Also on that day, a symposium took place on campus. Erik found me there and said he would like to hear more about my experiences at the seminary. He told me he would get in touch and shook my hand before continuing to mingle.
A few days after I was gone, Erik sent me an email to set up what he called an “exit interview.” I wasn’t sure my one month of employment warranted such an official exit, and I was already beginning to sense the underlying tension between us. There were several times when I caught him looking at me from across halls and meeting rooms, and there were times when I felt like he was flirting with me. For example, he and I had a meeting in my office where he placed his chair so that his knee was about six inches from mine. His eyes also wandered quite a bit, and he seemed to vie for my attention in both emails and in meetings. He may have sensed I noticed his proximity because he later said, “I’m famously very touchy.” The way he said it struck me, highlighting a subtle but growing awareness I couldn’t quite place at the time—a feeling that his boundary-pushing was being framed as a quirky personality trait rather than something to be taken seriously.
Though I had declined the first exit interview invitation, I agreed to meet him after he followed up. I expected our meeting to happen either on the seminary campus or in a setting that seemed fitting based on what I knew of him. Erik was married, a professor, a pastor, and an influential figure within the seminary and the larger Lutheran community.
But something felt immediately off when he suggested we meet at Bar Louie in Kirkwood, MO.
When he arrived about 20 minutes late, I was waiting for him outside. We walked in together, and he ordered a martini. That also felt off. Not that I see anything wrong with drinking alcohol, but something about the scenario didn’t sit right. When he offered to buy me a drink, I chose a Diet Coke with lime, and he commented on my selection. I told him my husband and I had stopped drinking the year before to meet some health goals. I remember him dismissing the story without much thought. This is to say, I couldn’t imagine another time in my married life when I would sit at a bar having cocktails with a man who wasn’t my husband.
We spent about two hours together, starting with a conversation about my seminary experience, then veering into my recent, difficult move from another state. The move was tied to challenging Covid-related circumstances, and sharing this personal story stirred up emotions. At one point, I mentioned having tried an SSRI to manage anxiety and depression, and he responded by sharing his own experiences with similar struggles. That was the first moment I felt a connection I couldn’t shake off as mere imagination. What had begun with the expectation of pastoral care subtly shifted into something more—something unspoken, but undeniably real.
As we left the restaurant, Erik reached over to give me a hug. I was surprised, but the gesture unexpectedly broke down a barrier between us, making the situation feel more intimate than I had expected. It didn’t feel like pastoral care. It felt like pursuit.
After the meeting, I texted him to thank him and to continue our conversation. Two weeks later, we met for a walk in Forest Park. By this point, I could sense we were wading into dangerous territory. It wasn’t so much the content of our conversations, but the sheer amount of time we were spending together through text messages. One of the first texts he sent me read, “I guess we should be Facebook friends. 🙄” Later, when I asked why he wanted to move to Facebook Messenger, he explained that it was easier to talk to me from home. Before this, he had been keeping his phone in privacy mode to avoid notifications at home. Switching to Messenger gave him more control over when his phone would be active.
To offer more context, here are some of the things we talked about during our three-hour walk around Forest Park on October 14, 2022, which we both recognized as the beginning of our six-month affair. His words felt contradictory to the fact that we were there together, and that contrast became increasingly clear as our conversation unfolded:
He told me that, although he had known others who had affairs, he never really understood how they could do such a thing—until he met me.
As we sat on a bench, he casually remarked, “Well, I’m not going to fall in love with you. How could I fall in love with Jill?”
He spoke at length about his seemingly perfect marriage, describing how his family admired their "Norman Rockwell life." He also shared intimate details about the highs and lows of his relationship, including how satisfying their sex life was.
I shared some of my own personal experiences and, feeling a deep connection, asked him about things like prayer, pain, and the idea of forgiveness.
We both knew what was happening. We just hadn’t named it yet. Our conversation ended with a longer, more meaningful hug than I expected, and soon after, the physical element of our relationship began to unfold. On October 20, 2022, he sent me a link to the song “I Wish I Was” by The Avett Brothers.
Reflecting on that time, I now see how Erik worked to create a narrative for me to envy. His early stories about his “perfect” marriage and the admiration of others started to crack as his true motivations and actions began to surface. It became clear that his words and behaviors were in direct conflict.
As our relationship deepened, Erik controlled our intimacy. The first time he kissed me, he spent the next two hours insisting that it could never happen again. He told me that I would not be his mistress and that he would not be my paramour. He asked me not to seduce him. Then, just moments later, he grabbed me and kissed me again.
As we grew closer, I began to notice patterns of emotional manipulation and push-and-pull behavior, though I didn’t have the language for it at the time. His need to control the narrative, to maintain power, and to keep me in an emotional limbo became increasingly clear. He would swing between moments of affection and distance, keeping me off-balance and unsure of where I stood, all while ensuring that I remained emotionally hooked.
One of the last times I saw Erik, he said, “We’ve figured it out. We’re doing okay, aren’t we? I don’t want to be naive, but I think we’ve figured this out.” He said this to me toward the end of a long day spent at his home together. The same day, I had been contacted by a pastor I had visited in December 2022 for help to stop seeing Erik. When I declined to meet with him, the pastor reached out to Erik directly. Erik then told me he was going to meet with the pastor, saying, “No matter what I say to him, it will be to protect us. I’ll say whatever I have to because he knows way too much about us, and we’re in all the same circles. My main objective will be to protect us at all costs.”
What neither of us knew that day was that the whole story was about to break open.