The Jaden Jeffs Podcast
Asking questions about Religion, Cults, and Cash! Learn more about me at JadenJeffs.com
The Jaden Jeffs Podcast
Episode 69 | We Were the "Good Polygamists” | Emily Lee
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Emily Lee on Growing Up AUB, Abuse, Leaving Polygamy, and Rebuilding After Divorce | Jaden Jeffs Podcast
On the Jaden Jeffs Podcast, Jaden interviews Emily Lee, who was raised in the AUB (United Apostolic Brethren) with a father who had multiple wives and dozens of children and is now the group’s prophet. Emily describes severe anxiety, heavy childcare responsibilities from age eight, favoritism among wives, and physical abuse from her father and a favored wife, contrasting public appearances with private violence. She discusses AUB size, history, and how leadership uses rules, dress codes, and media restrictions to maintain control, including “recycling” women back into the group. Emily explains marrying at 17 to a non-AUB man, becoming an instant mother, enduring infidelity and trauma bonding, divorcing and remarrying him, and later divorcing again, plus ongoing therapy, PTSD, and rebuilding her identity.
Emily's YouTube:
https://youtube.com/@good-enough-444?si=qc-tQbfJvdQZNBsY
Emily's TikTok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@emilylee1942?_r=1&_t=ZP-97VfXI6vZhG
02:59 Growing Up AUB 04:37 Dad Behind Closed Doors 06:10 AUB Size And Image 12:05 Prophet Power Shift 19:29 Funeral And Burial Talk 22:07 Teen Years And School 30:18 Sneaky Romance Marriage 34:48 Trauma Bonded Marriage 45:38 Recycling Women Doctrine 50:59 First Divorce Escape Plan 55:14 Stepdaughter And Mom Guilt 01:00:04 Why They Reunited 01:00:56 Divorce and Coparenting 01:02:26 Remarriage Decision 01:06:30 Grief After Divorce 01:08:40 Faith After AUB 01:10:04 Dating and Red Flags 01:16:51 AUB Future and Polygamy 01:28:10 Identity After Cult 01:46:17 PTSD and Starting Over 01:53:14 Closing and Channel Plug
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Are you rooting for him to die or? That's a terrible question.
SPEAKER_00Are you rooting for your dad to die?
SPEAKER_04I don't know. I guess if there's a god, I was leaving it up to him, but I'm not sure if there is, so I'm not sure who I'm leaving that up to. Would you rather be a polygamist or live in the house with cockroaches? Damn it, Jaden.
SPEAKER_01That's not fair. I'd take the house with cockroaches. I could not do it. I just couldn't do it. Listen, bitch, you're the one that's like you're taking all of the blame. You're working your backside off. Like this man sits here like a king. And yet she's over here. And that just it blows my mind. When we got married, I was 17, he was 23. My parents had to sign for us to get married. So at 17, I'm married. I can't get a library card. I can't stay out after 11. But I'm a wife and I became an instant mother.
SPEAKER_04Welcome everybody. This is the Jade and Jess podcast. Today I'm joined by Emily Lee, who is from the AUB or the United Apostolic Brethren. Uh, Emily, welcome to the podcast. If you want to tell everybody anything you want them to know about you, awesome.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, I grew up in the Apostolic United Brethren. My father has four wives. Well, it I grew up with him having four wives and 34 kids. And when I turned 17, he married his fifth wife a month before I got married and claimed her five kids. So most of the time I'll say he had five wives and 39 kids. But because my sister Melanie says he had four wives and 34 kids, it kind of throws me off. But he married that fifth wife when I was still, you know, really close with the family. So I was born and raised here, and uh my parents are converts from the LDS Church to the Apostolic United Brethren. And now my father is the prophet.
SPEAKER_04Nice. Uh yeah, in the FLDS we call those aftermarket kids.
SPEAKER_00God, that's good.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Because there's so many of them. Yeah. Like there's so many that have changed families. Yep. So yeah, we just say that we have like dad has 54 kids and then like five aftermarket kids. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_01So my dad has like 26 kids and like 13 aftermarket kids. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01Something like something like that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Pretty close. Okay. So how did you feel about growing up life?
SPEAKER_01And were you was it pretty chill or I thought that it was. I I know that grow well. I was anxious all the time. I I had severe anxiety my whole life. So I wouldn't necessarily say that it was chill, but we meaning my brothers and sisters and I, we would joke about our childhood a lot. The done shit that we did and the surprise that the 34 of us made it to adults without anyone dying. Um yeah, I mean I look back now and I would never recommend it. It was it was a hard childhood, a hard, hard one.
SPEAKER_04Working too much. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Dealing with all the abuse. I mean, yes, I guess working. I I started taking care of my four younger sisters when I was eight. I would babysit the four of them.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Fuck that. It's a lot.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, they can take care of themselves.
SPEAKER_01Right? Like that eight-month-old, she just she should have made her own damn bottle.
SPEAKER_04I could agree with that.
SPEAKER_01The five-year-old and the three-year-old, like, they did whatever, you know, it wasn't a big deal.
SPEAKER_04But yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's the baby baby.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Um, growing up, was your dad pretty mean? Did he like beat beat on you? Yeah. Or was he also pretty chill?
SPEAKER_01Well, he had a combination of both. So my mom and her kids were the like whipping post family. So he beat us, but his favorite wife, he didn't beat her kids. So when we were at family events with everyone together, he was great. He was really kind and loving and just who everybody thought he was. And then he'd come home on his nights at my mom's house and literally beat the shit out of us. And then sit down and watch the news until my mom got home. So he was really scary. He and he's six foot eight. He's like a big guy, right? And he had huge hands, like sausage finger hands. Like he could put his hand over my head and squeeze my whole head. He he's got big, giant hands. And so he uses that size to intimidate people. He'll get right up in their face and puff his chest, and but all he has is bark. He has no bite.
SPEAKER_04So well, he's a prophet now. So I know.
SPEAKER_01So now he has other people to do his biting.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01He can bark all he wants and other people will do it for him.
SPEAKER_04How big is the AUB these days?
SPEAKER_01Last time there was not an official count, but I think it sits at 10,000 members.
SPEAKER_04Oh, that's pretty big.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that spans sorry, that spans from Montana down to Mexico.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Um the AUB is kind of odd in the sense that they seem like they're pretty they're more open. Like they use the internet.
SPEAKER_01Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_04And they kind of live maybe more more a little bit more normal lives.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_04But I guess they're still a cult in the sense that they're doing what their daddy says, what your daddy says. That's awful.
SPEAKER_01Everything that you see with them is appearance. There's a reason why they live in society the way that they do, and why they blend in and why they're the good polygamist. I know most people that know about polygamy in Utah think that the AUB are the good polygamists. They're the chill ones. They don't have the abuse. They don't marry underage brides, right? They split from the FLDS specifically because of the underage brides. So the first prophet of the AUB had two girls gifted to him. One was 14, I think the other one was 15. And then they slowly, they, they slowly had more differences. So they finally split and went to do their own thing. And they Owen Alred was really smart. He invested in a lot of property in Utah. And he knew that if he went to the media, he could get in front of it. So he went right out, and this is who we are. We're the good polygamists. We don't beat our kids. We don't have underage marriages. We don't require all of these things. We just live amongst the people, right? We just want to be who we are and have people leave us alone. And that's not true. Anybody that's from the AUB can tell you of an underage girl that got married.
SPEAKER_04Is Owen Rulin's son or Owen's Rulin's brother?
SPEAKER_01Oh. So yeah, Rulin was the first one. And he was murdered by the LeBaron prophet. And after that, Owen took over. So Owen was the prophet for most of my life. I want to say he passed away when I was like 19 or 20. And then I didn't really go back much after he was gone.
SPEAKER_04And was he a pretty chill prophet? Kind of the stable. I think so.
SPEAKER_01He's yeah, he seemed to be. He seemed really calm. I didn't know him that well. Obviously, I was so little for most of it. But from what I remember of him and listening to him talk in church and things like that, he was really, he was really even killed really calm. I've heard stories from some of his kids that, you know, things were different at home. So I got the public appearance and we did a lot in with him because he adopted my dad. So my dad basically came in at about 14 years old and I think wanted to ultimately become the prophet. So he did what he could for Owen and truly looked at Owen as his father. So when his biological father passed, he got up and gave a church sermon in the funeral. And when Owen passed, he got up and sobbed and talked about the memories of him as a child and you know, as a kid. So we were involved, intertwined in a lot of that. And Melanie knows a lot more than I do. She remembers a lot more than I do because she was in it longer than I was. So she definitely has some better answers on that.
SPEAKER_04But how close are you and Melanie from the same part, Muller?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, she's the oldest of 11. So she's the oldest of my moms, and we're eight years apart. Uh she's the only sister that I hang out with really anymore. I have another sister that we have kids about the same age, and so we see each other and get together and help each other with with our kids when we can. And that but Melanie and I we talk more about life and the rest of them are still in mostly, or no, actually, all of my mom's kids are out.
SPEAKER_04Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I I think probably because of the way my dad was, nobody, nobody wanted to stay. My brothers moved out as early as they could, 14, 15, 16. They were getting out of the house.
SPEAKER_04So what is the path to becoming the prophet for your dad? Like how many apostles were in front of him who he had to basically let die off before he became the prophet?
SPEAKER_01Oh there were two prophets ahead of him. Okay, if I can remember this correctly, he I remember as a child him saying that he would never be the prophet. There were so many men in front of him that he wouldn't want that job, that it's such a tough responsibility. And Owen, I believe, so it went Roland and then Owen. And I think that Owen skipped over two or three men and brought in Lemoyne Jensen, I think that's his name. And so he was the prophet for a while, and when he passed Lynn Thompson, is it Lynn Thompson?
SPEAKER_04I have no idea. I'm not as familiar with the AUB.
SPEAKER_01Wow, why did his name just totally go? I think it was Lynn Thompson. He he was appointed by Lemoyne, and Lynn was on, like he was really sick, and a lot of the apostles were begging him to appoint someone because they knew that by default my dad was next in line by the way that you know if they went by the way that they were called to the council, which is how they originally would do it, and Lemoyne or Lynn told them, no, no, no, I'm not gonna die, and then died 90 minutes later. So it basically fell into my dad's lap. Like if Lynn knew that he wasn't, you know, if he didn't die, he may have appointed someone else to do it. But because he didn't, then it went to my dad.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. How do you think your dad is handling being the prophet? Is he is he being a big boss man or is he pretty chill?
SPEAKER_01I think he's a tyrant. I think he has, which is surprising because I think everybody expected him to do really well. They thought that he would be more like Owen. And he's not. He's very hard on the people he doesn't like. He's very kind to the ones that he does like, you know, if they have a good last name. He's changed a lot of things. And I say he, I believe that it's a wife or two behind him that are kind of pulling his strings to get him to do the things he's doing. The thing that scares me, honestly, Jaden, it reminds me of how Warren came in and like enclosed everything. And that's how my dad is doing it. There's certain dress codes now that they're really strict on. Like, you can't get into the building in a nice pair of blue jeans. You have to be in dress clothes, you have to have dress shoes. So he's changed that a lot. He doesn't want the people using social media, he doesn't want them reading the news, he doesn't even want them watching Disney movies anymore. So he's, and it's hard to like do what Warren did because all of the FLDS were in such a tighter community, if I understand correctly, where the AUB is spread, you know, in this line down the United States and into Mexico. So these are rules and standards and things that he's putting into place. So I don't know that all of the AUB follow that, but I do know a large chunk of people. They listen to him. They they believe he's God's mouthpiece, I guess.
SPEAKER_04They got a testimony of him, apparently. Yeah. Um, so you feel like he's kind of changing a lot of things and closing the AUB off more. I feel like the AUB need that though, if they're gonna stay intact.
SPEAKER_01They probably do, if they're going to stay intact, honestly, because so many kids have left. You know, we're in the information age. We have all of this technology at our fingertips. And, you know, people used to have to go to the library to research, and you had to go get actual books. And now you can ask Chat GPT, and it's gonna give you, you know, a list of references and whatnot. So, plus, people can watch YouTube, right? They can see other people speak out about it and they start understanding. Oh, okay, that that happens to me, and I don't like that either. And maybe life is better, maybe I want to get away. So I do agree that without that information and maybe media content, movie content, they they'll stay more intact.
SPEAKER_04I guess the question with your dad is how far he'll take it. Because if he takes it too far, then more and more people are gonna defect from it. Yeah. But if he doesn't take it far enough, then things are just gonna get too loose and it's not gonna be a cult anymore.
SPEAKER_01I don't think that's gonna happen, Jaden. I don't think that it's gonna get too loose to not be a cult. I think that the other brethren that are vying for his position are just as evil and corrupt as he is. So they're gonna, you know, it because there's not like solid doctrine necessarily, they follow all of the original doctrine of the LDS church, but each prophet comes up with their own rules and their own interpretations. So every prophet has kind of done things a little bit differently. I don't think, if I'm being completely honest, that my dad will live a lot longer. I think he's got a few years in him, maybe. I would not be surprised if I got a phone call that he passed away tomorrow. Like his health is not good. And I think that that position has aged him, you know, 15, 20 years quickly.
SPEAKER_03Are you rooting for him to die or it's a terrible question?
SPEAKER_00Are you rooting for your dad to die?
SPEAKER_02I don't know. I I guess if there's a god, I was leaving it up to him, but I'm not sure if there is, so I'm not sure who I'm leaving that up to.
SPEAKER_01Well, I am not necessarily rooting for him to die. I think that I have grieved him as a father, and I don't know that I will be devastated when he dies. I won't go to his funeral, I won't have anything to do with any of it. So there there will probably be a grieving process there, you know. I don't know what that's gonna look like, but I don't um yeah, I don't necessarily wish it upon him, and I don't Would they let you come to his funeral? I I don't know, actually. Yeah, you know, now that I speak out on YouTube the way that I do, I don't know that they would. And it will be held, you know, at the AUB. They will be doing it the same way they did the other prophet. So there's a good chance, yeah, that I wouldn't even be invited.
SPEAKER_02Where do they bury their dead? Do they have a graveyard of their own?
SPEAKER_01I think they have a graveyard in Santaquin. So they have a community in Santaquin that I think it started out as a oh, why can I think of the word? When when the group works together, it's uh not a co-op. Like a farmstead or it's it's almost like a co-op, like they all put their money into the same pot. Oh, okay, and then they all help each other build and take what they need.
SPEAKER_02So it's like the United Order.
SPEAKER_01Yes, it's like a United Order, exactly. So it started that way, and then I think people grew out of that. So it's a and it's quite a bit bigger. They've built a cabinet shop and you know, several other businesses down there. I believe they have a graveyard down there. I don't think that they have one set place that is specific for AUB dead.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the United Order never works.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04You didn't somebody's always upset. Yeah, you did did you just grow up paying your tithing or yeah, I didn't grow up in a United Order.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So it was 10% tithing, and got it. I don't think I ever paid tithing to the AUB. I think I kind of knew I wasn't gonna stay there by the time I started getting paychecks.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Well, will you take us through the time in your life, like from when you were 10 to the time you got married? Um like just how life was, in puberty, going through your teenage years, how that was in scary, how that was in the AUB, and then getting married.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. At eight years old, my dad moved us out of our home and moved us in with another wife. All of his wives had their own homes for most of my life. And but at this point, he moved us in with the favorite wife and her children. So there were 15 of us kids and three adults in 2200 square feet. So we were really packed in there. When I was about 10, maybe between 10 and 12, he bought a bigger property and moved the favorite wife into that property with his next favorite wife, the wife that was taking over, you know, the Queen Bee spot.
SPEAKER_04So did your mom and his first wife get along, or his first wife actually left him. His favorite wife.
SPEAKER_01His favorite wife, they got along for like family events. They didn't really fight. My mom's really easy to get along with, or she used to be really easy to get along with. So there was a lot of contention when we lived together. And you get the favorite wife who her children don't get spanked, and then you get the wife whose kids get beaten and terrorized, and you put them in the same house. That had to be confusing for my dad, right? How does he discipline these kids? Well, the favorite wife, she was mean to us, and she would hit us. She would break spoons over my brother's butts or heads, and she'd whoop the shit out of my little sisters. And God, she grabbed me by the hair one day, dragged me down the hallway into her bedroom, made me sit and write like 30 pages of I will honor thy father and mother. I will honor thy father and mother. And I'm like, bitch, you are not my mother. Like, get it together. So she would, if you know, two of us were doing the same thing and it was naughty, she would beat my mom's kids and then ask her kids to stop. And that was okay.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I find it totally hilarious that these polygamist wives who give themselves and sacrifice and live their lives for their sister wives and everybody else, because I've seen that so much. Yeah. I find it hilarious that they think that they're not being taken advantage of. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It's it's sad too when you look at it because you think there's so many good women that are just breaking their backs, right? They're giving everything. Yeah. And they can't see it.
SPEAKER_04They can't see it.
SPEAKER_01They can't see it. And that's what the cult does to you. That's the that's the way that the AUB ingrains that shit into your head. And they they just like, it's all for the good of the family, right? It's all gonna work out in the end.
SPEAKER_04They're out there just working away. Some of them have kids, some of them don't, but I remember that's how it was in my dad's family. Like, there's so many women that just working away, doing all these things. They don't have any kids. They never, they never have sex with anybody, you know. They're just they're just working away, and year after year goes by and they're just faithful as ever. And then, you know, all of us are starting to leave, and they're all like, Why are you leaving? You gotta obey. Like, oh god, you're being you're being you're being scammed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, this is a huge scam. And they they just stick with it. It's like they don't, they just well, they don't know, first of all, they don't know what's on the outside, they can't see it, they don't understand how much better life is outside of it, and it's scary. It's scary leaving everything that you know.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So I can see why a lot of them don't do it, but it's well, another thing about polygamous families is they have certain bonds that are kind of cool. Um a lot of my dad's wives, even the ones that have left, they look back and they're like, Oh, I still love everybody. I I do kind of miss that, you know. Dad's family was very unique in the way. I think they were for the most part, like everybody was to some degree a little bit tight.
SPEAKER_01Um really close together.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You not feel that way about your fam or well, I kind of look at it a little bit differently. There was, I do miss that. I like I understand what you're saying. I miss getting together as a family. I miss when it was all like we all had each other's backs. We were doing our family reunions, we were getting together for family holidays. Even after lots of us kids got married and you know, some even left the church. It was still close like that. As I've gotten older, and the more therapy I've done, the more I realize we were so codependent on each other, like toxic codependent, at least the siblings for sure. I don't know. I would think that some of the women are trauma bonded to each other and and maybe also have that codependency as well. So obviously, there's no boundaries in a cult. Nobody gets to get to say, you know, what like everyone's got a smile on their face, right? Like you can't say how you really feel or what you think, or you're just everyone's pretending.
SPEAKER_04Due to homeschool.
SPEAKER_01A little bit.
SPEAKER_04Or public school.
SPEAKER_01I did both. And the AUB had I I they might still have it, they had a school. So bless you. I went to public school until we moved in with that favorite wife. Actually, I went to public school there too. So fifth grade was my last year of public school. I went out to the AUB school for like the second half of fifth and I think all of sixth grade. I didn't go to school for seventh grade. I went to school for eighth grade, kind of off and on. And then I met my ex-husband my junior year of high school, and or no, it would have been my sophomore year of high school, and we got married in between my junior and senior year. So I didn't go back to my senior year. I didn't finish high school, I didn't graduate.
SPEAKER_02AUB, dude?
SPEAKER_01No, nope. He wasn't from the AUB. And oh wow, I had to be kind of sneaky about that. I my mom wasn't really good at following my dad's rules all the time, and was probably more lenient with us kids than she should have been. So I met my ex-husband at a car show at Murray Park. My best friend's boyfriend was the president of the car show, something like that. So we met at a meeting there, and and that was that. We just got together. I was barely 16. It was a month after my 16th birthday. And we got married three months after my 17th birthday. We got divorced when I was 21. 20. I had my first daughter at 19. So we got divorced when I was 20. Long at like we were apart long enough to get divorced. Okay, it was like six months, and then we ended up getting back together, had another baby, and got married two or three years after that, and then just got divorced in 2023. So I've been divorced twice and married twice, the same man. I did not have any good guidance on any of that. We I was a teenager, he was a man, he was six years older than me, and we were sleeping together. So my dad was like, now you guys kind of need to get married. My parents came and said, either you quit seeing each other or you get married. And he's like, I'll marry you. I will, I would love to marry you. I'll marry you any day. And I was like, Oh, he's paying all this attention to me, and you know, he's so cute. Blah blah blah. So yeah, we we got married and then had babies, and it's like once you do that, you and you're trained and groomed to believe that being a wife and a mother is your highest calling. I I did everything I possibly could to make my marriage work. Was he a Mormon or no, he wasn't. He actually was I would say non-denomination Christian. He was from the Pacific Northwest and was an only child. He moved to Utah to get away from the trouble that he had that he was in and had caused in the Pacific Northwest. So he came here to kind of start over. And we met just shortly after he moved here, and he was like, Oh my god, this uh tall, beautiful, 16-year-old virgin, and she likes me, like I'm gonna lock this shit down, you know. He was happy to take me as his wife at that time.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, because you can you marry somebody when they're 16?
SPEAKER_01Because he he must have been, if he was six years older, he was 22, and when we got married, I was 17, he was 23, my parents had to sign for us to get married. So at 17, I'm married. I can't get a library card, I can't stay out after 11. But I'm a wife and I became an instant mother. He had an older, or he had a daughter. She was four at the time, and she moved in with us right away. I became her mom right away. So 17, married, my senior year of high school. I'm working and raising a four-year-old. So it was um, I used to joke about like, what if I what if I get pulled over on Saturday night? Who are they gonna call? Are they gonna call my dad or are they gonna call my husband? You know, like I don't know. So it was interesting.
SPEAKER_02So looking back on it, are you were you mad in love or I thought I was? You thought you were.
SPEAKER_01I thought I was. I I didn't understand. Now I understand. Back then I didn't understand what was happening. I didn't understand that so many of my needs weren't being met. And I wasn't special, I was just another number in my dad's family. I was, you know, just part of his property and and a number to build his kingdom better, and I didn't get that individual attention. So to have a man who has a decent job and income and cool cars and etc. wanting me. Like what was so special about me, it was I I think that I loved him for most of it, and I think that we very quickly I became trauma bonded to him very quickly before we were even married, and that was it. I was gonna do whatever I could to keep my family intact. I would sacrifice whatever I could to keep my family intact.
SPEAKER_04I've seen that so many times where these young people out of the FLDS trauma bond with somebody, and God, they're tight. Fuck they're tight. Goodness, I can't stand it. It's like you guys, you guys fucking get over it. I don't care. Whatever. You guys do your thing, but yeah, you're fucking trauma bonded, you're trauma bonded to like, you know, to the depths of hell.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Thank you. Exactly to the depths of hell. And your older siblings are, they don't know any better, right? So I'm going through this as a young girl, and my dad's like, yeah, I married my first wife when she was 17. I'm like, well, dad, that didn't really work out. But she was the love of his life. So in his mind, it was like, oh, this is so cute, whatever, you know. And because he had taken my virginity, or however you want to word that, it was like you either get married now or you don't, and like you repent because you've caught, you know, you've done the worst sin kind of thing.
SPEAKER_04You mean in your dad's eyes?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, in my dad's eyes, and maybe in my mom's, I don't know. I mean, I I think that she was probably still really indoctrinated to that back then. So she was she was going off of what my dad was saying. And when a child gets married, they move out and it's one less mouth to feed. So it's great for them also in that capacity. He was all for it. He actually performed this ceremony. We got married in Melanie's backyard.
SPEAKER_04And thank you, Melanie.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Melanie.
SPEAKER_04Think she'll let me use her backyard for that?
SPEAKER_01I I think if you asked her, she would say yes. Her and Corey both would. Sweet. If you want a backyard wedding, they will hook you up. Okay. There's been a few of them at their house. So it's interesting to look back and think I was planning a wedding. I was calling everyone and asking them to trade. I trade my wedding dress was traded for a hardwood floor and all of the flowers. My mom owned a health food store with two of my dad's sisters, and she traded a ton of stuff. Like all of our professional photos, so many things. My wedding cake, the bridesmaids' dresses. We traded a lot of it. And I think I should have been dating. I should have been figuring out who I was. I should have been in high school, maybe sneaking out on the weekends, going to, you know, high school parties. And being a teenager, there was nothing wrong with any of that behavior. It's normal, typical behavior of teenagers. And I missed all of that. So now I'm 44 and I think there's so much I missed that I not that I'm gonna go out and party and do all those things necessarily.
SPEAKER_03Oh, come on.
SPEAKER_01I mean, maybe a little bit here and there.
SPEAKER_04So you weren't part of the AUB when you got married, or I wasn't.
SPEAKER_01I wasn't actively in the AUB. I would go on Sundays still occasionally and was still really connected. My parents were still all into it.
SPEAKER_04So I wasn't married into the AUB as far as going through their their temple, their ceremony, that that whole well when you when you uh I hate to say just like well when you lost your virginity, then did did they that's pretty much it, right? You can't be you can't really be a part of the AUB after that.
SPEAKER_01Oh, the AUB is great about recycling women.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_01They will recycle you all day long. It's the men who don't really have a chance to come back in. They they would have taken me at any point. My dad tried to get us to come as much as he could. Yes, exactly. So I was on my way out and yet still connected. All of the decor that I used at my wedding, I got from the AUB. I mean, I went out there and met somebody on the Relief Society, I think, and picked up a ton of stuff out of their closet of decorations. And I went to events when I could. I didn't know at that time. I still questioned whether or not polygamy was right. And my ex-husband was like, he was totally down to see if. I mean, I think he would have been happy to live that way. So I I don't think that uh he would have complained at all had we really done it. And it so it was like kind of always there, you know? It was always this option we could do. Okay, it was still so ingrained in my brain that I I just didn't know.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, this this guy from the east or whatever comes along and his his wife's like, yeah, we could we could live polygamy, you know.
SPEAKER_01He's like, Yes, I love women, I love them. And in all fairness, without getting into detail, we lived it in a way our entire marriage. So it was very interesting, to say the least. He had two exes. He actually had his daughter, who was four, and I raised her from four on and claim her as my child, and then he had a son, and his son's mother was constantly trying to get him to leave me and get with her and all kinds of crazy things, and there was a lot of infidelity. So between the two exes and the infidelity that lot, you know, started prior to getting married and went through the entire marriage, it's like, and of course I stay because I'm Born and bred to think that I need to share my husband or that I need to forgive him in whatever capacity. And so yeah, it's a hard when you say that you're not in it, it's still in you, right? You don't just get out and you're out and you're free. You might stop going to church on Sunday, but everything that you've been indoctrinated with, it's still in there. It still plays a huge part of who you are every single day.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that that's a good way to put it, actually. When when you're not in it, it's still in you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You have to actively deconstruct and actively work through getting rid of it, taking it out of you. Because you'll go into your adult life with so many things, and you don't realize how they affect who you are, what you do, how you handle people, how it holds you back in life, things that you don't even know. So I highly recommend to anybody that leaves any of the Pygmas cults to go to therapy, do some healing work, because we're all fucked up. We're all broken, right? They broke us in every way they could in order to keep us submissive to the patriarchy, to the prophet, to whoever was in control.
SPEAKER_04I'm trying to understand how the AUB views its young young people because I interviewed a couple AUB people, and I feel like the girls uh they're able to get out, or they're able like you, marrying the 17-year-olds is not the best situation. Yeah, but you're not being like held to someone within the group, like you gotta marry someone within the group.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. So I wasn't forced to do that. I know some families that did push that, and had I stayed consistent going to youth group activities and stuff, I probably would have met someone in the group. And I don't know if it was because I started sleeping with him that my parents were like, okay, it'd be best if she marries him. You know, I don't know that there's any man out there that wouldn't have been like, oh, I don't care, I'll take her in a heartbeat. So I don't know that men or women get out any easier than I'd be interested to find out statistically what the ratio is of teenage men and teenage women, how they leave.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So I was just thinking about this. The men and the women in the AUB. Well, if you think of the FLDS or it's so strict, like if if you're in the FLDS and you lose your virginity, man or a woman, you you can't come back. Yeah, as far as I know. Yeah. Is that how it is in the AUB?
SPEAKER_01No, no, not at all. I I don't know uh necessarily about the men. Maybe they wouldn't let a man come back. They'll let a woman come back almost anytime. They're gonna recycle the women as much as they can. Most every man is married to one, two, three, four, five women that have already been married to other men that are still in the AUB. They really truly do swap wives, recycle, rotate, however you want to put it. They, yeah. If I went there right now, they'd be like, sure. I mean, I could go sign up right now and apologize to my dad for everything I said on YouTube, and I'd take it all back and let me join, and they'd be like, okay, they'd re-baptize me and give me the doctrine I need and put me right back in. There wouldn't be any question.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. What is the difference between a man and women loose in their virginity? Like, if you're a Mormon, I'm trying to think. I don't think if you're a Mormon guy, you'll be forgiven, right? Yeah. And probably if you're a Mormon girl, too.
SPEAKER_01Maybe, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Maybe. Yeah. Like less, less forgiveness.
SPEAKER_01Probably. It that depends, I guess, on maybe who her parents are. I don't think there's like set standards or rules necessarily for that. If she has a shitty bishop, that you know, it just depends.
SPEAKER_04But if you're in the AUB, then and you're a dude is a bigger deal than if you're a girl.
SPEAKER_01No, it it's not necessarily a bigger deal. And and most men aren't gonna say anything about it.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But because women are property and they they will legitimately say, well, this man took something that belonged to this man, or you gave away your chastity, and you didn't have that right. It belongs to your husband, right? So women are property, they're currency, they're not anywhere as valuable as the men are, and yet they're the ones that do most everything and keep things going.
SPEAKER_04So you kind of leave when you're showing. So you getting married was pretty much you leaving the AUB.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I didn't go back necessarily. I mean, I did go back to like a few different church services. I went to weddings and funerals and different things like that, but I didn't go back as a member per se, you know. I my so my 24-year-old, I went a few times when she was a baby. And I think when I got divorced when I was 20, that I considered it.
SPEAKER_04Why'd you get divorced back then? Or unless you don't want to talk about that, but no, not at all.
SPEAKER_01I don't I don't have a problem with that at all. Um there so I had my daughter, and four months later I found some information out about my ex-husband that got me out of there. Um I knew that he was a ladies' man, and what does that mean? He's always been very charming and women always like googly-eyed over him and goggled over him, and he would have witty, funny things to say, and so sometimes it was hard to decipher whether he was being inappropriate, or that just was how it was. And I found out about some infidelity that happened right when I got pregnant, and then some conversations that were being had with my younger sister's best friend pretty consistently throughout my pregnancy. So when I found that out, I knew that I was gonna leave. I was gonna be done. And I worked it out with my mom to move back into her house, and I worked it out with my brothers to help me. And we got up in the morning and I kissed him goodbye, and he left the house. And 20 minutes later, we busted all my shit out of there and moved me out.
SPEAKER_02So he didn't know you were moving out.
SPEAKER_01He didn't know I was leaving when he came home to an empty house.
SPEAKER_04That's definitely AUB style.
SPEAKER_01What do you mean by that?
SPEAKER_04I mean that if you if I was in the FLDS, I would have done that too. Or a lot of FLDS. I just mean that uh nothing wrong with how you did it. I just mean that you rarely have the energy or the social capacity to tell somebody what you think to them, and so you do it right after they leave without knowing and just surprise them.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04Yep.
SPEAKER_01Surprise, I don't like you anymore.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you're gonna find out tonight when you get home.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. I'm gonna kiss you before you leave.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I will pretend like everything is good, and I didn't know how I mean, I grew up with my father, right? He was not a safe person, uh, especially when he was angry. So I didn't know how he's gonna take it, what's he gonna do, what's he gonna think. I was scared. I was so damn scared. And I was mad, and I didn't care at that time if I hurt him. I was not necessarily kind with how I left things. I left pictures of us all over the floor. I took the bed. I was angry, so I did what I could to leave a big F you behind. And unfortunately, I wasn't considering my older daughter. Right? I'd been her mom for two years at this point, three years at this point, and and I'm a child myself dealing with very adult issues, and I didn't factor in how it would affect her, how she would handle it. And of course, she was devastated. She's already lost her biological mom at such a young age, not lost forever, but she wasn't around. And and then I move out with her baby sister, and she's left there with just her dad. I don't, and he was a good dad to her. He's always been a good dad to her. So I wasn't worried about her safety. I wasn't taking into consideration the emotional impact, the toll that it would have on her. And and I quickly figured that out throughout the next six months. She was devastated. And I was devastated watching her devastation because I had already picked her up and put her back together when she very first moved in with us.
SPEAKER_04Not yeah, not your responsibility.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yep. It wasn't sucks, but it wasn't.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I mean, now as a mom, at like an actual adult, you know, I still I look back and I was like, oh, I was a child dealing with that. And I know that there are there are long-term side effects to all of those decisions. So I know that there were things that I did like that that affected her for the rest of her life, you know. I know that I participated in some of the negative experiences and outcomes for her. And she's still my daughter, and she has my grandson. And I love her with all of my heart. I love her truly, Jaden, like I love my other girls. I they're like they I don't feel any differently in my heart about her than I do about them. And I don't know if that's because we were trauma bonded together. I'm 17. She's five, and she's devastated about her mom. And where did she go? And why isn't she here? And and I was the one picking up those pieces for her. Not old enough, not emotionally mature enough, and I was doing the best I could. So yeah, that it that was tough. That was really tough.
SPEAKER_04Sounds like you still feel guilty.
SPEAKER_01I I think I probably do. Yeah, I think I definitely do. I feel guilty for a lot of the way I parented my daughters, honestly. I look back and think, what the fuck were you thinking? You know, how did you ever think that was okay? Or wow, why didn't you protect them better in that issue or circumstance? Or you just, but you know, hindsight's 2020, so mom guilt's real. It it's real, it's hardcore, and it sucks.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Well, they're humans, they'll figure it out.
SPEAKER_01They will, and you don't want to hurt them any more than you need to.
SPEAKER_04They'll give their kids some trauma and then they'll understand.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. They well, truly, they will. They will. They'll understand as they get older and they realize that your parents are people, they're doing the best that they can with what they know, and they're human.
SPEAKER_04So yeah, I think my mom's that way. She feels guilt, guilty a lot of times, or like she should have done something different.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. My mom still does all the time. Do you talk to your mom?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01A lot.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Do you have a good relationship?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Is she still in the FLD? Oh, thank God.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yep. She's she's like.
SPEAKER_01Are all of her kids out?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Sweet.
SPEAKER_04Yep.
SPEAKER_01Oh, thank God for that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's good stuff.
SPEAKER_04So you decide to get this divorce, you move out, you kiss this dude like he was Judas on your way out. And then you guys get back together because you feel guilty or what?
SPEAKER_01Partly that. And we so I left in March and the divorce was final in June. And I didn't realize, I don't know why. Well, because I was a child dealing with these issues, but the day I found out that the divorce was official, I freaked out. Like I lost it emotionally. Holy shit, I'm 20 years old with a seven-month-old baby, and I'm divorced. That scared the shit out of me. It was so scary. And I thought that he was my soulmate. I thought that we were supposed to be together forever. And I wasn't necessarily getting any good advice from my older sisters or my parents. They weren't really, you know, involved. My mom's doing whatever she can to help me, but not necessarily, you know, giving good advice. And we so we would, we were co-parenting now at this point, right? So I'm taking my older daughter for weekends, and then he's taking the baby for certain times. And that was so hard for me. I just struggled with it. So we started to kind of talk again a little bit more, and then we started doing some therapy together under the premise of like co-parenting better. And yeah, we I moved back in with him that October. So jokes on me.
SPEAKER_04How does it feel to get married the second time after you got divorced? Is it like, okay, this is like a come to Jesus moment? Like, oh my God, I we we got through this difficult struggle. Look at us.
SPEAKER_01So the second time, okay, so we got back together, say that October. So that would have been in 20 or no, I'm sorry, that would have been in 2002. And we started building a house. So we built a house, we grew the business. He had a hardwood floor company, and I, you know, helped him with whatever I could for that. And we had assets and possessions, and and things were up and down. Neither one of us really knew how to communicate at all, or set boundaries, or you know, be realistic about what real life is about. So now I've got another baby, and she is just a few months old, and we end up dealing with something with one of his exes, and I was like, and it dawned on me in that moment, and he he thinks this is so messed up, but in that moment, I thought, if he dies, I get to like I'm just a baby mama in the eyes of the law. I get to divide my assets, my things that I have worked my ass off for with his exes. We all three would have been on equal grounds for my house, my car, you know, anything and everything that was in his name. So I started telling him, like, look, either we're gonna do it or we're not, right? Either we're all in or we're not. I don't want to sit here and play house with you if you're not willing to step up and do right by me. So either we're gonna get remarried or I'm gonna move out and we're gonna go our separate ways. I'm not gonna keep, you know, I'm not gonna keep doing this. And we went to Disneyland and on our way back from Disneyland, we called Dr. Laura. I don't know if you've ever heard of Dr. Laura, the Dr. Laura show.
SPEAKER_02Dude, I haven't.
SPEAKER_01Okay. She's she has or had a show on the radio, and you could call in and ask her questions. And and so we stopped. I got through and we were pulled over on the side of the I-15. And so I was talking to her about whether or not I should go back to work, kind of, you know, giving her our dynamic. And she was like, the two of you should be married. You need to get remarried right away. Like, this isn't good for you or your kids, kind of thing.
SPEAKER_04Did you tell her you were from the AUB?
SPEAKER_01No, I didn't. Oh, come on. I should have, though. She might have looked at things a lot differently. So Three days later, we went to the courthouse and got a marriage license and met my dad and a handful of other people at the park we met at, and he remarried us.
SPEAKER_04So and that lasted how long? 18 years. 18 years. Yeah. That's a while.
SPEAKER_01It's a long while. Yeah. Yeah. My my 24-year-old came over yesterday to get some pictures and stuff out of my garage. And so we were pulling out boxes of photos, and she wants her baby book. And I'm handing her, you know, all of these things. And I pull out this photo album and flip it open. And I'm like, I just start sobbing. Like I, this is a completely different life. And I was a completely different person. And I was so in love with her as a baby. She taught me the meaning of love. I didn't understand the meaning of love until I had her. And I flipped through some of our family photo album after I flipped through her book. And I just sobbed. Like, you know, nobody wants to have a broken family. Nobody wants to be divorced at 44. Like, I don't even know how to live my life at all. And I'm learning as an adult. And I think I had a false sense of security the entire marriage. Thinking I was secure in ways that I wasn't and happy in ways that I wasn't. So there's a lot of grieving that just come it just comes with the territory.
SPEAKER_04Wait, so you just you got divorced less than a year ago, or?
SPEAKER_01No, it's been two and a half years now. Okay. Yeah. So it, I mean, it doesn't feel like that long, and it feels like two and a half years should be sufficient, right? Like I should be an adult now. And yet I didn't have the tools to even live life because of the way that I was raised. So I feel incredibly deficient in so many ways. So many ways.
SPEAKER_04What were your religious beliefs after like when you were first married? And then did you guys everything? I thought I would no.
SPEAKER_01I thought I would join the LDS church. I thought for sure if I left the AUB, I was gonna go join the LDS Church. I did the missionary lessons when I was a teenager, and then I did them again in my 20s when he and I were married. And his parents went to a non-denomination Christian church that was just a Bible-based church. And his mom started inviting us to events, and that was awesome for me. I feel like that opened my eyes to a lot of the Mormon doctrine that Phil's made up. So I was grateful to end up in a non-denomination Christian community and not in the LDS church the more I learned about it, and I was not gonna go to the AUB. Like that would just wasn't gonna happen.
SPEAKER_04So do you feel like you would get married again or are you never gonna get married again?
SPEAKER_01Ugh, I don't know. I don't know. I've dated a few guys since I've gotten divorced, and no offense, but men are just trash. Just oh that's what I hear a lot.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. You know.
SPEAKER_01It's not easy to find a good man that can work hard and be kind.
SPEAKER_04Um one or the other.
SPEAKER_01It seems like it's one or the other, or they just have all kinds of addictions and they're chaotic, and yeah, it's a lot. So I dated someone for like, I don't know, eight, nine months last year and ended things, I don't know, the beginning of July, so I think it's been almost a year. And once I ended that, I was just like, yeah, I'm good. You know, if Mr. Wright comes walking into my life at some point, maybe. I mean, I'll keep the option out there, and I'm not going to actively look for it. It's not. I still have a 10 and a 12-year-old to raise, you know. I need to do what's best for them every chance I get. So I think I'm just gonna backburner that for now.
SPEAKER_04Okay. We'll see. Yeah. So do you have good dating advice for me?
SPEAKER_01Women are fucking crazy too, Jalen. Oh, okay. Men are trash and women are crazy.
SPEAKER_04I needed somebody to say that because I didn't want to say it. I'm I'll get canceled.
SPEAKER_01You will not get canceled.
SPEAKER_04Okay. I can say that.
SPEAKER_01Do you really think you get canceled?
SPEAKER_04No.
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_04No. Women want me to say they're crazy.
SPEAKER_01They do.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And they like it when you say they're crazy. Is that like a good way to get in with them?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It's like some pre-sex talk, like, bitch, I know you're crazy.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01No, women are they're crazy. And in our society, now I don't know. I don't know. It's so I don't know. I can't.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's messed up right now. It's fucking messed up.
SPEAKER_01Don't like if you date someone and you think you want to marry her, date her for a long time. Like at minimum a year, but probably two or three.
SPEAKER_04Just never get married.
SPEAKER_01Maybe. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01Maybe keep that off the table. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Never get married. That's one of the rules.
SPEAKER_01Or I mean, I can't say that it's a rule. I still think that there are good things about marriage. I think that certain people can be married and do it well. I mean, I look at Melanie and Corey and I think they're awesome and they understand each other. So that's, you know, that's kind of hard. I didn't stay in the AUB. I don't have friends or acquaintances that grew up in a cult that I can date. Right?
SPEAKER_04So it's better to not date them anyway.
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, I know. I think that too. Because and that's scary too, because then you just don't know. Like, it are they gonna wig out at some point and want to go back? You know, how do you guarantee that they're not going to want to go back into polygamy?
SPEAKER_04Well, the other thing, the other problem with dating people from Colts is they think they know who they are, but they fucking don't. They don't even fucking know who they are. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Every one of these FLDS girls that's leaving that's a couple years out or a year out or whatever, they don't know who the fuck they are. They don't even they're gonna change their mind in the future. And they're gonna become someone totally different. And then they're gonna be like, why did this happen to me? Yeah. You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. It takes a lot to get to the point where you semi-know who you are. I feel good about who I am now, and I am happy and content with myself. I love myself enough to see a red flag and say goodbye. Like, I'm not gonna. I would not continue a toxic dating relationship or or even go on dates with men that have that potential. I don't know. It's just it's so scary.
SPEAKER_04You don't like toxic people anymore.
SPEAKER_01I don't like toxic people anymore. And so now my circle is like I think I have like three people in my life now. Like everyone is, it's so small. It's so small.
SPEAKER_04I still kind of like toxic people.
SPEAKER_01Do you?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01What do you like about toxic people?
SPEAKER_04Um they just bring a little bit of excitement to life. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not so boring. It's not so everything's not so right. I don't know. It depends on the kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01So you're looking for some fun, right? It does depend on the toxicity. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I'm not looking to almost die or anything.
SPEAKER_01No, no. Do you want to get married? Do you want to have kids?
SPEAKER_04Uh, my brother, when I was dating an FLDS girl a couple years back, sent me this book. And the book basically says a thousand times, says a thousand times in there, maybe, to not get married. But I think you just didn't want me to marry that girl.
SPEAKER_01What book is it?
SPEAKER_04It's uh Kiss Mary Kill.
SPEAKER_01Do you still have it?
SPEAKER_04It was an audiobook. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Cause you might need that reminder again someday.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I might. That's valid.
SPEAKER_01I think you have some tissue right here.
SPEAKER_04Oh god. Thank you for telling me.
SPEAKER_01I I just no I thought it was part of your beard, but then all of a sudden you turned right a certain way, and I was like, shit, that might be tissue.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah. That's part of my toxicity. You know?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Okay, so where do you kind of see the AUB going now? With your dad and uh straight to hell. Straight to hell.
SPEAKER_01Straight to hell. No, I'm kidding. I think there are some really good people in the AUB. I can't lump them all together. I do think that there are some really good, kind, generous people. There there are some men that probably do a decent job taking care of their families. And I think they'll continue to have a lot of people leave and they'll continue to get new people. Because, you know, cults have a way of attracting sometimes desperate humans and also pedophiles, and you know, like people are gonna get involved with it for a lot of different reasons. Also, when COVID happened, their numbers went up quite a bit. And apparently the LDS Church, their prophet asked or told, asked, or told the people to get the vaccine, and that upset a bunch of people, and people were home with nothing to do, so they are researching the doctrine, and I I guess a lot of people left the LDS church and joined the AUB. And I'm like, how do you double down on that? Right? How do you get out of one to go to one that's two times as bad?
SPEAKER_04Like, well, they're like, this isn't this isn't enough of a cult for me.
SPEAKER_01Right. I need to get in a little bit further. Yeah, let me slide down that rabbit hole.
SPEAKER_04I'm going to become a polygamist.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. It's a great idea. When I listen to women talk about it, I think, uh like what do you mean? When they talk about becoming polygamists and that they want to do it, that they think that there's benefit to it, that they think that it's God's word. It just, yeah, it doesn't make sense and it sounds crazy. I it always hurts my heart to hear people talk about it like it's like they truly believe in it.
SPEAKER_04I haven't heard people defend polygamy quite like women.
SPEAKER_01Right?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Like, listen, bitch, you're the one that's like you're taking all of the blame. You're working your backside off. Like this man sits here like a king, and yet she's over here. And that just it blows my mind. And I think, like, I look back, Jaden, and I think, what was it? Like, what were we taught? How were we trained that it's so ingrained in people that they legitimately believe that it is all there is, it is like deep. We have this whole big world.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I remember uh one of my dad's wives when I was growing up was always bearing her testimony to us. Well, all of them really, but about polygamy. And she's still there, but this one in particular, I would I was like, dude, what do you think my problem is? I I'm not out here doubting polygamy. She's like bearing her testimony to us over and over and over about polygamy. She's like, I know you're gonna need this someday. And we're like, dude, this like what the fuck are you talking about? Like, I think they try to convince themselves consistently. Yeah, the more I think about it, I'm like, I wonder, I wonder if she was just like, like, she just couldn't stop bearing her testimony about polygamy. Like, we were gonna leave us. Like, dude. I mean, I mean, I guess I get her point, like later than you know, now we all left, but right, but the more I think about it, I just wonder like, what what was her problem? Like, why was why was she bearing her testimony? I mean, she she could have beared her testimony about something else.
SPEAKER_01Like what else would she bear her testimony about?
SPEAKER_04Joseph Smith, Dad, God, Jesus, I don't know. But polygamy. Yeah, yeah. Like she's constantly telling us stories about polygamy, like telling us how beautiful this is.
SPEAKER_01And how do where does it come? Like, how why do they think that it's true?
SPEAKER_04Oh, they think, oh, they definitely believe it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they're so well, I guess it's in the Mormon doctrine. I'm thinking about the Bible. Like, there it doesn't talk about it in the Bible.
SPEAKER_04But Mormons, you know, they refer to any like Abraham having a couple wives or anything like that in the Bible, and they're like, Oh yeah, this is yeah, but that that had nothing to do with God commanding it. In their minds, it does. How? Does Abraham to them, Abraham and those other prophets were prophets, and God was telling them what to do, and that's one of the things he told them to do.
SPEAKER_01Did he tell does it say that in the Bible?
SPEAKER_04Oh, I can't remember.
SPEAKER_01God says Abraham go take a second wife.
SPEAKER_04I I would get embarrassed. I'm you're gonna embarrass me for the lack of my knowledge right now. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01You don't have it memorized, it's not ingrained in there still.
SPEAKER_04You know, I don't know that yeah, it doesn't. Oh, I don't think it says in the Bible that God told Abraham to go otherwise.
SPEAKER_01I don't think it does say anywhere in the Bible. So I think that they are talking about what the Book of Mormon teaches, although the wife gives the new wife to the husband, right? They call it the law of Sarah. So the the, you know, if a man has three wives, whatever wife he married last, she's there when he marries the next one, and she places her hands into the husband's hands. So I think, and I don't know the Bible well either. I think Sarah gave her husband another wife for some reason. I don't know. Somebody can correct me in the comments, but yeah, it is called the law of Sarah.
SPEAKER_04Unless you're like dad, you don't do that if you're dad.
SPEAKER_01Oh, you don't no, no, no, no, no, you just go marry him. You no permission from anybody else? No, did he in the beginning? No, before he became the prophet, he had a family, right?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but his father just his fat I mean, he got that from his father, really. Like his father called him and say, We're marrying you to somebody else.
SPEAKER_01So you know, I cannot imagine. I don't know how the people went with it. I don't know. I just I do.
SPEAKER_04Do you I mean think of my dad's wife that was always bearing her testimony to us about polygamy? I'm wondering how we're not still there.
SPEAKER_01When we're done, I need to know what wife that was.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, when when I think about it now, it's like a whole mind fuck. Like I think back then listening to her bear her testimony about polygamy and stuff, you know, every month. And then now I'm like, fuck. I at that time I was like, what is your problem? You think I'm doubting polygamy or something? I'm like, this is ridiculous.
SPEAKER_01Does she have kids?
SPEAKER_04Uh-uh.
SPEAKER_01So weird. And she's still with him.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01How many wives stayed with him?
SPEAKER_04Man, I want to say there's 50 wives still there.
SPEAKER_01Jesus. What?
SPEAKER_04Or more? Yeah. Wow.
SPEAKER_01In the new, where are they? North Dakota?
SPEAKER_04Some of them.
SPEAKER_01South Dakota.
SPEAKER_04Some of them do live with like their father's family, or they are sent away and doing their own thing, but they're still faithful. Some of them are tapping into my podcast to see what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_01They're listening. So do you throw out like certain things specifically for them?
SPEAKER_04I don't really think about it like that, but I guess me talking about this, you know, they're probably interesting. They're probably peak interest right there.
SPEAKER_01It it does. I look at Melanie and Corey and the amount of AUB people that listen to their podcast and the people that have reached out, and it shocks me really. So I think I personally love to see all of the kids, all of the people that are doing social media talking about this subject specifically, because certain people are going to relate to you, certain people are going to relate to me, certain people are going to relate to Melanie, right? Or Amanda. Like, so I think it's great. Like the more that we talk about it, the more people that come out and speak about their experiences and put a name to the abuse that was happening. Because we weren't, we weren't taught about abuse. You weren't taught about abuse, right? We didn't know about child protective services actually helping kids. I mean, we were taught that they were going to come take us away. We were taught to fear them and all other authority. So we were scared shitless of the police, you know, fire, even firemen, anybody that had that type of authority, terrified of. And there's so many abuses that were happening that I didn't know were abuse. I just I didn't. So I think it's really important. And I was so excited when I saw your podcast and I started watching some episodes because there's not really any men that are getting out and talking about it. Or maybe I don't know if there are more, but to see your following and then to See how many people you've talked to, and my damn, this is awesome. I'm excited to see how it goes.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Um, so do you feel like because of how you were raised, you stayed in the relationship you stayed in for as long as you did? Absolutely. And then now you're kind of in the position you are now because of that. Is that kind of how you feel?
SPEAKER_01A hundred percent.
SPEAKER_04Like you feel like that kind of set you up to be kind of uh figuring out who you are at 44, trying to understand, you know, you're single. You know, so you kind of feel like that all came from the AUB.
SPEAKER_01I was groomed, raised, trained to be a wife and a mother. And that was the most important thing. We weren't taught how to communicate at all. All of the communication I learned was passive-aggressive communication. I absolutely believe if I had been raised in a different way, I probably never would have married him. Or if I did, I would have stayed divorced the first time. I wouldn't have gone back in for another 18 years. It just wouldn't have happened. It's a long time, yeah. And I was so confused. I I think about the things I thought, and I'm just like, God, you were dumb. There's so but I didn't know, you know.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Well, it's not, it's not bad to be a wife and a mother. Right.
SPEAKER_01Right. No, I I agree. When you're sacrificing your mental, physical, emotional state to continue being a wife, that's not good. That's not healthy.
SPEAKER_04Well, you shouldn't you you shouldn't be a wife and a mother that is uh be do it be in there no matter what just because that's what you're supposed to do. Yeah. Yeah. You like identity, right? You like you like and it honestly, it's not fun to be around those kind of people.
SPEAKER_01No, it's not.
SPEAKER_04Even even for the man, even for a man. Yeah. Like having somebody that fucking gives a shit about something and isn't just doing whatever they're fucking told all the time. Like, oh, you like this, you like that, that's cool. Okay. And you're not like some boring do whatever. Like, none of all every one of dad's wives were the same fucking person.
SPEAKER_01All the same person, they're all all came from the same cookie cutter.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And really, they're all so much different, but they don't know that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, they don't. They're all trained to be the same way and told to be the same way, and think the same way and believe the same way. And yet each one of them has probably an amazing personality. If they got away from it, they could figure that out.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know, their personality would come out, they'd start to see.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think probably half of them have an amazing personality.
SPEAKER_01And the other half, they're it's too late for them, or yeah.
SPEAKER_03Okay. What does that mean?
SPEAKER_01No, no. If I just wonder, is it if it's true?
SPEAKER_04So you just wish you would have gone through life with more of an identity, mostly. Is that the main thing? You wish you would have dated somebody else.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I wish I would have had the ability to be a teenager. I believe wholeheartedly that teenagers do things a certain way, they behave a certain way in order to shape their personality. And dating teaches you what you want and what you don't want. So if you're not dating, then you don't know. You don't know what you want. You don't know because you're not, you know, you've it's so limited. So I'm not saying that people need to go out and just date and date and date and date, but teenagers are they're learning to set boundaries, they're learning their personalities, they're learning what things that they like as a person and what things that they like as, you know, their potential partners will be. And they learn how to work through breakup. You know, if you don't even learn that, then can you imagine how scary it is to think about doing that? If you've never broken up with anyone before, you've never had your heart broken before. Like that's damaging. I mean, it's detrimental to think like you're with one person for that long, and then things end. Like, who are you? And how do you function through that? It's really hard. And I didn't have an education. Like, there wasn't school wasn't important. So, and I wasn't really gonna need it, you know. I wasn't pushed to go to college or to figure out what I wanted to do as an adult. And so now I'm like, do I go to school? Do you know what do I want to do? What career do I want to pick? Where do I? I don't know, you know, so there's a lot that I'm learning. And I have two kids, and I'm dealing with an ex-husband, and I have three adult children still, and my life is full and busy, and my 10-year-old has a really rare autoimmune disease, and her care alone is has been a full-time job, and I take care of a hundred percent of that. So I wish that I would have gotten an education when I was a child, and I should have gotten an education. And I think being educated also helps you learn who you are and what things you like.
SPEAKER_04So yeah. I agree, education's important. Um so how many uh uh sexual partners do you think it's fine for some or do you think it's fine for somebody to have like for the people that only have ever had one sexual partner, like they got married, and do you think that's a good way to live life? And I know that's not probably not the easiest question, but like I wouldn't necessarily advise it. You think two?
SPEAKER_01I think as as many as as many as you want, I don't know, as many as it takes. Like, I'm not judging that at all. I think I was very committed to my ex-husband because he was the only my only sexual partner, and there were definitely some energetic strings that had to be cut in order to move past that. I don't I mean, I can't say that in every situation it's bad. I think if a couple gets married and they have a good life and a good relationship, and they each are two individual people and they've only been each other's partners, like that's cool.
SPEAKER_04You know, I don't well I I wonder if some of the problems with modern dating is that people have so many sexual partners that they don't end up ever bonding with somebody.
SPEAKER_01Right, right, right. And when you start having sex, that's generally when the get to know each other stuff ends, right? You're dating and you're talking and you're, you know, going out doing things. Is it really though? I mean, to an extent, I think it is. You know, you I do think that you are focused on getting to know each other a lot more, and then you sleep together and the relationship a lot of times becomes about that. I don't think that's always the case, though. I don't think like I'm not saying that you should wait till you're married to have sex. I think it's different for everyone, and I don't think that it's anyone else's fucking business. I don't think that God says you should have one, five, ten, a hundred partners. I think that's a personal preference. And like you're gonna do what you want to do, what works best for you, right?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, well, I don't think it has anything to do with God. I just think it has more to do with our biology. Yeah, yeah, you know, and so sometimes I wonder if people are so disconnected because they're just you know, they sleep with a hundred people, then they don't know who loves them. Yeah, no fucking idea.
SPEAKER_01Well, a lot of people use sex as a form of love. They think that that type of intimacy is love, right? They think that that's that's what's feeling the hole inside their heart when most of the time they just don't know who they are, they don't know what they want. There's a lot that they need to work through.
SPEAKER_04So but then I think of uh some people I know that have got married young or only ever been with one person. I'm like, like, you only know what one dick looks like. Yeah. Like how do you you you're gonna be you're gonna be 80 and only know what one dick looks like, and maybe that's fine for you, but whatever. Like that like that's a level of uh unexploration that not very many people.
SPEAKER_01I don't think I I don't advise it. I don't think it's good. I think that you know you should date, and I like I don't necessarily think that it's a bad thing when teenagers have sex. I think they need to be educated on sex, they need to be educated on how babies are made, and we get a little bit of that in the school system, but not nearly as much as we should. I also think that every child, every school system should be teaching about domestic violence and cluster B personality disorders, mental abuse, emotional abuse, coercive control, what red flags are. So that these teenagers can date safely and find a partner safely, they're not ending up in an abusive relationship because they don't know what abuse is. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Or most of the AUB pretty conservative people.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Like they they uh vote conservative and stuff, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah, that's how most CFLDS are too. So why is it that conservative people a lot of times view mental health with less um importance than other than the other people?
SPEAKER_01I I struggle with that myself. What is it about mental health that why is there a shame? Why is there a stigma around it? And it's hardcore in those societies.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and the FLDS, if you need mental health, you are fucking weird.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, right?
SPEAKER_04You're the crazy one, you are the crazy fucking weirdo.
SPEAKER_01And why is that? Why, you know, like you wouldn't tell someone who's diabetic not to take their insulin, you wouldn't tell someone with a broken arm not to go get their broken arm fixed. If your brain has a fucking chemical imbalance, go get something that will help put it in balance. It's scientifically proven, it has nothing to do with our character or spirit or lack of grit or anything, it's an actual physical condition that can be helped. And life is a lot better when it's helped. I don't understand why there's so much issue around it.
SPEAKER_04Well, when you're there, it's almost like when you when you think about leaving, for some reason that makes you need mental health.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I don't know why. So I think that's part of it. Like when you start thinking when you start doubting your rigid beliefs, it's almost like you need some mental health.
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, your whole world, everything that you have believed, all the foundation you stand on is being pulled out from underneath you.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, but I think that's one of the reasons why they are so against it is because you really don't need it until you start doubting your faith. Because you have stability here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. That's true. You are very stable in your beliefs. I have heard repeatedly throughout my entire adult life that not to go to therapy because therapy causes you to get divorced.
SPEAKER_04Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_01So is it like don't go to therapy because you'll leave the cult? You know, you'll get out of this bad situation.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, that's kind of how it is.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So it's not that a therapist is telling you this is bad and this is what you should do. It's that you're starting to learn to think for yourself, figuring out who you are and having more strength in that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think it's important. But I do wonder, like, for me, I I sometimes wonder if too much in introspection is like somewhat bad because um it can cause a lot of problems.
SPEAKER_01Do you do you mean for you personally? Like thinking too much about yourself, what how what you think is real? What what do you mean by that?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I just saying like I think it can bring about emotional problems that you otherwise wouldn't have if you were just like focused on other things.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but are is it that those emotional problems aren't there? Or is it that like they're hidden in the back and they're gonna come out someday? But you're like, I'm gonna find them now, yeah, so that I can spend the rest of my life focused on other things.
SPEAKER_04I think you have a good point, but I think sometimes it's good to just not think about things.
SPEAKER_01I agree with that wholeheartedly. There are times where I think you have to shelf that shit and go out and have some fun, go live your life, you know. Do sometimes you have to take a break from it. Sometimes it is too hard to carry, it gets too heavy. And so I don't think that it's healthy to do that all the time, yeah, consistently. I agree with you on that.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Um, well, what I'm thinking is we wrap this one up, then we record one for yours.
SPEAKER_01Cool.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Uh do you have anything you want to say to my audience? Uh, you need to tell them. So we're gonna go do a a podcast on on uh her channel.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Uh do you guys have or do you want to tell everybody where your channel is and also just tell my audience anything you want them to know or tell them how cool you are and yeah. Okay. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01So I my channel is called Good Enough 444. Like I said, it's small. I've got like 2,000 subscribers. So if you're if you're well, Melanie's is notes to self 444.
SPEAKER_04Oh, okay. Yeah, I was gonna say.
SPEAKER_01I'm imitating her a little bit. I'm piggybacking off of her.
SPEAKER_04Okay. So you guys like tours.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's there's some there's something to be in your 40s. Something, right? Like this is gonna be my year, damn it. I'm 44. I don't know if it's just that I'm gonna have finally have some fun or what's gonna happen, but something good's happening this year. So if you want to come over and listen to some of my content, I've had my podcast since August. And then I had severe mental health issues from January to May. So I took a break. Like I didn't really post any content, didn't do a lot for that four months, but I'm back now, and I think most all of us polygamous kids have PTSD, and sometimes it flares and sometimes it's calm and quiet. And for me, I had it flare big time the last couple of months.
SPEAKER_04And and what what does that feel like? Like when you say it you have to like stop recording? Like what what does it feel like? Like what why why is that?
SPEAKER_01I get like physically sick, and when you go into fight, flight, or freeze, I go into freeze, and I like shut down. Like I cannot physically get myself to do almost anything. And I was exhausted all of the time. So I had I grew up without a safe life. Life wasn't safe. My house wasn't safe, my dad wasn't safe, there was nothing safe. And then I think I had a false sense of security while I was married that I was safe and I wasn't. And now I'm figuring out how to, you know, be safe on my own. And I've and I love it. Like life is hard. I'll take this hard every day, any day over that hard. Like I'll never go back to that hard. But I had renters in my basement. They brought cockroaches into my house. I fought those all of last year. I finally had to evict them in order to get rid of the cockroaches. My basement was my primary source of income. And now it's ruined. So there was like $40,000 in damage to the basement. So I'm hustling. Like I evict them the middle of November. So I'm hustling to get things done, to clean it up, be able to get back to using it and to get rid of these cockroaches, right? Like I can't bring anybody new into the situation until I know my house, like I'm a fucking polygamous kid and I never saw a cockroach. Like I didn't ever deal with that. So that was something new to me, and it was one of the worst things I've ever experienced. Honestly, I'm so traumatized by it. But I got it to the point where I was almost finished with the basement. Like walls repainted, everything's cleaned up, new flooring's about to go in. My fucking washing machine breaks and floods half of my basement, half my upstairs and half my basement. So my body was like, okay, you're not safe. And there was like I didn't have a choice. It wasn't, I couldn't just decide that everything was okay. So I quit being able to function. I had to, I have um a psychologist that I that I see, psychiatrist, and I had to get appointments with him and work with him. I had to get on some medication. I evicted them and immediately started taking an antidepressant called Lexapro because I knew like I was in for it. This was gonna be damn hard. I don't have any resources. I spent 25 years helping a man grow his career. Right? My ex-husband makes over $200,000 a year. I make $20,000 a year, but I still live in the marital home for now. So it's my responsibility. And now I have this entire mess to clean up. And I'm already struggling to figure out so many other things in life. So when it flooded and things just thing, I just got I was too overwhelmed. I couldn't, I couldn't function any more than I had to. I have to get up and take my kids to school, right? I have to make dinner. I have to go to work. Like I'm only doing the things that I have to do during this time period where I'm getting back to who I am and what I need. So I my psychiatrist put me on Will Butrin also. And I've heard Will Butrin's good for so many things. People take it to stop smoking, they take it for all kinds of things. And that worked for me. That that was like, okay, that was what my body needed. So it, you know, it took like eight weeks to kind of get there, but I I feel like I'm finally there. And I know I've I've had PTSD for 20 years. So, but it I've only this is only the second time that I've had it flare to the point that I couldn't really function, can't eat, sometimes have a hard time sleeping.
SPEAKER_04Would you rather be a polygamist or live in a house with cockroaches? Damn it, Jayden.
SPEAKER_01That's not fair. I'd take the house with cockroaches. I could not do it. I just couldn't do it.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Because you can fight the cockroaches, like, you know.
SPEAKER_04You could kill the other wife.
SPEAKER_01True. True. Yeah. But you see all the murder podcasts, like, who gets away with that shit anymore? Nobody does.
SPEAKER_04We don't hear about them.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you don't hear about them.
SPEAKER_01No, I think that that's kind of true for the Kingstons. Maybe some of the FLDS. But the AUB is way too far ingrained into local society. You can't just disappear someone.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01It won't work.
SPEAKER_04Valid. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's jump over and do one on your channel.
SPEAKER_01Awesome.
SPEAKER_04Uh say your channel name again.
SPEAKER_01Good enough 444. And I will send you a link to it.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Okay. Good enough 444.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I actually do a lot of sister wives content. So I I talk a lot about them and compare stories, you know, from my life to what I see and what I think is happening with their family and stuff. So, you know, if your viewers pop over there, there's they're gonna see a lot of Sister Wives content because that season ended as I was not doing my channel. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So okay. Sounds good. Cool. Thanks everybody. We'll see you guys next time. Thanks for coming in. Like and subscribe. We'll see you next time. Peace out.