Michelle's "Steamy' Past

[RosyDaisy]

Individually JB and Michelle are crazy. Combined, they turned batshit crazy. There are probably many reasons why they turned fundie. Regardless, their kids are the ones really suffering here.

[MatthewDuggar]

When they talk about it, JB paints it to seem as if they were this hardcore fundie way back then. It's possible, but I doubt it considering how old they were and that the parents were not that batshit.

[txmommyof4]

I have always just assumed Michelle wasn't even close to being a virgin when she married Jim Boob. All the stories about the fun girl, dating a lot and hanging out with the football team certainly sound suspect. What she said about the neighbor leads me to believe that she also had an affair with him. She claims she didn't know what the bikini mowing sessions were doing to him...does anyone actually believe that? The other possibility is that he raped her which would actually explain a lot. Whatever the actual details, Jim Boob knows and has used it to control her their entire marriage.

[CorruptionInc.]

I really hope Grandma Mary is off with Deanna and Amy most of the time and when she is stuck in the TTH that's why she does the laundry (so no one will bug her).

She seems like a really sweet lady and doesn't deserve to be roped into her sons crap.

[nokidsmom]

I am not at all surprised to hear about anger issues. I have long suspected that under the "keep sweet" demeanor and baby voice is someone who could raise serious hell in private. I don't know what it is, but she always strikes me as she's really trying very, very hard to keep it together.

The laundry room meltdown sounds completely plausible to me. The buddy system is largely there to help keep J'chelle on an even keel.

[NoneandDoneinCali]

I personally don't think Michelle was "wild" at all. I bet she was a virgin on her wedding night (at only 17 years of age, remember). I'm sure she'd made-out/second base types of activities before, with JB and maybe a couple other boys, maybe tried a cigarette or beer, but nothing crazy. She was still from a conservative Christian home, in a small, Southern town. I think her teenage self gets more sensual (in her mind) every year, the same way the youthful me becomes thinner and more carefree in my aging memory. Her point in re-hashing the "bikini mowing" incident is to prove (to herself, if no one else) that becoming fundie was EXTRA hard for her, because she was SUCH a temptress. SUCH a HUGE SACRIFICE, giving up boys and parties for the lord!

I also think all of this happened nearly thirty years ago, so her point is moot. Michelle, your glory days are long past. You've been a dowdy housewife for around ten times as long as you were a popular cheerleader. Time to let go.

[MatthewDuggar]

Her point in re-hashing the "bikini mowing" incident is to prove (to herself, if no one else) that becoming fundie was EXTRA hard for her, because she was SUCH a temptress. SUCH a HUGE SACRIFICE, giving up boys and parties for the lord!

Exactly, she needs some sort of "Testimony". :roll:

[FundieFarmer]

*****Possible Trigger warning, RTS & PTSD*****

(If this isn't allowed, feel free to delete.)

I have always just assumed Michelle wasn't even close to being a virgin when she married Jim Boob. All the stories about the fun girl, dating a lot and hanging out with the football team certainly sound suspect. What she said about the neighbor leads me to believe that she also had an affair with him. She claims she didn't know what the bikini mowing sessions were doing to him...does anyone actually believe that? The other possibility is that he raped her which would actually explain a lot. Whatever the actual details, Jim Boob knows and has used it to control her their entire marriage.

Far be it from me to state that this happened, but I believe it is possible Michelle found herself in a sexually abusive situation that resulted in her virginity was taken from her, or that she was assaulted at some point after becoming sexually active. She exhibits the behavior many of my friends have after their assaults, including entering a highly constrictive marriage, and turning zealously to religion. It's not an unusual way of coping. In this case, if something like that had happened before she met Jim Bob, she would've already been traumatized, and most likely blaming herself (you can't just turn that off.). If Jim Bob offered her a way to be forgiven (ie, God) and assured her that she was still worth something to him (in a time where many families would say the exact opposite), she may have taken that path. She would almost worship him as a god himself, for rescuing her and loving her past her sin--which coincidentally affected him too, in not getting a virgin wife (all said within the context of the Fundie perspective, not mine). The miscarriage afterward would only have served to bring back any PTSD and amplify it tenfold.

Lifting up Michelle, placing her as the exalted matriarch, and doing everything they can to keep her from being too stressed out may just be a way to ameliorate her symptoms.

(Disclaimer: this is something that has happened to me and I do not say this lightly, rather, I say it with the utmost respect, genuine concern, and understanding for the situation. I am also not trying to say that this for-sure happened to Michelle. But I think that with the obsession this family has with sex, and with Michelle's behavior patterning much of what I have seen from RTS and PTSD, it is possible that something sexually traumatic may have happened to Michelle. We will most likely never know, but I do think considering an underlying cause is fair in her case. Still, please feel free to delete this if it is not allowed.)

[BrownieMomma]

*****Possible Trigger warning, RTS & PTSD*****

(If this isn't allowed, feel free to delete.)

Far be it from me to state that this happened, but I believe it is possible Michelle found herself in a sexually abusive situation that resulted in her virginity was taken from her, or that she was assaulted at some point after becoming sexually active. She exhibits the behavior many of my friends have after their assaults, including entering a highly constrictive marriage, and turning zealously to religion. It's not an unusual way of coping. In this case, if something like that had happened before she met Jim Bob, she would've already been traumatized, and most likely blaming herself (you can't just turn that off.). If Jim Bob offered her a way to be forgiven (ie, God) and assured her that she was still worth something to him (in a time where many families would say the exact opposite), she may have taken that path. She would almost worship him as a god himself, for rescuing her and loving her past her sin--which coincidentally affected him too, in not getting a virgin wife (all said within the context of the Fundie perspective, not mine). The miscarriage afterward would only have served to bring back any PTSD and amplify it tenfold.

Lifting up Michelle, placing her as the exalted matriarch, and doing everything they can to keep her from being too stressed out may just be a way to ameliorate her symptoms.

(Disclaimer: this is something that has happened to me and I do not say this lightly, rather, I say it with the utmost respect, genuine concern, and understanding for the situation. I am also not trying to say that this for-sure happened to Michelle. But I think that with the obsession this family has with sex, and with Michelle's behavior patterning much of what I have seen from RTS and PTSD, it is possible that something sexually traumatic may have happened to Michelle. We will most likely never know, but I do think considering an underlying cause is fair in her case. Still, please feel free to delete this if it is not allowed.)

There must be some truth to that bolded. :(

That's what happened to me, became a devoted, right wing Christian.

[HereticHick]

Michelle has made an idol of her "steamy past"

[ADoyle90815]

I have wondered the same thing too. The obsession with purity and babies is just over the top. Her alleged anger issues point yo something too. And yes I see her going off the deep end during menopause

I've also wondered if she's had some form of mental illness, and that she could potentially go off the deep end when she realizes she's going through menopause and sees her married daughters having their own children. I also think it's possible that she was probably sexually abused or raped in her past, and as many survivors do, she became extremely religious. The obsession about virginity and having her daughters constantly chaperoned might be her way of trying to reduce the chance of something similar happening to her daughters.

[calimojo]

I think a lot of us have wondered about her past in the same way. It seems like reaction formation to me, in that she is so extreme in her views about sex, etc now. The other thought I had was that Michelle had a very significant love interest that broke her heart prior to meeting JB. At 16 or 17, a bad break up really feels like the end of the world. When JB came along, it was a like a rescue from that, and in her mind she started buying into that whole "pieces of your heart" BS. It is like she can't get over that past situation, and so she has assumed that it was terrible, and she should protect her children from a heart break.

Normal people would understand that as hard as heartbreak is, that you learn from it and grow. But if JB came along before she really had a chance to process that through, she just never dealt with it, and then you add in the crazy religious stuff that eventually just convinced her that she had done wrong by falling in love before.

While I think it is probable that Michelle was a virgin at marriage, I do also wonder if perhaps she may have gotten pregnant or had a pregnancy scare that also added to her belief that her previous life was sinful.

JB seems cunning enough to realize that his wife has an Achilles Heel that he can exploit frequently to remind her of his gracious forgiveness of her past.

As far as the breakdown in the laundry room, I don't know much about that, so would love to have someone explain more about it. But I am a mother of 2 with a supportive husband, and I have had many a mini-breakdown over laundry, or a sink full of dirty dishes, over the years. Unless she was full on psychotic, I don't think it is all that significant.

She may be a bit cray-cray for other reasons, but I don't think breaking down doing laundry for a big family, living in a tiny house with just one washer and dryer is all that surprising. Especially since she did not yet have the J'slaves trained up yet to help her out, or G-ma Duggar on standby as a laundress.