What happens to your marriage when you get dragged into fundamentalism?
Tia Levings went to a flagship SBC church. She wasn’t supposed to get sucked into fundamentalism. But Tia ended up being stuck in an abusive marriage, trying to fix things by following advice from Gothard and more.
It made her sick. It made her hopeless. But finally she realized, no one else is going to rescue us. I have to do this for me and the kids. And she did. Her story is riveting, touching, and relevant. Listen to our interview with Tia about her book The Well-Trained Wife!
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Tia’s memoir is so compelling.
You may remember Tia from the documentary Shiny, Happy People. She didn’t start out in fundamentalism. But she got sucked in via a flagship SBC church in Florida, where she met Gothard followers. And over the years, as she tried to make sense of her abusive marriage, she got further and further into fundamentalism–and the abuse escalated.
The reason I think Tia’s story is so important is it shows how fundamentalism can flourish even in what we think of as relatively normal churches.
It shows how it can all be part and parcel of the same thing–when we’re not fighting against fundamentalism, then we allow it to spread.
And in Tia’s story, we see what it does.
The book launches next Tuesday, but you can pre-order it now! It will get delivered automatically to your Kindle, or it will start shipping almost immediately.
I’ve gotten to know Tia a bit on social media over the last few years, and when I read The Well-Trained Wife, I got a surprising jolt because I hadn’t realized that Tia and I went through almost the same thing with a baby dying of the same congenital heart defect in just about the same way. So I feel even more of a kinship with her, that her Clara and my Christopher are perhaps together and playing in heaven!
Things Mentioned in the Podcast
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About Tia Levings:
- Tia’s book, The Well-Trained Wife
- Find Tia on Instagram and Substack (as The Anti-Fundamentalist)
Things Mentioned:
Do you know people like Tia who got caught up in fundamentalism as an adult? What hits you about her story? Let’s talk in the comments!
> > over the years, as she tried to make sense of her abusive marriage, she got further and further into fundamentalism–and the abuse escalated.
How many times have we seen this same sad story? A wife tries to fix her broken and abusive marriage by following the standard advice: Pray more, submit more, have more sex, etc. and things just get worse.
Very happy to see that this story had a better ending
Loved so much of this discussion, but really cringed with the way mental illness was discussed as being common to those seeking positions of power and control. There are numerous problems with this narrative – while it may seem compassionate and empathic towards perpetrators of violence, it actually doesn’t help (instead does a lot of harm). It perpetuates the stigma experienced by those who live with mental illnesses, who, the majority of the time, are victims and not perpetrators, and certainly are not commonly seeking positions of power and control, and it actually doesn’t help perpetrators get the right help. Please take care and seek further information before speaking more on this topic.
I’ll add that it’s very common for perpetrators to act as though there’s a demon behind every bush, and while this may seem like paranoia, and possibly part of the symptom profile of a paranoid personality disorder or schizophrenia spectrum illness, it seems to more commonly be part of a narrative convenient to the perpetrator that allows them to trap and silence their victim(s) and create excuses for the origins of their motivation to cause harm to others (e.g. to be able to blame the devil for putting thoughts in their head causing them to commit sexually abusive behaviour, engage in the abuse and harm of animals etc etc). This is another form of DARVO, casting the perpetrator as a victim of Satan/demons or their own self-described mental illness. For helpful and educated resources on this, see Dr Laura Brown’s “Your turn for care: Surviving the aging and death of the adults who harmed you” (which has a great section on the concept of perpetrators claiming diminished capacity when that actually doesn’t commonly apply), Jennifer Freyd’s work on DARVO, and Jimmy Hinton and Dr Anna Salter.
Lucy, I totally agree that those suffering with mental illness are more likely to be victims than perpetrators! Absolutely.
At the same time, there is a trend that we are seeing a lot of, where men with bipolar, depression, or other mental illnesses aren’t offered help, but instead any paranoia they have is validated when they are in patriarchal systems.
I can’t tell you the number of women who have written to me about their husbands’ mental health problems which have resulted in an outsized need to control and dominate–and then the church echoes this and praises this.
I think multiple things can be true at once. Yes, mental illness should not be stigmatized. Yes, most are victims not perpetrators. But when you are in a patriarchal system that puts men at the top and tells them they should be in control, and those same men are trying to control to deal with chaos in their lives, it can indeed compound the harm.
Again, multiple dynamics can be at play. But honestly–I have heard Tia’s story of a husband with mental illness again and again and again, and seen it in real life. And what’s so hard is that pastors aren’t recognizing it for what it is.
It’s also true that most who want to control are not mentally ill but merely narcissists. But the two can co-exist as well, and the problem is that this is a toxic mess in a patriarchal system.
This may not be what you’re both discussing, but fwiw, personality disorders (including narcissism) *are* considered mental illness: https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/personality-disorders/symptoms-causes/syc-20354463
More severe mental health conditions are often characterized by anosognosia (cognitive inability to perceive one’s own illness or see things from the perspective of others)
From what I have read about personality disorders, there is very little hope of the person who experiences it changing. Those around them must make tough decisions about how much they will allow the person into their lives, and set strict boundaries. They can only be managed, not truly engaged with.
The danger, as I think Sheila is saying, is that certain evangelical teachings do *not* recognize personality disorders for what they are, reinforce disordered behaviors and beliefs, and instead of supporting spouses/families in setting boundaries and consequences (including ending relationships), they say that submission and self sacrifice are the only godly options (while dangling the possibility that prayer and submission can actually change a personality disorder instead of feeding it)
Lucy,
As the daughter parents who are so similar to Tia’s story that I just can’t find it in me to read her book it’s too triggering, I agree we shouldn’t stigmatize mental illness anymore than secular society and the church already do. People with mental illness are both perpetrators and victims. My father has been taken advantage of and I’ve had to call the authorities for him. He’s also caused deep physical and mental harm to me and landed in the court system when I was a child.
These issues are complicated, yet, I saw my father endorse these fundamental teachings as a way to cope. People with mental illness constantly feel their life out of control and gaining control of their family helps them cope, but also ignores the root issues.
Where the church falls flat is ignoring modern medicine. Tia said vaccines and healthcare were discouraged in her circle. That leads to a mistrust of the health care community especially psychiatrists whom people like Franklin Graham have called “godless”. John MacArthur just said mental illness doesn’t exist. Coupled with the prosperity gospel that prayer and God will cure our ills is a dangerous duo. I just feel heartbroken. It doesn’t have to be this way. Now that I’ve reconciled in my mind that my father is mentally ill his life is better and so is mine. I help him but have boundaries, and stopped expecting my father to be the Christian father that the prosperity gospel told me I needed. I don’t feel I’m stigmatizing my father by talking about how badly he’s hurt me, because in therapy one day in my mind I saw him sobbing on a bed utterly broken. He had little capacity to care for his family but my family never saw it. This is tricky but mentally ill people do harm as they also are harmed. Just my opinion.
Authority. Wow – why is no one discussing this part of the podcast here? It is crazy me that is has taken 9 years to be able to create just a quick summary to address these topics that we tackle here at Bare Marriage. Recently I wrote a similar summary. – Sex isn’t the problem, our problems are the problem with sex! 9 freakin years to be able to just type that out with ease. Do you know how many times we went over that here in the past 9 years?
So on Authority I now have a summary to share: Authority is given to us by God not created by man. It’s purpose is to EDIFY ALL. Authority/Edifying is NEVER harmful. In fact! It is NOTHING BUT LOVE.
Amen.
Thank you. Authority has been used so much to coerce people into submission.
Small nitpicky question here.
Most of the time, this site uses the word “evangelical”, but on this page, the word “fundamentalism” is used. In your mind, do these words imply different things?
I do, yes. I think they overlap a lot–many fundamentalists are evangelicals. But what Tia was talking about was definitely fundamentalism.
There are also evangelicals who aren’t complementarian. It can be really tricky to pin down what an evangelical is. But because we tend to be looking at the best-selling books in evangelicalism (even in egalitarian denominations) I tend to normally use the word evangelical. But in this case I think fundamentalism is more accurate.
They are supposed to be different things but it seems findimentalism continues its creep into evengalicsm. The typos are my bad phone typing skills and also spelling errors. Seems appropriate.
I don’t recall if it was this episode I was listening to or another one, but you mentioned a resource for people who want to help a friend get out of an abusive relationship, and sometimes/often in the early stages the person won’t consider what they are suffering to be abuse… What was the resource you mentioned for tips on how to talk with them and help them in whatever stage they’re at?