One Week After the Affair Was Exposed, Erik Herrmann Led Chapel

What narcissistic discard looks like in public—and what it took to begin seeing it

Stained glass, spring 2023. Photo by the author.

Before I wrote a word about this, I didn’t have the language to describe what had happened. All I knew was that something had come undone so completely that it left me questioning whether any part of it had ever been real. What I experienced in the aftermath of Erik’s disappearance wasn’t just heartbreak—it was a textbook case of what psychologists call narcissistic discard.

It’s the moment the person who once idealized you, who told you that you were rare, important, irreplaceable, suddenly vanishes. And worse: they reappear in public as if nothing ever happened.

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That morning, my husband thought he was walking into a moment of truth. He believed Erik might stand up for what we had. That he’d admit he had fallen in love with me, and that he wanted to build a life with me. My husband describes it now as a kind of Hail Mary—a last attempt to save our marriage by meeting Erik with the expectation that he would finally speak his choice aloud. Erik and I had already talked about the future. We had plans. I was supposed to meet him at a speaker event about a month later—he was looking for an Airbnb with a kitchen so we could make dinner together. My husband didn’t know that detail, but he had read enough of our messages to know something serious had already been set in motion. He expected a confrontation, even a declaration. What he got was something else entirely.

At 9:33 a.m., I was waiting for Erik in the commuter parking lot.
At 10:00 a.m., my husband was confronting him—calm, direct, and in person.
At 10:13 a.m., Erik called me.

He said just one thing:
“What am I supposed to do? Give up everything for THIS?”

And then—nothing.

I never heard from him again.

But I saw him. His photo appeared on Concordia Seminary’s Facebook page. I heard his voice in a podcast. He was in a promotional video. And exactly one week later, he was presiding over chapel.

Seven days after my husband confronted him.
Six days after he was “forced” to tell his wife—because the pastor we had both been seeing for counsel told him he would not offer absolution unless he did.
Seven days after I waited in the commuter lot so we could spend the day together at his house—plans we’d made to celebrate six months together.

There he was.
April 24, 2023.
Teaching about Paul.
Preparing the sacraments.
Chanting in second circle.

In the front row, his wife sat watching.

Ironically, she sat. For six months, Erik complained that she never supported him. Never came to hear him preach, sing, or speak. On this day, however, one week after the whole truth came crashing in, she was there. Watching. Listening.

And Erik stood, preaching.

It’s hard to explain how I felt.

Buried.
Set on fire.
Ash.
Trash.

There was no shock under which to hide, no courage with which to wrap myself. I longed for numbness, but it never came. Instead, I had only darkness. I wasn’t even inside it. Just… beside it. Close enough to feel it moving. Swirling with such force, it lifted the edges of my hair.

The anger came later.

So much later than it should have that my trauma specialist, pastoral counselor, and therapist all asked about it like it was an old friend who was late for dinner.

“Have you seen anger yet?”
“How long do you think it will take for anger to arrive?”
“Anger is a friend in times like these.”

Anger is a secondary emotion. It’s born of hurt, fear, frustration, and/or injustice. And I had all four wrapped around my ribs like a tightened corset. Still, anger felt far off. Passive. Out of reach.

Maybe it was waiting for me to come to it.

Eventually, I did.

For six months, I thought I knew Erik. We spent every moment we could investing in one another. I trusted what he told me. I trusted how he treated me. But that week, after the silence, after the chapel service, I began to hear something else. Not the truth I wanted to believe. The truth he spoke when it mattered.

One day, I walked ten miles along the river near my house. I prayed. I cried. I tried to see the beauty in the springtime trees. Tried to hear the birds overhead. I could barely see or hear, though. The world felt muted, as though it were being swallowed in shadow. Like the closing of an old camera shutter—narrowing, tightening.

That night, I collapsed on the couch, still caught in the loop. Sadness. Depression. Numbness. Shock. Confusion. Confusion. Sadness. Confusion. It was all happening at once, as if my mind had been set to fast-forward.

My husband came home from work. He could see I had been crying.

“I know you’re crying because you miss him. I know you’re hurting. I know he’s the one you want to talk to. And f*ck him for not being here for this part. But I’m here. And I’d like to help. What can I do?”

We had already agreed not to discuss our marriage for the first six months. It was pointless to pretend I wasn’t still emotionally attached to Erik.

“He isn’t coming back,” my husband said. “No matter what he told you, he’s never coming back.”

I responded with something I still cringe to remember:
“If you hadn’t confronted him, he never would’ve disappeared.”

Loyalty to Erik: 1. My sanity: 0.

So my husband walked me through their conversation again. He reminded me of what Erik had actually said.

“Erik is a grown man,” he said. “If he wanted to be with you, he would be here right now. And yes, I told him to stop having an affair with you. But he didn’t have to obey me. He just... obeyed me.

He could have fought for you. Stood up for you. Told me he was sorry but that he loved you. That he needed to talk to you. That he couldn’t live without you. That he never meant for this to happen, but now that it had, he had to choose it.

But he didn’t say any of that.

He called you needy. Said he never wanted to be with you. And then he called you and said the same thing.

This is who he is.”

I sat up. Thought about it. I finally heard the words.

Not the ones Erik whispered in secret.

The ones he chose when it counted.

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What Is Narcissistic Discard?

In emotionally abusive relationships—especially those involving people with narcissistic tendencies—“discard” is the phase where the idealization ends and the silence begins. It’s not always a slow fade. Sometimes it’s abrupt, brutal, and executed with surgical coldness. One day, you’re everything. The next, you’re no one.

This phase often follows what’s called the devaluation stage, when the person starts to withdraw affection, pick fights, or make you feel unstable and unworthy. The discard is the final blow. It leaves the other person questioning their reality, worth, and memory.

What makes it particularly cruel is how public the discard can be. While you’re still grieving, the narcissist is posting photos, giving sermons, attending events, and living visibly. To the outside world, they seem unbothered. Healed. Holy, even.

To the one discarded, it feels like erasure.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

You weren’t discarded because of who you are. You were discarded because of who they never truly were.

It doesn’t mean you were unlovable. It means they were never building something real. They were playing a part. And when the story changed, they switched scripts.

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I wish I could say:
This was the week I stopped waiting for Erik to return.
This was the week I stopped rewriting the story in my head.
This was the week I stopped protecting someone who had never protected me.
This was the week I started to heal.

But the reality is simpler, harder, and more embarrassing:

This was the week a tiny sliver of doubt began to form.

A fracture in my loyalty. A flicker of clarity. Nothing more. It would take far longer than I care to admit for me to begin seeing Erik for who he truly is.