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Cheryl's daughter on "emotional purity".


Koala

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And remember, DON'T STAND TOO CLOSE! :roll: Also, SOTDRT has not been kind to her. :?

reaganramm.com/2014/08/the-struggle-for-emotional-purity-guest.html

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Oh for FFS. Do they have a contest going on somewhere for who can take this crap to the farthest extreme? Check out part 2 of the series where the blog owner explains that having a crush on someone is committing the sin of lust because lust doesn't have to be sexual. Apparently, thinking "hey, I'd like to get to know that person" is lustful.

On the upside, if they keep going down that rabbit hole, eventually, they will all be Shakers by default and their movement will die out. Yes, they want lots of babies; but if they can never, ever even think of having any relationship whatsoever with anyone of the opposite sex, it isn't really going to work out.

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Joseph also has no sisters, and therefore does not exactly know the interworkings of a female mind. To be honest, neither do females, but we won’t get into that.

:roll: :angry-banghead: :cray-cray:

Don’t ask about her feelings, and don’t ask her what she is thinking. She is likely to share her heart, because she will feel like her words and thoughts are valued, and that is a danger zone.

:music-tool:

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And remember, DON'T STAND TOO CLOSE! :roll: Also, SOTDRT has not been kind to her. :?

reaganramm.com/2014/08/the-struggle-for-emotional-purity-guest.html

so, Cheryls daughter had a huge crush on some guy who is now marrying someone else, is that the just of it?

Edited because on letter can completely change the meaning of a word.

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"Try to remain in a group setting. Don’t take off with her somewhere or separate a little from everyone. The female may very well take that as a sign of interest"

Apparently "the females" are everywhere! We are taking over the world! I think he just prefers the company of guys...

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:roll: :angry-banghead: :cray-cray:

:music-tool:

I think the best bet would be to just go live in a cave alone where there is no chance you'll ever see anyone of the opposite sex lest you lust after someone by noticing they exist (no sexual thoughts necessary, mind you) or mislead someone by not looking distant and angry while standing as far across the room as possible.

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Oh for FFS. Do they have a contest going on somewhere for who can take this crap to the farthest extreme? Check out part 2 of the series where the blog owner explains that having a crush on someone is committing the sin of lust because lust doesn't have to be sexual. Apparently, thinking "hey, I'd like to get to know that person" is lustful.

On the upside, if they keep going down that rabbit hole, eventually, they will all be Shakers by default and their movement will die out. Yes, they want lots of babies; but if they can never, ever even think of having any relationship whatsoever with anyone of the opposite sex, it isn't really going to work out.

So that's why the Maxwells never get to talk to anyone outside of the family. If Poor Sarah would like to have a bean taco with someone, that would be the sin of "lust".

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I think the best bet would be to just go live in a cave alone where there is no chance you'll ever see anyone of the opposite sex lest you lust after someone by noticing they exist (no sexual thoughts necessary, mind you) or mislead someone by not looking distant and angry while standing as far across the room as possible.

Be careful that your shadow doesn't tempt you!

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I can't even make it through this crap. For fuck's sake. Honestly.

Confession: As a teenager, I read When God Writes Your Love Story and/or I Kissed Dating Goodbye (I honestly don't remember...). As such, after I was moving on from a crush my junior year of high school, I wrote a tearful letter to my future husband how sorry I was that, while I remained physically pure (dude and I didn't even hold hands, and I'm not sure we even hugged), I had given away a piece of my heart emotionally and I was sorry. And there was a single smudge on the letter where a tear had fallen while I was writing it. I fully intended to give said letter to any potential husband someday. :embarrassed:

It's weird because my parents both dated like regular people and never pushed courtship or not dating (though they non-verbally discouraged high school relationships, I think). I think my mom just heard about Christian dating books and gave them to us, and so I read them and took them to heart because I really wanted to Do the Right Thing.

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I can't even make it through this crap. For fuck's sake. Honestly.

Confession: As a teenager, I read When God Writes Your Love Story and/or I Kissed Dating Goodbye (I honestly don't remember...). As such, after I was moving on from a crush my junior year of high school, I wrote a tearful letter to my future husband how sorry I was that, while I remained physically pure (dude and I didn't even hold hands, and I'm not sure we even hugged), I had given away a piece of my heart emotionally and I was sorry. And there was a single smudge on the letter where a tear had fallen while I was writing it. I fully intended to give said letter to any potential husband someday. :embarrassed:

These emotional purity books have caused a lot of guilt and shame, even for couples who remained virgins until marriage. When God Writes Your Love Story is pretty extreme regarding emotional purity. It was written by a husband/wife fundie team, Eric and Leslie Lundy.

Leslie writes about feeling betrayed by Eric because he had desired other women before meeting her. He wept and begged for her forgiveness when they were engaged. After they were married, he gave her a pile of love letters he had written to his future wife years before they met. Kind of like the "letter to my future husband" bloggers we sometimes snark about here.

They now run a very legalistic training center ellerslie.com and Leslie runs a purity blog for girls: setapartgirl.com. She advises girls to wait for God to deliver their future husbands. No Christian Mingle. No flirting. Very little contact with the opposite sex.

When God does deliver Mr. Right, you're not supposed to say, "I love you," or share your heart about personal issues until you're engaged. During your engagement you must be careful to focus on God and not spend too much time planning your wedding.

I read some of her blog posts about motherhood recently just out of curiosity and she brags about she doesn't text, watch TV, talk on the phone, or read email when she's with her children b/c you must pay full attention to your kids at all times to protect them from negative influences. You also must not wear sweatpants, dress "with dignity" at all times, and keep a spotless home. With this woman, the guilt must continue indefinitely.

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I just don't understand why these people can't understand that getting your heart broken is not the worst thing in the world. Having relationship trials as a young adult allows you to learn and grow before more serious relationships in the future. It may not be fun at the time but having these trials as a young adult better equips you for relationships as an adult. Sure Emily's heart may have been broken- but she survived and is probably stronger for it.

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I just don't understand why these people can't understand that getting your heart broken is not the worst thing in the world. Having relationship trials as a young adult allows you to learn and grow before more serious relationships in the future. It may not be fun at the time but having these trials as a young adult better equips you for relationships as an adult. Sure Emily's heart may have been broken- but she survived and is probably stronger for it.

I think a big part of it for these extremists and fundies is an ego trip.

Their love is better than ours because not only is it their only love, not only is it the love GOD and JESUS chose for them, but they kept themselves "totally pure" until their daddy found God sent the right person for them. And if it's their child, even better! Their kids are so pure in their love for Jesus, and ours aren't!

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Don’t ask about her feelings, and don’t ask her what she is thinking. She is likely to share her heart, because she will feel like her words and thoughts are valued, and that is a danger zone. I think this is the most important point of all (hence why I put it last!).

Wtf???? I wouldn't want to date a jerk like that anyway. Feelings are feelings you can't control them. Everyone has feelings and crushes because we're human.

Take the leadership role in the relationship. Don’t be afraid to say, “Hey, I think we are texting too much.†Or “I don’t think we should talk on the phone anymore.â€Â Always make sure she knows that you have no intentions toward her, through both your words and actions. If they are unstated, the girl is left to guessing and more often than not will read into everything you do and say. (Note: As a female, it is essential that a guy explicitly states everything. I know that guys just assume we should know things, but we need to be told. In a nice way of course.)

why is it only the female?? Males have crushes and feelings too. Males can seek out women. And what relationship do they have if you keep talking about emotional purity??? What leadership?? That's pretty fucked up that anyone would treat another person this way especially a person you like. Keep that attitude up you will be forever alone. It's like like you can get pregnant emotionally.

What's wrong with sharing your heart? Breakups and crushes are apart of life. I don't even know what I just read. But of course she's a SAHD. She doesn't know any better :twisted:

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I don't have my "emotional purity," or physical for that matter, but I think it is for the better. I have much more realistic expectations. Plus, I would never want to enter into a presumable life-long commitment with someone I haven't discussed their thoughts and feelings. They talk to their friends, don't they? You can't really love someone you don't know. I really think they think marriage is about the "divine plan" and procreation. No room for enjoying a life with another human being or building a life together. Nope, that's evil. I would think they would be lonely if they are never really allowed to show themselves to anyone.

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My middle school-aged daughter came home from (Christian) summer camp last year all stressed out because one of the the cabin assistants had fed her and the other girls this crap. My daughter has dealt with anxiety disorder since she was nine, and this stuff really upset her.

I, otoh, had never heard of it, despite being part of the local homeschooling community where the Harris family got its start. That community here is pretty widespread, with people all over the map in terms of beliefs, so although I was sort of familiar with the idea of courtship/IKDG, we'd never been part of the super conservative circles. (In fact, we were part of a group who was shunned by several families who went down the Vision Forum/FIC rabbit hole in the mid-00s.

Anyway, my poor daughter was confused and upset at the idea that she was sinfully giving away her purity by having a crush on a boy. She had been told that she would be committing adultery against her hypothetical future husband if she developed even casual interest in a boy.

I couldn't decide whether to laugh or scream. It didn't take long to debrief her, and we laugh about it now, but it was incredibly frustrating and upsetting. She worked at that same camp this year as staff, and while there was one obviously fundie girl working (in her long denim skirts and head coverings in the 100 degree heat :?), she didn't encounter any proselytizing for "emotional purity."

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I don't have my "emotional purity," or physical for that matter, but I think it is for the better. I have much more realistic expectations. Plus, I would never want to enter into a presumable life-long commitment with someone I haven't discussed their thoughts and feelings. They talk to their friends, don't they? You can't really love someone you don't know. I really think they think marriage is about the "divine plan" and procreation. No room for enjoying a life with another human being or building a life together. Nope, that's evil. I would think they would be lonely if they are never really allowed to show themselves to anyone.

There was also a sense with the fundie lite people I used to know that marriage is successful just based on a formula. If you share the same religious beliefs and follow the formula (usually patriarchy/submission, though most of them preferred the word "complementarian"), then you will have a successful marriage and "learn" to love the person. The notion that there should be chemistry and connection and things in common beyond that didn't seem to occur to them. If husband is prepared to fill the official church prescribed husband role and wife fills wife role, then happiness follows automatically. In courtship world, this translates into the long lists of questions that must be correctly answered. In the fundie lite world where dating is still okay (for some), it is the reason that when I went on blind dates set up by colleagues at Christian school, it usually felt like I was at a job interview for the position of "wife".

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There was also a sense with the fundie lite people I used to know that marriage is successful just based on a formula. If you share the same religious beliefs and follow the formula (usually patriarchy/submission, though most of them preferred the word "complementarian"), then you will have a successful marriage and "learn" to love the person. The notion that there should be chemistry and connection and things in common beyond that didn't seem to occur to them. If husband is prepared to fill the official church prescribed husband role and wife fills wife role, then happiness follows automatically. In courtship world, this translates into the long lists of questions that must be correctly answered. In the fundie lite world where dating is still okay (for some), it is the reason that when I went on blind dates set up by colleagues at Christian school, it usually felt like I was at a job interview for the position of "wife".

I had a fundie lite friend who fervently believed this...until her perfect, complementarian pastor husband ran off with his secretary and left her with three children. Amazingly, she doesn't blame herself, but her husband's congregation certainly did.

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I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I was buying this sort of thinking too...until I finally couldn't take it anymore and stood up to two decades of lying, alcohol abuse, emotional abuse, manipulation, and control.

It was so deeply important to me to "do the right thing," reinforced by eighteen years in evangelical Christianity (of which I still consider myself a part, albeit probably somewhat-to-fairly liberal by the standards of the movement). Teachings increasingly toxic, identical to the stuff here: http://www.freejinger.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=22997 have kept me guiltily feeling like I was part of the problem rather than the target of abuse.

On the positive side of things, I so fear and hate confrontation that I have kept my views generally to myself and other people who thought like I did. I'm in the process of thanking my kids for keeping it real about what they saw more clearly than I did, being far less brainwashed, and recovering (and discovering) our senses of self as we go through the process of divorce. And thanking God that some of these doctrines have been so repugnant to me that I never could embrace them; I'd rather deal with the guilt of not doing it right than the damage I felt they would inflict on me or my kids.

And I was raised in an over-the-top liberal, anti-Christian (with an especial hatred of Catholicism) home with an abusive single mother. I guess we all have to find our way.

All that to say, I guess, that "doing it right" means nothing except in the eyes of one's cronies. And if things are really bad, when you can no longer keep up the facade you will quickly discover who are true friends, who is willing to learn and grow as their pet assumptions are challenged, and who you have to let go. And God remains.

And letting someone else pick out your spouse is idiotic.

(Not that that's what happened to me - I picked mine out all by myself...having been raised by a narcissist who did not allow me to develop a healthy sense of myself and my own personal power, so I fell in with what was familiar, not what was good.)

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I am the type of person that DOES need things spelled out for rme. This has nothing to do with my gender, though, and more to do with social awkwardness.

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Is this the daughter that had that squicky pseudo wedding/purity ceremony with the father that shoots the family pets?

If so, yeah, her parents tied her to the crazy train a long time ago. :(

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