Perhaps the most surprising aspect of Josh Duggar's arrest late last month was how unsurprising it really was.
The father of six confessed to a pornography addiction in 2015 after it came out that he:
- Molested five little girls when he was a teenager, including two of his own sisters.
- Cheated on his wife with total strangers he had met through a website that specializes in adultery.
At the time, in separate statements, Josh referred to himself as a sinner and a hypocrite, prior to checking into rehab.
Therefore, as gross as the charges are, can anyone really be shocked that Josh was taken into custody on April 28 for allegedly possessing material of minors as young as 18 months old?
We know that Anna Duggar couldn't have been all that blown away because sources have indicated she had software installled on her husband's computer that would alert her if he downloaded certain, inappropriate photos or videos.
However, Josh was reportedly able to circumvent this program.
This all begs the pertinent question...
... WHY IS ANNA DUGGAR STILL WITH JOSH DUGGAR?
As we've long argued, Anna is victim of an abusive, cult-like family.
We don't believe she has any real say in her future, despite how it may appear on the surface to those who aren't intimately familar with the Duggar and what they've set up.
A blogger named Vyckie Garrison, however, was part of the fundamentalist Quiverfull cult, a group that believes in the "value of children" and "permanence of marriage."
She spoke to Salon a few days ago and spoke from disturbing experience about what Anna is very likely going through.
"There was a lot of talk of women being submissive and anti-birth control or, as we put it, 'radically pro-life,'" Garrison explained to Salon of the Christian women she met who viewed motherhood as a mission field.
"I had health complications that made [getting pregnant] a life-threatening condition.
"But it's really pushed on the moms that you should be like Jesus and you are willing to sacrifice whatever it takes."
Translation?
Quiverfull, just like the Duggars, hammered one the point to all females that their only lot in life was to bear children. At all costs.
They're brain-washed to believe this is their singular, high calling.
"The women would tell me, 'Missionaries risk their lives every day and they do it because it's their calling,'" she said.
"'When they get to heaven, they'll get their martyr's crown.' There's a huge martyr's mentality."
A huge martyr's mentality.
This, tragically, probably sums up what Anna has been told by Jim Bob Duggar.
She's being tested by God, she's being faced with obstacle after obstacle and her goal must be to keep popping out kids in the face of them.
Hence why she's now pregnant with baby number-seven... despite her family having known that Josh was under investigation since November 2019.
In a blog post that she wrote before becoming pregnant with her seventh child, Garrison said:
"Whether a couple has a dozen children or only one, it is important to welcome them in the same spirit in which we would receive the Lord Jesus Himself."
Garrison said her then-husband became abusive.
She was breaking down physically and emotionally, yet she tried to push through.
"But I had that martyr's mentality; I was going to do everything to ensure this home for my kids," Garrison said in this piece, adding:
"But I looked at my kids and they were not thriving. I sucked at homeschooling and they were not happy."
Eventually, Garrison worked up the courage to flee to Kansas City... file for divorce... and retain custody of her kids.
"The women, they get into it for the kids," she continues. "But that's also why they get out."
Will Anna ever be able to do the same?
She faces the challenge of being part of an especially rich and famous family, one that, we'd have to imagine, has threatened her often with legal action and/or financial recourse.
It won't be easy.
And it will require one thing in particular, Garrison says.
"The situation she is in is just impossible," says the former cult member.
"The only way she can save herself and her children -- she would just have to give up her idea of her faith."
This may sound simple to some.
But think about it:
Aside from fending off Jim Bob and company (she is literally living in a warehouse his property, rememeber, with six young kids and another on the way), Anna must talk herself out of a religion that she's made into her life for well over a decade now.
This is the belief system on which she's based her life.
So, before you go and judge her too harshly, try to think about what that must be like.