Josh & Anna Smuggar: A Series of Unfortunate Events

[JenCarroll]

At this place if they find you in the pantry, they'll punish you.

...but they charge extra for that. :-)

Edited August 27, 2015 by JenCarroll

[Churchhoney]

This amuses me.  Not only did the trip to the facility take place in darkness (not the safest time to fly a small plane I would assume), but JD didn't even wait a few hours until daylight to take off for home.  He could have hung around the airport for a few hours until dawn.  Of course, Jim Bob must have insisted he come home immediately for fear another son is led astray by any strippers or porn stars hanging around the airport.

 

Or to avoid plane parking fees. Just sayin. This is Jim Bob, after all. And he's just lost his main source of income.

[CousinAmy]

Couldn't Anna file for a separation (there must be lawyers in the area who would take her case) and eventually get a divorce with a big settlement? Would she be able to get money from her in-laws (who owns that private plane?) or just whatever assets Josh has?

 

It seems there is a lot of money in that family, and they should be able to spare some loose change for an aggrieved woman and her four children. 

[SometimesBites]

Oh Lord their bios of filled with quasi academic accomplishments that don't mean a thing. What the hell is a BS in church work, or a graduate program of men's discipleship or post graduate work in men's discipleship?!? I think it's safe to say if you beleive Jesus rode a dinosaur blue cross is not going to allow you to bill them. And all the talk about their sins of heroin addiction made me feel so sad.

^^^This. The program is designed to reiterate the same mode of thinking that made Josh the man he is today. That's the crux of the problem; they preach more of the same, as though hammering the message harder will produce a different result (classic definition of insanity, anyone?) The root of the problem is always that you aren't praying enough, aren't reading the book enough, aren't committed enough. It's not about change, it's about trying to make the same basic process work differently. He's toast.

[Cherrio]

How did Josh get drugs to offer to strippers? How did he get the money? Did he have an allowance from Boob before coming up to D.C.? Who sold him the drugs in the first place? That will be slower to come out; no one will want to admit to that.

He took them from his mom's stash?

[lulee]

My gaydar has been going off since I first saw his photo … I think he is in desperate denial--a hyper-heterosexual--in order to deny the one sin that would probably get him booted from the family.

And all this makes me wonder about the other Duggar boys (and maybe even the girls) … Are there any other skeletons in their closet?

what are the odds that in a family of 19 children there would be 1 "black" sheep and 18 that are "pure" white sheep?

[kokapetl]

Michelle the drug dealer and pusher. Might explain how Josh could be so carefree.

[LilyoftheValley]

This is all just a little hard to process right now.  Josh needs help - he needs to learn what normal sexuality is and he needs to understand normal boundaries with females.  But the Duggars are getting him help so that he will learn to love having 15 kids by the time he is 40 and living entirely under the authority of his father.  

 

Josh going to strip clubs and paying a woman he saw in porn for sex is more normal to me than what the Duggars planned for him.  Sure it's gross, but if we are talking a spectrum of what is and is not sexually healthy for a man in his 20's then I would say that wanting casual sex with "sluts" is far more normal that wanting a litter of children, sex with one woman for the rest of his life (a woman he does not even care about), and being told what to do with his sexuality by his mommy and daddy.  

[mythoughtis]

Illinois is indeed broke to the point that our social service agencies (real ones) haven't gotten paid for months, poor college students haven't gotten their state grants, developmentally disabled people haven't gotten their benefits, child care subsidies are not being paid for low-income parents unless they are under the poverty rate.  The state does not have a current budget because the new Governor is in a power mad struggle to get his personal agenda passed, so he is sitting on the budget process.  There is no way Josh will qualify for assistance because no money has been appropriated to pay for fiscal 2016 bills.  

This place sounds very similar to the construction company where Josh worked before, wrapped up in the scam guise of a treatment center. A real treatment center is not going to expect 8 hours of work a day except for the work of therapy and self-analysis sessions etc.   He needs real therapy, and guidance to allow him to choose a religion that gibes with his actual beliefs and practices. He needs guidance is what is really improper, frowned upon by actual counselors vs what Gothard says is acceptable or frowned upon. What a mess.  We all knew the Duggar empire would fall upon human failings.  It's fallen farther than most of us predicted. 

 

The only good thing about this is that 18 other siblings now know that their family isn't better than anyone else, isn't really doing things different than other sinners, and look, Josh didn't even get shunned.  JD flew him to treatment and Mom and Dad are still making public statements on his behalf.  So, all 18 of you,  it's a free for all... sin to your hearts content. 

[Satchels of gold]

Not to mentoin having your children confess any sexual thoughts to you is such a violation of boundaries. How can he respect anyone else's boundaries?

[LilyoftheValley]

Yes, we have to be careful of those mobile strippers.

 

This family cant even bother to be sincere or learn anything from their mistakes. Josh cheated. As much as that sucks for Anna's self esteem and her mindset, I has nothing to do with Jim Bob and Michelle. His previous actions already caused the show to be canceled. Jim Bob and Michelle need to leave and cleave. They aren't acting in their grandchildren's best interest or that of their daughter-in-law. They can't even admit that they might be wrong and assist in getting the man some real help. No, they are doing the same thing and hoping for better results. It is pure insanity.  

 

I realize the popular thing is to go to a rehab program, but seriously I'd rather see Josh take ownership and work to improve. I had an allergic reaction to my co-worker's perfume today. I took some meds. I didn't enter a rehab for it. My daughter failed her vocab test last week. I worked with her to study harder and better. I didn't hospitalize her for cognitive issues. Maybe Josh has a problem or maybe he doesn't, but you have to wonder if this is too little too late.

I don't think he has a problem, no.  Unlike others, I actually see most of the molestation as the work of a seriously horny pubescent boy who had absolutely no other females to interact with outside his own sisters.  Any other boy that age would be making out with some girl from school behind the bleachers.  I do not think that Josh is currently a pedophile.  However, I do not think he is sorry for what he did to his sisters, mainly because he was raised to think that females were created purely for the pleasure of men.  He needs help but only to fix the mysoginistic indoctrination he has experienced since babyhood.  

 

But if his problem is that he is a man in his 20's who wants to sleep around and do some drugs and go to a bar, then really I see that as pretty normal.  Forcing a guy like that to marry at 20 and raise a ton of kids with no skills or education was the thing that went wrong along the way.  Josh is just your run-of-the-mill chauvinist asshole.  He should be planning his frat's Vegas reunion at this point in his life, not married with four kids.  

[Missy Vixen]

Or to avoid plane parking fees. Just sayin. This is Jim Bob, after all. And he's just lost his main source of income.

Let's see how succinctly I can tell this story. Once upon a time, I went to the Rose Bowl on a one-day trip put together by a local travel agency because my UW Huskies were playing. We flew down in the morning and flew home 2 hours after the game. We did not go through the airport to embark or disembark. The plane was stopped on the ground in Seattle upon landing and subject to Port of Seattle impound because they hadn't paid the gate fees either way and nobody had been searched by security before boarding the aircraft. After holding 200+ people on a jet for several hours, the Port agreed to allow the passengers to be bused to the front of the terminal. We were met by a huge media presence.

 

I'd like to know how Jim Boob/JD got out of paying those fees (allegedly); I thought they were mandatory if you landed at any airport for any length of time.

[Churchhoney]

Let's see how succinctly I can tell this story. Once upon a time, I went to the Rose Bowl on a one-day trip put together by a local travel agency because my UW Huskies were playing. We flew down in the morning and flew home 2 hours after the game. We did not go through the airport to embark or disembark. The plane was stopped on the ground in Seattle upon landing and subject to Port of Seattle impound because they hadn't paid the gate fees either way and nobody had been searched by security before boarding the aircraft. After holding 200+ people on a jet for several hours, the Port agreed to allow the passengers to be bused to the front of the terminal. We were met by a huge media presence.

 

I'd like to know how Jim Boob/JD got out of paying those fees (allegedly); I thought they were mandatory if you landed at any airport for any length of time.

 

Sorry. I didn't mean to imply they wouldn't pay landing fees. But there are often parking fees (which are completely separate from the various kinds of landing fees) if you stay for a certain length of time. So they most likely wouldn't have had to pay any of those, since they only stayed eight minutes --i.e., not even long enough to stop the plane; just long enough to come down, circle round to a drop-off point and head back out to a runway for takeoff. I'm sure they paid landing fees of some kind if the airport charges them (and most do, I think). I was just responding to the idea that they might as well have let John David stay until dawn. If he had, it almost certainly would have cost more money because parking fees would have been added.

 

[This, from Gemma Violet, is what I was remarking on: "Not only did the trip to the facility take place in darkness (not the safest time to fly a small plane I would assume), but JD didn't even wait a few hours until daylight to take off for home.  He could have hung around the airport for a few hours until dawn." ..... And I was talking about the "hung around the airport for a few hours" part. That triggers additional parking fees that are separate from and in addition to the various landing fees, which I'm sure they were already paying. It was just a comment on Jim Bob likely wanting to pay as little as possible. Not saying that they'd somehow avoided all fees. Sorry for the confusion.]

Edited August 27, 2015 by Churchhoney

[bigskygirl]

There has been men who had normal childhoods and decent parents who look at porn and cheat on their wives or girlfriends. Imo, blaming JB and Michelle is all fine and dandy, but in the long run, Josh has to look at himself in the mirror on a daily basis and decide if he wants the help and try to turn his life around. His parents, Anna, his eighteen siblings, and his four children cannot do it for him.

[SometimesBites]

...Your whole relationship with other people boils down to either you being somebody's cop or having them be your cop....

Everything about the lifestyle and the belief system is TERROR-based. If you screw up, you burn in everlasting hell. If you watch TV, movies, use the internet, you'll get sucked into a pit of depravity. If you see a woman's shoulder or knee, you'll lose all control. Did I mention hell? There seems to be absolutely no sense that a person can learn to manage her or his thought life, choices, and behaviors, even without the threat of damnation. Their answer of course is that even if you SEEM like a good person, you're going to hell anyway, so up yours, nonbelievers!

[cheatincheetos]

Josh is able to toss around an adult "like a rag doll"? .... If that's so, it's the first thing in the whole mess that really truly surprises me. He looks like all flab to me. Especially his brain.

I thought the same thing. Poor Slosh looks like he would get sweaty and out of breath just from bending over to take his shoes off.

[SometimesBites]

I am an LCSW and I looked into become an addictions counselor and it was very rigorous, a good two years to complete as well as hundreds of hours of supervised practice. I know each state has their own guidelines for liscensure but it was nothing to sneeze at. This treatment center does not have anyone even certified in anything by the state let alone degreed in anything (we aren't going to consider a BS in church work a real degree). In addition it clearly states anyone with any medical issues or requiring two or more doctor visits will be discharged. There are no consulting psychiatrist, psychiatric nurses , social workers to treat patients. Lastly AA is a spiritual program but not a religious one. As far as Josh is concerned let him go to the work camp, He knows what he's getting into but I would hate to see anyone go to this place seeking any type of real treatment for their "sin" of addiction. This is not an industry standard.

ETA: I just reread this and it sounds so hostile, I swear I don't mean it that way. It just makes me crazy what passes as treatment (or education or medical care.,..) with these groups.

Doesn't sound hostile to me. Just straight up realistic.

[LilyoftheValley]

There has been men who had normal childhoods and decent parents who look at porn and cheat on their wives or girlfriends. Imo, blaming JB and Michelle is all fine and dandy, but in the long run, Josh has to look at himself in the mirror on a daily basis and decide if he wants the help and try to turn his life around. His parents, Anna, his eighteen siblings, and his four children cannot do it for him.

Yes and no.  The thing is that looking at porn and wanting casual sex without always making babies is a totally normal thing for a man in his 20's to want.  If he "turns his life around" then all that means is that he is conforming to the life his parents picked for him, a life he repeatedly said he did not want.  Josh is a turd, don't get me wrong.  But I must think that most normal guys in his position would find sex with his wife to be stressful and perhaps not all that pleasurable at this point.  I am sure it was at first, but now he is 27 with four kids, and he clearly does not want anymore kids, but he is compelled to have even more if he wants to have sex with his wife.  The whole thing is just really messed up.  The Duggars clearly thought that "steady pussy" would tame Josh.  Well steady pussy leads to steady babies, and Josh doesn't want steady babies.  The whole lifestyle is simply not suited to who Josh his.  The Duggars, total shit parents that they are, raised the child they wanted instead of the child they had.  Josh does not need to go to some faith-based rehab, he just needs to live a life itself that is not faith-based.  I never thought I would have any sympathy for this hypocritical turd, but here I am.  

[CofCinci]

Yes and no.  The thing is that looking at porn and wanting casual sex without always making babies is a totally normal thing for a man in his 20's to want.  If he "turns his life around" then all that means is that he is conforming to the life his parents picked for him, a life he repeatedly said he did not want.  Josh is a turd, don't get me wrong.  But I must think that most normal guys in his position would find sex with his wife to be stressful and perhaps not all that pleasurable at this point.  I am sure it was at first, but now he is 27 with four kids, and he clearly does not want anymore kids, but he is compelled to have even more if he wants to have sex with his wife.  The whole thing is just really messed up.  The Duggars clearly thought that "steady pussy" would tame Josh.  Well steady pussy leads to steady babies, and Josh doesn't want steady babies.  The whole lifestyle is simply not suited to who Josh his.  The Duggars, total shit parents that they are, raised the child they wanted instead of the child they had.  Josh does not need to go to some faith-based rehab, he just needs to live a life itself that is not faith-based.  I never thought I would have any sympathy for this hypocritical turd, but here I am.  

[3girlsforus]

This is all just a little hard to process right now.  Josh needs help - he needs to learn what normal sexuality is and he needs to understand normal boundaries with females.  But the Duggars are getting him help so that he will learn to love having 15 kids by the time he is 40 and living entirely under the authority of his father.  

 

Josh going to strip clubs and paying a woman he saw in porn for sex is more normal to me than what the Duggars planned for him.  Sure it's gross, but if we are talking a spectrum of what is and is not sexually healthy for a man in his 20's then I would say that wanting casual sex with "sluts" is far more normal that wanting a litter of children, sex with one woman for the rest of his life (a woman he does not even care about), and being told what to do with his sexuality by his mommy and daddy.  

 

I agree that going to strip clubs and paying for sex is probably more "normal" than the Duggar sex plan. But it's too late for that. He's an adult and he's married with 4 kids. He made a commitment to Anna and those children. When married people pay someone for sex it's more than just gross. It's cheating and it's dangerous for the spouse. 

 

Josh needs counseling that will help him figure out what he wants. Does he want to be a husband and father or does he want to be single and play the field. Usually people face that decision as a young person before they get married. But he was never even allowed to ask the question. The stakes are higher now but he still needs to answer the question. To be fair to Anna, Josh and the kids. Anna is not going to be any better off than she is now if she gets her husband back but he still doesn't want the life he currently has. I think this is less about addiction and more about being pigeon holed into a life he doesn't want. This in no way excuses his behavior. A mature man faces his feelings and tells his wife if he doesn't want to be married anymore. 

 

Unfortunately I think  this "treatment" will be all about convincing Josh that he wants to be a good little Gothard husband. 

[GeeGolly]

"I am an LCSW and I looked into become an addictions counselor and it was very rigorous, a good two years to complete as well as hundreds of hours of supervised practice. I know each state has their own guidelines for liscensure but it was nothing to sneeze at. This treatment center does not have anyone even certified in anything by the state let alone degreed in anything (we aren't going to consider a BS in church work a real degree). In addition it clearly states anyone with any medical issues or requiring two or more doctor visits will be discharged. There are no consulting psychiatrist, psychiatric nurses , social workers to treat patients. Lastly AA is a spiritual program but not a religious one. As far as Josh is concerned let him go to the work camp, He knows what he's getting into but I would hate to see anyone go to this place seeking any type of real treatment for their "sin" of addiction. This is not an industry standard.

ETA: I just reread this and it sounds so hostile, I swear I don't mean it that way. It just makes me crazy what passes as treatment (or education or medical care.,..) with these groups."

 

No worries with me NC. It didn't sound hostile at all.

[Churchhoney]

Yes and no.  The thing is that looking at porn and wanting casual sex without always making babies is a totally normal thing for a man in his 20's to want.  If he "turns his life around" then all that means is that he is conforming to the life his parents picked for him, a life he repeatedly said he did not want.  Josh is a turd, don't get me wrong.  But I must think that most normal guys in his position would find sex with his wife to be stressful and perhaps not all that pleasurable at this point.  I am sure it was at first, but now he is 27 with four kids, and he clearly does not want anymore kids, but he is compelled to have even more if he wants to have sex with his wife.  The whole thing is just really messed up.  The Duggars clearly thought that "steady pussy" would tame Josh.  Well steady pussy leads to steady babies, and Josh doesn't want steady babies.  The whole lifestyle is simply not suited to who Josh his.  The Duggars, total shit parents that they are, raised the child they wanted instead of the child they had.  Josh does not need to go to some faith-based rehab, he just needs to live a life itself that is not faith-based.  I never thought I would have any sympathy for this hypocritical turd, but here I am.  

 

Yeah, the no-sex-without-the-chance-of-a-baby thing that really skews this whole conversation, I think. Because except for Duggarlike people (and a few other very conservative subcultures, such as some conservative Catholics), the rest of us just simply don't think in these terms at all any more. It's hard for me to imagine what kinds of feelings any of us in the 21st century would have about sex if it meant just one baby after another, no matter what. There would be huge amounts of anxiety and a poisoning of a lot of male-female relationships and marriages connected to that, I think.

 

So different is that mindset from the normal one today that it's next to impossible to keep fully in mind that that is the Duggar reality when we're thinking about them. ... It's now been part of poisoning one marriage, I think. What's it going to do to Jessa's and Jill's marriages in a few years, when the stress and cost of multiple babies really hits them? Or if they don't produce the expected babies, what will that do to their relationships with JB and M? Does it play a role, as many expect, in the non-married status of John David or Jana? .... It's always gotta be there in their minds. And yet it's so foreign to my consciousness and the consciousness of everybody I know, that I'm sure I don't give it enough weight when I think about the Duggarlings and their lives and choices.

Edited August 27, 2015 by Churchhoney

[GeeGolly]

Yeah, the no-sex-without-the-chance-of-a-baby thing that really skews this whole conversation, I think. Because except for Duggarlike people (and a few other very conservative subcultures, such as some conservative Catholics), the rest of us just simply don't think in these terms at all any more. It's hard for me to imagine what kinds of feelings any of us in the 21st century would have about sex if it meant just one baby after another, no matter what. There would be huge amounts of anxiety and a poisoning of a lot of male-female relationships and marriages connected to that, I think.

And a lot of abstinence. 

[LilyoftheValley]

I agree that going to strip clubs and paying for sex is probably more "normal" than the Duggar sex plan. But it's too late for that. He's an adult and he's married with 4 kids. He made a commitment to Anna and those children. When married people pay someone for sex it's more than just gross. It's cheating and it's dangerous for the spouse. 

 

Josh needs counseling that will help him figure out what he wants. Does he want to be a husband and father or does he want to be single and play the field. Usually people face that decision as a young person before they get married. But he was never even allowed to ask the question. The stakes are higher now but he still needs to answer the question. To be fair to Anna, Josh and the kids. Anna is not going to be any better off than she is now if she gets her husband back but he still doesn't want the life he currently has. I think this is less about addiction and more about being pigeon holed into a life he doesn't want. This in no way excuses his behavior. A mature man faces his feelings and tells his wife if he doesn't want to be married anymore. 

 

Unfortunately I think  this "treatment" will be all about convincing Josh that he wants to be a good little Gothard husband. 

The thing is that Josh isn't a mature man and that makes sense because he was not allowed to grow and change autonomous of his parents.  I agree with you completely that Josh has a wife and four kids, and look, I get the idea of the "commitment" but there is just clearly not much that can be worked out here.  Josh is an incredibly immature man-child who does not want any more kids and who does not want the married lifestyle.  It really sucks to tear a family apart, but some things are simply not repairable.  I find it really depressing that Josh is going to be pressured into "fixing" his marriage and that he and Anna will have more years of misery together (and more kids) before Josh really does take off for good.  Eventually the pressure on Josh to live in a way he really does not want will get to him, and he will leave.  

[MyPeopleAreNordic]

Please let Josh have been dumb enough to pay for sex or drugs with a check (a la Jerry Springer) & one of these porn stars, strippers, or drug dealers still have a copy of it.

[3girlsforus]

The thing is that Josh isn't a mature man and that makes sense because he was not allowed to grow and change autonomous of his parents.  I agree with you completely that Josh has a wife and four kids, and look, I get the idea of the "commitment" but there is just clearly not much that can be worked out here.  Josh is an incredibly immature man-child who does not want any more kids and who does not want the married lifestyle.  It really sucks to tear a family apart, but some things are simply not repairable.  I find it really depressing that Josh is going to be pressured into "fixing" his marriage and that he and Anna will have more years of misery together (and more kids) before Josh really does take off for good.  Eventually the pressure on Josh to live in a way he really does not want will get to him, and he will leave.  

 

I agree - I don't think Josh wants the life he has. We have all spent a lot of time talking about wishing Anna had choices but the same goes for Josh. If they got real counseling I think they would both see that they need to be apart for the health and well-being of all of them. Unfortunately they will both continue to allow other people to control them and they will make the expected decision to continue the marriage, scarring both of them and their children in the process.

[Anne Elk]

There is nothing wrong with being a horny 27-year-old guy who looks at porn. There is a hell of a lot wrong with being a cheating, lying hypocrite. Josh is getting treatment for the wrong thing -- for the porn and the horniness. What he really needs to do is be honest for once in his life.

 

The problem with that is, if Josh really does decide that he doesn't want to be married anymore, where does that leave Anna? If she is a true believer, then he's pretty much destroyed her life. He can save himself but only at the cost of ruining her future and leaving her as a spinster living in a trailer with her parents forever. If he cares about her at all -- and I think he probably does, despite his actions -- that's going to be an awfully big load of guilt. 

[LilyoftheValley]

Yeah, the no-sex-without-the-chance-of-a-baby thing that really skews this whole conversation, I think. Because except for Duggarlike people (and a few other very conservative subcultures, such as some conservative Catholics), the rest of us just simply don't think in these terms at all any more. It's hard for me to imagine what kinds of feelings any of us in the 21st century would have about sex if it meant just one baby after another, no matter what. There would be huge amounts of anxiety and a poisoning of a lot of male-female relationships and marriages connected to that, I think.

 

So different is that mindset from the normal one today that it's next to impossible to keep fully in mind that that is the Duggar reality when we're thinking about them. ... It's now been part of poisoning one marriage, I think. What's it going to do to Jessa's and Jill's marriages in a few years, when the stress and cost of multiple babies really hits them? Or if they don't produce the expected babies, what will that do to their relationships with JB and M? Does it play a role, as many expect, in the non-married status of John David or Jana? .... It's always gotta be there in their minds. And yet it's so foreign to my consciousness and the consciousness of everybody I know, that I'm sure I don't give it enough weight when I think about the Duggarlings and their lives and choices.

Of course there would be.  The Duggars need to live in reality for once and recognize that it is not healthy for most marriages to be like this.  First of all, everyone hates feeling outside pressure to have kids or be a parent when they don't want to, and I can only assume that Josh is the same.  But the main thing is that the vast majority of married couples would never be able to sexually bond under these conditions!  How is Josh supposed to feel a deep sexual intimacy with his wife if every time he cums he feels niggling sense of stress and anxiety that it will produce another child he neither wants nor can afford?  The Duggars think this lifestyle creates sexual bonding but really it destroys it.  We all saw how less than thrilled he was about blessing number four, so the Duggars really think that the solution to this problem is brainwash Josh into wanting more children?  How fucking dumb are these people?   The only thing that might save this marriage is if Josh gets a vasectomy in Chicago.  He might then be able to bond sexually with his wife and rebuild his marriage.  Maybe.  It's not much but it as least gives the man something to work with.   

[MyPeopleAreNordic]

Yeah, the no-sex-without-the-chance-of-a-baby thing that really skews this whole conversation, I think. Because except for Duggarlike people (and a few other very conservative subcultures, such as some conservative Catholics), the rest of us just simply don't think in these terms at all any more. It's hard for me to imagine what kinds of feelings any of us in the 21st century would have about sex if it meant just one baby after another, no matter what. There would be huge amounts of anxiety and a poisoning of a lot of male-female relationships and marriages connected to that, I think.

I was happy to be pregnant but also miserable when pregnant - emotionally and physically - despite being in shape, having a supportive husband, education, etc. It's just what the hormones and pregnancy body changes did to me. I also had a complication that resulted in me staying in the hospital several days after my son's birth. I love him and my husband more than anything, but I know myself and I know that I can only handle one more child max, not to mention how scary the idea of several more pregnancies is to me.

If sex today meant one baby after another, I would have become a nun (despite the fact that while I was raised Catholic, I'm non-religious as an adult). That way I would have been able to have an education and some sort of career but also be free from the physical and emotional strain that multiple pregnancies and raising double-digit numbers of children has to put on a person.

I suppose the closest option to that for women in Gothardite/Quiverfull culture is to become a stay-at-home-daughter - it allows a girl to exert control over her reproductive system while still operating within their messed-up rules. I suppose if Josh were to leave Anna, she would at least be saved from future pregnancies and children she probably couldn't support as (from what I understand) divorced women don't remarry in Gothardism. (Of course, that does little to help support the 4 kids she and Josh have as well as herself as she has no job skills and isn't supposed to work outside of the home, etc)

Edited August 27, 2015 by MyPeopleAreNordic

[LilyoftheValley]

There is nothing wrong with being a horny 27-year-old guy who looks at porn. There is a hell of a lot wrong with being a cheating, lying hypocrite. Josh is getting treatment for the wrong thing -- for the porn and the horniness. What he really needs to do is be honest for once in his life.

 

The problem with that is, if Josh really does decide that he doesn't want to be married anymore, where does that leave Anna? If she is a true believer, then he's pretty much destroyed her life. He can save himself but only at the cost of ruining her future and leaving her as a spinster living in a trailer with her parents forever. If he cares about her at all -- and I think he probably does, despite his actions -- that's going to be an awfully big load of guilt. 

Yup.  He just needs to be honest with himself and then with the public.  I would have a very slight amount of respect for Josh if he just admitted that he is not all that religious, that he does not want a bunch of kids, that he got married way too young and that he has a lot of growing up to do, and that he realizes he is old enough to form his own ethics and morals outside his parents' little circle.  

[Churchhoney]

The Duggars think this lifestyle creates sexual bonding but really it destroys it. .   

 

Exactly. Hard to imagine that this won't become more apparent as the kids' marriages progress. I doubt that it'll become apparent to JB and M, though.

[GeeGolly]

Of course there would be.  The Duggars need to live in reality for once and recognize that it is not healthy for most marriages to be like this.  First of all, everyone hates feeling outside pressure to have kids or be a parent when they don't want to, and I can only assume that Josh is the same.  But the main thing is that the vast majority of married couples would never be able to sexually bond under these conditions!  How is Josh supposed to feel a deep sexual intimacy with his wife if every time he cums he feels niggling sense of stress and anxiety that it will produce another child he neither wants nor can afford?  The Duggars think this lifestyle creates sexual bonding but really it destroys it.  We all saw how less than thrilled he was about blessing number four, so the Duggars really think that the solution to this problem is brainwash Josh into wanting more children?  How fucking dumb are these people?   The only thing that might save this marriage is if Josh gets a vasectomy in Chicago.  He might then be able to bond sexually with his wife and rebuild his marriage.  Maybe.  It's not much but it as least gives the man something to work with.   

So true Lily. Even when trying for children. My sister had fertility issues and while they were trying to conceive,it took the intimacy right out of sex.

[Aja]

WIN

[LilyoftheValley]

Exactly. Hard to imagine that this won't become more apparent as the kids' marriages progress. I doubt that it'll become apparent to JB and M, though.

I sometimes enjoy reading the biographies of important people in history.  I have noticed a common thread in all those who had a major downfall: none of them could see things from anyone's point of view but their own.  It is the same with Jim and Michelle.  They simply have zero ability to see how things might be from another's perspective.  I am a few years older than Josh, but I can 100% promise that if I asked 10,000 20 year old men today if they wanted to have 15 to 20 kids, every single last one of them would answer no. 

[Churchhoney]

I sometimes enjoy reading the biographies of important people in history.  I have noticed a common thread in all those who had a major downfall: none of them could see things from anyone's point of view but their own.  It is the same with Jim and Michelle.  They simply have zero ability to see how things might be from another's perspective.  I am a few years older than Josh, but I can 100% promise that if I asked 10,000 20 year old men today if they wanted to have 15 to 20 kids, every single last one of them would answer no. 

 

That's it, all right. JB and M want their godly army of little robots who feed their egos. I guess the only good news out of this is the fact that a crazy cult like this that preaches an end to all birth control simply isn't going to persist in any numbers beyond two or three generations because most human beings won't put up with it. So the harder the Gothardites push it, the more they're dooming their little club in the long run.

Edited August 27, 2015 by Churchhoney

[kokapetl]

Poor Josh. He never needed to confess after all.

Ashley Madison is a scam "entertainment" service; most of the women on the site don't even exist. Gizmodo traced the email addresses of the "women" and found most looped back to AshleyMadison.com. They also traced how many "women" checked their inboxes or messages. Nearly zero.

Josh confessed to being unfaithful because he was outed by the hack. But he probably never connected with anyone on the site. You know what they say if you are caught in a lie? "Deny, deny, deny." Too late now.

http://gizmodo.com/almost-none-of-the-women-in-the-ashley-madison-database-1725558944

Credit where it's due: Gizmodo is a part of Gawker Media.

5.9 million male users but less than 10,000 female users ever replied to a message on ashleymadison.com, 20 million male users but less than 1,500 female users ever checked their message inboxes and 11 million male users but less than 2,500 female users used the chat function at least once.

[MyPeopleAreNordic]

Yup. He just needs to be honest with himself and then with the public. I would have a very slight amount of respect for Josh if he just admitted that he is not all that religious, that he does not want a bunch of kids, that he got married way too young and that he has a lot of growing up to do, and that he realizes he is old enough to form his own ethics and morals outside his parents' little circle.

I agree. He needs to man up and say that the Gothardite/Quiverfull life isn't for him.

I think about the life Josh likely wished he had or that he probably imagined for "Joe Smithson." Josh probably would have liked to have gone to University of Arkansas, perhaps been somewhat involved in the Baptist Student Union or Chi Alpha, be in the College Republicans, and maybe be in a fraternity. He would have gotten his drink on tailgating before football games and met girls. He would have had hook-ups and girlfriends like the average college guy who went away to university. He would have graduated around 22 or 23 and then gone to law school. Maybe he'd finish law school at 25. He'd spend the next couple of years establishing his career. Maybe he'd get married after finishing law school or at least want to find a girl to marry. He'd probably right now - at 27 - be either just getting married or have recently gotten married in the last couple of years. He might have just started to have kids.

Instead, Josh spent his early 20s married to someone he didn't know well and largely under JimBob's thumb. He probably didn't even know himself very well when he married Anna. He may not have even realized at that point that what he wanted was NOT what JimBob and the fundie lifestyle had planned for him. Your brain isn't fully developed until 25; the part that handles long term consequences is still undeveloped. I think he didn't have a chance to see what he wanted to be until he got to DC and realized how different his life had really been. I don't think he even knew until after he married Anna that he didn't want that life. By 27, he's married with four kids. I'm pretty sure tha average age for Americans to marry these days is 27; the average American also has less than 4 kids. He's ended up with a life many people have in their 30s & 40s in his 20s because he skipped those years that are crucial (to some people) for self-discovery, sowing wild oats, and the like.

Some people don't need those years of "me" time. But Josh clearly did. Shame on JimBob and Michelle (and the whole Gothard culture) for promoting early marriage and piss-poor education/lack of higher education on kids and young adults. I'm not excusing Josh by any means, but I think he's a prime example of why the Duggars' methods of raising children and keeping young adults in the cult by promising lots of sex all of a sudden when you marry at 18,19,20, etc is bound to fail. It's like teenage Josh was time warped to the place in life where a 40-something year old guy would normally be, but with no memories of his glory days in his 20s.

Edited August 27, 2015 by MyPeopleAreNordic

[LilyoftheValley]

5.9 million male users but less than 10,000 female users ever replied to a message on ashleymadison.com, 20 million male users but less than 1,500 female users ever checked their message inboxes and 11 million male users but less than 2,500 female users used the chat function at least once.

Yeah quite a lot less defrauding than Josh expected.  

[kokapetl]

She's probably exaggerating, but I bet he's a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am type. Especially with filthy hoors.

The part that cracked me up was when she said he promised her $1500 but only paid $1000. Ha! Like father, like son.

I'm not sure Ms Porn Star is telling the truth, but if she is, it was the most "terrifying" 90 seconds of her life.

[riverblue22]

I'm wondering what type of people Josh was exposed to while working in Washington.  Were all the FRC folks evangelicals like the Gothard cult he was immersed in, or did he get the opportunity to know and talk to more worldly people?  Do you suppose Josh ever had opportunities to discuss his culture with others and the way other Christians live?  I would hope that he had time to realize this life wasn't for him--maybe he will find the strength at some point to say--No more!  (And get that vasectomy!)

Edited August 27, 2015 by riverblue22

[Churchhoney]

I'm not sure Ms Porn Star is telling the truth, but if she is, it was the most "terrifying" 90 seconds of her life.

 

I'm stuck on the image of Josh Duggar being perhaps the scariest sex-related encounter somebody working in porn and stripping ever had. He's changed a lot since he molested a bunch of girls in such a quiet - sly -- way that they didn't even know that it had happened, hasn't he?  And, really, unless he actually is Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde or the Incredible Hulk, I doubt that he would be the scariest sex-related encounter I've ever had. And yet he's that for a woman who works in two-bit strip clubs? Doesn't add up, to me.

[Celia Rubenstein]

I'm wondering what type of people Josh was exposed to while working in Washington.  Were all the FRC folks evangelicals like the Gothard cult he was immersed in, or did he get the opportunity to know and talk to more worldly people?  Do you suppose Josh ever had opportunities to discuss his culture with others and the way other Christians live?  I would hope that he had time to realize this life wasn't for him

 

What are the chances that some of the middle Duggar kids who are old enough to realize what is going on are watching this closely and realizing that maybe, just maybe they ought to move about in the world and live a little before they allow themselves to be locked down into an arranged marriage and a life of reproducing endlessly the way their eldest brother did?

 

Yeah, probably pretty slim.  It is far more likely they are having it drilled into their heads that the only way to avoid turning out like Josh is to go full-on Gothardite and reject the outside world more than ever.  Sad.

 

What could have been a chance to encourage them to spread their wings a little bit will only result in them living more cloistered lives than ever.  

Edited August 27, 2015 by Celia Rubenstein

[cheatincheetos]

As far as Josh is concerned let him go to the work camp, He knows what he's getting into but I would hate to see anyone go to this place seeking any type of real treatment for their "sin" of addiction. This is not an industry standard.

ETA: I just reread this and it sounds so hostile, I swear I don't mean it that way. It just makes me crazy what passes as treatment (or education or medical care.,..) with these groups."

Not hostile to expect standards of them at all. They charge plenty of money.

[LilyoftheValley]

I'm wondering what type of people Josh was exposed to while working in Washington.  Were all the FRC folks evangelicals like the Gothard cult he was immersed in, or did he get the opportunity to know and talk to more worldly people?  Do you suppose Josh ever had opportunities to discuss his culture with others and the way other Christians live?  I would hope that he had time to realize this life wasn't for him--maybe he will find the strength at some point to say--No more!  (And get that vasectomy!)

I think that Josh has always sort of known that getting married at 20 (as a virgin) and spending your life with one woman pumping out kid after kid is just low class and lame. Josh wanted to be a cool guy who went to college and law school and played the field a little.  He knows its silly to live like he does, and he has always sort of known that they were a low-class, low-education family just barely clinging to the social rung one small step above backwards Ozark white trash hill billy.  He knows.  

[HundFan]

 

ETA: Duped myself accidentally. See below.

Edited August 27, 2015 by HundFan

[kokapetl]

I'm stuck on the image of Josh Duggar being perhaps the scariest sex-related encounter somebody working in porn and stripping ever had. He's changed a lot since he molested a bunch of girls in such a quiet - sly -- way that they didn't even know that it had happened, hasn't he? And, really, unless he actually is Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde or the Incredible Hulk, I doubt that he would be the scariest sex-related encounter I've ever had. And yet he's that for a woman who works in two-bit strip clubs? Doesn't add up, to me.

Considering Josh's secret desires were "gentleness" and "bubble baths", I don't believe her story.

6 years of porn stardom under her belt, but Josh takes the cake?

Edited August 27, 2015 by Kokapetl

[cereality]

So Josh likes it rough, not surprised he did this. Sex with a good fundie girl like Anna is for baby making -- get in there, get off, and get out and then pray that another blessing was made. Rinse and repeat.

 

He wants fun, regular wild times that others his age are having without ending up with the responsibility of 20 mouths to feed. The respectable options here would have been -- first, sit Anna down and tell her how he's feeling and say the Lord has led him to believe that BC is in order and a family of four is enough and he wants to try new things in the bedroom. If he couldn't do that or Anna disagreed, then the other respectable option was get divorced and go sow your wild oats. But this is Josh and I'm not sure the words Josh and respectable ever belong in the same sentence.

 

The people articles suggest that they've got Anna pretty isolated -- seems like her only outlets now are the Duggars who are no doubt spouting this is a test from God and she MUST stay with their son/brother and/or her parents -- who are saying the same thing. I wouldn't be surprised if JB and Michelle are purposefully isolating her -- while holding over her that with her hubby in rehab, she NEEDS their money and also for them to do headship tasks like paying bills which is probably too complicated for womenfolk; the last thing they want is for her to get time with Amy or one of her "normal" siblings who say it like it is and tell her she has to leave bc "once a cheater, always a cheater."

[cheatincheetos]

5.9 million male users but less than 10,000 female users ever replied to a message on ashleymadison.com, 20 million male users but less than 1,500 female users ever checked their message inboxes and 11 million male users but less than 2,500 female users used the chat function at least once.

Heavens. And to think that guys complain on the Plentyoffish forums about the response rate they get.  :)

[HundFan]

E! asks a professional if Josh is a sex addict.

http://www.eonline.com/news/689445/is-josh-duggar-a-sex-addict-repression-can-give-way-to-unhealthy-behaviors

 

Been away from my desk, so I'm still catching up on the latest Smuggar news, but the article attached to this link plumbs many fascinating angles re why Josh might have done what he did. I think it's a "must read" for anyone following this thread. Thanks for the info, Vermicious Knid!

[truthtalk2014]

I think that Josh has always sort of known that getting married at 20 (as a virgin) and spending your life with one woman pumping out kid after kid is just low class and lame. Josh wanted to be a cool guy who went to college and law school and played the field a little.  He knows its silly to live like he does, and he has always sort of known that they were a low-class, low-education family just barely clinging to the social rung one small step above backwards Ozark white trash hill billy.  He knows.  

Okay- next big news break- does anyone really know that Josh was a virgin when he married?