No Longer Quivering
by Aletha cross posted from her blog Yllom Mormon
p 120-122
We are continuing in the section titled “Make Her or Break Her”. And yes, it’s as bad as you think. Trigger warnings for abuse.
Text is in purple. (more…)
by Aletha cross posted from her blog Yllom Mormon
p 120-122
We are continuing in the section titled “Make Her or Break Her”. And yes, it’s as bad as you think. Trigger warnings for abuse.
Text is in purple. (more…)
by Aletha cross posted from her blog Yllom Mormon
p 119-120
Possible trigger warnings for emotional abuse.
Text is in purple. (more…)
by Althea cross posted from her blog Yllom Mormon
(The purple text is directly quoted from the book – the words of Michael Pearl)
pages 21-26
In this section, Michael lays out his reasons as to why every man should be married. Hint: It’s because they need a help meet. (shocking, I know)
I Needed Her
The reason I chose Deb to be my bride was because I had developed a need for her. Not sexual at first. I had possessed a sexual need for thirteen years and knew many girls I felt could satisfy that hunger. (more…)
by Aletha cross posted from her blog Yllom Mormon
Editor’s note: Thank you Aletha for sharing this with us! Welcome~
Ok. I’m just going to jump right in. “Created to Need a Help Meet” by Michael Pearl. The companion marriage-help book to his wife, Debi’s, “Created to Be a Help Meet”. Passages from the book will be in purple, just to make things simpler. (more…)
We had two children nineteen months apart. We wanted a larger family than just two. At that time we had never heard of patriarchy. We just loved kids, and we loved making them. However, after that I did not have any more. Of course I was disappointed, but we were alright with that at the time. As they approached school age I began to fret. I loved being with my kids and I did not want to send them away. I had met a family one time that educated their children at home. I was still working part time, but we decided that I would stay home with the children and teach them myself.
If that is all that I would have done it would have been great, but of course I had to join a support group. That is were the trouble began. It was full of very fundamental families with many children. And of course none of the other mothers worked outside of the home. Their kids always seemed to be so well behaved. One thing I should have noticed is that there were very few families with teenagers. Since I did not have any I did not notice. I have come to realize a lot of these beliefs cannot make it through teenage years. Many of these moms were so “helpful”. They began to give me all sorts of advice, and that included Created to Be His Helpmeet and To Train Up a Child.
At that time I was questioned about how many children I planned to have. We were not trying to prevent pregnancy, so I shared that. Many mothers determined that God must be trying to teach me something, like maybe I was not being submissive enough to my husband and on and on. I began to feel like something had to be wrong with me, so I began to try to be the perfect, Godly wife. The only problem: I wasn’t reading the scripture, I was relying on Michael Pearl, Bill Gothard, Little Bear Wheeler, and eventually satan himself – Doug Phillips.
So, instead of being my husband’s capable helpmeet, I now became a meek, submissive, and unable to make any decision on her own little wife. He was also being counseled by men who were into ATI (Bill Gothard’s Advanced Training Institute) and finally followers in a very big way of Doug Phillips. I still am not ready to reveal how closely we are associated with Phillips. But it is very close through friends of ours.
My husband was now becoming the “leader” of his home. He stopped helping me with chores around the house. If he needed something done I was expected to drop everything to meet his needs. I never went anywhere that he did not want me to go. I even missed a going away party for a dear friend of mine. She was very hurt by this and our relationship has never been restored. He wanted me home to be at his beck and call.
Our sex life was ruined, as he would get mad and pout for days if I did not give in anytime he wanted. I began to never say no, but then he would be mad if I was not “in the mood.” It was damned if I do and damned if I don’t. I really resented him at this point, as I felt like I was being raped. Just to keep the peace and keep him happy I would pretend. If I did not he would treat me and the children horribly.
I was in the hospital with a bad infection, and he decided he wanted to go play baseball. Instead of being with our kids he played ball. It was always up to me to see that the kids were taken care of, even when I was sick. I took them to most of their activities, and would never dream of asking him to help. No matter that they were his responsibility too. However, he did coach my son’s baseball teams for many years.
My husband did work hard though. He would work two jobs since I was no longer working and I had made very good money. When I quit our income took a huge hit. Even with his working two jobs we were struggling to make ends meet, as we still had a huge house.
One of the worst things was that he no longer considered my feelings about anything. If I dared ask him for help doing anything, he would inform me that he worked hard, and since I did not have a job, then I could do what I needed done. One of my lowest points was when I was having trouble with my son in school. He was being very defiant. My husband was in his shop tinkering, and I asked my daughter to go get him. He chewed me out for disturbing him and informed me that he was busy.
Discipline became a huge problem. He was very strict, punishing the children for every little infraction. He would make rules that I was expected to carry out. I would be blamed if the kids misbehaved. I became so weary, that I just did not care. I would yell and scream at my kids to try and make them do everything right. You see I was terrified that if everything was not perfect then he would leave. Where would that leave my “perfect’ family? My children would be scarred for life and it would be all my fault for not being the perfect wife.
After ten years with no more children I was pregnant. I was overjoyed. I was finally doing it right and God was no longer withholding His favor. I was a blessed woman. Little did I know how much of a blessing the child would really be. She would eventually become the turning point in our messed up life.
Discuss this post on the NLQ forum.
Read all posts by LivingForEternity!
After almost a month we’re back. I made the decision to lay off the male half of this gruesome twosome after the sudden death of his father in Paris. On an ironic note another family member said that the death was from COVID 19, not the various thing the male half was saying. Ironic because his wife has been saying that the illness is not a big threat, it’s overblown hysteria created by the media. Now, at least, she has finally shut her yap about all things COVID and returned to marry and have kids.
Last time we looked at this marital train wreck it is here. He was making his wife, his very critical, unbending, demeaning wife, his accountability partner. Very bad idea.
Now the Pearls, Michael and Debi Pearl, get inserted into this hellscape of a relationship.
“I made my changes and by some miracle Wife found “Created to Be His Helpmeet.” She says, “Debbie Pearl spanked me.”
“All she thought was so true now looked like so many lies she had repeated long enough that they had become her friends. Debbie clearly showed her that her lack of joy, and her frowns, her lack of showing him her love with great intimacy and active participation in sex were all sins.”
It is immature to take your bad moods out on other people. Decent folks do not do this, but most decent people are not the emotionally walking wounded either. Not talking about that thing so popular in Quiverfull, faking all your reactions, just not being an ashhole to those you supposedly love.
I don’t know if I would call that type of deep seated dissatisfaction “sin” Instead, it sounds like someone that who just simply married the wrong person, stuck in a frustrating mismatch or has some sort of mental health issues going on. A little therapy needs to happen with the right therapist, someone that will help you have clarity on the core issue. You stay in therapy until you can see your way forward, whatever that might be.
One exception to all of this. If there is abuse, mental, emotional, financial physical, verbal abuse. You go, you pack your kids and your suitcase and you go. Abusers never stop, no matter how much they may claim they will, and whatever flowery sentimental words they use to keep you in the relationship. They escalate always.
Taking the words of another hyper abusive couple like the Pearls into your own relationship that the husband admits is rife with verbal abuse, is never a good idea.
“Her demands for change that irritated her so when he did not comply, all of the sudden felt so wrong for a wife who now wanted to please Jesus, by pleasing her husband, and submitting to him in everything. Lori came to me and apologized for what she said was “ruining so many potentially good years of marriage.”
Whoa! I have to compliment the wife here, apologizing directly to your spouse for years of abusive behavior, or even just plain old vanilla jerkishness, is not easy. It’s a humbling experience that actually can improve the marriage. But, be careful of your motivations. If you just desire to rid yourself of icky feelings, without change, you’re taking a very narcissistic action If you are doing it out of sincerity, and you feel compelled to made changes that’s an entirely different and positive thing.
It took me a lot of work to help her stop beating herself up over it and instead focus with me on our glorious future together. Both of us were at fault, and assigning blame was a worthless exercise when all those sins were already forgiven on the cross. We had hope for the future and that is what mattered most. Now we must focus on the results we want together.”
The above emphasis is mine. It jumps out at me. Here’s the question: How many of you who are married look at each day as focusing on your “glorious future together” instead of the day to day slog we all must do? Sure, we all hope that there is something very good coming in the future, but this just strikes me as so off.
This is a feature, not a bug of complementarian marriage, endure the worst garbage because the future will be better, and, by extension you’ll earn heavenly brownie points. If I had a dollar for every person in my old church that told me I was earning enormous jewel crowns in heaven for staying with my depressed spouse I could buy that mink fur lined hot tub I talked about a couple of weeks ago. I would have gladly traded any amount of golden ruby and emerald encrusted diadems and consigned myself to literal hell to have affected a lifting of my husband’s depression.
That pie in the sky heavenly glorious future thinking is both childish and cruel. Endure hell here because heaven is going to be even more heavenly. The very last thing someone dealing with marriage issues needs to hear is that their suffering has some sort of heavenly purpose. Genuinely the kindest thing you can say or do if someone you know is suffering for any reason is to say very simply, “I’m so sorry.” That’s it.
Today we only covered one paragraph of the husband’s screed, but it may be the most toxic of them all. I still feel so sorry for this duo, settling for a miserable abusive marriage no one should have to endure.
Part 1 ~ Part 2 ~ Part 3 ~ Part 4 ~ Part 5
Stay in touch! Like No Longer Quivering on Facebook:
If this is your first time visiting NLQ please read our Welcome page and our Comment Policy! Commenting here means you agree to abide by our policies but our main rule is this – Do not be a dick!
Copyright notice: If you use any content from NLQ, including any of our research or Quoting Quiverfull quotes, please give us credit and a link back to this site. All original content is owned by No Longer Quivering and Patheos.com
Read our hate mail at Jerks 4 Jesus
Watch our goofy rants on YouTube and the bad Biblical advice of Dori Dalexander.
Check out today’s NLQ News at NLQ Newspaper
Contact NLQ at Suzanne.calulu@gmail.com
Christian Evangelicals who Vilify Women and Children
Addendum: Original link broken. View presentation citation at ICSA here.
The popularity of Christian evangelical patriarchy in the US and the resultant vilification and abuse of women and children (more…)
Another installment of giving better answers to the questions asked at Debi Pearl’s site message board for the book ‘Preparing To Be A Help Meet’. Many young ladies ask questions on all sorts of different subjects brought up by the book. There was just one big problem, many of the answers stray into either the outright bad and emotionally unhealthy to dangerous. Yes, typical Debi Pearl borderline abusive. Here’s what we’re going to be doing here at NLQ. Every week, once or twice a week, I’ll be posting up one of the questions from the message board and ask you, our readers, to answer that poor soul’s question in a way that is logical, rational and the best possible solution, in other words 180 degree turn from Debi and friends answers. As always all spelling and grammar in the posting is unchanged from the original author. (more…)
by Suzanne Titkemeyer cross posted from her blog True Love Doesn’t Rape
Holy Sex The Way God Intended by Michael Pearl
I had no intention of reading and reviewing another book considering I’m way behind on reviewing both “A Love That Multiples” by Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar and the book by the Duggar daughters, “Growing Up Duggar”. Lately I’ve been approached about doing book reviews for various folks uninvolved with NLQ and my reviews of the Duggar products has slipped to the back burner.
After looking at the Pearls author page on Amazon.com on Memorial Day afternoon I saw that Michael (Woman do it MY way!) Pearl had written a book on sex. As much as the idea of Michael Pearl having sex with anyone skeeves me out I could not resist downloading and starting to read through Michael’s thoughts on having sex. (more…)
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In
Created To Be His Slave
On the No Longer Quivering blog, I have been enthralled read to read the female view of Created To Be His Helpmeet (CTBHH), by Debi Pearl. For any that don’t know what this book is, it is a manual for women to learn how to become totally dependent (more…)