DIVORCED! Mike Pearl's daughter, Shoshanna Pearl Easling, gets legally married

[hoipolloi]

16 minutes ago, Red Hair, Black Dress said:

I wonder if Mike and Debi Pearl are legally married?

They probably are since they married in the late 1960s or early 1970s, before same-sex marriage became legal, which is why Mike Pearl made a big deal out of his kids NOT getting state-issued marriage licenses.

26 minutes ago, Georgiana said:

But if the Pearls willfully misrepresented themselves as legally married when they knew they were not AND took benefits or breaks they were not entitled to, that's fraud. 

If Shoshanna & James Easling have been representing their tax status as that of a married couple, filing either jointly or separately, they better hope that their financial advisor & lawyer can make a good argument for "negligence."

Given Mike Pearl's very public pronouncements though about state-issued marriage licenses, it's hard to see how they would meet that standard as opposed to out-and-out fraud.

[Howl]

 

11 minutes ago, quiversR4hunting said:

There is, gothard. That is where Northwoods is located https://lifesrealjourney.com/journey/httpslifesrealjourney-comregisteryoung-ladies-journey-northwoods-mi/

That's an odd coincidence....

Edited July 11, 2018 by Howl

[Briefly]

7 hours ago, MamaJunebug said:

IIRC Debi does. It might be in her Help!!!meet book. I can’t remember much about that reading experience, other than I threw it across the room in anger several times, and in revulsion several times mire. 

I bought it at a thrift store just so I could shred it, which I did and it was fun. But I skimmed it first.  I don't remember for sure, but she may have mentioned that in the book. It seems like it.  Which will not keep me from shredding it again, if I find it and the purchase will not benefit the Pearls in any way.

[Lisafer]

6 hours ago, chaotic life said:

Statistically when abuse is involved the abuser nearly always wins most or full custody unless either he does not fight for custody or there was no legal marriage. Not saying that is the case here but knowing what I know about the impact of DV on custody and the reality being the exact opposite the of what lay wisdom believes it to be, my personal educated guess would be that there was no legal marriage. Ohio has strong father’s rights laws that would allow a custody battle even in the absence of a legal marriage.

I find it deeply disrupting he not only married an ex Amish wife but they felt the need to declare it. Odds she will escape is significantly less than the first wife. She has been groomed from birth for submission and abuse.

Really?! I did not know this about abuse and custody. I knew of a woman who was divorced by her husband in a very Reformed church that I visited occasionally, and he got custody of the kids and she ended up having to pay him child support in spite of the fact that he was, and had always been, the spouse with the high-paying job. That situation has troubled me for years because something seemed so...off...about him and the way she was treated, by him and even by her church (who called her out by name, in front of visitors and everybody, to pray about her sin when she wasn't even there. I was horrified). 

Total derail, but this would explain a lot, so thank you. I have always had this gut feeling that the woman I'm talking about was treated very badly.

[milkteeth]

6 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

Yep, his divorce is WAY under the rug, judging from this recently revised family update:

 

Wasn't it Debi Pearl who wrote that even if your husband is in prison for molesting your children you still can never ever divorce him? That your vows are just that sacred, and so you just have to live like a widow but never remarry while your husband is still alive? Hmm I wonder if you can still find that article on their website. Oh wait, silly me...that must just apply to women.

[Briefly]

2 minutes ago, milkteeth said:

 

Wasn't it Debi Pearl who wrote that even if your husband is in prison for molesting your children you still can never ever divorce him? That your vows are just that sacred, and so you just have to live like a widow but never remarry while your husband is still alive? Hmm I wonder if you can still find that article on their website. Oh wait, silly me...that must just apply to women.

Yes, it was in Helpmeet.  You are supposed to forgive him and welcome him home joyfully when he gets out of prison.  But I don't think anything was said about keeping him away from the children after that.  That is only part of that horrible book written by that horrible woman.

[chaotic life]

Really?! I did not know this about abuse and custody. I knew of a woman who was divorced by her husband in a very Reformed church that I visited occasionally, and he got custody of the kids and she ended up having to pay him child support in spite of the fact that he was, and had always been, the spouse with the high-paying job. That situation has troubled me for years because something seemed so...off...about him and the way she was treated, by him and even by her church (who called her out by name, in front of visitors and everybody, to pray about her sin when she wasn't even there. I was horrified). 
Total derail, but this would explain a lot, so thank you. I have always had this gut feeling that the woman I'm talking about was treated very badly.

Yup. Surest way for a man to get custody is to bring up abuse in a custody dispute. 70% of men who fight for custody win some measure of it. When abuse is alleged, 85% will win custody. When sexual abuse is alleged over 90% of abusers will win custody and when the court ACKNOWLEDGES the abuse did in fact occur....100% of abusers are awarded custody.

The appearance that custody favors mothers is an illusion because the majority of custody is agreed and not disputed. And in those situations mom is typically the primary custodial parent. But in the 35% of cases where custody is disputed men win overwhelmingly and the more there is abuse, the more abusive father’s win custody.

Not surprisingly you can track income on a nearly identical trajectory with custody. The higher the abuser’s income and the greater the disparity to his victim’s income the higher the rates he wins custody. Good and loving parents do not typically fight in court over custody. They put the children first and come to an agreement. Most disputed custody involved abuse and/or mental health issues and most of those cases give custody to abusive father’s nearly every single time.

And it’s probably not merely gender bias. In the cases where the mother is the abuser, she has a higher income and while fathers are more likely to retain some custody, female abusers are also more likely to win more custody just like male abusers.

[smittykins]

10 minutes ago, Briefly said:

Yes, it was in Helpmeet.  You are supposed to forgive him and welcome him home joyfully when he gets out of prison.  But I don't think anything was said about keeping him away from the children after that.  That is only part of that horrible book written by that horrible woman.

I think she said that by the time he got out of prison, the children should be grown and gone(although the wife and children should visit him faithfully while he's incarcerated).

[Briefly]

2 minutes ago, smittykins said:

I think she said that by the time he got out of prison, the children should be grown and gone(although the wife and children should visit him faithfully while he's incarcerated).

I think that's right.  They should visit and also they are supposed to forgive him.  It's not his fault, you know!  That is so messed up, but that is what they think.

[milkteeth]

1 minute ago, Briefly said:

I think that's right.  They should visit and also they are supposed to forgive him.  It's not his fault, you know!  That is so messed up, but that is what they think.

And of course there's no way that he'll be in contact with a child, like say a grand child or some poor vulnerable kid at church or one of the bajillion conferences fundies love going to. 

 

[dripcurl]

7 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

Judging from this FB comment by Zephyr, Nathan's wife, they got legally married in TX. 

Wonder if her family insisted on that, unlike Nathan's fuckwad of a father. 

 

We trolls would love to #buysomeplexus from y’all if it has cured you from promoting the abuse of children. If it can heal that, then anything is possible.

[nelliebelle1197]

5 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

My questions, too. Seems like quite a change from NM but perhaps there are other factors: free or lower-cost housing; employment (not holding my breath on that one, given Gabe's track record); religious/social ties.

Yeah, I was about to ask if Gabe had a J O B but then I just started laughing too hard ....

[Rachel333]

I was discussing the custody issue over in the Josiah/Lauren thread a few days ago. A lot of people still think that men are at a huge disadvantage in custody battles, and what frustrates me most is that because of that belief people think that if a mother doesn't get custody it must be because she's abusive and/or on drugs.

Anecdotally, there was an ugly custody battle with a friend of a friend where the children in question were both teenagers and both testified that they would far rather live with their mother. In addition, the teenage daughter testified that her father had molested her. The father still got sole custody, and the fact that the mother herself had been molested as a child was used against her to suggest that she was "oversensitive" about the possibility of her own daughter being molested.

[Funwithfundies]

Shoshanna posted a video to her IG about the (most recent) wedding.  I acknowledge being a ‘don’t pay attention to me’ introvert, but holy cow the whole thing just came off as so attention-seeking.  It’s your 3rd wedding to the same guy - dial it down a notch.

She kept pestering two children (hers, I assume) about their favorite parts of the wedding.   Aside from how annoying she was being, all I could think of watching them was that those poor kids likely have been beaten since infancy.  

[Anonymousguest]

18 minutes ago, Funwithfundies said:

Shoshanna posted a video to her IG about the (most recent) wedding.  I acknowledge being a ‘don’t pay attention to me’ introvert, but holy cow the whole thing just came off as so attention-seeking.  It’s your 3rd wedding to the same guy - dial it down a notch.

She kept pestering two children (hers, I assume) about their favorite parts of the wedding.   Aside from how annoying she was being, all I could think of watching them was that those poor kids likely have been beaten since infancy.  

Yeah, I would have quietly gone to the courthouse and taken care of it as a formality. Ridiculous to have a wedding, especially if they don't believe the state can grant you a marriage before God. AND that it messes with their whole deal of not being yoked with sodomites. 

[dripcurl]

Why am I jealous of this image? 

[Rachel333]

That horse looks annoyed. 

[chaotic life]

Anecdotally, there was an ugly custody battle with a friend of a friend where the children in question were both teenagers and both testified that they would far rather live with their mother. In addition, the teenage daughter testified that her father had molested her. The father still got sole custody, and the fact that the mother herself had been molested as a child was used against her to suggest that she was "oversensitive" about the possibility of her own daughter being molested.

The only thing that will get an abuser custody faster than *just* abuse is sexual abuse. Most mothers who fought for custody and lost are nearly all DV victims, not bad mothers but protective mothers who are penalized by a broken system for trying to protect their children. Victims who get to keep their kids do so because their abusers did not fight them, plain and simple.

[Lurky]

I still can't get over their smug "our first marriage was just between us and God" stuff, because as @Georgiana and everyone else says, this is some batshit justification of pre-marital sex.  How is it any different to other young couples who are planning to be together long term, but just aren't married yet?

But how on earth do the Pearls justify it, when they're all about the no-touch courtships?  Of COURSE the Pearls are huge hypocrites, but this idea that when they did it, it was Godly and holy is mind boggling.  I wonder how Pearl followers would take it, because it's not even like they were privately "married" by her father, or even seem to have asked him - or signed a marriage contract, even between them.

[Anonymousguest]

17 minutes ago, Lurky said:

I still can't get over their smug "our first marriage was just between us and God" stuff, because as @Georgiana and everyone else says, this is some batshit justification of pre-marital sex.  How is it any different to other young couples who are planning to be together long term, but just aren't married yet?

But how on earth do the Pearls justify it, when they're all about the no-touch courtships?  Of COURSE the Pearls are huge hypocrites, but this idea that when they did it, it was Godly and holy is mind boggling.  I wonder how Pearl followers would take it, because it's not even like they were privately "married" by her father, or even seem to have asked him - or signed a marriage contract, even between them.

Yeah, that's another tid bit I'd keep to myself. So weird. I don't remember that being part of her wedding story her father wrote. I wonder what Debi and Michael thought? Did she tell them before the wedding? 

[hoipolloi]

9 minutes ago, Anonymousguest said:

I don't remember that being part of her wedding story her father wrote. I wonder what Debi and Michael thought? Did she tell them before the wedding?

Think this is the first anyone has heard of their "special marriage" "under the stars" -- it's definitely not in Mike Pearl's version.

Who knows if Shoshanna or her manly husband told Mike & Debi about it before wedding #2? My guess is no, they didn't say a word.

[Bethella]

11 hours ago, Howl said:

Sorry to derail back to Rebeka and Gabe Anast.  Watersmeet, Michigan is in the UP and is a tiny resort town, according to google. I wonder if there is some fundie thing going on there.  Interesting. 

10 hours ago, Palimpsest said:

My first thought was it must very much colder.  Second thought, what are MI's homeschooling regs?  Third thought, perhaps Gabe got on the wrong side of the law in NM and they had to vamoose?

Our Congresscritter Jackass Bergman is from Watersmeet. He's a conservative Republican. According to rollcall.com he's Lutheran. I haven't heard anything about him being fundy but it really wouldn't surprise me. He's the highest ranking military officer ever elected to Congress (retired Marine Corps Lt. General).

MI allows homeschooling. The regulations require "Instruction must include mathematics, reading, English, science, and social studies in all grades; and the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of Michigan, and the history and present form of civil government of the United States, the State of Michigan, and the political subdivisions and municipalities of the State of Michigan in grades 10, 11, and 12." But there's nothing in the law about enforcing that requirement. https://www.michigan.gov/documents/home_schools_122555_7.pdf

[Lgirlrocks]

9 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

They probably are since they married in the late 1960s or early 1970s, before same-sex marriage became legal, which is why Mike Pearl made a big deal out of his kids NOT getting state-issued marriage licenses.

If Shoshanna & James Easling have been representing their tax status as that of a married couple, filing either jointly or separately, they better hope that their financial advisor & lawyer can make a good argument for "negligence."

Given Mike Pearl's very public pronouncements though about state-issued marriage licenses, it's hard to see how they would meet that standard as opposed to out-and-out fraud.

Mike said in one of his post that he had his wife divorce him because of same sex marriage. 

[louisa05]

19 hours ago, chaotic life said:

They always claimed they had marriage certificates. They wrote their OWN certificates which Michael validated in his capacity as a pastor. They did not have LEGAL marriage certificates issued by the state. It was a point of pride for the entire family. And unless any others have quietly corrected that or Gabriel learned from not the first time, Shoshanna is the first to obtain a legal license since Michael and Debbie themselves

It's all very convenient, though. If there is no legal marriage, they can split without having to divorce and Michael can truthfully brag that none of his kids have divorced or will ever divorce. 

[chaotic life]

It's all very convenient, though. If there is no legal marriage, they can split without having to divorce and Michael can truthfully brag that none of his kids have divorced or will ever divorce. 

Seems to be what they did with Gabriel. If the info that Michael and Debbie divorced then he can’t claim HIS marriage is long lasting, which demonstrates that he is just going to move the goal post rather than ever admit he has failed in any capacity.