Groomed for an Abusive Arranged Marriage: Alyssa Wakefield's Story PART 1
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- Опубликовано: 8 июн 2022
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This theology preps girls and young women _for_ an abusive spouse. 😢 I was prepped and served up for an abusive husband. 14 years of hell. He claimed he was a Christian when we met and dated, and he held to that façade for a handful of years. It spiraled more and more, day after day until he had me trained to sit there as he screamed at me, threw things and broke things around me, terrified me, cussed God out in my presence and even flicked God off all the time: he knew it _crushed me._
God sent two friends into my life who came alongside me and helped me finally gain my autonomy, my self worth and self love~ and I LEFT my abuser. One of the other things that happened for me to leave was I prayed like I've never prayed before, I asked God to give me a green light to leave. The very next day my ex threatened me and my rose colored glasses were ripped off my face! This man didn't love me, didn't care about me, wouldn't protect me and was actually out to have ME take the fall for HIS tax evasion. I confronted him with what he just said and he claimed he was "trying to assure me". There's no way his threat could be seen as "reassuring".
I left 5 days later.
Praise God!!!
I am now married to an amazing, God fearing man who has all the fruits of the Spirit, who is kind, gentle, patient, loving, thankful, giving and prayerful. It's a miracle. God is amazing!!! I'm hoping anyone here who is in abuse would find their self love and self worth and get out of the abuse!❤
I have always been amused by the fact that supposedly nothing is greater than "God's love" yet the people who seem to consider themselves "Godly" have no clue what the word LOVE actually means. Yet here is me, a man who doesn't believe in God in the Biblical sense of the title has more real love in my life in all of loves many forms than any one man could ever have earned.
Beginning about the 13 minute mark - the sad thing is that WE REALLY BELIEVED THIS! I did this to my children, and I am just heartbroken for them! (The good thing is that God ALWAYS offers redemption, and I am able to work on repairing the damage I did. I am so grateful.)
I was raised Amish Mennonite and my parents chose to start homeschooling us when I was in third grade, using the IBLP curriculum. I understand all too well. I freed myself at 21 yo and believe it’s the reason I’m still alive-and thriving. God is good. Man, not so much.
❤
Thank you for sharing this, I am a dad with 4 young kids. This is so helpful for my wife and I to raise our kids with the compassion and love of Christ.
20:00 If you've got the Jesus umbrella, why do you need the other umbrella? Wow!! Love it!!! 👏
I was so proud of Alyssa for sharing what she did. I think it takes a lot of courage. I wasn’t homeschooled but grew up with a similar mindset of breaking the child’s will in a SBC missionary family and eventually ended up in an abusive marriage. It’s so true, what you all said, that bad theology taken to its logical conclusion, is abuse to children and women. I homeschooled as well with good intentions but also was influenced with this patriarchal type of thinking which kept my children a d self in harm. Thank you for doing this interview and helping us all see the truth in these areas!
There’s a woman with a similar story running on Humans of New York right now. It’s hard to read or watch either one, because I grew up in that environment and spent much of my childhood coasting/dissociating. Somehow I knew I couldn’t and would not be in a relationship that fit this abusive model.
I remember telling myself “I will help and serve others my whole life, but the relationship with my (future) husband- I will only marry for myself. I will be selfish in this one thing.”
I even felt bad for being “selfish” not being willing to give up a relationship I wanted, but now I realize it was survival instincts kicking in when everything around me was trying to gaslight me into a submissive, controlled, mindless life.
I was in the same circles as Alyssa, and seriously it was just luck that I didn't marry a terrible man too. Not only were we not taught to see red flags, we were conditioned to LOOK for that kind of man. But I got a bad vibe from the Welches in those days, and didn't like the vision of marriage we were given. Once Alyssa began telling her real story, I realized that my intuition was correct. I COULD trust my heart. Her story is deeply sad. I'm so glad she's willing to share it and warn others.
Thank you so much for being bold and speaking your story!
I remember doing children seminars with Abby and Alyssa. We went to their house at one point and met her dad. He had a talk called “corralling the stallion” it really impacted me as it shamed men into an idea that we had no control of our sexuality.
And the entire notion is so ridiculous!
That is so toxic for men, it can be easier to name the damage this teaching does to women, but men are also groomed into a negative mindset
The arrogance of evangelicals. Beth Allison Barr was right on the money when she said that the reformation replaced the priest with the husband. In either case the believer doesn’t get an unmediated relationship with Christ. Awful.
I’m an evangelical and I pray to Christ directly. Sweeping generalizations are usually wrong
I agree this happens a LOT. 😢
Look into orthodoxy
I was also labeled "a strong-willed child"
"Our hearts know what you need, but you can never know." Oh man so much of this hits home. I grew up in some of the same circles and remember going to conferences or events to hear Norm Wakefield (as well Bill Gothard, etc). I so appreciate you sharing, Alyssa!!
(This is what I posted when I shared this post on FB:)
This! I resonate with this so deeply.
Fear and control based parenting, walking on eggshells with God, being groomed, manipulated, abused and having my agency nearly completely stripped away.
(And oh yes-Focus on the Family was considered REALLY liberal in my house!)
My mom and step-dad literally discussed an arranged marriage to his best friend when I was a *baby* and it came up several times with the man throughout my childhood and through when I was in college. They saw him as a really wonderful, godly man that would be good to me…but so much eww.
My stepdad realized they made a mistake in letting me go to (my very strict, fundamentalist Bible) college. He told me I had become “too independent and needed to come home.” That scared the living daylights out of me. (Unlike the story in this link, my dad was NOT kind and gentle.) After SO MUCH prayer and counsel from my college Vice President, teachers, pastors, grandparents and respected adult stand-in parents (who all unanimously told me “Do not go home!”) I told my step-father over the phone that I was staying.
It still makes me shaky and want to vomit.
My Mom then said that I was completely cut off from the family until I decided to end my rebellion, submit and come home and they hung up.
It was awful and one of the hardest things in my life. I lost my siblings that day and it has never been the same since.
It was also amazing, because my really painful and persistent IBS went away overnight and I was FREE.
Eventually, they came back into my life only to find out that my parents told all manner of lies about me and what I was up to at college and on break. It changed everything.
They did NOT approve of Chase (Chase couldn’t be controlled) and made every effort to break us up including telling Chase’s parents every sin I had ever committed and all the reasons I wasn’t good enough to marry Chase. True story.
Anyway, I share all of this to say that my parents truly believed they had my best interests at heart. They started out homeschooling me with good intentions for my education and well-being.
They wanted to save me from the mistakes they had made and the shame they carried. Like Alyssa says in the podcast, they didn’t truly understand Jesus and grace.
This made so much room for fear and control to take over and the Bible and God became a weapon.
Making decisions from fear and control never have good outcomes. It is something I’m trying (and at times failing) to remember as I parent my kids.
Knowing how to truly study the Bible in context, makes such a difference and helps to keep us from using verses and passages for our own (even well-intentioned) purposes.
It is a good thing to want to protect and save your kids. It is a bad thing to take away their personhood in the process and (in the name of Jesus does such greater harm like she says.)
I’m SO thankful for Jesus and grace and for the outright miracles it took to get me to college, to Chase, and to good teachers and counselors after we got married.
Through it all, Jesus was there with me...and still is. He is not like my dad or step-dad. He is not watching and waiting for me to mess up. He loves me, accepts me, forgives me and is the gentle, loving Father I always needed. He is a good, good, Father. ❤️
Thank you so much for sharing this story and I’m SO PROUD of Alyssa for breaking free. I can’t wait to hear more. ❤️
Thank you for sharing this!
Am delighted that you had the courage to stand your ground, that must have been so scary. Thank God for all the support you had around you during this painful process, and fir Chase 💜
Beautiful, Gemma. I'm so sorry you lost your family 😥 My chronic back pain left the day after I left my abusive narcissist ex. He used his anger to control me for 14 long years....
Jesus is freedom! I appreciate you sharing your story here. Big hugs from a sister in Christ ♥️ ~ Jennifer
Stay away from people that mis treat you, and don't look back, oh stay away from them
Alyssa, thank you for sharing your story.
I have listened to many narratives of "Christian" cult survivors. Constantly I am amazed that anyone emerges from these horrific situations and manages to still believe in God and in Jesus as the Christ. Please keep telling your stories. Everyone needs to hear of these evils done in the name of God.
I would pay to hear the rest of her story now and not to wait until next week!!
I found about you a couple moths ago and have shared you with MANY of my friends. I’m blown away! I love your videoed, your books, your interview, your family, and the amazing person you are. I feel like we know your heart and who you are, and you’re an amazing woman!! 💕💕💕
Wow! Thanks for sharing this powerfull story. I hope millions of “ Christ followers” hear it.
My teen marriage story is too crazy for most people to believe. Purity culture, "courtship," and "hearing from the Holy Spirit " led me straight into a horrifc marriage at 16. I am writing it down now to share.
Good for you! You may be saving other women from the fate you escaped. Share your truth❤
Amazing presentation. This was the first time ive hear spiritual abuse being the jumping off board to justify the other forms of abuse.
A forced hug after severe physical discipline is diabolical.
So proud of you, Alyssa!
46:50 PUKE! Alyssa, I"m squalling for you and the eight ( I can name them!) as I read your blog with glee back in the day. And I'm rooting for you all in life!
My heart just breaks for that dear child you were Alyssa.
15:04 yes I too have thought of this how come children's hearts are wicked yet sinful wicked adults are put in charge of children and somehow these sinner parents are know the will of God? Make it make sense? Sheesh.
Because “God speaks to the parents in a way He doesn’t to the children.” Can’t have children hearing the Holy Spirit for *themselves*!
I see a lot of the people in the comments are people who came out of some movement like IBLP. That wasn’t my experience in life but I still love what she had to say about spiritual abuse, however Alyssa got the truth I am very proud of her. I believe she said something like God is supposed to be safe in all the storms of life and when spiritual abuse is the worst kind of abuse because even God is not safe for you anymore. I love her for saying that!
What Alyssa--Gothard--describes as "Courtship" is what the United States Federal Government calls TRAFFICKING.
I don't disagree.
I am using this in my life (25:12) “I guess it doesn’t have to make sense, it just happened”
From reading some of these comments it seems this could be a good opportunity to educate the audience on victim blaming and gaslighting.
Thank you for your comments at the end!
I grew up in a very abusive NON believing home, and I latched on to this stuff because I so craved “rightness” and holiness in my life, and I honestly thought this was the way to go. As a result my children suffered much of the same damage that I suffered in my non-Christian family of origin. Not a good testimony!!
Why is this not a good testimony? Are you still in an abusive situation?
Me too. I broke after 11 children and 38 years. I left and most of my children have nothing to do with me. Their father had a heart attack and died suddenly - I can only pray that the Lord will open their eyes so they will find peace in Christ and embrace the Truth of His Love. What a mess we have made in the name of 'christianity'.
I'd hate to be these guys at the judgement seat. Taking advantage of a female through her love of God can't be good.
50:34 that made my blood run cold. How terrifying.
How many hundreds if not thousands (millions?) of women have a similar upbringing to this? Being raised with no agency, completely shielded from the outside world, without a voice and worst of all, that their 'shameful' bodies are the cause of men's sinful lust. This co-opting of religious doctrine to serve an evil, authoritarian, and extremely narcissistic agenda happens in other religions too (like Islam). I look forward to part 2. Love your podcast.
You are so right! These men have used all the fundamentalist sections of all religions-FLDS, Extreme Orthodox Judiasm, Islam, many sects that call themselves “Christian”, as well as those that simply admit to being patriarchal and are open about their ownership of women and little girls and new age cults as well. It always comes down to stealing money and exploiting women’s labor, their bodies, any resources they have put in the service of men’s desires. Much of this abuse is illegal in the U S and Canada but this knowledge is withheld from women whether in plural marriage or not.
I'm not sure if the link for parenting class teaching
is working
I know I’m coming in a year later, but I knew a women who bought into this teaching fully. She’d come to Christ in adulthood and lived (in her mind) a “hedonistic lifestyle” (though when she described it I considered it pretty tame) and married a nonChristian who was, sadly, an emotionally abusive man.
She was absolutely convinced that by raising her children according to strict purity culture practices, she was saving them from the heartache of the choices she’d made in her youth. To her credit, in her heart it wasn’t about maintaining personal power over them. She just wanted them to live a life without regret.
But try as I might, I couldn’t convince her that she was setting them up for a different kind of heartache-but one no less painful.
Now her eldest daughter has fully deconstructed and she can’t understand why. 😞
I can’t believe the father/son Bible conferences that I went to with my estranged father had Norm speak at them. I’m disgusted almost. It’s like everything he taught us there was junk (which is basically was I guess). Wish I could burn that little book we got from it
The link for the parenting webinar didn't work
And we all thought Bill Gothard was the BOMB. 🤢🙄
More like a nuke.
"My will was broken". Yes. And this is heartbreaking. This is a system designed to break women's spirits using original sin as an excuse. When now more than ever the world needs spirited women to lead, along with the men of good will whom we love, and can trust, to raise the generations coming up. As mothers and grandmothers we need to model strength, compassion, empathy and sisterhood and to resist the kind of "respect" for human men that is really idolatry. Respect must be earned, not simply bestowed because of gender no matter how Scripture is twisted to achieve putting men first just because they're men.
OK, I’m at 5:56 here, and really looking forward to hearing the rest of this, but I do want to interject here: I was in that movement - I’ll call it “fear-based homeschooling” - and I have to say, controlling my children was NOT the primary objective. Controlling their ENVIRONMENT - because I didn’t want “the world” to hurt or harm them - was a major factor in my decision. My big growth area in recent years was learning to “let go and let God…” - to learn that He also wants to guard my children, and he’s MUCH better at it! That I can let them leave in the mornings and know that I can trust Him.
My actions were fear based, and that was wrong, but they weren’t power based. Maybe Norm’s were; I’ve heard some of his testimony and I can well believe it, but for many of us, that was not the case.
Edit: I’m sorry this repeats so much. I was really having trouble posting. I’m glad it finally went through.
I'm grateful you shared ❤
I’m glad your sharing. As a child with a Mother who also came from the same place I want to share that our experience as children was one of control and power
Thank you for sharing. Homeschooling can be appropriate for some, but when it means limited knowledge gained, or total separation from the wider society then it has negative effects.
And the teaching was that public schools would harm your child, and anyone hearing this repeatedly will do as you did if they could. You wanted to protect as any good mum, but you were lead by fear by those who were controlling. Peace to you and your family.
Does Alyssa have an Instagram handle we could follow?
It’s hard to believe Alyssa is talking about the same Norm Wakefield I heard speak at home school conferences.
We must guard against throwing the baby out with the bath water. Scripture DOES talk about virginity, purity and the husband being accountable to God for his family. A REAL Christian husband would DIE for his wife.
However you interpret the Bible, virginity, purity culture, the husband being accountable for his family (not sure where in the Bible that comes from) and most of what Gothard teaches is not essential to the Ciristian faith. We can safely throw out all of that and walk in righteousness with Jesus.
@@juliachildress2943 Thanks. The Bible doesn't say that the husband is accountable for all.
There's a difference between biblical and Christ-like? Everything about Christ was biblical. Maybe you could explain?
Biblical may vary depending on your, or your pastor's interpretation of the Bible. And every, absolutely every, reading of translations of manuscripts that are generations of copies with variation between them, is interpretation.
Biblical cam bring in a proverb (from a book that is a collection of sayings at the time) about not sparing the rod. Christ-like looks more to the gaspel and letting the children come and be blessed, and that children are a lesson to adults about following God.
I think the proper way to deal with this is to look at the New Testament as the fulfillment of the Old. There is a pattern that the New Testament does not ignore or deny the principles of the old, but it roots them all in the coming life death, and resurrection of Christ so that we will serve in a new way of the Spirit. So for example we’re keeping the festival in the New Testament but it’s with the bread of sincerity and truth. The sprinkling with the blood is the blood of Christ, etc. God indeed disciplines those he loves, but the only clue we have is that it is something purifying if people cannot claim they are doing the will of God in this discipline by being harsh, overly restrictive or abusive. That’s doing evil that “good” may result.
@@helenr4300Churches that advocate the beating of children are NOT of God no matter what they tell you.
Those of us in the historic confessional reformed world would NOT call John Piper , Doug Wilson or MacArthur reformed. The baptistic world does not understand covenant theology, the foundation of reformed theology. The men above do not belong in our category. We would never use methods you mention as they do not fit into scripture. Please use your definitions carefully so you don't demean really good denominations/federations.
And yet I lived in this framework, read reformed books and persuaded myself that Wilson et al were accurately representing the reformation. I so desperately wanted my understanding of reformed theology to result in the horror being fixed. But God rescued me. I got to be the 'scapegoat'. Such huge loss - but I have had a trauma therapist who has helped me hugely. And I KNOW God is Good. He is the One who Sees.
Bad teaching happens in all parts of the church
@@tvdb5299 hi there -- I am so sorry for what you have been through. I'd been in a similar situation, so I get it. God did use that in my life, however. As far as reformed, Doug's reformed is MESSED-UP. If you want to truly understand reformed theology, listen to theologians like Dr. Michael Horton, Dr. Kim Riddlebarger, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson, Dr. Robert Godfrey, Dr. Sproul, Dr. Derek Thomas. Stay away from the "baptistic" reformed. Look for confessional, historic, conservative reformed churches like the URCNA (the one I appreciate) and the OPC. Reformed theology, when taught properly, is amazing. It put everything into context for me (I came out of dispensationalism). However, unless you use the right sources, it's easy to latch on to DW because he is popular. Popularity isn't something that should guide our theology. Be well.
of, and Dr. Carl Trueman - love his teaching.
@@helenr4300 absolutely, it does -- but there are places where it is safer. I mentioned a few in my response to tvdb5299 in this thread.
I have always wondered if people like that, her parents or these men who believe they can and should rule over women, etc. are actually really saved. I just wonder how it is possible for the Holy Spirit to live within you, yet this person never even understood the BARE BASICS of God's teachings in their hearts. You can recognize them by their fruit and I can't see the good fruit in their behavior. Idk.
They are NOT. They are wolves in sheep's clothing.
This is one reason why orthodoxy is growing in the USA. Men get held accountable in Orthodox Church.
Since when?
A Godly husband and father does not try to control his wife, daughters and sons.? If they want to have casual sex, he says nothing to them to discourage them?
What do you mean? A parent advising a child is one thing, but training a child that sexuality is bad but then suddenly on marriage a woman can never deny her husband is fine? (I have never heard of a husband being urged to have sex on the wife's demand, but then sexual desire in these groups is defined as male)