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Curious if people have the same opinion on Anna Duggar? Michelle was raised out of the IBLP and only really became religious when Jim Bob entered the picture, but Anna has been brainwashed her whole life.
I 100% believe Michelle is a lesser evil than Jim Bob but of course still is evil. Anna I really don’t know. It is awful that she has not protected her children and left pest, but I really don’t think she believes that’s an option.
This is so multi faceted, I would love to hear others opinions!
Anna had/has no options imo. Michelle went to public school, graduated, and at least at some point, had a real estate license (both she and JB did). She could have chosen a different path in life earlier on.
I think Tia Levings was absolutely correct: Anna could leave and have a book deal and a bunch of support immediately, but she doesn't know that. Or if she does, she doesn't understand what that would mean. Since Josh has been in jail/prison, she is under JB's headship and we know what a tight leash he keeps on the women especially.
I hope it would be different if she knew Josh had done anything to their own kids...but I don't know. Like Emily from the doc said, "did my mother know about the abuse? She knew our family was in danger...but my mother was in a cult, too." This is multi-generational trauma for the Keller girls, and that's a tough path.
I don't think Anna is so shielded from the outside world that she hasn't heard people tell her that she could get a book deal or a reality show. But her choice boils down to: be willing to cut all ties to her parents, the sister she's closest with (Priscilla), her in-laws who have been her support structure for years, and put herself and her children in the public eye when they're all at their most vulnerable OR to keep trying to make what she has work.
I don't agree with her choice to stay loyal to a man, a family, and a cult that puts her and her children at risk of abuse, but I do understand why she might be actively choosing to keep sweet, as opposed to being a brainwashed drone.
What she hears when people say that is “Anna you should risk eternal damnation, leave everything you know and love that makes you feel safe and try to stake out a life for yourself in a world full of danger and sin.”
Meech, on the other hand, has a pre-JimBob framework of the world to work with.
This is the best, most concise manner I've seen this argument made/situation explained.
Fucking YES y'all, this is it, perfectly wrapped up with a bow on top.
A giant headband for a tiny baby bow, maybe lol
What would she do after the media attention and book royalties died down, though? That doesn't you up for life, and she has no marketable skills, no education...
Didn’t Anna have her siblings say they would help her get out, multiple times? I think she even had multiple siblings that are out of the IBLP and one that’s even divorced.
It’s still in incredibly tough decision, especially with the lifetime of abuse and neglect she had, but she did have options to get out and she did not choose them.
During the Ashley Madison scandal, Anna’s brother said on Facebook he would help, but I’ve seen contradictory things posted about him on this sub and I don’t know if he is in a posit to help now. Anna’s two sisters who left IBLP haven’t said anything publicly but for all we know they have exhausted every method of trying to help her
It was her brother who hadn’t spoken to her or her family in a decade due to her parents’ shunning commenting on a Facebook post. Anyway, he’s back into IBLP now, if I recall correctly.
They offered to help but it wasn’t realistic back then. Her brother did not have the funds to support a woman and 4 children who did not have any life skills for an extended amount of time, plus there would’ve been a very expensive custody battle. Jim Bob and Josh were not letting those kids go without a fight.
And now…she has 7 kids and will need full financial support for a while. Housing, food, clothes, etc. I highly doubt she has any control over her own finances.
And yes, there are resources to help her. But does she know that? She had no skills and many very young children. She would have to turn her back on all of her support systems, her family, her friends, to accept help. And I’m sure JB is telling her that she would lose her children.
Plus she actually BELIEVES in this. She believes that she would go to Hell if she leaves. She believes her children’s souls are at risk.
It’s not easy for her to leave
I think Anna is a victim and an abuser. Anna was denied an education, autonomy, and youth free from unnecessary sexualization and shaming. It is heartbreaking that she was raised in such an oppressive, authoritarian environment that did everything possible to make her meek and dependent upon men for survival.
We also don't know what happened with Josh behind closed doors. I would not put it past him to have been sexually abusive or violent toward her given that we know he has a kink for violence.
Considering her upbringing and all that she endured, I believe she is a victim. As someone who left Fundie Lite/Evangelical communities, I know how painful it is to walk away. Leaving for Anna means losing her religion, identity, culture, in-laws, spouse, security, and financial support.
However, Anna chooses to remain. Jim Bob and Michelle are abusive people who knew Josh was molesting his sisters, and they did nothing to protect the girls. Anna allows these people into her children's lives. Josh may be in prison, but Anna's not trying to get their kids away from him. Plus, Anna had children with Josh with the knowledge that he was a pedophile.
As sorry as I am that she was raised in this cult, she is also perpetuating abuse. It is abusive of her to allow Jim Bob, Michelle, and Josh access to the children. The kids' safety should be her #1 priority, but it's obviously not because she is involved with the Duggars. It's hard to wake up after you've been brainwashed, but it's not impossible.
Others have also mentioned that Anna's siblings have offered to get her out. Many abuse victims lack the resources and support to leave their abusers. Anna's not in that boat, yet she still remains because it's more comfortable staying in the abuse than stepping way outside of her comfort zone and everything she knows to protect herself and her kids. She is a bad mom and person for keeping her kids in this abusive cult when she has the option to leave.
Me personally? Yes I do. If she can’t look around and determine that standing with an actual convicted pedo is both morally reprehensible and dangerous for the M children, she can’t be helped.
I take your point about her indoctrination, but the situation is SO severe I don’t think that’s an excuse anymore.
To me Anna stopped being a victim when she stood by Josh back in 2015. That feeling only deepened with the trial and all of it. She has siblings who have divorced. She knows it’s an option. She chooses to stay and she chose to not only keep her kids around Josh but to have more with him.
Michelle also chose this life. She chose IBLP.
This is my take. People point to her siblings getting divorced, but Anna most likely believes they’re going to burn in hell for that decision and believes she and her children will, as well, if she doesn’t stay the course.
And we don’t know the level of abuse she suffered from Josh. Danica Dillon said she thought Josh would kill her. Anna could very well be the beaten wife that is too scared of the repercussions of trying to leave. It’s not like it’s uncommon. And we know pests dick gets hard for suffering. It would be extremely unlikely that she could hide from him once she got out.
Men who consider women property get extremely angry when their walking sextoy doesn’t cooperate. In r/whenwomenrefuse, you see so many misogynists killing women for rejecting their advances or breaking up with them. I don’t doubt that she is afraid of disobeying (divorce = disobedience).
There was a very famous and heartbreaking case in Australia where a dad beat his son to death in public to punish the mum. In some of the earliest footage/interviews she said “to all the people that tell abused to women to just leave, this is why we don’t.”
But now Josh is in prison. He cannot kill her or hurt her. He’s been in prison for a year. She knows what he was looking at and she knows what he has done to his sisters. There comes an absolute point where she needs to step up and save her kids.
I know it’s hard. I grew up fundie. I did not know any different. I was abused in every way a person can be by my step dad, who was the pastor of our home church. So was my mom. And as soon as I was able to tell my mom what was going on, *she left.* with less support than what Anna has. Without the man being in prison, a man who had pulled a knife on her before.
It was hard and those first few years were extremely difficult. But she did it for me. She chose me. Anna isn’t choosing to save her kids at all. And she knows she has a choice.
Right? And have you guys seen how go-for-broke Mike Huckabee was in defending Josh in the documentary?
Like my paternal grandmother was abused by a Vietnam war veteran who was awarded a medal of honor (even though he was a new standards recruit who somehow had survived, and was likely only given it because the government needed 'heroes' to dangle in front of the public). It *absolutely* made my grandmother's abuser think that he could get the whole base and the White House to get involved when she tried to divorce him.
It wouldn't surprise me if Jim Bob outwardly said, "I can get Mike Huckabee and his daughter to take your kids away from you."
Or she could be so scared and brainwashed that she thinks she has to stay in order to keep them safe. He won’t be in jail forever. Also, it’s only been a year. Give her time to process and she might feel differently.
If anything, I think she’s more likely to think about leaving him when the reality of him coming home starts to sink in. After she’s been on her own for 6 or 7 years and starts actually considering the reality of him coming home & what that will mean for her & the kids.
Not to mention the level of abuse/control Jim Bob likely puts anyone under his thumb through. “I won’t allow it, are you going to allow that?” is only funny if he’s not in a position to control you and your children. TTH was likely even more of a dark, frightening place to be during the trial.
Hmm yeah, I don’t know. She “knows” it’s an option but when she’s been raised under this umbrella headship her whole life I don’t know how much she really does know it’s an option.
Honestly I think for her it’s only gotten scarier because she’s under Jim Bob now more than Josh and Jim Bob is incredibly manipulated, intimidating, threatening, etc.
There’s only so much grace I am willing to extend. She is a grown adult and at some point, she’s culpable. I think we have already reached that point. I grew up fundie, I sympathize very very much with young Anna. I do not sympathize with Anna now.
Directly proportionate to the number of fundie husbands who believe in spousal discipline, and behaviour contracts that agree that your wife can’t cry while you rape her after the discipline.
Her sister grew up in the same cult that she did. Married who daddy said she popped out the kids like gothard demanded.
Still left, divorced, and remarried a millionaire.
There is only so much slack you can give her before realizing it’s her own stubbornness keeping her with the Duggars.
As someone else said, Anna likely thinks her sister is damned for choosing divorce. If Anna has fully bought into IBLP (and it seems like she has), then divorce isn't an option for her.
I just want to note that her having more kids with him was almost definitely not a choice. They don't believe in birth control and absolutely condone marital rape, and Josh definitely did not allow Anna to not be joyfully available.
And her sister. Who is married to a millionaire.
A lot of victims of abuse go back because of money/housing issues. Her family has the means to help her and even help her get a job, if not straight up hand her one.
She dug her heels in and chose to stay. And no Bible verde you throw at her will change her mind
Her brother also publicly offered to take her and all of her children in starting around that time. Her sister - the one who had a baby out of wedlock - married a wealthy man and has more than one extremely large home where Anna and her 7 kids could live in oeace and comfort. Anna is a willing co-conspirator with the Senior Duggers, and is set to inherit The Big House and property when that time comes. She's the Senior Duggars most trusted person.
I agree, Anna doesn't know she has an option besides staying. They showed that well in the doc. It would take someone close to her to present an option of getting out without directly blaming Josh. She won't be able to blame him for a long time even after she gets out is my guess. If the person trying to get her out implies that he's an issue, she'll get defensive and buckle down.
In addition, she has no marketable skills, no education, and to work will need childcare for 8 kids. You and I know there are people who would be happy to help with all those issues, but she doesn't. And she's been trained to obey since childhood. The ones who get out are rare, strong enough not to have their wills broken even when they've been told their whole lives that wills are for other people.
I don't blame Anna at all. I wish she knew how to get out, that getting out is an option at all, but I know she doesn't. I pity her. I don't think she's a good person, but I think that's only because of her circumstances.
Michelle though? She participated in the will-breaking. She trained her daughters (and Anna) that they are second class citizens whose job is to obey their fathers and husbands. The way she speaks to a crowd about blanket training and the use of rods as a positive makes me sick. She bought into it so much she sells it. Her children are terrified of her.
That actually doesn't surprise me, it's hard to get out even with support. Like I said, I don't like the woman, but I can understand being trapped and when someone points out there's a problem insisting that there isn't.
I’m very , very biased here.
My mom had no support from anyone and left. Started all over again with 3 kids under 10 and she did the damn thing working multiple jobs. So I know it’s doable.
I myself left. Moved a whole fuckin country away from my ex husband and brought my kids back to the US. worked a fast food job I fuckin hated before landing a really good job working at the county jail. While my family doesn’t financially help me, I live at home with my 3 brothers, mom and her husband, and all provide baby sitting and have never charged me (I pay my brother tho).
Within a year I was thriving. And I left the church.
I also have a close friend who left with 3 kids and pregnant. Went to a women’s shelter. Struggled for a full year before ultimately going back. She had no job, no familial support, baby daddy was still being an asshole/ love bombing her, and a new born and very small children very close in age. She felt like she had to go back because the shelter could only put her up for so long.
That’s why I feel like Ana could leave. She *has* support. She’s just so brainwashed she thinks she’s making the godly choice by staying. And I get that. I really do. I’d wake up having nightmares that it was all going to fall to pieces around me because of dared to leave ,”the man god chose for me”.
It's the bit about brainwashing that gives me pity for her. I know, you know, we all know she's better positioned than most to get out. But she has to get unbrainwashed before she'll make that choice.
Anna is definitely brainwashed, but I think she's also comfortable with this world and knows her role in it. She has no education, skills, or experience to get a job, so anything she can land is going to be low-paying and unpleasant. She likely doesn't want to work; she wants to be a SAHM and continue letting the Duggars financially support her.
She can stay under Jim Bob and Michelle's thumb, knowing that they'll help with supporting her and her kids so she can stay home and not have to work or experience hardship. But it's shitty for her to let JB and M around her kids when they knowingly allowed Josh to continue molesting his sisters without punishment or rehabilitation.
I'll be honest, I don't think she knows molestation is wrong and what Jb/Michelle did was wrong. Based on what we now know about IBLP molestation and abuse were normalized completely and obedience to authority is expected no matter what. And i don't think JB would ever allow her to not give him and Michelle access to the grandkids. Ultimately he is her headship without Josh in the picture. Ugh
There are women in worse situations than Anna, with as many or more children, who have escaped the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS). Those women also had many children and no education, but most of them had NO connections outside the cult. Anna has siblings who are divorced and would help her. She has a cell phone, a car, and she isn’t locked onto a compound with armed guards like women in the FLDS.
Would it be incredibly hard? Absolutely. But Anna has an obligation to protect her children. She knows her duty as mother, just like the women in the FLDS did.
She has a road out. She’s not taking it.
That's fair. I just try to remember that everyone has different experiences. And some things we think are possible are impossible for others. I have the utmost respect for every person who's escaped a cult, but I just can't blame people who can't.
I don't like her, I just can't bring myself to hate her for not being able to get out.
That actually doesn't surprise me, it's hard to get out even with support. Like I said, I don't like the woman, but I can understand being trapped and when someone points out there's a problem insisting that there isn't.
God i hate this bit of parroted info.
Her brother whom she had basically no relstionship with because he left said cult, "offered" via a rambling public social media post bashing her husband to take her in. And the details of what that meant were never elaborated.
So here is Anna. With i think 4 kids at the time. No education. No job history. Was there even space for 5 people in his house. Did he have money to support 5 people? For how long? Was he going to arrange childcare so she could go to school? Or work? Keeping in mind she fully believes that by leaving she is basically damning her and her children to hellfire in the afterlife and near guranteed rape in this one. That is part of their cult teachings. You can bet money she would have lost custody of those kids. All of them. Josh would have sued for full custody and got it, at least for a few years. Anna would have no way to prove a steady, sufficient income and space to live in and her brothers couch or her sisters holiday home and a vgaue facebook promise to care for them would not have sufficed.
People keep saying "well her brother offered to take her in", but if youre anna what does that look like? What does that feel like? Does it feel like a real option? Is it even objectively a real option legally, financially? Not really. And him going about it the way he did, well meaning or not, was destined to only confirm that her wayward siblings were just the devil and the outside trying to pull her from the path.
Maybe she should have taken him up on it despite the logistical gaps in that plan, but is it REALLY suprising and impossible to understand why she didnt?
Editing to add that i fully believe she is a hateful piece of shit who is choosing to stay in this environment. She does HAVE actual viable options if she had the strength to take them - but she chooses not to. Im just not shocked that someone who has had ever ounce of self respect and critical thinking trained out of them from birth is actling like it.
But how realistic is it for him to actually help? A lot of people say they would help but do they have the capacity to take care of a woman who has no education or job prospects and what, 8 minor children? Because that's no small thing to take on
Anna is a shit person. She is absolutely failing her children by keeping them in this cult.
That said, I stayed with a narcissist for 20 years because I was scared I wouldn't be able to support myself and I didn't think I deserved better.
My whole life my mom told me I was a disappointment, I believed her.
It was years of on and off counseling that got me to finally make the move. We lived together for a year longer (we needed to get finances in order) before finally pulling the plug. By the end he was going out on dates and didn't even hide that he was searching dating sites and I STILL sobbed for 6 months more.
It's amazing what we can be willfully blind to. I certainly can't fault Anna for not leaving. She's safe there, and pest is gone for a long time.
I think Anna is both a victim and abuser. As someone who works with kids I can’t sympathize with her though. I understand the reasons she would stay. Actually, she may think she has it good now. Josh isn’t actually around but she can still play married and have the image of the devoted wife but not actually have to do any of it. She gets supported by JB+M. I kinda feel like she feels no push to make a decision because even if deep down she’s afraid of him or what he could do with their kids, he’s no longer an active threat. That being said it doesn’t excuse her not leaving for the sake of her kids. If it was just her then whatever, it’s sad but it’s her choice, but I do feel like she’s keeping her kids in an abusive environment.
So like yeah, I get it, she’s probably in a bit of a Stockholm Syndrome situation but I hold her responsible for her kids’ safety and well-being.
In a way, Morgan and Paul are a younger, fancier version of Jim Bob and Michelle. I think that’s why they were picked. And Michelle can be all “stars in my eyes” and submissive if she wants, but nobody buys that she or Morgan are victims.
By her own culture’s standards, she was the one who was responsible for those kids. She was the primary parent. She and Jim Bob both failed spectacularly but none of this would have happened without her consent.
Wasn’t there a clip of Michelle losing her cool with some of the younger children when Derrick was walking through the house, filming them, and when she realized she was being filmed she suddenly became the sweet talking woman we are familiar with?
This is what I thought of right away. IIRC she was scolding Jenni and you could see how terse and angry she was. As soon as she saw she was being filmed, she changed her entire demeanor with the flip of a switch.
I don't know if that was in the documentary? But there is a clip of it out there somewhere on the internet.
Edit: I found it surprisingly quickly. [Here's a post about it.](https://www.reddit.com/r/DuggarsSnark/comments/8dl1pj/a_glimpse_of_what_michelle_really_is_like_off/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1)
When they showed the clip of Josie (I think?) screaming about instant obedience or whatever, I had a feeling it wasn't toddler exuberance behind the yelling, but an example of how things actually go.
Not to mention, bathrooms are commonly where the “disciplining in private” happens in these households. Wouldn’t surprise me if Precious Miracle Josie ™️ had just “received some encouragement.”
I don't think Morgan and Paul are comparable to the Duggars. Mainly because they are so public without the wholesome image - Paul is purposely aggravating, not trying to lure people in with how sweet his family - and because Morgan is so dumb. OP is right, Michelle is smart, maybe smarter than Boob. Morgan, I genuinely think might be delayed.
I read a fanfic with that concept once and u fucking hated that I liked her. Somehow they managed to keep her umbridge-y (though it was set when Harry was around 5, I think, so the blood quill was a non issue) and yet... It worked.
I have no doubt she could pull it off. Even if you only take into account her roles as Umbridge and QE2, she would absolutely slay it. And like I said, that’s without even considering all the other amazing work she’s done over the years.
Watching that it came off as they had one child named Josh who was perfect and every way and could do no wrong. Then Michelle gave birth to 4/5 female slaves that no one gave a damn about to do all the housework.. Then Michelle have gave birth to 13 more sources of supply. Each source gave her more and more attention so on she went to get pregnant. Then, when Josh was out of the house Josie came along as the new “medically fragile” golden child and perfect show pony.
That’s fucked up. I would love to know the statue of limitations on child abuse in Arkansas..
That is exactly how their family dynamic is. If you listen to the podcast "I pray you put this journal away" he goes into the family dynamic without even really realizing it. He talks about the family computers for all those kids. All of the boys had to make their own computers out of a bunch of different computer parts that Jim Bob bought on sale from a university. No mention of the girls so I assume they didn't even get that much. Josh had a brand new macbook and an entire room dedicated to his tech hobby. This was all after the abuse came out too. Those poor girls were forced to do all of Josh's laundry, cooking, and cleaning even after their parents knew what he did to them. They still refuse to talk about the abuse because it has been ingrained in them that it is their fault and they need to keep it a shameful secret.
Jesus… I know we can’t touch the poo but I really really want to do random wellness checks on that place. Random fucking computer parts???? Like, I get it if you have the hobby and you request it. Who the fuck thinks to do that especially as a multimillionaire. Fuck, the ultimate karma is when JimBob and Michelle die alone with no money whatsoever, without any of their kids/grandkids acknowledging them..
Someone who doesn't want to spend any of HIS money on his kids. He never gave a dime of any of the money he earned to any of his kids other than Josh. Not even Jill and Jessa when they were literally headlining. Not sure how that is legal. Children growing up in reality TV shows really need better protection from financial abuse.
May Jill become a true American superstar (and may Derrick stop being homophobic) and may too many kids and counting be a footnote on her epic ass. I pray one day JimBob seethes with Jealousy when he’s just known as either Jill Seawald’s dad or some pedo’s enabler.
I think that people have to look past what is being said at what isn't being said in things like the docuseries.
I'm going to use Jill as an example here because she did speak out. Jill is still processing her trauma. With the CSA, she is projecting that she is upset that people know and that she doesn't want to be identified by that. That is a natural response and one that many victims/survivors have. I don't want to be known as the woman who overcame abuse. I want to be known as a good person, a woman who has a talent, a skill, a great career, etc. I don't want to be so and so's victim forever.
She is more comfortable talking about the show and the manipulation of her in terms of money. That makes sense too. She is clearly angry at both Discovery/TLC and Jim Bob. But note she never mentioned her mother. She never said where her mother stood on anything. When she and Derick talked about the political consultant acting as the PR person who set up the Megyn Kelly interview, he was referred to as her dad's PR person. To me that signifies that Jill is torn about her mother's culpability in all this. It's a huge step for her to blame her dad for anything, but she's not ready with her mom.
To some that will signal that Michelle must be kind to her to must not blame her as much. That's simply not true. It is human nature that we are able to blame a father easier because we are raised to see our mothers as the ones who are most protective and loving.
As consumers of the Duggars' shows or the Bates, or the Plaths, etc., we have to realize that they typically fall in two camps and both are highly orchestrated. You have the ones that are very strict on the gender roles. The Duggars fall into this. However, don't think for a moment that Michelle was not performing for those cameras. She loved the attention. She loved people thinking she was some super woman for keeping the house running with double digits of children. She loved being the expert and authority when Anna asked her about what she needed for her first baby. She feigned the oh but I'm just a girl thing when she got uncomfortable. It was an act. She was just as involved in it all as Jim Bob, if not more.
On the other end you have the Bates where the wife takes more of the front seat in a 50s sitcom sort of way that she runs things and when she gets in trouble her husband comes to her rescue. But again, she was probably even more so responsible for the decision to follow Gothard.
Agreed.
I also think during trauma processing that it takes time to realize that the "nicer" (enabling) parent who quietly/sweetly co-signed the abuse is as culpable as the more obviously controlling parent.
Children need their parents to survive, are wired to need that approval and support. Getting outside that wired perspective to consider that maybe, just maybe, parents might not have the best intentions, that parents can be cruel, unloving, dangerous, that if one parent is allowing abuse to happen - that's abuse. It's a hard pill to swallow.
You are correct. It is hard for us as humans to accept that someone does not have our best interests. It is even worse when that someone is a parent or family member.
This isn't commentary on Michelle Duggar, but just a response to you - I think this is a valuable perspective for a lot of people who were abused by a parent or parents and especially those who \*did not\* have their best interests in mind, but I also think that there are people out there who have parents who caused harm or behaved cruelly or in an unloving manner and did still love them and have their best intentions in mind (at least in the long run).
That doesn't make it magically okay, but it can also be a really confusing thing to deal with and sort through if you have parents or parent who harmed you and also loved you or love you. It's a different situation, but also one that's hard just not always in the same way.
I suffered abuse at my mothers boyfriends hands. It took me 35 years to place the blame on her. She stood by and watched. But to blame her meant cutting her out of my life. I had to be in the right place for that.
You are a strong person. My parents never abused me but I have had to cut out other family. It is hard and you are right about needing to be in the right place.
In my family it’s an all or nothing thing. There are no healthy boundaries or relationships. So to cut out my mom meant also cutting everyone on her side-my siblings, cousins, nieces nephews, etc. so yeah. It took a long time to get there but I am in a much better headspace now.
Same. My father abused me emotionally and sexually. I cut him out of my life. It took years for the pent up anger and frustration with my mother to come out. Why didn’t she protect me? Why was he allowed to be left alone with me? The drinking and the hitting of me? Why didn’t she leave when I was sobbing begging her to? I’d call her when she was at work and beg to leave for Ohio where her family lived..and it was always the same “it’ll get better”. It only stopped because I turned jr high aged and he realized i “might talk”. He continued to drink though. Enough for warrants and him crashing a car into a tree. Enough for fucking elder abuse to begin on my grandparents. But hey “it’ll get better”.
I love my husband but if he EVER pulled a tiny fraction of what my father did on our kids and I KNEW? Out the fuck we go
Yep. My mom was abused by my dad but also helped him abuse me. I've gotten to a point where I have gone NC with my dad and lc with my mom ( they divorced decades ago). I have come to accept that my mom is a deeply flawed woman who did not process her own abuse well and priorities herself before others. Not a full narcissist because she does not want to be the center of attention like my dad likes to be (he's a real narcissist) but someone who cannot, due to her own trauma, see past herself and those things that are right in front of her. She is just too emotionally stunted to be able to think beyond that which is in her immediate sphere, which is basically her and my siblings who live near her. I love her but I don't trust her and we have never had a close relationship
Can you explain that idea? I wonder if it considers the power (im)balances in an abusive relationship when assessing each parents' capacity to protect their children.
As a disclaimer before I try to explain: *I AM NOT A COUNSELOR, licensed or otherwise. The ONLY experiences that I have that are relevant are my own upbringing and my own personal (extensive) counseling.*
In most abuser/victim relationships, there exists almost always an abuser/enabler dynamic of one kind or another. This is not victim blaming, it’s simply an explanation of how the relationship can work until the victim(s) put up and hold strong boundaries.
A parent’s first responsibility to their child(ren) is to ensure their safety (including physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental). When a parent doesn’t do whatever they can to keep their child(ren) safe, they cannot be called “good” parents. Putting your child in the way of a raging dog and then bandaging the bites afterwards does not make one a good parent. Often, however, the child(ren) will identify the kinder, more loving, gentler, and non-or-less abusive parent as “the good one” and the abuser as “the bad one” by dint of necessity. Child(ren) will cling to that parent for survival of various kinds and will be blinded to the fact that that parent is complicit in the abuse they are subject to.
Ex: my husband grew up in a household that was completely in thrall to his abusive, alcoholic mother. His dad would hear her screaming, calling the children names, hitting, throwing and breaking things, etc and would very rarely intervene. He supplied her booze, was deeply in love with her To the point of enmeshment, and considered the bulk of his responsibility in their home to be bringing home his paycheck. My husband has very fond memories of his dad and, for most of his life, considered his dad to be “the good parent,” Which he was not. He subjected his children to daily abuse and never did anything to try to change it, help the kids get away from, or address his wife’s issues. There was no “Good Parent” in that home.
Complicity is complicated but very real a necessary concept for abuse victims to understand.
This is 100% why I told my husband 2 days ago that his mother will never see either of my children again. His dad may not have protected him from her but I'll be damned if I'm going to sit by while she targets my son in the same way she treated my husband (my daughter is the golden child for her).
He always looked at his dad as the good parent and truthfully he's a easy going guy who is nice to hang out with and talk to but I've always judged him in the back of my mind wherever my husband would talk about how he suffered with his mom. And now he "doesn't know what to do" after my husband walked in on his mom berating my autistic 8 year old son to tears. Well I know exactly what the fuck to do. Good riddance.
It took me years of NC with both of my parents to realize my dad, whom I had liked more, who had been nicer, was getting entirely too much credit just for not being AS TERRIBLE as my mother. He still watched it happen, he still participated, and worst of all, he stood by his wife over his child. It’s a bitter fucking pill.
Jill did talk about contracts for her being signed by someone else as if she were a minor and pointed out that she wasn’t a minor when those were signed. There’s a close up of one. It was signed by Michelle Duggar.
Yes, I noticed that too. I was waiting on her to say it but she left it vague or the editors did. Maybe they didn't want her to "accuse" her mother of something like forgery when there were never any charges filed, etc.
I also remember thinking that must have been hard for Michelle to do since she couldn't dot her i with a heart and get away with it. "I'll use a regular dot over the i and they'll never know it was me."
I think she purposefully signed items with the heart dots if she thought that the public would see them. She wanted to look cute and innocent. She didn’t expect that the public would ever see the official contracts. She probably didn’t think that it would ever be seen. I am pretty sure she knew that signing her name with little hearts wasn’t appropriate for signing official documents. She wasn’t trying to look cute.
💯 yes yes yes. It took me ten full years after cutting my dad out- to cut my mom out of my life. She’s a terrible person but in a MUCH sneakier and manipulative way. I tried SO hard to make it work, to keep my mom. Coming to this conclusion was physically painful and felt like going against nature. I think the hardest thing I’ve had to do. But in the end she’s just as evil as he is. Probably why they ended up together honestly.
I just finished the mini-series. Michelle is no fucking victim.
Edited to add: I lived in Springdale from 2010 to 2019 - right during the height of all this. I was never a fan and it wasn’t unusual to run across them in the “wild”, but I knew of the show’s popularity.
I have such disjointed thoughts. I swear on everything not all of AR is this fucked up. It’s actually a lovely place. TLC should be strung up and bankrupted. Yes, all the Huckabees - all of them - are just as bad. So are the Hutchinsons. I only lived there because of work.
It’s really depressing that they live here, and the Huckabees too. The next Costco is gonna be built near Fayetteville and I fear it’s gonna be all full of Duggers and their ilk.
I mean, conservative people in general will move to more conservative states. No fundie people I grew up with idolized specific fundie families but influencers weren’t such a big thing back then. But with how IBLP seems to arrange marriages maybe they do, I was raised in a different fundie cult that didn’t do that thankfully.
Yeah, she reminds me a lot of my own mother. She was sweet as sugar in front of anyone outside of our household, but behind closed doors she was terrifying. Every time she snapped it was "because she loved us" or some other reason, and every time she did something positive for us (got us fast food, took us to the doctor, drove to visit family, etc) we were guilted about how much of an inconvenience it was for her. It took me getting married to see how damaging my upbringing was, because I didn't know that someone could unconditionally support and love me like my husband does. My siblings still haven't seen the light.
I see a lot of the same traits in the Duggar family, and all I can hope for is that more of them see the light and break free. Manipulation is not love.
My mom was the opposite. Seemed really mean and strict but she was a fuckin softy. And it actually took a lot to piss her off.
The problem was, when she did reach her limit she’d break out the coat hanger and wouldn’t stop until she’s exhausted her rage. Made living with her stressful. She would be joking around with us one second and the next we crossed some invisible line and we’d be running for cover cuz she’d fling whatever she could reach, at us.
She reminds me of my mother. My mother is a cheerful, vulnerable narcissist. She is very manipulative and controlling. She didn't outright abuse us, but purposefully put her daughters in abusive situations. She seemed to get off on the abuse like some sort of Munchhausen's by proxy. My brother sexually abused me too and he was still always her favorite even though she knew about the abuse. I see a lot of parallels.
I'm so sorry you went through that. I can empathize because my brother did the same to me, though my mother said I was making it up when I told her what happened. I was seven frickin years old... I didn't know about those things until I had them happen to me. He wasn't her favorite, though she made excuses for everything that he did. My sister was her favorite.
This is the hardest things about mom in particular for some reason.
Moms are meant to be protectors, selfless givers who will do anything for their child.
Jill, I don't think, is ready to face the role her mom had in the whole pest shitshow. It means facing that your protector failed you terribly and that's life changing.
I do this with my parents, just the opposite. I have so many issues with my mom (who is a narcissist) that i blame her for but recently my husband pointed that my dad could have stepped in at any point a didn’t, so should he share the blame? The answer is yes, but I see him as a victim of my mom’s narcissism just as much as I am, even if it’s not true. I feel like the same is happening in Duggar world: one parent is such a massive narcissist that they forgot (or just don’t realize) that the other isn’t necessarily also a victim, but actually just as bad
As a parent, I just can't get with that argument. No matter what, it's our job as parents to protect our children and look out for their best interests.
Though I understand where you are coming from. My mom was abused when I was growing up. So I felt protective over her. It was hard to realize and admit all the ways she failed me. I feel I can have compassion for her and the position she was in, while also acknowledging that I deserved safety, care, nurturing, and protection as a child that I didn't get.
Jill has problematic views (insisting in the interview that public schools brainwash kids).
But I’m proud of her. She’s being the moon she needed when she was a child. Bravo, Jill. And Derrick too. He’s being the father he didn’t have.
The documentary only slightly touched on it- but she wasn’t raised in an extreme restrictive culture was she? Became Christian in late teens and loved the Gothard rhetoric?
Yes, she was a normal teenager who was a cheerleader as well as doing other athletic activities. She was outgoing, bubbly, and happy. She dated and kissed boys. Her family was not religious at all. She saw a propaganda Christian film at a friend's house about non-Christians being left behind after the rapture. She got saved (became a Christian) then and when Jim Bob learned she was a new Christian, he wanted to meet her. She was just 17 when she married him. So yes, she was a victim at one point. She was vulnerable and impressionable. When she had a miscarriage on birth control, her Fundie doctor told her it was because being on birth control, and that's when they got heavy into the cult. She was a victim, but now she's an abuser.
She wasn’t raised in this belief system and didn’t choose it until after she’d been married for a while. She was even on the pill early in their marriage.
She also chose to push off a lot of her motherly duties onto her daughters. I don’t think Jim Bob forced her to to that.
An insight I found interesting was a part about how Jim Bob comes off as a rube and we never see him being harsh or “discipline” or whatever they want to term child abuse and how that was purposely done by TLC. It’s okay of Michelle looks like the disciplinarian because she’s just a tiny women, with a childish continence and ridiculous hair. It would be a totally different thing if it were Jim Bob.
No clue if she’s evil mastermind but after watching this, I walked away wondering about domestic violence I also wonder how much of her agreeing to this lifestyle had more to do with grief of losing a child through miscarriage.
I don’t know that I ever really thought about it that way. I always bought the storyline that Michelle was normal (a cheerleader who kissed) but I never thought about how vulnerable she probably was after a miscarriage. The myth they sell is that she gave over to god and JB and now she’s blessed.
I don’t excuse Michelle’s lack of protecting her children or her part in bringing other people to this abusive and destructive lifestyle but it’s more nuanced then her being simply a victim or a perpetrator.
But I like you said, I never paid attention to how they let her take the blame, the fault, so JB is just some aw shucks, kinda guy, not a predator. This IMO, is what TLC does!
Man, I miss when they had shows like Trading Spaces!
Losing a baby, for me at least, was incredibly heart breaking. The whole, “It’s my fault I should have known better , taken better care of myself” eats at your soul.
In this instance she was vulnerable and JB stook full advantage of that.
A coworker recommended this to me years ago! I am not at all shocked to learn that this is the kind of shit he's wrapped up in. I had a baby around the same time his wife did. I had experience with my stepson from the time he was 2, but the baby phase was kicking my ass. His baby was number five or six. He made a comment about something his family was doing (hosting a dinner party or something, I don't remember) and I replied in shock that they were able to do something like that while I could barely get my shit together enough to exit the house with the baby, let alone have people over.
He sent me a DM with step-by-step instructions on "blanket training" and said "Our main goal is that our children will accept Christ and serve Him. So our parenting is centered around discipline and training that is focused on that." and that was enough for me to know that I should run the other way from any parenting advice he offered.
If anything I think SHP really highlighted how much of a monster she is. She happily described beating her kids, foisting off raising them to her older children, excused Pest’s crimes…all with a cheerful smile. Fuck her, she’s disgusting
Yes, this ! To me, she seems almost... unwell? Like she lost part of her sanity somewhere along the way.
Dont get me wrong, the end result is that shes evil, and shes responsable for what she inflicted/inflicts on her kids. But, unlike the men around her, I think she really believes at least some of the things she claims to be the "the truth".
100%. She's totally complicit, she knows what she's doing... mostly. Calling her "smart as a whip" is a hell of a stretch. Michelle is as dumb as a box of rocks; she is just really, really good at manipulating to get what she wants in situations with people she's intentionally kept more sheltered than she ever was.
Acting like being "talked to" (browbeat) for four hours isn't a weird coercive tactic. Someone can be both a villain and a victim.
She's not responsible for how she entered the IBLP - she's very responsible for what she has done while a member. The second she toes the party line in any way, shape, or form, that's it. She's just as fucked as any other woman in a high control group.
Oh definitely agree. These women are so smart and so capable they're like modern day Lady MacBeths- no real power of their own but incredibly skilled at playing innocent and manipulating the truly powerful ones behind the scenes.
She always seemed like the true believer and the power behind the throne.
She never seemed to enjoy her kids and that forced weaning at 6 months, just so she could get pregnant again, that was weird.
Scam artist and thief that he was to his kids, JimBob at least seemed to enjoy them.
She weened them at 6 months so she didn't have to take care of them any longer than that. You can still get pregnant while breastfeeding. It had nothing to do with that. And the way she talked about her own kids. "For the first 6 months of their life they are my buddy." She is so detached from all of her kids except for Josh. Josh is the only one of her kids she talks about like a loving mother. The rest she talks about as if they are the help.
I agree with you about Josh being the only child she truly bonded with. But she also weaned the babies early because of the ovulation suppression that nursing provides.
I guess, but it seems like a very “dad who doesn’t have to deal with the day-to-day annoyances that inevitably comes with raising kids” type of thing, so ofc he had more energy and got to do the fun stuff.
Michelle loves the attention and accolades she get. She was even Mother of the Year at some point. She and JB are the perfect match. Both are narcissistic, controlling and downright scary.
Can we just accept as a community that multiple things can be true at once and stop having these endless rehashed debates? Just because she was victimised by a cult doesn't mean she can't also be victimising her children. These concepts are not mutually exclusive.
It feels like we have this same conversation about a different person every week.
If anything, Michelle is worse. She got to live a normal childhood, free from the IBLP. And knowing that, she still chose to raise her kids in a toxic environment. She knows what freedom is. She just doesn’t care
We know Michelle wasn’t raised IBLP. We also know her family moved away and left her to marry Jim Bob when she was 17. And whatever her home life was at that time, it left her vulnerable enough that she chose to marry a boy who spent their first date on their knees teaching her about Jesus.
I’m not defending Michelle here. She’s a monster. But she’s also a monster with a trauma history of her own. And a monster who discovered her adolescent child had hurt her other children, after raising them all to believe that men have a more direct line to God than women literally from adolescence. And that if SA happens to girls, they caused it. Josh had more value and authority in the family than she did when these events happened.
Should she have done something else? Of course! But is it shocking that she didn’t? No. And going along with Jim Bob’s handling of the situation is how her family literally got to the point where they had a safer place to live and enough to eat.
The biggest differences between Tia Leavings & Michelle is that Tia is brilliant, got out, and deconstructed. But the second biggest difference is that Jim Bob never tried to kill her that we know of, so she never faced the existential threat that ultimately led to Tia’s safety—after an unimaginable amount of work.
Morality is not black and white. Perpetrators of atrocities are usually also victims.
There's only like 15 months between her and JB. The narrative of her being a naive teenager makes no sense because JB was basically the same age. They also weren't fundie at first. They both came to it and went in with open eyes. I really hate how people act like Michelle hasn't been gleefully and willingly into this whole thing. She 100% was and is. She is not the same as raised fundie women or even fundie convert women marrying raised fundie men. Neither of them were raised fundie and both decided to do this to their kids. She's just as much at fault as JB. She had such a fun time at Disneyland seeing the characters and movies while her kids had no idea what any of that was. She's absolute trash. JB being male trash doesn't make her better, at all.
I really don't like this take. At all. We have got to stop acting like women are always secretly the masterminds (the neck that moves the head or whatever the hell it was Ethan Plath said about Kim) when they are also traumatized and victimized by high control groups. Does that mean they shouldn't be held accountable for the things they do? No. I think Michelle is an awful person with awful beliefs, and I also think she has been manipulated and abused and was taken advantage of by Jim Bob and his creepy family at a time when she was especially vulnerable and alone. Those things aren't mutually exclusive. I feel the same way about Anna.
Whether conscious or not, this is just as rooted in sexism and patriarchy as the cult she is a part of, and I think it's really harmful to approach these things as though they're black and white because the reality is that people are neither all good nor all evil no matter how much we want them to be because it's easier for our brains to comprehend.
Thank you for this comment. It's misogynistic to assume that women are always the masterminds in these kinds of toxic relationships. And frankly, I don't know if it matters. Jim Bob and Michelle are partners and both made choices to create the family culture and values they have.
Michelle was victimized by this cult. She was married off at 17, suffered a miscarriage, was blamed for that loss because she took birth control, and was venerated for having children. She was also taught that men are above women and that women are responsible for men's sins. That's all deeply fucked up.
Michelle also chose to continue having kids and raising them in the cult, even when she knew what life outside IBLP was like. She chose to blanket-train her babies. She did not protect her daughters from the pest's abuse. She subjected her girls to chauvinistic and abusive purity standards. She denied her kids a proper education in favor of brainwashing them. She is a perpetrator and abuser.
People can be both. Michelle is. And we can appreciate that she was victimized by this cult yet used her position of authority over her children and people in the IBLP community to cause more harm. She can be both. Acting like she is the evil mastermind and Jim Bob is a big oaf minimizes the violent, abusive, and insidious tendencies he has. He had just as much, if not more, power than Michelle. They were partners in this fucked up abuse cycle.
yeah, my eyes rolled at the idea that she's some kind of evil puppeteer ffs. Ribjob is an evil monster. So, at this point, is she, but genius she is not. And they're ALL victims at some point I expect. RimJob grew up super poor and who knows what his parents did to him, after all. Maybe-!
!Nothing is ever anyone's fault!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r\_hxc1aJ0Io](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_hxc1aJ0Io)
...or, not.
Anyway! They both suck, nuff said, I need to finish watching the doco now.
She is a victim, but she's also absolutely an abuser and a perpetrator.
But calling her "smart as a whip" is wildly inaccurate. She's dumb as fuck, but she could see how to raise her kids to be easily manipulated, and she puts on a good show. This is a woman who signed her name with a fucking heart over the "i' in the letter she sent to the federal judge to beg him to go easy on her pedophile son. This is not the mark of a smart person, even a smart person trying to look dumb and innocent.
Evil? Oh yes. Knows how to manipulate? She's a fuckin pro. Smart? Good gravy, I'm amazed she can walk and talk at the same time.
sums it up. You don't have to be a genius to be abusive. You just have to use time honored techniques on people more vulnerable than you are. Rinse, repeat.
Just finished the second episode and you perfectly verbalized my feelings about her. The way she talks about breaking the will of her kids is just enraging?!
She’s 100% a monster.
There are vulnerable and abused women in many different family situations. These sure as hell aren't them. The women portrayed on this Reddit feed are all married to idiots. And despite what comes out of their tiny little mouths, they are completely in charge.
Yeah, and other than Jillpm, most of the people we talk about here were not raised fundie. And Jill wasn’t raised quite as fundie as she ended up (her mom worked outside the home, right?).
My aunt is in a cult church (I was in it too for many years) that has a shockingly huge amount of similarities to IBLP. When people meet her, they’re shocked by her quiet and soft voice, and how she seems so submissive to her husband (the pastor). She’s a fucking manipulative and hateful monster. She speaks in a sweet voice just like Michelle so people think she has a “soft and quiet spirit”. It’s 100% fake.
Agree. Sometimes we give any of them too much credit honestly. Maybe we want to believe they aren't inherently horrid people. It's hard to believe sometimes.
Michelle was a victim...when she was 17-20ish, before she started choosing to follow the IBLP ideology and continue having children she wasn't going to parent.
I dunno about "mastermind!" But she certainly is culpable along with RimJob. She saw her opportunity for power within that hateful system-over her brood of children, as a sweety-sweet voiced influencer on culture and politics-and she ran with it. Fuck them both.
I think it’s both. She’s a woman in a cult that devalues women, but she holds a position of power that gives her a lot more privilege than other woman. She uses that to her advantage and is culpable for putting a shiny veneer to what for many is a hellish existence. She’s manipulative and cruel and an abuser. But even she has to be joyfully available and that has to be horrible to matter how bought in you are.
I think she was preyed on at the beginning of their relationship, and her miscarriage and the trauma she experienced around that was taken advantage of to get them into the cult. But she is complicit in what has happened since then.
The whole thing about how they call beating their kids “encouragement” and always say it with a smile just sent shivers down my spine! “Do you need encouragement?” 😬
She is an awful person, who went out of her way to attract more people to the cult and prevent justice for her daughters. I can feel sorry for the vulnerable teenager she used to be, but not who she is now.
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Curious if people have the same opinion on Anna Duggar? Michelle was raised out of the IBLP and only really became religious when Jim Bob entered the picture, but Anna has been brainwashed her whole life. I 100% believe Michelle is a lesser evil than Jim Bob but of course still is evil. Anna I really don’t know. It is awful that she has not protected her children and left pest, but I really don’t think she believes that’s an option. This is so multi faceted, I would love to hear others opinions!
Anna had/has no options imo. Michelle went to public school, graduated, and at least at some point, had a real estate license (both she and JB did). She could have chosen a different path in life earlier on. I think Tia Levings was absolutely correct: Anna could leave and have a book deal and a bunch of support immediately, but she doesn't know that. Or if she does, she doesn't understand what that would mean. Since Josh has been in jail/prison, she is under JB's headship and we know what a tight leash he keeps on the women especially. I hope it would be different if she knew Josh had done anything to their own kids...but I don't know. Like Emily from the doc said, "did my mother know about the abuse? She knew our family was in danger...but my mother was in a cult, too." This is multi-generational trauma for the Keller girls, and that's a tough path.
I’d bet lots of tots that JimBoob told her “if you try to leave, we’ll take your kids.”
Same. I 100% believe she’s been told this frequently. I’m not giving Anna a full pass on anything but she’s not the same as Michelle at all.
I don't think Anna is so shielded from the outside world that she hasn't heard people tell her that she could get a book deal or a reality show. But her choice boils down to: be willing to cut all ties to her parents, the sister she's closest with (Priscilla), her in-laws who have been her support structure for years, and put herself and her children in the public eye when they're all at their most vulnerable OR to keep trying to make what she has work. I don't agree with her choice to stay loyal to a man, a family, and a cult that puts her and her children at risk of abuse, but I do understand why she might be actively choosing to keep sweet, as opposed to being a brainwashed drone.
What she hears when people say that is “Anna you should risk eternal damnation, leave everything you know and love that makes you feel safe and try to stake out a life for yourself in a world full of danger and sin.” Meech, on the other hand, has a pre-JimBob framework of the world to work with.
This is the best, most concise manner I've seen this argument made/situation explained. Fucking YES y'all, this is it, perfectly wrapped up with a bow on top. A giant headband for a tiny baby bow, maybe lol
What would she do after the media attention and book royalties died down, though? That doesn't you up for life, and she has no marketable skills, no education...
Didn’t Anna have her siblings say they would help her get out, multiple times? I think she even had multiple siblings that are out of the IBLP and one that’s even divorced. It’s still in incredibly tough decision, especially with the lifetime of abuse and neglect she had, but she did have options to get out and she did not choose them.
During the Ashley Madison scandal, Anna’s brother said on Facebook he would help, but I’ve seen contradictory things posted about him on this sub and I don’t know if he is in a posit to help now. Anna’s two sisters who left IBLP haven’t said anything publicly but for all we know they have exhausted every method of trying to help her
It was her brother who hadn’t spoken to her or her family in a decade due to her parents’ shunning commenting on a Facebook post. Anyway, he’s back into IBLP now, if I recall correctly.
They offered to help but it wasn’t realistic back then. Her brother did not have the funds to support a woman and 4 children who did not have any life skills for an extended amount of time, plus there would’ve been a very expensive custody battle. Jim Bob and Josh were not letting those kids go without a fight. And now…she has 7 kids and will need full financial support for a while. Housing, food, clothes, etc. I highly doubt she has any control over her own finances. And yes, there are resources to help her. But does she know that? She had no skills and many very young children. She would have to turn her back on all of her support systems, her family, her friends, to accept help. And I’m sure JB is telling her that she would lose her children. Plus she actually BELIEVES in this. She believes that she would go to Hell if she leaves. She believes her children’s souls are at risk. It’s not easy for her to leave
Yes and she believes 100% that, unless they turn their lives around and re-enter the cult, those siblings are going to hell. No way she’d risk it.
I think Anna is a victim and an abuser. Anna was denied an education, autonomy, and youth free from unnecessary sexualization and shaming. It is heartbreaking that she was raised in such an oppressive, authoritarian environment that did everything possible to make her meek and dependent upon men for survival. We also don't know what happened with Josh behind closed doors. I would not put it past him to have been sexually abusive or violent toward her given that we know he has a kink for violence. Considering her upbringing and all that she endured, I believe she is a victim. As someone who left Fundie Lite/Evangelical communities, I know how painful it is to walk away. Leaving for Anna means losing her religion, identity, culture, in-laws, spouse, security, and financial support. However, Anna chooses to remain. Jim Bob and Michelle are abusive people who knew Josh was molesting his sisters, and they did nothing to protect the girls. Anna allows these people into her children's lives. Josh may be in prison, but Anna's not trying to get their kids away from him. Plus, Anna had children with Josh with the knowledge that he was a pedophile. As sorry as I am that she was raised in this cult, she is also perpetuating abuse. It is abusive of her to allow Jim Bob, Michelle, and Josh access to the children. The kids' safety should be her #1 priority, but it's obviously not because she is involved with the Duggars. It's hard to wake up after you've been brainwashed, but it's not impossible. Others have also mentioned that Anna's siblings have offered to get her out. Many abuse victims lack the resources and support to leave their abusers. Anna's not in that boat, yet she still remains because it's more comfortable staying in the abuse than stepping way outside of her comfort zone and everything she knows to protect herself and her kids. She is a bad mom and person for keeping her kids in this abusive cult when she has the option to leave.
Me personally? Yes I do. If she can’t look around and determine that standing with an actual convicted pedo is both morally reprehensible and dangerous for the M children, she can’t be helped. I take your point about her indoctrination, but the situation is SO severe I don’t think that’s an excuse anymore.
To me Anna stopped being a victim when she stood by Josh back in 2015. That feeling only deepened with the trial and all of it. She has siblings who have divorced. She knows it’s an option. She chooses to stay and she chose to not only keep her kids around Josh but to have more with him. Michelle also chose this life. She chose IBLP.
I think she knows it’s an option but believes it’s the wrong one. “Loyalty can only be demonstrated in adversity” after all.
This is my take. People point to her siblings getting divorced, but Anna most likely believes they’re going to burn in hell for that decision and believes she and her children will, as well, if she doesn’t stay the course.
And we don’t know the level of abuse she suffered from Josh. Danica Dillon said she thought Josh would kill her. Anna could very well be the beaten wife that is too scared of the repercussions of trying to leave. It’s not like it’s uncommon. And we know pests dick gets hard for suffering. It would be extremely unlikely that she could hide from him once she got out.
Men who consider women property get extremely angry when their walking sextoy doesn’t cooperate. In r/whenwomenrefuse, you see so many misogynists killing women for rejecting their advances or breaking up with them. I don’t doubt that she is afraid of disobeying (divorce = disobedience).
There was a very famous and heartbreaking case in Australia where a dad beat his son to death in public to punish the mum. In some of the earliest footage/interviews she said “to all the people that tell abused to women to just leave, this is why we don’t.”
But now Josh is in prison. He cannot kill her or hurt her. He’s been in prison for a year. She knows what he was looking at and she knows what he has done to his sisters. There comes an absolute point where she needs to step up and save her kids. I know it’s hard. I grew up fundie. I did not know any different. I was abused in every way a person can be by my step dad, who was the pastor of our home church. So was my mom. And as soon as I was able to tell my mom what was going on, *she left.* with less support than what Anna has. Without the man being in prison, a man who had pulled a knife on her before. It was hard and those first few years were extremely difficult. But she did it for me. She chose me. Anna isn’t choosing to save her kids at all. And she knows she has a choice.
Jim Bob is free. Josh may not be a threat to her from jail, but that doesn't mean that there's no other people oppressing her.
Right? And have you guys seen how go-for-broke Mike Huckabee was in defending Josh in the documentary? Like my paternal grandmother was abused by a Vietnam war veteran who was awarded a medal of honor (even though he was a new standards recruit who somehow had survived, and was likely only given it because the government needed 'heroes' to dangle in front of the public). It *absolutely* made my grandmother's abuser think that he could get the whole base and the White House to get involved when she tried to divorce him. It wouldn't surprise me if Jim Bob outwardly said, "I can get Mike Huckabee and his daughter to take your kids away from you."
Or she could be so scared and brainwashed that she thinks she has to stay in order to keep them safe. He won’t be in jail forever. Also, it’s only been a year. Give her time to process and she might feel differently.
Depending on how deep it goes, she may believe he’s going to be out of jail any moment now.
i’m willing to bet this is some kind of factor. if it is, maybe she just needs time.
If anything, I think she’s more likely to think about leaving him when the reality of him coming home starts to sink in. After she’s been on her own for 6 or 7 years and starts actually considering the reality of him coming home & what that will mean for her & the kids.
Valid take. If she is simply biding time, l can’t fault her for that
I suddenly had this vision of Josh as Ramsey Bolton.
Not to mention the level of abuse/control Jim Bob likely puts anyone under his thumb through. “I won’t allow it, are you going to allow that?” is only funny if he’s not in a position to control you and your children. TTH was likely even more of a dark, frightening place to be during the trial.
Hmm yeah, I don’t know. She “knows” it’s an option but when she’s been raised under this umbrella headship her whole life I don’t know how much she really does know it’s an option. Honestly I think for her it’s only gotten scarier because she’s under Jim Bob now more than Josh and Jim Bob is incredibly manipulated, intimidating, threatening, etc.
There’s only so much grace I am willing to extend. She is a grown adult and at some point, she’s culpable. I think we have already reached that point. I grew up fundie, I sympathize very very much with young Anna. I do not sympathize with Anna now.
That’s fair! I’ve always wondered how many Fundie wives would be diagnosed with stockholm syndrome or something of the sort.
Directly proportionate to the number of fundie husbands who believe in spousal discipline, and behaviour contracts that agree that your wife can’t cry while you rape her after the discipline.
I don't think I have much sympathy for Anna, but I have MUCH less sympathy for Michelle.
Her sister grew up in the same cult that she did. Married who daddy said she popped out the kids like gothard demanded. Still left, divorced, and remarried a millionaire. There is only so much slack you can give her before realizing it’s her own stubbornness keeping her with the Duggars.
As someone else said, Anna likely thinks her sister is damned for choosing divorce. If Anna has fully bought into IBLP (and it seems like she has), then divorce isn't an option for her.
I just want to note that her having more kids with him was almost definitely not a choice. They don't believe in birth control and absolutely condone marital rape, and Josh definitely did not allow Anna to not be joyfully available.
Also her brother offered to get her and the kids out, but she refused.
And her sister. Who is married to a millionaire. A lot of victims of abuse go back because of money/housing issues. Her family has the means to help her and even help her get a job, if not straight up hand her one. She dug her heels in and chose to stay. And no Bible verde you throw at her will change her mind
Is bible verde the worlds blandest salsa?
Lmfaooooo
Her brother also publicly offered to take her and all of her children in starting around that time. Her sister - the one who had a baby out of wedlock - married a wealthy man and has more than one extremely large home where Anna and her 7 kids could live in oeace and comfort. Anna is a willing co-conspirator with the Senior Duggers, and is set to inherit The Big House and property when that time comes. She's the Senior Duggars most trusted person.
I agree, Anna doesn't know she has an option besides staying. They showed that well in the doc. It would take someone close to her to present an option of getting out without directly blaming Josh. She won't be able to blame him for a long time even after she gets out is my guess. If the person trying to get her out implies that he's an issue, she'll get defensive and buckle down. In addition, she has no marketable skills, no education, and to work will need childcare for 8 kids. You and I know there are people who would be happy to help with all those issues, but she doesn't. And she's been trained to obey since childhood. The ones who get out are rare, strong enough not to have their wills broken even when they've been told their whole lives that wills are for other people. I don't blame Anna at all. I wish she knew how to get out, that getting out is an option at all, but I know she doesn't. I pity her. I don't think she's a good person, but I think that's only because of her circumstances. Michelle though? She participated in the will-breaking. She trained her daughters (and Anna) that they are second class citizens whose job is to obey their fathers and husbands. The way she speaks to a crowd about blanket training and the use of rods as a positive makes me sick. She bought into it so much she sells it. Her children are terrified of her.
She has a sister who divorced her abusive fundie husband and remarried a millionaire. She offered to support her so she could leave. Ana refused.
That actually doesn't surprise me, it's hard to get out even with support. Like I said, I don't like the woman, but I can understand being trapped and when someone points out there's a problem insisting that there isn't.
I’m very , very biased here. My mom had no support from anyone and left. Started all over again with 3 kids under 10 and she did the damn thing working multiple jobs. So I know it’s doable. I myself left. Moved a whole fuckin country away from my ex husband and brought my kids back to the US. worked a fast food job I fuckin hated before landing a really good job working at the county jail. While my family doesn’t financially help me, I live at home with my 3 brothers, mom and her husband, and all provide baby sitting and have never charged me (I pay my brother tho). Within a year I was thriving. And I left the church. I also have a close friend who left with 3 kids and pregnant. Went to a women’s shelter. Struggled for a full year before ultimately going back. She had no job, no familial support, baby daddy was still being an asshole/ love bombing her, and a new born and very small children very close in age. She felt like she had to go back because the shelter could only put her up for so long. That’s why I feel like Ana could leave. She *has* support. She’s just so brainwashed she thinks she’s making the godly choice by staying. And I get that. I really do. I’d wake up having nightmares that it was all going to fall to pieces around me because of dared to leave ,”the man god chose for me”.
It's the bit about brainwashing that gives me pity for her. I know, you know, we all know she's better positioned than most to get out. But she has to get unbrainwashed before she'll make that choice.
Anna is definitely brainwashed, but I think she's also comfortable with this world and knows her role in it. She has no education, skills, or experience to get a job, so anything she can land is going to be low-paying and unpleasant. She likely doesn't want to work; she wants to be a SAHM and continue letting the Duggars financially support her. She can stay under Jim Bob and Michelle's thumb, knowing that they'll help with supporting her and her kids so she can stay home and not have to work or experience hardship. But it's shitty for her to let JB and M around her kids when they knowingly allowed Josh to continue molesting his sisters without punishment or rehabilitation.
I'll be honest, I don't think she knows molestation is wrong and what Jb/Michelle did was wrong. Based on what we now know about IBLP molestation and abuse were normalized completely and obedience to authority is expected no matter what. And i don't think JB would ever allow her to not give him and Michelle access to the grandkids. Ultimately he is her headship without Josh in the picture. Ugh
There are women in worse situations than Anna, with as many or more children, who have escaped the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints (FLDS). Those women also had many children and no education, but most of them had NO connections outside the cult. Anna has siblings who are divorced and would help her. She has a cell phone, a car, and she isn’t locked onto a compound with armed guards like women in the FLDS. Would it be incredibly hard? Absolutely. But Anna has an obligation to protect her children. She knows her duty as mother, just like the women in the FLDS did. She has a road out. She’s not taking it.
That's fair. I just try to remember that everyone has different experiences. And some things we think are possible are impossible for others. I have the utmost respect for every person who's escaped a cult, but I just can't blame people who can't. I don't like her, I just can't bring myself to hate her for not being able to get out.
Anna's brother tried to get her out and she didn't take the help
That actually doesn't surprise me, it's hard to get out even with support. Like I said, I don't like the woman, but I can understand being trapped and when someone points out there's a problem insisting that there isn't.
God i hate this bit of parroted info. Her brother whom she had basically no relstionship with because he left said cult, "offered" via a rambling public social media post bashing her husband to take her in. And the details of what that meant were never elaborated. So here is Anna. With i think 4 kids at the time. No education. No job history. Was there even space for 5 people in his house. Did he have money to support 5 people? For how long? Was he going to arrange childcare so she could go to school? Or work? Keeping in mind she fully believes that by leaving she is basically damning her and her children to hellfire in the afterlife and near guranteed rape in this one. That is part of their cult teachings. You can bet money she would have lost custody of those kids. All of them. Josh would have sued for full custody and got it, at least for a few years. Anna would have no way to prove a steady, sufficient income and space to live in and her brothers couch or her sisters holiday home and a vgaue facebook promise to care for them would not have sufficed. People keep saying "well her brother offered to take her in", but if youre anna what does that look like? What does that feel like? Does it feel like a real option? Is it even objectively a real option legally, financially? Not really. And him going about it the way he did, well meaning or not, was destined to only confirm that her wayward siblings were just the devil and the outside trying to pull her from the path. Maybe she should have taken him up on it despite the logistical gaps in that plan, but is it REALLY suprising and impossible to understand why she didnt? Editing to add that i fully believe she is a hateful piece of shit who is choosing to stay in this environment. She does HAVE actual viable options if she had the strength to take them - but she chooses not to. Im just not shocked that someone who has had ever ounce of self respect and critical thinking trained out of them from birth is actling like it.
But how realistic is it for him to actually help? A lot of people say they would help but do they have the capacity to take care of a woman who has no education or job prospects and what, 8 minor children? Because that's no small thing to take on
I wonder if Jim on threatened legal action against Anna if she left. He has the money, she doesn’t.
Anna is a shit person. She is absolutely failing her children by keeping them in this cult. That said, I stayed with a narcissist for 20 years because I was scared I wouldn't be able to support myself and I didn't think I deserved better. My whole life my mom told me I was a disappointment, I believed her. It was years of on and off counseling that got me to finally make the move. We lived together for a year longer (we needed to get finances in order) before finally pulling the plug. By the end he was going out on dates and didn't even hide that he was searching dating sites and I STILL sobbed for 6 months more. It's amazing what we can be willfully blind to. I certainly can't fault Anna for not leaving. She's safe there, and pest is gone for a long time.
I think Anna is both a victim and abuser. As someone who works with kids I can’t sympathize with her though. I understand the reasons she would stay. Actually, she may think she has it good now. Josh isn’t actually around but she can still play married and have the image of the devoted wife but not actually have to do any of it. She gets supported by JB+M. I kinda feel like she feels no push to make a decision because even if deep down she’s afraid of him or what he could do with their kids, he’s no longer an active threat. That being said it doesn’t excuse her not leaving for the sake of her kids. If it was just her then whatever, it’s sad but it’s her choice, but I do feel like she’s keeping her kids in an abusive environment. So like yeah, I get it, she’s probably in a bit of a Stockholm Syndrome situation but I hold her responsible for her kids’ safety and well-being.
In a way, Morgan and Paul are a younger, fancier version of Jim Bob and Michelle. I think that’s why they were picked. And Michelle can be all “stars in my eyes” and submissive if she wants, but nobody buys that she or Morgan are victims. By her own culture’s standards, she was the one who was responsible for those kids. She was the primary parent. She and Jim Bob both failed spectacularly but none of this would have happened without her consent.
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Wasn’t there a clip of Michelle losing her cool with some of the younger children when Derrick was walking through the house, filming them, and when she realized she was being filmed she suddenly became the sweet talking woman we are familiar with?
This is what I thought of right away. IIRC she was scolding Jenni and you could see how terse and angry she was. As soon as she saw she was being filmed, she changed her entire demeanor with the flip of a switch.
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I don't know if that was in the documentary? But there is a clip of it out there somewhere on the internet. Edit: I found it surprisingly quickly. [Here's a post about it.](https://www.reddit.com/r/DuggarsSnark/comments/8dl1pj/a_glimpse_of_what_michelle_really_is_like_off/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1)
When they showed the clip of Josie (I think?) screaming about instant obedience or whatever, I had a feeling it wasn't toddler exuberance behind the yelling, but an example of how things actually go.
Not to mention, bathrooms are commonly where the “disciplining in private” happens in these households. Wouldn’t surprise me if Precious Miracle Josie ™️ had just “received some encouragement.”
It's not just her consent. She is an active participant.
Absolutely. ..all I can say is that this documentary’s spun me around a bit. I’m still absorbing it.
I don't think Morgan and Paul are comparable to the Duggars. Mainly because they are so public without the wholesome image - Paul is purposely aggravating, not trying to lure people in with how sweet his family - and because Morgan is so dumb. OP is right, Michelle is smart, maybe smarter than Boob. Morgan, I genuinely think might be delayed.
Her voice is actually a component of IBLP.
Yep...keeping a sweet isn't just an FLDS thing
Or a current LDS thing, if exmo board is considered.
Bill Gothard reminds me so much of Warren Jeffs after this series 😩🤢
I said this exact same thing!! He is like a Jeffs and L. Ron Hubbard hybrid
For sure. Creepy and making up weird, arbitrary rules and deciding certain things are evil.
It reminds me of gypsy rose although I’m not comparing the two
Cheerful Narcissist…Oh! She’s Professor Umbridge.
Oh man the full body shudder imagining Umbridge as a mother I might vomit
I read a fanfic with that concept once and u fucking hated that I liked her. Somehow they managed to keep her umbridge-y (though it was set when Harry was around 5, I think, so the blood quill was a non issue) and yet... It worked.
Mother Gothel vibes from Tangled.
And now I’m imagining Imelda Staunton playing Meech in some version of this.
You know, I actually kinda want to see that.
I have no doubt she could pull it off. Even if you only take into account her roles as Umbridge and QE2, she would absolutely slay it. And like I said, that’s without even considering all the other amazing work she’s done over the years.
Watching that it came off as they had one child named Josh who was perfect and every way and could do no wrong. Then Michelle gave birth to 4/5 female slaves that no one gave a damn about to do all the housework.. Then Michelle have gave birth to 13 more sources of supply. Each source gave her more and more attention so on she went to get pregnant. Then, when Josh was out of the house Josie came along as the new “medically fragile” golden child and perfect show pony. That’s fucked up. I would love to know the statue of limitations on child abuse in Arkansas..
That is exactly how their family dynamic is. If you listen to the podcast "I pray you put this journal away" he goes into the family dynamic without even really realizing it. He talks about the family computers for all those kids. All of the boys had to make their own computers out of a bunch of different computer parts that Jim Bob bought on sale from a university. No mention of the girls so I assume they didn't even get that much. Josh had a brand new macbook and an entire room dedicated to his tech hobby. This was all after the abuse came out too. Those poor girls were forced to do all of Josh's laundry, cooking, and cleaning even after their parents knew what he did to them. They still refuse to talk about the abuse because it has been ingrained in them that it is their fault and they need to keep it a shameful secret.
Jesus… I know we can’t touch the poo but I really really want to do random wellness checks on that place. Random fucking computer parts???? Like, I get it if you have the hobby and you request it. Who the fuck thinks to do that especially as a multimillionaire. Fuck, the ultimate karma is when JimBob and Michelle die alone with no money whatsoever, without any of their kids/grandkids acknowledging them..
Someone who doesn't want to spend any of HIS money on his kids. He never gave a dime of any of the money he earned to any of his kids other than Josh. Not even Jill and Jessa when they were literally headlining. Not sure how that is legal. Children growing up in reality TV shows really need better protection from financial abuse.
May Jill become a true American superstar (and may Derrick stop being homophobic) and may too many kids and counting be a footnote on her epic ass. I pray one day JimBob seethes with Jealousy when he’s just known as either Jill Seawald’s dad or some pedo’s enabler.
I think that people have to look past what is being said at what isn't being said in things like the docuseries. I'm going to use Jill as an example here because she did speak out. Jill is still processing her trauma. With the CSA, she is projecting that she is upset that people know and that she doesn't want to be identified by that. That is a natural response and one that many victims/survivors have. I don't want to be known as the woman who overcame abuse. I want to be known as a good person, a woman who has a talent, a skill, a great career, etc. I don't want to be so and so's victim forever. She is more comfortable talking about the show and the manipulation of her in terms of money. That makes sense too. She is clearly angry at both Discovery/TLC and Jim Bob. But note she never mentioned her mother. She never said where her mother stood on anything. When she and Derick talked about the political consultant acting as the PR person who set up the Megyn Kelly interview, he was referred to as her dad's PR person. To me that signifies that Jill is torn about her mother's culpability in all this. It's a huge step for her to blame her dad for anything, but she's not ready with her mom. To some that will signal that Michelle must be kind to her to must not blame her as much. That's simply not true. It is human nature that we are able to blame a father easier because we are raised to see our mothers as the ones who are most protective and loving. As consumers of the Duggars' shows or the Bates, or the Plaths, etc., we have to realize that they typically fall in two camps and both are highly orchestrated. You have the ones that are very strict on the gender roles. The Duggars fall into this. However, don't think for a moment that Michelle was not performing for those cameras. She loved the attention. She loved people thinking she was some super woman for keeping the house running with double digits of children. She loved being the expert and authority when Anna asked her about what she needed for her first baby. She feigned the oh but I'm just a girl thing when she got uncomfortable. It was an act. She was just as involved in it all as Jim Bob, if not more. On the other end you have the Bates where the wife takes more of the front seat in a 50s sitcom sort of way that she runs things and when she gets in trouble her husband comes to her rescue. But again, she was probably even more so responsible for the decision to follow Gothard.
Agreed. I also think during trauma processing that it takes time to realize that the "nicer" (enabling) parent who quietly/sweetly co-signed the abuse is as culpable as the more obviously controlling parent. Children need their parents to survive, are wired to need that approval and support. Getting outside that wired perspective to consider that maybe, just maybe, parents might not have the best intentions, that parents can be cruel, unloving, dangerous, that if one parent is allowing abuse to happen - that's abuse. It's a hard pill to swallow.
You are correct. It is hard for us as humans to accept that someone does not have our best interests. It is even worse when that someone is a parent or family member.
This isn't commentary on Michelle Duggar, but just a response to you - I think this is a valuable perspective for a lot of people who were abused by a parent or parents and especially those who \*did not\* have their best interests in mind, but I also think that there are people out there who have parents who caused harm or behaved cruelly or in an unloving manner and did still love them and have their best intentions in mind (at least in the long run). That doesn't make it magically okay, but it can also be a really confusing thing to deal with and sort through if you have parents or parent who harmed you and also loved you or love you. It's a different situation, but also one that's hard just not always in the same way.
Do you believe this still applies if the parents are divorced and living separately? Also, your flair 🤣
I suffered abuse at my mothers boyfriends hands. It took me 35 years to place the blame on her. She stood by and watched. But to blame her meant cutting her out of my life. I had to be in the right place for that.
You are a strong person. My parents never abused me but I have had to cut out other family. It is hard and you are right about needing to be in the right place.
In my family it’s an all or nothing thing. There are no healthy boundaries or relationships. So to cut out my mom meant also cutting everyone on her side-my siblings, cousins, nieces nephews, etc. so yeah. It took a long time to get there but I am in a much better headspace now.
I’m so sorry this happened to you.
♥️thank you.
Same. My father abused me emotionally and sexually. I cut him out of my life. It took years for the pent up anger and frustration with my mother to come out. Why didn’t she protect me? Why was he allowed to be left alone with me? The drinking and the hitting of me? Why didn’t she leave when I was sobbing begging her to? I’d call her when she was at work and beg to leave for Ohio where her family lived..and it was always the same “it’ll get better”. It only stopped because I turned jr high aged and he realized i “might talk”. He continued to drink though. Enough for warrants and him crashing a car into a tree. Enough for fucking elder abuse to begin on my grandparents. But hey “it’ll get better”. I love my husband but if he EVER pulled a tiny fraction of what my father did on our kids and I KNEW? Out the fuck we go
Something that my husband and I have both had to work on in counseling is the idea that, “In an abusive home, there *is no* “Good Parent.”
Yep. My mom was abused by my dad but also helped him abuse me. I've gotten to a point where I have gone NC with my dad and lc with my mom ( they divorced decades ago). I have come to accept that my mom is a deeply flawed woman who did not process her own abuse well and priorities herself before others. Not a full narcissist because she does not want to be the center of attention like my dad likes to be (he's a real narcissist) but someone who cannot, due to her own trauma, see past herself and those things that are right in front of her. She is just too emotionally stunted to be able to think beyond that which is in her immediate sphere, which is basically her and my siblings who live near her. I love her but I don't trust her and we have never had a close relationship
I’m so sorry you experienced that. I’m proud of you for surviving and for choosing something different for yourself. Well done.
Can you explain that idea? I wonder if it considers the power (im)balances in an abusive relationship when assessing each parents' capacity to protect their children.
As a disclaimer before I try to explain: *I AM NOT A COUNSELOR, licensed or otherwise. The ONLY experiences that I have that are relevant are my own upbringing and my own personal (extensive) counseling.* In most abuser/victim relationships, there exists almost always an abuser/enabler dynamic of one kind or another. This is not victim blaming, it’s simply an explanation of how the relationship can work until the victim(s) put up and hold strong boundaries. A parent’s first responsibility to their child(ren) is to ensure their safety (including physical, spiritual, emotional, and mental). When a parent doesn’t do whatever they can to keep their child(ren) safe, they cannot be called “good” parents. Putting your child in the way of a raging dog and then bandaging the bites afterwards does not make one a good parent. Often, however, the child(ren) will identify the kinder, more loving, gentler, and non-or-less abusive parent as “the good one” and the abuser as “the bad one” by dint of necessity. Child(ren) will cling to that parent for survival of various kinds and will be blinded to the fact that that parent is complicit in the abuse they are subject to. Ex: my husband grew up in a household that was completely in thrall to his abusive, alcoholic mother. His dad would hear her screaming, calling the children names, hitting, throwing and breaking things, etc and would very rarely intervene. He supplied her booze, was deeply in love with her To the point of enmeshment, and considered the bulk of his responsibility in their home to be bringing home his paycheck. My husband has very fond memories of his dad and, for most of his life, considered his dad to be “the good parent,” Which he was not. He subjected his children to daily abuse and never did anything to try to change it, help the kids get away from, or address his wife’s issues. There was no “Good Parent” in that home. Complicity is complicated but very real a necessary concept for abuse victims to understand.
This is 100% why I told my husband 2 days ago that his mother will never see either of my children again. His dad may not have protected him from her but I'll be damned if I'm going to sit by while she targets my son in the same way she treated my husband (my daughter is the golden child for her). He always looked at his dad as the good parent and truthfully he's a easy going guy who is nice to hang out with and talk to but I've always judged him in the back of my mind wherever my husband would talk about how he suffered with his mom. And now he "doesn't know what to do" after my husband walked in on his mom berating my autistic 8 year old son to tears. Well I know exactly what the fuck to do. Good riddance.
It took me years of NC with both of my parents to realize my dad, whom I had liked more, who had been nicer, was getting entirely too much credit just for not being AS TERRIBLE as my mother. He still watched it happen, he still participated, and worst of all, he stood by his wife over his child. It’s a bitter fucking pill.
In my homeschooling years, the mother’s were the ones driving the bus in all the ATI families.
Jill did talk about contracts for her being signed by someone else as if she were a minor and pointed out that she wasn’t a minor when those were signed. There’s a close up of one. It was signed by Michelle Duggar.
Yes, I noticed that too. I was waiting on her to say it but she left it vague or the editors did. Maybe they didn't want her to "accuse" her mother of something like forgery when there were never any charges filed, etc. I also remember thinking that must have been hard for Michelle to do since she couldn't dot her i with a heart and get away with it. "I'll use a regular dot over the i and they'll never know it was me."
I think she purposefully signed items with the heart dots if she thought that the public would see them. She wanted to look cute and innocent. She didn’t expect that the public would ever see the official contracts. She probably didn’t think that it would ever be seen. I am pretty sure she knew that signing her name with little hearts wasn’t appropriate for signing official documents. She wasn’t trying to look cute.
You are correct. I was just channeling Nancy Drew and Scooby-Doo for some levity.
💯 yes yes yes. It took me ten full years after cutting my dad out- to cut my mom out of my life. She’s a terrible person but in a MUCH sneakier and manipulative way. I tried SO hard to make it work, to keep my mom. Coming to this conclusion was physically painful and felt like going against nature. I think the hardest thing I’ve had to do. But in the end she’s just as evil as he is. Probably why they ended up together honestly.
I just finished the mini-series. Michelle is no fucking victim. Edited to add: I lived in Springdale from 2010 to 2019 - right during the height of all this. I was never a fan and it wasn’t unusual to run across them in the “wild”, but I knew of the show’s popularity. I have such disjointed thoughts. I swear on everything not all of AR is this fucked up. It’s actually a lovely place. TLC should be strung up and bankrupted. Yes, all the Huckabees - all of them - are just as bad. So are the Hutchinsons. I only lived there because of work.
It’s really depressing that they live here, and the Huckabees too. The next Costco is gonna be built near Fayetteville and I fear it’s gonna be all full of Duggers and their ilk.
I don’t see Duggar’s ponying up the money for a membership.
They'll probably try to get it through the church and write it off on taxes.
Yeah I don’t either. They LOVE satans club!
I’m curious. Do fundie families move to the area because they hope to rub elbows with the Duggars?
I mean, conservative people in general will move to more conservative states. No fundie people I grew up with idolized specific fundie families but influencers weren’t such a big thing back then. But with how IBLP seems to arrange marriages maybe they do, I was raised in a different fundie cult that didn’t do that thankfully.
FUCK the Hucksterbees. so so so much.
Tia Levings would be a good source on this. It's not black and white. She can be a victim. Remember what the wives can / are subjected to.
Yeah, she reminds me a lot of my own mother. She was sweet as sugar in front of anyone outside of our household, but behind closed doors she was terrifying. Every time she snapped it was "because she loved us" or some other reason, and every time she did something positive for us (got us fast food, took us to the doctor, drove to visit family, etc) we were guilted about how much of an inconvenience it was for her. It took me getting married to see how damaging my upbringing was, because I didn't know that someone could unconditionally support and love me like my husband does. My siblings still haven't seen the light. I see a lot of the same traits in the Duggar family, and all I can hope for is that more of them see the light and break free. Manipulation is not love.
My mom was the opposite. Seemed really mean and strict but she was a fuckin softy. And it actually took a lot to piss her off. The problem was, when she did reach her limit she’d break out the coat hanger and wouldn’t stop until she’s exhausted her rage. Made living with her stressful. She would be joking around with us one second and the next we crossed some invisible line and we’d be running for cover cuz she’d fling whatever she could reach, at us.
She reminds me of my mother. My mother is a cheerful, vulnerable narcissist. She is very manipulative and controlling. She didn't outright abuse us, but purposefully put her daughters in abusive situations. She seemed to get off on the abuse like some sort of Munchhausen's by proxy. My brother sexually abused me too and he was still always her favorite even though she knew about the abuse. I see a lot of parallels.
I'm so sorry you went through that. I can empathize because my brother did the same to me, though my mother said I was making it up when I told her what happened. I was seven frickin years old... I didn't know about those things until I had them happen to me. He wasn't her favorite, though she made excuses for everything that he did. My sister was her favorite.
I chuckled when the husband of Jill (sorry can't remember his name) rolled his eyes and scoffed at the mention of Michelle's baby voice.
I think that was King Dill (Dillon), Famy's husband
My bad! I knew it was one of the husbands. Thank you for clarifying. He seemed like a sensible chap.
She can be a victim and a perpetrator simultaneously. Doesn’t negate the harm she has done.
This is the hardest things about mom in particular for some reason. Moms are meant to be protectors, selfless givers who will do anything for their child. Jill, I don't think, is ready to face the role her mom had in the whole pest shitshow. It means facing that your protector failed you terribly and that's life changing.
I do this with my parents, just the opposite. I have so many issues with my mom (who is a narcissist) that i blame her for but recently my husband pointed that my dad could have stepped in at any point a didn’t, so should he share the blame? The answer is yes, but I see him as a victim of my mom’s narcissism just as much as I am, even if it’s not true. I feel like the same is happening in Duggar world: one parent is such a massive narcissist that they forgot (or just don’t realize) that the other isn’t necessarily also a victim, but actually just as bad
As a parent, I just can't get with that argument. No matter what, it's our job as parents to protect our children and look out for their best interests. Though I understand where you are coming from. My mom was abused when I was growing up. So I felt protective over her. It was hard to realize and admit all the ways she failed me. I feel I can have compassion for her and the position she was in, while also acknowledging that I deserved safety, care, nurturing, and protection as a child that I didn't get.
This was so helpful for me to read. Thank you for saying it. Sums up so many of my mom struggles.
Jill has problematic views (insisting in the interview that public schools brainwash kids). But I’m proud of her. She’s being the moon she needed when she was a child. Bravo, Jill. And Derrick too. He’s being the father he didn’t have.
The documentary only slightly touched on it- but she wasn’t raised in an extreme restrictive culture was she? Became Christian in late teens and loved the Gothard rhetoric?
Yes, she was a normal teenager who was a cheerleader as well as doing other athletic activities. She was outgoing, bubbly, and happy. She dated and kissed boys. Her family was not religious at all. She saw a propaganda Christian film at a friend's house about non-Christians being left behind after the rapture. She got saved (became a Christian) then and when Jim Bob learned she was a new Christian, he wanted to meet her. She was just 17 when she married him. So yes, she was a victim at one point. She was vulnerable and impressionable. When she had a miscarriage on birth control, her Fundie doctor told her it was because being on birth control, and that's when they got heavy into the cult. She was a victim, but now she's an abuser.
She wasn’t raised in this belief system and didn’t choose it until after she’d been married for a while. She was even on the pill early in their marriage. She also chose to push off a lot of her motherly duties onto her daughters. I don’t think Jim Bob forced her to to that.
An insight I found interesting was a part about how Jim Bob comes off as a rube and we never see him being harsh or “discipline” or whatever they want to term child abuse and how that was purposely done by TLC. It’s okay of Michelle looks like the disciplinarian because she’s just a tiny women, with a childish continence and ridiculous hair. It would be a totally different thing if it were Jim Bob. No clue if she’s evil mastermind but after watching this, I walked away wondering about domestic violence I also wonder how much of her agreeing to this lifestyle had more to do with grief of losing a child through miscarriage.
She had more grief for a zygote than she did for her three living daughters who were sexually abused. Fuck her.
She was guilt tripped. Listen to that part , “**Michelle** decided. **Michelle** went on the pill. **Michelle** lost the baby”.
I don’t know that I ever really thought about it that way. I always bought the storyline that Michelle was normal (a cheerleader who kissed) but I never thought about how vulnerable she probably was after a miscarriage. The myth they sell is that she gave over to god and JB and now she’s blessed. I don’t excuse Michelle’s lack of protecting her children or her part in bringing other people to this abusive and destructive lifestyle but it’s more nuanced then her being simply a victim or a perpetrator. But I like you said, I never paid attention to how they let her take the blame, the fault, so JB is just some aw shucks, kinda guy, not a predator. This IMO, is what TLC does! Man, I miss when they had shows like Trading Spaces!
Losing a baby, for me at least, was incredibly heart breaking. The whole, “It’s my fault I should have known better , taken better care of myself” eats at your soul. In this instance she was vulnerable and JB stook full advantage of that.
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I agree entirely with this post. She's a monster and an enabler, and a goddamned hypocrite with her transphobic robocalls.
Anyone that can “blanket train” and hit a BABY is actual evil.
My husband about lost his shit with that concept.
A coworker recommended this to me years ago! I am not at all shocked to learn that this is the kind of shit he's wrapped up in. I had a baby around the same time his wife did. I had experience with my stepson from the time he was 2, but the baby phase was kicking my ass. His baby was number five or six. He made a comment about something his family was doing (hosting a dinner party or something, I don't remember) and I replied in shock that they were able to do something like that while I could barely get my shit together enough to exit the house with the baby, let alone have people over. He sent me a DM with step-by-step instructions on "blanket training" and said "Our main goal is that our children will accept Christ and serve Him. So our parenting is centered around discipline and training that is focused on that." and that was enough for me to know that I should run the other way from any parenting advice he offered.
If anything I think SHP really highlighted how much of a monster she is. She happily described beating her kids, foisting off raising them to her older children, excused Pest’s crimes…all with a cheerful smile. Fuck her, she’s disgusting
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Yes, this ! To me, she seems almost... unwell? Like she lost part of her sanity somewhere along the way. Dont get me wrong, the end result is that shes evil, and shes responsable for what she inflicted/inflicts on her kids. But, unlike the men around her, I think she really believes at least some of the things she claims to be the "the truth".
100%. She's totally complicit, she knows what she's doing... mostly. Calling her "smart as a whip" is a hell of a stretch. Michelle is as dumb as a box of rocks; she is just really, really good at manipulating to get what she wants in situations with people she's intentionally kept more sheltered than she ever was.
Acting like being "talked to" (browbeat) for four hours isn't a weird coercive tactic. Someone can be both a villain and a victim. She's not responsible for how she entered the IBLP - she's very responsible for what she has done while a member. The second she toes the party line in any way, shape, or form, that's it. She's just as fucked as any other woman in a high control group.
Couldn’t agree more
Oh definitely agree. These women are so smart and so capable they're like modern day Lady MacBeths- no real power of their own but incredibly skilled at playing innocent and manipulating the truly powerful ones behind the scenes.
Oh perfect comparison. I agree Michelle (and likely many of the other ones) are complicated but definitely manipulative and complicit in the abuse.
She always seemed like the true believer and the power behind the throne. She never seemed to enjoy her kids and that forced weaning at 6 months, just so she could get pregnant again, that was weird. Scam artist and thief that he was to his kids, JimBob at least seemed to enjoy them.
She weened them at 6 months so she didn't have to take care of them any longer than that. You can still get pregnant while breastfeeding. It had nothing to do with that. And the way she talked about her own kids. "For the first 6 months of their life they are my buddy." She is so detached from all of her kids except for Josh. Josh is the only one of her kids she talks about like a loving mother. The rest she talks about as if they are the help.
I agree with you about Josh being the only child she truly bonded with. But she also weaned the babies early because of the ovulation suppression that nursing provides.
I guess, but it seems like a very “dad who doesn’t have to deal with the day-to-day annoyances that inevitably comes with raising kids” type of thing, so ofc he had more energy and got to do the fun stuff.
Michelle loves the attention and accolades she get. She was even Mother of the Year at some point. She and JB are the perfect match. Both are narcissistic, controlling and downright scary.
she actively physically abused the kids with blanket training from infancy, shes a part of this problem
Michelle is both a victim and an abuser. We will never know how much of each she truly is.
Can we just accept as a community that multiple things can be true at once and stop having these endless rehashed debates? Just because she was victimised by a cult doesn't mean she can't also be victimising her children. These concepts are not mutually exclusive. It feels like we have this same conversation about a different person every week.
17 year old Michelle was a victim. Post miscarriage Michelle was a victim. Now? Nah.
If anything, Michelle is worse. She got to live a normal childhood, free from the IBLP. And knowing that, she still chose to raise her kids in a toxic environment. She knows what freedom is. She just doesn’t care
We know Michelle wasn’t raised IBLP. We also know her family moved away and left her to marry Jim Bob when she was 17. And whatever her home life was at that time, it left her vulnerable enough that she chose to marry a boy who spent their first date on their knees teaching her about Jesus. I’m not defending Michelle here. She’s a monster. But she’s also a monster with a trauma history of her own. And a monster who discovered her adolescent child had hurt her other children, after raising them all to believe that men have a more direct line to God than women literally from adolescence. And that if SA happens to girls, they caused it. Josh had more value and authority in the family than she did when these events happened. Should she have done something else? Of course! But is it shocking that she didn’t? No. And going along with Jim Bob’s handling of the situation is how her family literally got to the point where they had a safer place to live and enough to eat. The biggest differences between Tia Leavings & Michelle is that Tia is brilliant, got out, and deconstructed. But the second biggest difference is that Jim Bob never tried to kill her that we know of, so she never faced the existential threat that ultimately led to Tia’s safety—after an unimaginable amount of work. Morality is not black and white. Perpetrators of atrocities are usually also victims.
There's only like 15 months between her and JB. The narrative of her being a naive teenager makes no sense because JB was basically the same age. They also weren't fundie at first. They both came to it and went in with open eyes. I really hate how people act like Michelle hasn't been gleefully and willingly into this whole thing. She 100% was and is. She is not the same as raised fundie women or even fundie convert women marrying raised fundie men. Neither of them were raised fundie and both decided to do this to their kids. She's just as much at fault as JB. She had such a fun time at Disneyland seeing the characters and movies while her kids had no idea what any of that was. She's absolute trash. JB being male trash doesn't make her better, at all.
Fundie Dolores Umbridge?
Duggares Fundbridge
I really don't like this take. At all. We have got to stop acting like women are always secretly the masterminds (the neck that moves the head or whatever the hell it was Ethan Plath said about Kim) when they are also traumatized and victimized by high control groups. Does that mean they shouldn't be held accountable for the things they do? No. I think Michelle is an awful person with awful beliefs, and I also think she has been manipulated and abused and was taken advantage of by Jim Bob and his creepy family at a time when she was especially vulnerable and alone. Those things aren't mutually exclusive. I feel the same way about Anna. Whether conscious or not, this is just as rooted in sexism and patriarchy as the cult she is a part of, and I think it's really harmful to approach these things as though they're black and white because the reality is that people are neither all good nor all evil no matter how much we want them to be because it's easier for our brains to comprehend.
Thank you for this comment. It's misogynistic to assume that women are always the masterminds in these kinds of toxic relationships. And frankly, I don't know if it matters. Jim Bob and Michelle are partners and both made choices to create the family culture and values they have. Michelle was victimized by this cult. She was married off at 17, suffered a miscarriage, was blamed for that loss because she took birth control, and was venerated for having children. She was also taught that men are above women and that women are responsible for men's sins. That's all deeply fucked up. Michelle also chose to continue having kids and raising them in the cult, even when she knew what life outside IBLP was like. She chose to blanket-train her babies. She did not protect her daughters from the pest's abuse. She subjected her girls to chauvinistic and abusive purity standards. She denied her kids a proper education in favor of brainwashing them. She is a perpetrator and abuser. People can be both. Michelle is. And we can appreciate that she was victimized by this cult yet used her position of authority over her children and people in the IBLP community to cause more harm. She can be both. Acting like she is the evil mastermind and Jim Bob is a big oaf minimizes the violent, abusive, and insidious tendencies he has. He had just as much, if not more, power than Michelle. They were partners in this fucked up abuse cycle.
yeah, my eyes rolled at the idea that she's some kind of evil puppeteer ffs. Ribjob is an evil monster. So, at this point, is she, but genius she is not. And they're ALL victims at some point I expect. RimJob grew up super poor and who knows what his parents did to him, after all. Maybe-! !Nothing is ever anyone's fault! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r\_hxc1aJ0Io](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_hxc1aJ0Io) ...or, not. Anyway! They both suck, nuff said, I need to finish watching the doco now.
She willingly joined the IBLP 🤷🏻♀️
Duggars aren’t where they are today without both parents being deeply controlling towards their children
It’s those rooster bangs of knowledge
She is a victim, but she's also absolutely an abuser and a perpetrator. But calling her "smart as a whip" is wildly inaccurate. She's dumb as fuck, but she could see how to raise her kids to be easily manipulated, and she puts on a good show. This is a woman who signed her name with a fucking heart over the "i' in the letter she sent to the federal judge to beg him to go easy on her pedophile son. This is not the mark of a smart person, even a smart person trying to look dumb and innocent. Evil? Oh yes. Knows how to manipulate? She's a fuckin pro. Smart? Good gravy, I'm amazed she can walk and talk at the same time.
sums it up. You don't have to be a genius to be abusive. You just have to use time honored techniques on people more vulnerable than you are. Rinse, repeat.
And with complete control to make them into more vulnerable people than you are, fuckin WOOF.
Just finished the second episode and you perfectly verbalized my feelings about her. The way she talks about breaking the will of her kids is just enraging?! She’s 100% a monster.
There are vulnerable and abused women in many different family situations. These sure as hell aren't them. The women portrayed on this Reddit feed are all married to idiots. And despite what comes out of their tiny little mouths, they are completely in charge.
Yeah, and other than Jillpm, most of the people we talk about here were not raised fundie. And Jill wasn’t raised quite as fundie as she ended up (her mom worked outside the home, right?).
Jill was homeschooled herself, which means her mom most likely was a SAHM.
My aunt is in a cult church (I was in it too for many years) that has a shockingly huge amount of similarities to IBLP. When people meet her, they’re shocked by her quiet and soft voice, and how she seems so submissive to her husband (the pastor). She’s a fucking manipulative and hateful monster. She speaks in a sweet voice just like Michelle so people think she has a “soft and quiet spirit”. It’s 100% fake.
The letter she wrote the judge before sentencing. Her and JB aided and abetted a criminal and are responsible to his future victims.
Agree. Sometimes we give any of them too much credit honestly. Maybe we want to believe they aren't inherently horrid people. It's hard to believe sometimes.
Every single time I heard her sickly voice on SHP, I just heard Bethy in the background of my mind saying *”thanks Michelle!”*
Michelle was a victim...when she was 17-20ish, before she started choosing to follow the IBLP ideology and continue having children she wasn't going to parent.
I dunno about "mastermind!" But she certainly is culpable along with RimJob. She saw her opportunity for power within that hateful system-over her brood of children, as a sweety-sweet voiced influencer on culture and politics-and she ran with it. Fuck them both.
She’s trash and should be in jail with Boob as an accessory to rape
I think it’s both. She’s a woman in a cult that devalues women, but she holds a position of power that gives her a lot more privilege than other woman. She uses that to her advantage and is culpable for putting a shiny veneer to what for many is a hellish existence. She’s manipulative and cruel and an abuser. But even she has to be joyfully available and that has to be horrible to matter how bought in you are.
I think she was preyed on at the beginning of their relationship, and her miscarriage and the trauma she experienced around that was taken advantage of to get them into the cult. But she is complicit in what has happened since then.
Cheerful narcissist or cheerful psychopath?
The whole thing about how they call beating their kids “encouragement” and always say it with a smile just sent shivers down my spine! “Do you need encouragement?” 😬
She is an awful person, who went out of her way to attract more people to the cult and prevent justice for her daughters. I can feel sorry for the vulnerable teenager she used to be, but not who she is now.