Was I Groomed? 10 Signs of Emotional and Spiritual Grooming
Yesterday was the first day in several weeks when the weather afforded us Missourians the luxury of taking a walk outside, rather than being forced indoors by either rain or feel-like temperatures above 100 degrees. I was headed to the gym when I realized our good weather–related fortune, so—ever the outdoor enthusiast—I made a U-turn and headed for one of my favorite trails instead.
This particular trail was one Erik introduced me to when he and I were together. For over a year after he disappeared, I continued walking that same system of trails, mostly because I was familiar with it and enjoyed the walks themselves. The other small percentage was because it was a final connection to Erik. Yesterday was the first time I had been back in several months, and I imagined it was a good idea to go because all of that is behind me now.
Within minutes of walking, I realized I never want to return to that place again. I felt an immediate heaviness with every step, and my mind was suddenly invaded by memories of Erik and me. There was a time when that would have brought me comfort. Now, it makes me feel ill. I almost turned around, walked back to my car, and headed to a different outdoor location. But for some reason—stubbornness, maybe? Curiosity?—I didn't. I chose, instead, to walk with the heaviness. The memories.
I'm kind of glad I did, because feeling like I was on the verge of vomiting for a little over an hour did, in some small way, show me how far I've come in my own healing, especially when it comes to my posture before the Lord.
Erik used to be an idol for me. No doubt about that. Now that he's fallen from that high place, I could see pieces of him lying all over the ground around me while I walked. I could see the manipulation. The control. The carefully selected lies he told. The compliments, the promises, and the mirrors he used to gain access to the innermost places of who I am as a woman. I could see the plan, the boundaries he pushed to get into my bed, and the accelerated intimacy he employed to get me into his.
I used to think I knew Erik. There was a time when I felt a deep sense of guilt—or maybe regret—for going to Lee Hagan with the charge of sexual misconduct. For a long time, I was sure that decision was the reason Erik never came back to me. But the truth is, he was never going to return. Not really. Even before I told the truth, he was already gone. Erik conditioned me to believe that my patience was keeping him near. That my loyalty, my generosity, my reverence toward him were signs that I carried something precious. But now I can see it differently. I didn’t carry his heart. I carried his secrets. His image. His safety. He made me believe I mattered deeply, but what he needed was someone who would hold the weight of his double life without asking him to bear it.
Writing about my relationship with—and the aftermath of—Erik Herrmann has been a strange and often painful journey. Along the way, I’ve made serious mistakes. I’ve also made grounded, faithful decisions, for which I give all glory to Jesus, who has kept me in perfect peace even as I walked through long stretches of confusion, grief, and silence. There was no quick answer. No immediate exit. No satisfying closure. God allowed me to suffer, and at times that suffering felt unbearable. But it was never wasted. In the beginning, taking every thought captive for Christ felt like an all-out war. Now, by His grace, and through the steadying gift of a logical mind aligned with His Word, that same discipline has become a source of healing. Through it, I’ve come to see the true devastation of my own sin, and the abundant love the Lord has always lavished upon me. What’s changed is not my view of Christ’s love, but my ability to recognize Erik’s love for what it truly was: a counterfeit. All glory to God.
That said, the more clearly I see all of this, the more clearly I see Erik. That clarity is a problem for him. He did not find me in a season of strength. He found me in a season of collapse. It was a time marked by upheaval, confusion, and loss. My husband had just been canceled from his position, not because he had done anything wrong, but because he stood firm in his convictions and refused to bend the knee to cultural pressure. He had served faithfully for twenty years and was only four years from retirement. The decision was unjust, yet it was final.
We lost our income. We lost our home. We lost the community we had helped build. At the time Erik appeared, we were still reeling. The dust had not settled. The grief was still fresh. We were trying to find our footing again, trying to regain a sense of direction and rebuild trust in the aftermath of being blindsided. That was the state I was in when Erik entered the story.
He saw the devastation. Rather than offering honest friendship or real support, he began positioning himself as a source of comfort and clarity. He presented himself as a listener, a companion, a refuge. However, he was not motivated by love. He was motivated by control. He saw my vulnerability not as something to protect, but as an opening. He offered attention in exchange for access. Before I knew it, he had centered himself in my story.
He did not come to shoulder the weight of my suffering. He came to exploit it. I can see that now.
The more I examined what happened between me and Erik, the more I realized how familiar the pattern was. I had been groomed emotionally, spiritually, and subtly.
Here are 10 signs of emotional and spiritual grooming, drawn from both experience and research.
10 Red Flags of Emotional and Spiritual Grooming
In emotionally or spiritually abusive relationships, harm is rarely inflicted all at once. It unfolds gradually, disguised as care, framed as closeness, or concealed beneath the language of shared understanding. The term “grooming” is often associated with child abuse or overt predation, but its broader psychological definition includes any intentional process by which a person gains trust, normalizes boundary violations, and prepares another person for exploitation.
This essay outlines ten common grooming strategies used by emotionally and spiritually abusive people, particularly those in positions of perceived moral or intellectual authority. Each tactic is subtle, plausible, and often admired by outsiders. That is precisely what makes them so effective.
1. The Illusion of Mutual Vulnerability
Abusers often begin by presenting themselves as vulnerable. They share personal stories of hardship, loneliness, or spiritual struggle to create an atmosphere of intimacy. This creates the illusion of deep connection. In trauma-informed literature, it’s sometimes called pseudo-intimacy: a bond that feels mutual, but is actually built through carefully controlled, one-sided disclosure.
These stories are not random. They’re handpicked for emotional impact. The vulnerable sharer appears honest and trustworthy, which encourages the listener to reciprocate with vulnerability of their own. Over time, the imbalance grows. The person being groomed feels seen, heard, and emotionally aligned with someone who appears just as tender or broken. They begin to open up in ways that feel sacred or significant.
Dr. Judith Herman, in Trauma and Recovery, writes that grooming often begins with a period of “courting” that resembles genuine attachment. The abusive person sets the terms of emotional exchange, chooses the content, and controls the pacing. Their disclosures are not offered as mutual risk, but as bait. The result is an emotional power imbalance that favors the person who appears most wounded. Genuine mutuality never develops. Instead, the abusive person reaps the benefits of emotional closeness while remaining fully in control. The listener is opened up. The sharer remains in control.
2. Offering Special Attention That Feels Unique
Once a foundation of trust has been laid, the abusive person begins to offer affirmation that feels personal and rare. This is not ordinary kindness. It is targeted attention designed to foster dependence. Specific compliments, inside jokes, meaningful gifts, or unexpected encouragement are all presented as evidence that the relationship is extraordinary.
In spiritual settings, this often begins with a leader—perhaps a pastor or mentor—offering emotional disclosures or praise that feels unusually personal for the context. A pastor might share his own struggles with loneliness, his admiration for your insight, or his sense that “God has brought you into my life for a reason.” These comments are framed as spiritual affirmation, but they carry an undercurrent of intimacy. Over time, they create a private world within a public one.
This form of emotional grooming often mirrors the early stages of romantic love, even when the relationship is not romantic. In narcissistic grooming patterns, it is sometimes referred to as love bombing. In spiritual or professional environments, the dynamic may be more subtle, but no less intense. The person being groomed begins to feel chosen, set apart, or deeply understood. That sense of uniqueness becomes its own form of tether.
Dr. Diane Langberg writes, “Abusers use power not simply to dominate but to manipulate. They make others feel chosen, needed, and uniquely seen, which creates loyalty before the cost of that loyalty is ever clear.” The attention functions like a spotlight. It floods the nervous system with warmth, affirmation, and meaning. It also narrows vision. The intensity of the connection can override the ability to assess boundaries with clarity.
People who are emotionally attuned and relationally generous are especially vulnerable to this tactic. They interpret the attention as mutual regard rather than strategic seduction. By the time questions or doubts arise, the emotional hooks have already taken hold.
3. Isolating You Emotionally Without Forcing It
Isolation in abusive relationships often begins without any direct demand. Instead of issuing ultimatums or forbidding outside contact, the abusive person presents themselves as the only one who truly understands. The relationship is framed as uniquely deep, spiritual, or even divinely appointed. This kind of emotional isolation doesn’t require cutting ties with others. It only requires the introduction of doubt that anyone else truly understands you, and that anyone outside the relationship can be trusted.
Over time, trusted people in the victim’s life are subtly recast. A spouse may be described as emotionally unavailable. Friends are gently dismissed as shallow or incapable of grasping the spiritual depth of the connection. The abusive person becomes the filter through which reality is interpreted. They plant questions without seeming controlling. They may say things like, “I don’t think she really gets you,” or, “It’s hard to talk to people who don’t understand what God is doing.”
In the context of an affair, this dynamic intensifies. Affairs are isolating by design. They rely on secrecy, limerance, and the absence of outside perspective. Once the connection becomes hidden, the person involved often loses the ability to test their reality against truth-telling friends or spiritual mentors. The isolation becomes not just emotional, but structural. The longer it lasts, the harder it is to reach for clarity without dismantling the entire relationship.
Dr. Jennifer Freyd, who coined the term betrayal trauma, observed that people often stay silent in abusive dynamics not because they are unaware of the danger, but because speaking up would mean losing the only relationship that feels real. In this way, the victim becomes emotionally tethered, even as their world quietly shrinks.
4. Reframing Boundaries as Obstacles to Intimacy
Once emotional trust is firmly in place, the abusive person begins to test boundaries. These may be emotional, physical, sexual, or spiritual. Rather than acknowledging them as healthy or important, the boundaries are slowly redefined. They are described as barriers to closeness, remnants of fear, or limitations that stand in the way of honesty and connection.
When the person being groomed hesitates or pulls back, the abusive person responds with partial apologies, spiritual platitudes, or reinterpretations of the event. A physical touch is reframed as a sign of tenderness. A lingering conversation that crossed a line is described as vulnerability. The person being groomed is invited to see the moment not as a violation, but as intimacy.
Over time, this tactic erodes clarity. The person begins to associate discomfort with growth, confusion with connection, and boundary violations with love. They may question their own instincts or wonder if they are overreacting. The discomfort is not resolved. It is redefined.
This erosion is not accidental. It is a grooming tactic rooted in repetition and suggestion. Eventually, the person being groomed finds it difficult to say no because they have been taught that their no is a failure to trust. What begins as hesitation becomes submission. The ability to recognize exploitation becomes harder and harder to access.
5. Confusing You with Hot-and-Cold Behavior
Abusive people often create confusion through a pattern known as intermittent reinforcement. This dynamic involves alternating between warmth and withdrawal, closeness and distance, affirmation and silence. The behavior keeps the other person emotionally disoriented. They never know what to expect, so they remain on edge, always hoping for a return to connection.
The inconsistency is not careless. It’s calculated. By offering affection and then removing it, the abusive person becomes both the cause of pain and the only source of comfort. This emotional rollercoaster builds dependency. The brief returns of warmth feel like reconciliation, even when nothing has truly changed.
Patrick Carnes and Barbara Steffens, experts in betrayal trauma, describe this cycle as a powerful conditioning tool. Over time, the person being targeted begins to believe that emotional stability is not possible—or maybe preferrable— without the abusive person’s presence or approval. The unpredictability is mistaken for complexity. The confusion is interpreted as depth.
This confusion makes it increasingly difficult to recognize manipulation. The abused person finds themselves working harder and harder to “get back” to the version of the relationship they remember, without realizing that version was part of the manipulation itself.
6. Elevating Secrecy as a Moral Good
Secrecy often begins as a request for privacy. It sounds innocent, even reasonable. Over time, though, the private becomes secretive, and the secret becomes sacred. In spiritually abusive relationships, the secrecy is framed as holy. The connection is described as special, protected, and set apart from the eyes or understanding of others. This is when you might hear things like, “You’re my home,” or, “My life began again when I met you,” or, “Parts of me that I thought were dead have come alive in you.”
This framing creates a powerful sense of intimacy. The other person feels chosen. They believe they are being entrusted with something fragile and holy. What they are actually being asked to carry is someone else’s duplicity.
Spiritual language amplifies the weight. The abusive person may say things like, “God is doing something here,” or, “So many of my colleagues have had affairs but I don’t think they’ve ever fallen in love like we have.” The secrecy is not framed as concealment. It is framed as reverence. To speak of it feels like betrayal. To question it feels like doubt.
The person being groomed begins to feel both honored and trapped. They are invited into a hidden world where the rules are different and the consequences of disclosure are enormous. What they may not see is that they are protecting the very person who is harming them.
This tactic is especially effective in Christian environments, where loyalty is often emphasized as a virtue. The victim learns to equate silence with faithfulness and begins carrying the emotional and spiritual weight of someone else’s sin.
7. Performing Repentance to Maintain Control
When lines are crossed, abusive people often perform repentance. The apology may sound sincere. It may include moving language, a solemn tone, or spiritual references. Yet the behavior does not change. This pattern is known as impression management, a term used by Dr. Wade Mullen to describe public displays of remorse that are intended to protect power, not to repair harm.
These performances are especially convincing in Christian contexts. Churches are conditioned to believe that repentance leads to restoration, regardless of what follows. A man may confess partial truth in a broken voice and quote Scripture, but if there is no lasting change, the confession is not repentance. It’s theater.
The person who has been harmed may feel confused. The words seem right. The emotion appears real. Yet the harm continues. In some cases, the harm escalates. The abuser is not using repentance as a path to healing. He is using it as a reset button to regain control.
Genuine repentance bears fruit. It includes truth, accountability, change, and a willingness to surrender control. Performative repentance offers none of these. It seeks to preserve the abuser’s image while burdening the harmed person with silence, compliance, or quick forgiveness.
8. Redirecting Concern by Becoming the Victim
Once confronted, an abusive person may shift the focus away from the harm they caused and toward their own pain. This reversal of roles is known in psychology as DARVO: Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender. The person who was harmed becomes the perceived aggressor. The person who caused the harm becomes the one who needs compassion.
This shift is often subtle at first. The abuser may express sadness, describe personal stress, or suggest that the confrontation has wounded them. Over time, the conversation becomes centered on their feelings, their suffering, and their fear of being misunderstood. The real harm disappears behind their emotional display.
Dr. Jennifer Freyd, who developed the concept of betrayal trauma, found this tactic to be especially destabilizing in trusted relationships. The harmed person begins to feel guilty for bringing anything to light. They may start to believe that telling the truth is a form of harm itself.
This emotional manipulation protects the abuser from consequences. It also isolates the person who was harmed. Friends and colleagues may rush to comfort the one who appears fragile, while questioning the credibility or motives of the one who spoke up.
9. Accumulating Social Capital to Avoid Scrutiny
Abusive people don’t groom only individuals. They groom entire communities. They build trust slowly and deliberately, earning admiration through charm, knowledge, or perceived emotional, intellectual, and spiritual depth. Over time, they create a reservoir of goodwill so deep that when concerns arise, others rush to defend them.
This dynamic is especially strong in churches, schools, and academic institutions. A man may be seen as faithful, wise, or sacrificial. His image becomes so intertwined with goodness that few people are willing to question it. The suggestion of wrongdoing feels like an attack on the community itself.
David Johnson and Jeff VanVonderen, authors of The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, describe how some systems begin to enshrine a leader’s image in order to protect the institution. When that happens, truth becomes secondary to loyalty. Even well-meaning people may dismiss the harmed person’s experience or suggest that they misunderstood what happened.
Social capital is not always used for good. When someone’s reputation is so carefully built and widely admired that even questioning it feels disloyal, that reputation becomes a form of protection. The truth may still be visible, but the emotional and social cost of acknowledging it feels too high so the community chooses denial instead.
This is often when you’ll start hearing things like, “Stop gossiping,” or, “You’re being irresponsible by telling the truth,” or, “Don’t talk to her, he told me she’s crazy.”
10. Preempting Accountability Through Reputation Management
Some men do not simply build trust. They construct a myth. They become known not just as good, but as exceptional, wise, misunderstood, and noble under pressure. Their story is already written, and they have positioned themselves as its central figure.
Any woman who challenges that narrative will sound, by comparison, unstable. She may be called bitter, jealous, or obsessed. Her testimony will be measured against his image, not his actions. The myth makes accountability nearly impossible. The more carefully it has been curated, the easier it is to dismiss anything that contradicts it.
Reputation management often begins long before the harm occurs. It includes carefully chosen public posts, strategic friendships, spiritual language, and displays of self-deprecation that disarm critics. By the time misconduct is exposed, the community has already been conditioned to defend him.
This is not accidental. It is the final line of defense in the grooming process. The man who built a double life built a fortress around it. His reputation was not just a byproduct of his charisma. It was a calculated protection against ever being truly seen.
For the person who has walked through emotional or spiritual grooming, it can take months—sometimes years—to untangle what happened. There is grief, yes. But there is also confusion, because the abuse was not obvious. It came wrapped in connection, hidden inside what looked like care.
If you’re trying to make sense of a relationship that once felt meaningful but now feels difficult to name, I hope these red flags help bring clarity. You’re not alone.