Anna and the M-kids, Part 8

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

@Bad Wolf, Happy Birthday!

[candygirl200413]

@Daisy0322 They have headbands for baby girls that have ponytails which still kills me many years after learning of their existence!

 

[Bad Wolf]

@WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? thank you. You made my day. Well, that and my 3 year old grandson singing over the phone.

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

@Bad Wolf--A 3 year old singing "Happy Birthday" is the best! 

[colors_outside15]

That picture ... M1 and M2 look like a mixture of both parents, but lean towards Duggar while M3 and M4 are mini-Pa Kellers. It seems the genes switched around once Josh started cheating to make the kiddos look more like Anna. (Also, why does Anna look so much like Jinger in that picture?!)

[Incognito22]

I knew I recognized the outfits.

[RosyDaisy]

Anna's smile looks very forced.

[Incognito22]

This was the first picture of them after he got out of Jesus Jail.  So they must have done a whole family picture that day too.  

[VeganCupcake]

I wonder if Josh will actually stop cheating. Or if he will just get sneakier. 

[Jana814]

8 minutes ago, VeganCupcake said:

I wonder if Josh will actually stop cheating. Or if he will just get sneakier. 

I think he will just be sneaker. The only reason why the Ashley Madison thing came out was because of the hack. 

[RosyDaisy]

I wonder if Josh will actually stop cheating. Or if he will just get sneakier. 

Once a cheater, always a cheater.

[HarleyQuinn]

16 minutes ago, VeganCupcake said:

I wonder if Josh will actually stop cheating. Or if he will just get sneakier. 

Hopefully not that much sneakier so we can all experience the schadenfreude of him being caught again.

[shiverful]

14 minutes ago, VeganCupcake said:

I wonder if Josh will actually stop cheating. Or if he will just get sneakier. 

I definitely think that he would if he could, but I don't think that he will get the opportunity to do so, not in the near future anyway. 

Anna, and more importantly his parents, probably don't trust him with a computer without supervising and now that he's not working he won't have the opportunity to sneak off and meet someone (and more importantly: who would he meet that is willing to do the nasty with him after the scandal broke? My guess is that he won't find the ladies lining up in his back yard in Arkansas). 

But yes, aside from that I definitely think that he will cheat again. No matter how conservative they are, the Duggars are incredible naive and will probably start to trust in him again once he and Anna gets settled in their daily life post scandal, have a couple (or plenty) more M-kids etc.

After all it didn't take long after the incest-scandal before he was trusted again. If not as a babysitter they at least let him court and marry Anna at a very young age and being front and center as a conservative poster boy in their early TV-specials. 

[Carm_88]

35 minutes ago, VeganCupcake said:

I wonder if Josh will actually stop cheating. Or if he will just get sneakier. 

Josh won't cheat for a while. Not until he is allowed on his own again. If he redeems himself enough and gets back to more normal standing within the family, I think that he will. I feel very bad for Anna because that's not what I want for her or the kids. It's just what I think will happen. 

[bananabread]

The use of an old photo definitely makes me think Anna is pregnant. She was featured very sparingly in this season of Counting On, and when she was shown it was almost always close shots of just her face or weird angles to hide her full silhouette. I'm not sure why the show would do that unless there was a reason. As much as I dislike Smuggar, I really have a soft spot for Anna, and I really hope she/the M kids are happy with whatever their current situation is...

Side note, if Anna and Smuggar ever did a candid interview for TLC, it would get MONSTER ratings. I wonder if it'll ever happen.

[Gobsmacked]

Once a cheater, always a cheater. Once a beater, always a beater.

My nana told me that years ago.

[Shouldabeenacowboy]

Every one of us reacts differently to different things, and I cannot even begin to imagine what it means to go through what Anna went through. I just can't help thinking that maybe, MAYBE if it was me I could forgive the cheating (MAYBE), but every time I looked at Josh and thought about the fact that the pig molested his baby sisters, I would want to smack that smug face over and over. 

Most definitely, the mere thought of "joyfully submitting" to him would make me sick. 

[Gobsmacked]

 When Mr GS and I laid down the rules for marriage years ago in the days of dinosaurs, cheating was the number 1 thing we both agreed on that would be cause for divorce. It just wasn't going to be tolerated. 

I have terrible difficulty even thinking about Anna having M5. The thought of her having to get so close to Joshly is sickening.

[singsingsing]

Even in the secular world it usually takes a lot of work (and therapy) to overcome the sort of issues Josh has, and all he got was fundie rehab. I think the same pattern will probably continue with him... he'll screw up, fall from grace, repent, behave for a while, then backslide again. And again. And again. Whether we hear about it depends on how bad it is and how well they can cover it up.

[Pasta]

As long as his parents catch him when he falls, he will continue a bad pattern. He needs to hit a bottom so he can right himself. It would be similar to any other addiction recovery. 

[Carm_88]

3 minutes ago, Pasta said:

As long as his parents catch him when he falls, he will continue a bad pattern. He needs to hit a bottom so he can right himself. It would be similar to any other addiction recovery. 

Josh might have been a normal kind of douchey guy, if he hadn't been brought up in a cult. So JB and Michelle are reaping what they sow. 

[Gobsmacked]

If Joshley lived in the real world it's not out of the realm of possibility that he would be a gambler, drinker or serial philanderer. He is what he is. The life he was born into has cramped his style somewhat. 

He may just 'blow' one day, do every one a favour and disappear.

[bananabread]

2 hours ago, Gobsmacked said:

If Joshley lived in the real world it's not out of the realm of possibility that he would be a gambler, drinker or serial philanderer. He is what he is. The life he was born into has cramped his style somewhat. 

He may just 'blow' one day, do every one a favour and disappear.

Mr. Bananabread is adamant that had Smuggar been born into a normal family, he would have been a jerky philandering frat boy, and that maybe after years of that he would have mellowed out and been a decent family man. I'm not sure if Smuggar's many faults are fixable, but I think some time to get it out of his system may have helped. I certainly knew people in college who were crazy wild for four years, then decided they'd had enough of that lifestyle and were ready to commit to a wife and family.

(This is of course only in reference to the adultery/Ashley Madison stuff, not his actions as a teenager. That's an entirely different issue.)

[Jilli]

I agree with that for the most part. I think Smuggar would have been better not to be tied down. Then get a little older, and a possible surprise pregnancy mellow him out and settle him down. I think the cult itself bred this sort of behavior. Women are some weird, untouchable desire. They build this up. I think as silly as it is, things like no hand holding make it worse. Not for everyone, but people like Josh. No experimentation or expoloration is allowed. I'm not saying that what he did to his sisters is ok, but that the restrictive culture didn't even let him explore his own body or near equally curious ladies. I think boundaries are good, restrictive boundaries that hurt more are not so good.

[missegeno]

30 minutes ago, Jilli said:

I agree with that for the most part. I think Smuggar would have been better not to be tied down. Then get a little older, and a possible surprise pregnancy mellow him out and settle him down. I think the cult itself bred this sort of behavior. Women are some weird, untouchable desire. They build this up. I think as silly as it is, things like no hand holding make it worse. Not for everyone, but people like Josh. No experimentation or expoloration is allowed. I'm not saying that what he did to his sisters is ok, but that the restrictive culture didn't even let him explore his own body or near equally curious ladies. I think boundaries are good, restrictive boundaries that hurt more are not so good.

Amen, Jilli! Outside the cult, I don't think I'd like Josh. I think he'd be a douchebro. But I firmly believe it would still be better for everyone. The strict rules ruined so much for him and those around him.