Domestic Abuse

Who Was That Masked Man? Part 1

May 15, 2012
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by Calulu

This is a new series that I’m starting. I actually started writing about my history with the one person that impacted me the most during my days at the old church. I’m flip, I’m sarcastic in this series but mostly I am processing what happened to me because it seems like a plot straight out of the recently cancelled series GCB (Good Christian Bitches). After telling my therapy years ago about this man I was encouraged to write it all down. I did and if I didn’t laugh and poke fun I’d be crying right now. It was the most corrosive relationship I’ve ever been in and I didn’t even have the common sense to run from it. I’ve changed names and some small details because until recently this person still stalked me in an effort to make me return to my old beliefs. I have to believe his extreme inner hurt drove his behavior.

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If there was one person that affected my journey both into and out of a Patriarchal Fundigelical church that man would be Tom Smith. He was there at the start and he still haunts me like a cackling insano Captain Ahab chasing Moby Dick around an endless ecclesiastical sea. He has a monomaniacal desire to either force me back into our old borderline fundamentalist way of life replete with a submissive attitude or to hound me about going to hell. Sometimes he seems to spit at me “ … to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee. “ but it sounds more like, “You are going to HELL for going to THAT church with homosexual abortionists and unGodly UNSAVED!!!!” Eleventy1111111!!!!

Back when the husband and I were new believers we ended up going to the same church as he back in 1995, PCC. He and his wife pounced upon us at once, inviting us over to watch movies, play cards, or share a meal. We didn’t know anyone else in the church at that time and they, Tom and Tina, had four boys ranging from just older than our son to the same age as our daughter. The kids loved to get together.

From the first I was put off by Tom’s fake-seeming Jesus Freak persona. He would do things like stop in the middle of a movie or game to lecture about Jesus. He prayed very publicly in almost a showy fashion at the drop of a hat and constantly had Christian rock and roll playing at full blast. These things set off my internal bullshit detector but since we were newly minted kool aid drinkers I thought I was the wacky one.

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Quiverfull and the Introvert: Where Do You Get Your Energy?

April 29, 2012
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by Barbie Getzreal

“Where do you get your energy?!”

This is a question which is frequently asked of Quiverfull moms by amazed and admiring onlookers who cannot imagine being able to keep up with the exponential demands of “biblical womanhood” including: perpetual pregnancy, child-bearing, adopting sibling groups, breastfeeding, baby wearing, chronic sleep deprivation, raising half a dozen or more closely-spaced, “stair-step” children, homeschooling – year round through chronic illness, child-training, character training, tomato-staking, discipling children, homemaking, penny-pinching, organic gardening, baking from scratch, once-a-month cooking, homesteading, sewing modest clothing, showing hospitality, operating a “cottage” business, staying trim, fit and healthy, and of course, serving as loving helpmeet … all without the modern woman’s “village” of helpers: daycare, preschool, play dates, public school, the boob-tube babysitter, pre-packaged and frozen foods, day spas, “me time,” credit cards, government assistance, “allopathic” medicine, Sunday School, youth group, therapists, Ritalin for the kids, or Xanax for mom.

Even a cursory perusal of the above-linked Quiverfull blogs will leave a woman feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. “Where do you get your energy?” is the obvious and unavoidable question.

The most flippant, unprofitable, guilt-inducing, and insincere responses often sound the most spiritual:

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

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The Piano: Adventures in Recovery

March 6, 2012
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by Calulu Reading through the many different stories at NLQ of how we were enmeshed in the unhealthy lifestyle that is patriarchy, fundamentalism, quiverful, dominionism, evangelism, name your ism, has led me to wonder why we all so readily embraced that which was so clearly illogical and dangerous. There must be something in us that went off in that direction that’s significantly different than the average person that likes regular movies and beer plus other forbidden things in our old religious lives. This isn’t about those that were raised in the life. Growing up to emulate your parents is perfectly understandable, be your parent Charlie Manson or Billy Graham. I’m talking about those of us that willingly signed on as adults, who should have known better in the first place. I did notice during my own frustrating years toiling in fundigelical land that the truest bluest believers seem to have some quirk or oddness. It usually didn’t show at first but once you delved deeper you could discern some brokenness inside. Significant brokenness. Like they were using their extreme flavor of God to plug some holes filled with deep neediness. Like a drug.

Justice is No Lady: Chapter 10 My Right to Be Heard

March 2, 2012
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By Tess Willoughby

Nate got another partner almost immediately. He found her on a Christian dating site. Patty had money from her millionaire father and a big house paid for by the government salary of her estranged husband. Nate had told me that remarriage for me was unbiblical, but he found a loophole in Scripture and told the children that he and Patty were already married in God’s eyes. God having spoken, Nate moved into Patty’s house and put our marital home up for rent.

Nate wrote me a letter warning that if I did not “come to terms” (give him full custody of the children), he would hold a big yard sale and sell off everything in the house that belonged to me and the kids. He had the right to do this, having been awarded the entire contents of the house by the courts. The letter specifically mentioned a silver tray that my grandparents had given us as a wedding present. The toys, costly and old-fashioned and ordered from catalogs, had been my parents’ birthday and Christmas gifts to the children. The kids had left behind probably two thousand dollars’ worth of toys–$300 in large hand-carved wooden blocks alone. Nate sold them all, except for a few that he informed us he would keep at Patty’s house for “when the children come home.” Nate sold or gave to Goodwill the 150 books in my personal library and the children’s library.

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The 14 Basic Needs of Jim-Bob and Michelle Duggar

February 29, 2012
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by Hopewell

Recently  on “19 Kids and Counting,” Michelle Duggar was seen giving women a handout on the “7 Basic Needs of a Husband,” a document produced and distributed by the Advanced Training Institute –the Duggar’s “homeschool group.” She also gave out the group’s “Character Qualities” chart, which I discussed in an earlier post, The 49 Character Qualities of the Duggars.

The 14 Basic Needs of Jim-Bob and Michelle Duggar: How they meet each other’s 7 Basic Needs:

7 Basic Needs of a Husband:

  • A man needs a wife who is loyal and supportive: Obviously, Jim-Bob picked the right wife! Michelle has been there with him, supportive to the max, thru years of small businesses, scrimping and buying used and saving the difference to achieve his (well, their) dream for their family. She’s put up with a two bedroom house on a car lot keeping 4 or 5 small children quiet while Daddy made a car sale. She’s sold cars herself with babies underfoot, gone out to tow cars on her own and kept all the family fed, clothed and healthy throughout it all. That was the early years.

Today Michelle is beside Jim-Bob at every possible moment—even on the Santorum Campaign trail when possible. While she has Grandma Duggar and the big girls to take up much of the day-to-day running of the family, caring for Jim-Bob is her responsibility and she obviously takes it seriously. Her rapt attention when he is speaking shows her love for him.

  • A man needs a wife who honors his leadership: Michelle honors her husband by taking any opportunity to praise him as a father, speaking lovingly of love of family fun, of making a careful response to problems and of modeling the behavior he wants to see in his children. She openly admires his vision for the family and his business acumen. When he is speaking she is completely focused on him.
  • A man needs a wife who develops inward and outward beauty Michelle has kept herself in very good shape considering all the years of pregnancy she’s endured. She honors her husband’s preference for long hair at an age when most wives have long since cut theirs for convenience. She maintains her composure in difficult situations and tries always to speak in a loving voice. She laughs easily and her smile at that time is lovely. She is a very outgoing lady.
  • A man needs a wife who will make appeals, not demands.  While we cannot know what goes on when the cameras are off, it does not appear that Michelle is a very demanding of her husband.  She does not complain about him dragging home an antique harp or buying a new bus—she’s used to his whims and trusts his business sense. She knows him well and lives easily and happily with him.

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Snipped! – Part 3: Marital Problems

February 28, 2012
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by Incongruous Circumspection

When I was about 7 years old, my parents realized that they were having marital problems.  My father knew there was a problem long before this, but he was now ready to do something about it.  They began the process of looking for a marriage counselor.  They found many.  They went to many.  But it was always the same song and dance.

The marriage counselor would begin by getting the story of their marriage from both parties and then begin speaking to my father about what he could do to improve himself.  My dad, being a humble and loving gentleman, was more than happy to take sole ownership of the repairing of the marriage, but knew that doing this would only exacerbate the problem.

Let me explain…

My mother was abusive to Dad.  I remember one day, I walked into the living room and Mama told Dad to turn around.  Apparently he had done something naughty.  He obliged and she commenced slapping him on the back.  It seemed to go on forever.  I don’t remember how it ended, but I do remember Dad just standing there, calmly, letting her blow off her steam.

She would regularly kick him out of the house and not allow him back until he apologized to her liking.  One cold winter night, he decided that apologizing would be the wrong thing to do, being he had done nothing wrong.  He walked two blocks away to a local bank and climbed up behind their lighted sign in the alcove of the bank’s entryway.  The fluorescent lights kept him warm through the night. I don’t know if he came home and apologized but, from experience with Mama, she more than likely lost interest in the punishment and let him back in the door.:

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Changes

February 23, 2012
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by Calulu

By now I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’ve started doing some of the posting of articles and am an admin on the NLQ message board.

Why? Change is in the wind and change can be a good thing. As an artist I try to embrace change. We’ve all been through some heavy duty changes or we wouldn’t even be on this site. To change is to grow.

Recently I hurt my back, been suffering the aches of sciatica up and down both of my legs and in my back. Now in my old drinking the koolaid part-fundamental part-evangelical life I would have gone to my church’s prayer warriors and they would have told me what they always told me when I got a terrible backache. They would tell me I needed to forgive someone because it was obvious to them that I was holding only pain, bitterness and unforgiveness in my back.

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Young patriarch tells it like it is: Woman indeed is the weaker vessel; Sodomites hate God, and infiltrate churches to spit in God’s face … Am I controlling for keeping my woman away from these evil men? Then so be it.

February 5, 2012
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(Trigger warning: patronizing, misogyny, homophobia...)

Last night, a patriarch-in-training named “Matt” spent a lot of time reading and commenting on the NLQ FAQ: What Is Quiverfull?

It’s possible that Matt is a troll and his comments should be ignored or deleted – but his arguments are not at all unlike the “biblical” beliefs which I heard taught/preached regularly during my Quiverfull days. I am assuming Matt is a young man based on his immaturity and know-it-all attitude – of course, given that patriarchs rarely grow up, it’s possible that he is an old man – maybe he’s the pastor of an IFB church.

So, without further ado – here’s Matt:

I take it from your post that you are dead set on fornicating, although the Bible tells you not to do that.

“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.”

“Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.”

“This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.”

You are mistaking voluntary submission with involuntary servitude. As a Christian lady you are commanded to be subject to your husband, it is asked of you to submit. It doesn’t say “men, oppress your woman to all costs!”. As a Christian woman who claims to believe in the Word of God, which is inspired/breathed by God, your Creator, is it alright for you to dismiss what that Word says?

A woman surrenders to a man so easily when he takes charge. That is the danger of having a matriarch with a man in subjection. The woman indeed is the weaker vessel, tossed to and fro, giving in to whims, and judges things according to her motherly instinct. For instance, she would say sodomite couplings are lovely, because love is blind. A man who is not of God would say “I don’t care, to each their own”, but not mention love in the equation. A man of God would not even let a sodomite in under his roof or in the vincinity of his children!! Let me tell you something, love is not blind! Even infatuation is not blind. But infatuation and love are two different things. Love is a choice. Hate is a choice. I will hate the wicked and their deeds. Yes, hate. Furthermore, sodomites hate God, and infiltrate churches to spit in God’s face. You might say, “sodomites love each other, so what’s wrong with that”? I love my siblings, does that mean I have sexual relations with them?! I love men, as brothers. I love women, as sisters. But by God, there is only one person I take sexual pleasure in! Love is not sex. Learn it, woman.

So, if you’re a Christian woman, your God that you supposedly love, tells you to submit and be in subject to your husband in every thing. Am I a jealous man? Every man of God should be jealous! Just as God is jealous, and wants us only to worship him.

And why am I jealous? Because the woman is the weaker vessel, and evil men who have acknowledged this takes advantage, to defile you.

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