My mother got me married to an adult as a teenager – my second husband tried to traffic me
AN ex-Mormon shared some of the traumatic events she says she experienced in the community.
The unnamed woman recalled being married off at a young age and the strange requests her second husband made in the bedroom.
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Speaking about the We’re all crazy podcast, the mother of five discussed her time in religion and the abuse she suffered at the hands of her second husband.
She revealed that she married her first husband two days before her 16th birthday.
The pair had first met and started dating when she was 13 and he was 16.
She explained how her mother had given her approval for their marriage two years earlier, when she was just 14 years old.
“He asked me to marry him when I was fourteen, he even did it right in front of my eyes [my mum]she said.
“My mom takes me aside and says, ‘You know, you’ve been dating your boyfriend for about a year and a half, I think you can go ahead and get married.'”
The woman revealed that her boyfriend was already an adult at 18 when he first asked her the question.
“[My mum] said, ‘It is normal in our religion, so I think it is safe for you to go ahead and get married.'”
She described how she felt abandoned by her mother at this time.
“Right now, I’m normal [thinking] “Wow, okay, I think you’re done raising me, I think you’re done being my mom,” she said.
“You haven’t really been there in the last two years.”
The woman became pregnant with her first child at the age of 17 and described how it gave her a ‘reason to live’.
She said her husband had been physically abused and was “very addicted to porn.”
“He hit me and raped me, he just came out with stuff like that,” she said.
She had her daughter when she turned 19 and said her children gave her the courage to seek help.
HOW TO GET HELP:
Women’s Aid has this advice for victims and their families
- Always keep your phone nearby.
- Contact charities for help, including Women’s Aid’s live chat helpline and services such as SupportLine.
- If you are in danger, call 999.
- Familiarize yourself with the Silent Solution, reporting abuse without saying anything, but calling “55” instead.
- Make sure you always have some money with you, including change for a phone booth or bus ticket.
- If you suspect your partner is about to attack you, try going to a lower-risk part of the house, such as where there is a way out and access to a telephone.
- Avoid the kitchen and garage, where knives or other weapons are likely to be present. Avoid rooms where you could become trapped, such as the bathroom, or where you could be locked in a closet or other small space.
If you are a victim of domestic abuse, SupportLine is open on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 6pm to 8pm on 01708 765200. The charity’s email support service is open weekdays and weekends during the crisis – messageinfo@supportline .org.uk.
Women’s Aid offers a live chat service – Available on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. and on weekends from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
You can also call the free 24-hour National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0808 2000 247.
When her own father reached out to see if everything was okay, he helped her fix her car and she grabbed it and left.
After her first marriage ended, the then 20-year-old became close to her brother’s boyfriend.
She described him as the father her children never had and her personal “savior.”
They married when she was 23, but had a turbulent relationship, including infidelity on his part.
She described how her second husband would blame her first partner for everything during the twenty years they were together.
During a divorce, she said a relative of her husband contacted her to inform her of an inappropriate relationship he had had with a minor.
“He came back into the house and I’m scared right now. I’m terrified for him because I don’t know who this person is,” she said.
“I followed this is what I do when I’m scared, I freeze and I crawl.
He wanted me to start acting like I was eight years old during some of these fantasies.
Survivor of an abusive marriage
“I just realized, ‘Who the hell did I marry? Have I just been a body this whole time?'”
The woman, who now shared three children with her second husband, recalled some of his stranger fetishes in the bedroom.
“He had admitted to me that he was attracted to minors, to minors,” she explained.
“He wanted me to start acting like I was eight years old during some of these fantasies.”
It was at this point that her husband started letting her listen to podcasts about “hot wifing.”
“You send your wife out and she makes videos of it [her] being with other men,” she explained.
“He posted new pictures of me. He placed cameras in all the rooms, including our bedroom.
“He would want me to perform for him while he was at work.”
She said her years of PTSD meant she would do whatever it took to survive.
I felt like I had to do this if I wanted to feel loved.
Survivor of an abusive marriage
“If you can’t survive through your lived experience, you completely distance yourself from what you live,” she said.
‘You become what your perpetrator needs or wants you to become.
“I felt like I had to do it if I wanted to feel loved.”
Ultimately, her husband went a step further and suggested that her “value would be found” by men who wanted her.
“He started putting it in my head that it would be a great idea to try to meet other men,” she said.
“Then I talked to my therapist and she asked, ‘Are you sure he’s not trying to have sex with you?'”
After an initial period of denial, she said her husband began suggesting the idea of making money from her encounters with other men.
“I went online and [searched] ‘sex trafficking woman’ and I watched a video and [thought] “Damn, I don’t want it to get that bad,” she recalled.
The woman credited her therapist with helping her leave the “toxic” marriage, explaining that she put her in touch with a women’s shelter.
“I took half our money out of the bank, packed clothes, packed my kids and me [said] “We’re leaving,” she said.
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