Confession: I used to belong to trump culture.
Not entirely willingly, mind. I was young, religious, and I made the naïve mistake in thinking that all Christians were like the ones I had encountered at my home church: warm, tolerant, kind. I fell in love, and we did what young, hormonal Christian teenagers did: rushed into a marriage.
I realized my mistake almost immediately, but it took far too long to get out.
Personally, I endured abuse at the hands of my new husband—mental, physical, sexual, economic, emotional. You name it, he did it. Brutal is an understatement. He systematically broke me down until I was a shell of a human being. I’m still dealing with the emotional fallout and physical side effects, and I probably will be for another decade at least.
That’s personally, but let’s talk his family. Because he was an extreme case, yes, but he was raised with the idea that women existed to keep their mouths shut and their legs open. I spit out two children faster than I could whip my head, because birth control wasn’t part of god’s grand plan for my life. I was fulfilling my purpose as a mother, and wasn’t that great? My husband didn’t want the first baby. He wanted me for himself, see? Abortion was unthinkable, but he fully expected to carry a baby—my baby—to term, then give it away.
Keeping him was my first rebellion. Keeping the next one was my second.
In the time I belonged to that family, I watched my mother-in-law endure the same, though less extreme mistreatment. I watched every young female family member be groped by the family patriarch. “That’s just how it is.” I was shamed for making a fuss about it. I watched an older cousin try to sexually assault my teenage sister-in-law and she was the one who felt ashamed. We women made family dinners while the men sat on their asses. My husband and I lived with his parents for a short time. She and I would go to work each morning—an hour each way—with our husbands sitting in their robes in the living room, playing video games. When we returned hours later, weary, exhausted, they hadn’t moved. The standard greeting? “What’s for dinner.”
That’s his family, and yes, some families are sexist, but let’s talk about church. That’s where all of this is validated, encouraged, taught. Imagine my shock, when I went to my new husbands’ family church and encountered muted xenophobia and racism, a heavy dose of homophobia, and some damned overt sexism (see above.)
Equal roles, but different. Sound familiar? This is still being taught to little girls today.
In church, I listened with quiet disgust as pastors preached about how awful my sister—one of the gays—was. I piped up and asked how that sexual sin was any different than the two young church kids who’d just been caught “in a bad way”, soon to expect their first baby. Sexual sin is sexual sin, isn’t it? I sure did get an earful for that one. We did church boycotts: Disney, Target. Every Sunday School class: Job, cookies, and lets pray God saves the moos-lims before they all come over and blows us up. We revered people with white savior complexes who went to be jesus’s hands and feet and save the poor, helpless Africans.
Hate and ignorance, wrapped up in the holy Scripture. Hallelujah.
Meanwhile, I endured this abuse. This abuse, and every door slammed in my face as my husband hit me, tortured me. “Stay true to your vows,” the pastor would say. “You have communication issues,” our sister-in-law would tell us. My mother-in-law: “Linds, you just have to accept it. Love is a choice.”
“But what about the part where it says that husbands are to love their wives like Christ loves the church?” I asked.
My brother in law, joking: “This is why women aren’t supposed to speak in church.”
This America is alive and kicking, kids. It’s never gone away; it’s just been lurking, behind closed doors. “Pass the casual racism and meat loaf, would you? And get me a glass of water while you’re up. Ketchup, too.” What I’m scared about, truly, is that I know this. And these ideas are now validated. Now mainstream. Almost 50% of our population believes this is a good idea.
“It’s our time to take America back.”
What in the hell, if they’ve been saying these things behind closed doors, and if they believe them In The Name Of God—what in the hell are they going to say in the open, now? What in the hell are they going to do?
The 50s are revered as the aspirational yester-year, days gone by. Progress, as we call it, is godlessness to them. We, the godless libs, took Jesus out of schools. We’ve gone wrong ever since.
This is the America people want back, and that’s my first fear.
I got out. And I’m terrified that this, my success story, won’t happen anymore.
I’m the rare statistic. I un-brainwashed and educated myself. I got counseling (against every Christian advice) to tread sever post-partum depression (surprise!) and in the process of becoming a healthier person, I realized what a goddamn mess I was.
It took three tries and a pastor-pseudo-therapist legitimately telling me, “You know if he hits you again, Linds, I’m going to have to tell you to leave.” All regretful, like it was bad news.
“Why should I stick around and wait for it to happen again?” I asked.
He didn’t have the answer. I left the next week.
It took a few boldfaced lies (it’s temporary, it’s just a separation), and a few miracles, and a large support system of family and friends who all but plucked me out of that hell.
For leaving? My price was excommunication. From his family, our friends, our church. I am the heathen who Divorced my Husband and broke our home. In that entire city, only three people talk to me now.
(No loss, but it took a long time to recognize that.)
I never, ever would have made it on my own. I had two small children, a new job that barely paid a living wage, and I was, as I’ve said, a shell of a human being. I left him and went straight to the human services office. Without subsidized childcare, healthcare, and food supplements, we would have starved or been homeless. It never would have been possible.
These are the services that will probably be cut first.
How will anyone in my situation ever be able to leave? They won’t. Not to mention federal funding for shelters, crisis counseling for families, healthcare for abused women, and legal services for domestic violence victims. Throw in a court system that doesn’t value women, and a cultural mentality that believes what happens behind closed doors should stay behind closed doors, and what hope do abused, trapped women have?
If this is what makes America great again, I want out. I’ve been there, done that, and I’m never, ever doing it again.
You’ll take it back over my cold, lifeless body.
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