Relationships and Religious Trauma

I used to believe that love meant total surrender

In high-control religious systems, relationships are everything. They are the glue that holds the group together. The spiritual family. The chosen ones. The people who will stand by you in the end times, who will help you fight the battles of faith, who will pray for you when you are struggling. These relationships are intense. They are deeper than blood, stronger than any earthly bond. Or so they tell you.

But what happens when you begin to question? When cracks appear in the theology? When you start wondering if the fine print of this love means you were only ever welcome as long as you stayed inside the lines?

The Intensity of Relationships in High-Control Systems

One of the defining features of high-control religious environments is the sheer intensity of relationships. Friendships form quickly and deeply. Vulnerability is encouraged but often within a framework that requires conformity. You share everything, confessions, struggles, dreams, fears - because that’s what family does. There’s a sense of safety in knowing that everyone is in agreement about what matters most: faith, obedience, and unity.

But here’s the unspoken rule: this intensity is conditional.

If you stay. If you believe. If you conform.

This conditional love is powerful because it mimics real love. It feels real. It meets your need for belonging, for intimacy, for support. Until the day it doesn’t.

The Lack of Boundaries in Religious Relationships

Boundaries are often seen as a worldly concept in high-control religious spaces. There is an expectation of full access - leaders to their followers, members to one another. You’re encouraged to confess struggles, expose your weaknesses, and submit to accountability structures that often have no limits.

Leaders dictate personal decisions - who you should date, whether you should go to college, how you should spend your money. Friends can question your spiritual health if you skip a Bible study or seem distant in prayer meetings. Your life is not your own; it belongs to the community. And stepping back, even a little, can be seen as dangerous. Rebellious. A sign of spiritual decay.

I remember the first time I tried to assert a boundary with someone in my faith community. I was emotionally exhausted and needed space. The response was swift: “What’s going on with you? How is your prayer life? Are you holding onto sin?” A simple need for rest was framed as a spiritual crisis. The message was clear: true believers don’t need space from the ‘family.’

The Loneliness of Leaving

If you choose to step away, whether it’s from the faith entirely or just from the particular version you were raised in, the fallout is devastating.

I’ve spoken with people who lost entire social circles overnight. Friends who had once called them “soul sisters” or “siblings in Christ” now keep their distance, uncertain of how to interact with someone who no longer speaks their spiritual language. Some are met with direct confrontation: “You’re in danger. We’re praying for you. Come back before it’s too late.” Others experience a quieter kind of exile; silence, unanswered messages, invitations that no longer come.

And then there’s the family dynamic. If your parents, siblings, or spouse are still deeply entrenched in the system, your departure can feel like an earthquake. Relationships become strained, conversations tense. You wonder if you’re still fully seen, or if every interaction is now shadowed by their hope that you’ll return.

It is a profoundly lonely experience. Because the thing about high-control relationships is that they often leave little room for neutral ground. If you are no longer one of them, what are you?

Rebuilding After Religious Trauma

So where does that leave those of us who have walked away?

At first, it feels like free falling. You lose not just the faith system but the entire network that came with it. The group that dictated meaning, structure, identity, and relationships. And the silence that follows is deafening.

But then, something else happens.

Slowly, you begin to build relationships where love doesn’t come with conditions. You find people who don’t need you to believe a certain way to accept you. You learn that real friendships don’t require surveillance or constant justification. That love doesn’t have to mean complete surrender of self.

It takes time. There are days when the loneliness creeps in, when the nostalgia of those deep, intense relationships makes you wonder if it was all worth it. But then you remember: true love, true friendship, true connection doesn’t come with an asterisk. It doesn’t require losing yourself to belong.

For anyone on this journey, know this: you are not alone. There are others who have walked this path before you. Others who have faced the silence, the heartbreak, the loneliness. And others who have found something on the other side - something real, something free, something without the fine print.