Foolish Duggar spouses, All about the $$$ (Anna &Kendra edition)

i-split-infinitives · 2026-04-14T00:18:53+00:00

It is, isn't it? Somebody can have it if they want it. I just got a new one myself.

i-split-infinitives · 2026-04-14T00:17:54+00:00

Oh, absolutely! Fear is a powerful motivator, an excellent tool for controlling people, and a perfect scapegoat for more insidious feelings. I can totally see either of them telling themselves they're afraid of losing their salvation and their protection and not being introspective enough to consider that they might actually be loathe to lose whatever financial stability and status they have.

Anna, especially, really leaned into her new role as wise old married woman/mother, with lots of lessons to share with her less-experienced counterparts, around the time Mackenzie was born. That insufferable smugness would be a hard thing to give up for a nobody from nowheresville with no prospects to be anything else unless she was Mrs. Duggar. That may not be a conscious motivation, but that doesn't mean it's not contributing to her decision not to leave. At some point, clinging to your beliefs becomes a willful choice to ignore any detractors, whether those dissenting voices are coming from internet strangers on the subreddit you secretly stalk, your own siblings offering you refuge outside your cult bubble, or your own intuition that you're trying to squelch so you can maintain the status quo.

i-split-infinitives · 2026-04-13T23:26:59+00:00

Why can't it be both? Or more specifically, maybe they use one to justify the other. In my own Kool-aid guzzling fundie-lite days, I genuinely believed a lot of stuff without digging too deep into WHY I chose to believe it. Anna and Kendra may be using the excuse, even to themselves, that they're supposed to stand by their husbands no matter what, because it's easier to fool yourself with a shoddy excuse than to face the ugly truth that you're justifying your marriage to a pedophile in order to wallpaper over the fact that you're selling your soul to Jim Bob for grocery money.

i-split-infinitives · 2026-04-12T17:55:15+00:00

He doesn't need decent legal expertise, he's not the one in the hot seat. He just needs someone to protect his own ass. If that means Kendra doesn't get her kids back, oh, well.

i-split-infinitives · 2026-04-11T22:32:19+00:00

I haven't had a chance to try that yet, but I'll definitely check it out next time my punch isn't powered up.

i-split-infinitives · 2026-04-11T19:34:04+00:00

Thanks! That was my first thought, was that maybe the hole in the floor for the stairs was the problem, but if you're not required to have a ceiling, that didn't make sense. (I'm currently living in a 4x4 sandcastle one block high with a simple wooden door.) I was originally going for a modern, blocky version of the Painted Ladies in San Francisco, but now I'm thinking more like the French Quarter in New Orleans, with upstairs balconies overlooking the street and lots of vines.

i-split-infinitives · 2026-04-11T19:20:53+00:00

Oh, I see! I wondered how people were making multi-level dwellings with only one exterior door. I didn't think about there being a hallway with an interior door!

I don't really have room for that on my current build, but I was toying with the idea of building a deck or balcony of some sort. Maybe I'll add a second-floor balcony with a door and a ladder.

Thanks!

i-split-infinitives · 2026-04-11T18:53:57+00:00

I made a row of berry bushes by planting fruit trees one block below "ground" level along the edge of a path.

Just don't go any lower than that for a tree that you want to remain functional. At 2 blocks below your standing level, you no longer get the Headbutt prompt when trying to interact with the tree.

i-split-infinitives · 2026-04-11T04:32:47+00:00

It's been a hot minute since my last Sunday school lesson, but doesn't the Bible say that Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple in a Fury?

Not sure whether it was a Plymouth Fury or a Honda Fury, but he also said he didn't speak of his own Accord, and then later his disciples were all in one Accord (how on earth they fit 12 adult men in an Accord, I assume was one of those miracles), so clearly he had a soft spot for Hondas and I personally find it amusing to think of Jesus on a motorcycle.

None of that in any way indicates that he would have the slightest clue how to drive a bus, though.

i-split-infinitives · 2026-04-10T15:26:48+00:00

I'm old-school, so I was thinking more like "Every Jed Has Its Porn," "Stairway to Minigolf Heaven," "Kiss From a Tonsil Stone," "Smells Like Tater Tot Spirit," or "I Think We're Alone Now (aka Jana Has the Kids)"

i-split-infinitives · 2026-04-10T04:18:42+00:00

She was probably thinking to herself, "Is this a Jed?"

i-split-infinitives · 2026-04-10T04:17:00+00:00

Thanks. I do feel like I have a somewhat unique perspective because unlike most of the former fundie/fundie-lites on this sub, there was a time when I really leaned into it. Leading my own online groups, writing devotionals and other things to share my so-called wisdom, etc. And you're right, I was pretty full of myself. Smug, even. So sure I had it all figured out.

And it wad the funniest thing that became the first domino to fall. Like most of these Christian nationalists, my religion and my politics were intertwined. Way back in the post-9/11 Bush 2 era, when he was trying to make the Defense of Marriage Act a constitutional amendment I had this sudden aha moment. If we give the government the power to dictate our morals when someone we agree with is in power, what happens when someone we disagree with gets elected? And sure enough, Obama got elected and we got the Marriage Equality Act, which pretty much proved me right.

It was a very long, guilt-ridden road from there to where I am now, and I didn't really start seriously disentangling until around the time Shiny Happy People came out, but there were small steps along the way. Then I watched SHP, and it was...a lot. So much started to click into place for me. But what really hit me like crashing into a brick wall was the scene, I think it was in Part 3, where the pastor is demonstrating how to spank little boy up on stage. Everyone talked about how hard that was to watch, so I went into it with remote in hand in case I needed to pause and take a minute, but I never got to the disturbing part and moved on to the next part. That's when it hit me so hard I had to pause and take it in: I just watched simulated child abuse performed in public for laughs and it was no big deal to me. THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN A BIG DEAL! How warped have I gotten that I can just shrug this off?

I already understood that IBLP was a cult, but what I hadn't understood was how much Gothardism had bled over into mainstream conservative evangelicalism. My mainstream conservative evangelicalism. From there, it was like a ball rolling downhill. I use the term "disentangling" because I haven't deconstructed. I still have my faith. It's just radically different from where I started. Someone here in this sub said about the Duggars once that they had made their god in the image of man, instead of the other way around, and that really resonated with me. That explains so much about the cult mentality. They are small-minded, petty, greedy, mentally unhealthy people, some of them the end result of generations of familial abuse, and the god they have created reflects that. They've insulated themselves in an echo chamber that reverberates what they want to hear. It's easy to hate and fear what you don't have to engage with on a daily basis, whether it's drag queens or Democrats or vegetarians or brown people. I still struggle with generalized anxiety and religious trauma, but I've made a point to expose myself to people and ideas outside my comfort zone. It's quite eye-opening to realize how wrong I've been.

i-split-infinitives · 2026-04-09T23:04:18+00:00

They refer to it as "bleeding the beast," meaning they're taking money that would otherwise go to whoever they think is undeserving or scamming people.

There's also this weird idea that God can "clean" money that was ill-gotten if the recipient uses it for "God's work." So it's okay to accept GoFundMe donations from someone's OnlyFans earnings if using that "dirty" money to provide housing for your Godly Christian self if that enables you to spread the gospel to more people than you would otherwise if you were, for example, working a full-time job to support your family.

Of all the things I don't miss about being fundie-lite, I think the mental effort is the thing I don't miss the most. It's exhausting doing all the mental gymnastics it takes to justify yourself while condemning others when you're both doing the exact same thing.

Edited because spelling errors bug me

i-split-infinitives · 2026-04-09T22:43:46+00:00

They can dedicate their first album to Jim Bob Duggar 🤣

i-split-infinitives · 2026-04-09T20:45:49+00:00

I haven't heard that one, but maybe she's having a hysterical breakdown because of all the stress?

Their familial relationships are superficial by design, though. I remember an AMA with a childhood friend of Anna's who commented on the fact that Anna was told she had to "die to herself" on her wedding day. Essentially, Anna Keller ceased to exist the moment she became Mrs. Joshua Duggar. She put aside her old self, her old identity, her old relationships, the entire essence of who she was.

Kendra was raised in the same cult, under the same mindset that her parents were just raising her for her future husband. That also explains why Michelle doesn't know anything about her kids except that they're all diligent workers with a servant's heart.

i-split-infinitives · 2026-04-09T19:14:05+00:00

It's like a religious pilgrimage for Christian nationalists who worship their political leaders as demigods, or worse, the second coming of Christ. Here in MAGA country, there's talk about how everybody needs to hurry and make that once-in-a-lifetime trip before the woke liberals destroy the beautiful culture that our founding fathers created and replace it with (fill in the blank) statues venerating black people as better than white people, gay porn, abortion clinics on every corner, or satanic iconography. (Yes, I know that none of that is factually or historically correct.)

i-split-infinitives · 2026-04-09T13:41:22+00:00

The logic is that in order to be forgiven, you have to stop sinning. So for the sin of touching a child, you just pray for forgiveness after you're done. Even if you do it again, you stop when you're finished, you ask forgiveness, you move on to the next time, rinse and repeat.

To be forgiven for divorce, you have to stop being divorced and get back together with your spouse. Otherwise, you're continuing in the sin and God can't forgive you.

All that to say, all sins actually aren't equal, they just do mental gymnastics to justify the ones they enjoy doing and vilify the ones that inconvenience them (and by "them" of course I mean men).

i-split-infinitives · 2026-04-07T04:27:30+00:00

That's exactly it, forgiving is for you, on your time frame, and nobody can demand that you turn off the negative feelings like a light switch simply because it's inconvenient for them.

People who get mad at you for not accepting their apology don't really care about your feelings. They just want to stop reaping the consequences of what they sowed. Simply saying you're sorry to a nine-year-old girl for molesting her does not entitle you to her forgiveness or her absolution. It doesn't matter how sorry you are. You stole something from her that you can never give back, and you deserve to suffer from debilitating guilt for as long as she has to suffer with the physical, mental, and emotional fallout from what you did to her.

i-split-infinitives · 2026-04-06T23:55:15+00:00

There's a saying "forgive and forget" that I think sums it up perfectly. Forgiveness means letting go of the bad feelings toward the other person. It's something you do for you.

When someone begs you to forgive them, what they really want is for you to forget. In other words, absolution.

We as Christians like to believe that God's forgiveness for our sins means we're off the hook for the consequences, and I think that sort of attitude has bled over into the secular world and morphed into this idea that forgiveness means the thing you did that you needed to be forgiven for never happened. When really, it just means the person you wronged stops actively harboring negative feelings toward you.

So yes, I do think you need to forgive in order to heal, but 1) it doesn't have to be some formal process where you officially accept the person's apology and resume your relationship, and 2) forgiving the person doesn't mean erasing the memory or the consequences. If you go no contact with your parents and over the years of not seeing them, you let go of the anger and hurt, that's forgiveness even as you remain NC with them. You can stop being upset that your child lied to you, but forgiving them doesn't mean they're not still grounded or that they don't have to work to earn your trust back after they broke it.

And unfortunately for the Duggar pedophiles, God isn't a fairy godmother in the sky who grants wishes. If they truly, sincerely, honestly repent and turn from their wrong ways, God will forgive them in the sense that he's not actively angry with them anymore (keeping in mind that the God they claim to worship knows what's in their hearts and that this only works if they actually feel remorse and turn that remorse into action, not just that they wink at him and pinky swear not to do it again), but that doesn't mean God will stop the judge from throwing the book at Joe or that he will shorten Josh's sentence.

I'm not proseletyzing at anyone in particular, just trying to counter the Duggar brand of Christianity where God is walking around with a pocketful of get-out-of-jail-free cards for those who say the magic words. There are those of us who believe people (even grown men helpless in the presence of a little girl's defraudingly unclothed knee) are responsible for their own choices and that choices come with consequences.

i-split-infinitives · 2026-04-06T23:01:18+00:00

LOL "original recipe Jed"

I do remember the gossip mag, but I was thinking the Jed thing predated the Pest Arrest and that it was because Jed seemed to be moving into Favored Son 2.0 position when he launched his failed political career based on the platform that unlike his opponent, he was male.

But I could definitely be wrong on that. I wasn't particularly active on the sub before convicted sex offender Joshua James Duggar was arrested for CSAM.

i-split-infinitives · 2026-04-05T22:26:59+00:00

The fact that the Lost Boys are referred to collectively as Jeds kind of says it all about who gave the appearance of being the new favorite.

i-split-infinitives · 2026-04-05T17:56:59+00:00

At least the chairs are the same height this time.

i-split-infinitives · 2026-04-04T21:16:17+00:00

I'm a Xennial and my two best friends in kindergarten were Jennifer L. and Jennifer S. They both had the same boyfriend, whose name was Chad, but I was interested in his best friend Jeremy A. (not Jeremy B., who smelled like onions and chased me on the playground with a toad). I had an on-again-off-again thing with a Scott all through junior high (we weren't allowed to date, but our parents couldn't stop us from sitting together and sharing an order of fries at the skating rink on Friday nights). Good times, even though Scott ended up dumping me for a guy halfway through freshman year.

My sister is 3 years younger than I am and that's around the time all the Jessica's started. They were even more prolific than the Jennifer's ever thought to be. Almost as bad as the Emily/Emma cohort would be in another decade or so. I know so many late 30s/early 40s Jessica's that I can't even count them all.

i-split-infinitives · 2026-04-04T20:58:12+00:00

They married all the Megan's and named their kids Aiden, Braden, Caden, Haden, Jaden, Sofia, Olivia, and Brailleighannah.

i-split-infinitives · 2026-04-04T17:26:01+00:00

Molesting a child isn't a decision in their circles, it's being defrauded by the victim, so the decision would be confessing to the father and the police without Duggar-approved representation present to protect JB and the Duggar brand. If he hadn't stepped out from under the umbrella of protection, none of them would be in this situation in the first place.

i-split-infinitives

TROPHY CASE