Evangelical Therapy, Part 10 - The Virgin Bride
A serialized memoir about my former life as an Evangelical.
Somehow, things barreled out of control when Drew and I and the girls got home from Seattle.
I continued with my teacher certification classes where I’d met Jeremy, but I avoided talking to him or even making eye contact. He grinned at me once or twice, as if we shared a secret, and I tried with great difficulty (and only partial success), not to respond. Luckily, the fall quarter was almost over, and I assumed after that, I wouldn’t have to go through the weird discomfort of seeing him twice a week.
And I still couldn’t force myself to have sex with Drew on any regular basis. I’d managed it a couple times after my confession about Jeremy, trying to make up for my betrayal, but what he’d said to me at the Space Needle—that we should pretend to like each other for the photo our daughter took—had struck a nerve. In the moment, I had laughed, but thinking about it after, it seemed a passive-aggressive way to communicate his anger at me about Jeremy.
He didn’t come home from work some nights until eight o’clock, and then one Thursday night, two weeks after we got back from Seattle, he didn’t come home at all. I called his office and finally went to bed, but by eleven p.m., I was tossing and turning, my legs tangled in the sheets, wondering where in the world he was. I tried to call him again, but no one answered.
The only other time this had happened had been years before when he worked briefly as a law clerk for a judge, and under pressure from some deadline, had stayed hours late in the office, he said, getting the work done. Thinking about that now, I wondered why I had accepted his explanation so easily.
After all, there had been those letters that had come in the mail, not long after we married, from a young woman he’d apparently “had lunch” with numerous times while he was in Seattle (and I was still in college in Nampa), who seemed very interested in communicating with him and reminding him of the fun they’d had, plus there was “Molly.”
Drew was not a virgin when we got married, unlike me, and Molly lived in my mind like a ghost. As a senior in high school, he’d had sex with her—she was one year older. He’d felt bad afterwards and had called her up on the phone and asked her to marry him, to absolve himself of the shame he felt, but for some reason she’d had the sense to say no.
I’d only seen one picture of Molly, in Drew’s high school yearbook. He’d produced it when I’d visited him at his house in Wenatchee, before we were married, to show me pictures of himself, and at some point, I’d searched through the yearbook again to get a glimpse of her.
In evangelical culture in which the ideal and goal was to have only one sex partner for life, her presence in the world felt like an important matter to me. I was jealous of her before I even saw her picture and then afterwards more so when I saw how pretty she was, her straight, even white teeth, her flip of dark hair. She was wearing mascara and a bit of lipstick, an amount of make-up no one had given me permission to use, and with which I didn’t feel free to experiment.
I felt like I had been Drew’s second choice, and he didn’t disabuse me of that notion. My insecure take was that Molly had refused him, so he ended up with me instead.
Finally, at two a.m., when I’d been awake for hours, and starting to wonder if he’d been in a car accident, the front door opened. I sat up in bed as he came up the stairs. “Where have you been? I tried to call you.”
He got undressed and crawled in beside me. “I told you. We have a partner’s meeting tomorrow. We had to get stuff done.”
“Who?”
“Me and Richard. And Shelby stayed to help.”
A secretary. He occasionally seemed stressed over making sure he had a certain number of billable hours, whatever that meant, but he had barely mentioned a meeting he had to prepare for, at least I didn’t remember it. “You didn’t say anything about staying this late.”
“Sorry. We were just working. And Liz brought us dinner.”
“She did?” My heart was racing. Now l felt excluded, as if I’d been purposefully left out. Was this payback in some way for what happened with Jeremy? I had a hard time judging whether I was being paranoid or was seeing some truth. Finally, I looked at him in the darkness. “I have an appointment on Monday. With Dr. Gillam. I want you to come with me.”
We’d had discussions before about Drew’s lack of support for my medical situations and all I could think in this moment was that I wanted someone else to bear witness to whatever was going on here. I would tell the whole story, I decided. I’d describe what happened with Jeremy, and all the misery I’d been feeling for the last three years. Or longer. I wanted Drew to sit there and listen to me tell every word.
“Will you? You’ll have to come home from work early that day. It’s at four. I’ll ask my parents to stay with the girls.” As hypocritical as it seemed, after what had gone on between me and Jeremy, I was panicked by this new turn of events. I had no idea where Drew had been half the night. And there was no way I was calling up Liz, who I barely knew, to ask what time Richard had come home from work. Our situation felt like it was disintegrating in some way I couldn’t control. “We need to figure out what to do,” I said. “We need to fix things.”
But Drew was already asleep.
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Drew and I had gotten married in June, one week after I graduated from college, and moved into a small place we’d rented two blocks from my childhood home. I was twenty, and wore a white lace Gunne Sax dress with pearl buttons up the back I’d found for $59.99 at The Bon Marche in Karcher Mall.
I had a fingertip lace veil and a small white Bible with my name and Drew’s engraved on it in gold. The bridesmaids’ dresses had been sewed by an older lady who lived down the street. I’d learned to sew on my grandmother’s treadle machine at age ten, a craft I took pleasure in (I’d had fun making matching clothes with a girl who lived across the street in sixth grade), and sewed various garments for myself all through high school, but we sometimes turned to “Mrs. Handley” with special projects, and I didn’t want the stress of sewing dresses for my own wedding.
On the reception table, besides our many-layered cake, we had Hershey’s kisses, a large box of which the Hershey Company had sent me from Pennsylvania for free when I wrote them a letter asking where I could get pastel-wrapped ones in the month of June. (Customer service was different then.)
But probably the most significant part of my memories of our wedding was that I’d come down with both strep and mono several days beforehand. This should have been a sign to me that I was conflicted and stressed, and that none of this was a good idea (marrying Drew), but sanctuary reservations for weddings at our church were made months, even a year ahead, and at that point, I couldn’t imagine finding another venue a few weeks in the future. (One of my friends had gotten married the day after graduating from college, in her back yard, but no one I knew had a yard that could accommodate a hundred people.)
There seemed to be nothing to do except power forward. I almost fainted beforehand, a black sparkling curtain filling my vision as I gripped the counter inside the ladies dressing room in the church basement, which is why Drew and I ended up sitting on a lace-covered piano bench during the ceremony. People in attendance thought we were innovative, devising this way to feel more relaxed, but the truth was I had a fever and felt wretched. I’m not sure what would have happened if the church wedding coordinator, “Annette,” hadn’t come up with the idea of the bench.
As I waited with my father at the back of the church so he could walk me down the aisle and give me into Drew’s possession, he seemed nervous himself or maybe even morose. This felt like an occasion for some kind of meaningful exchange of words, but he and I did not always have a free flow of conversation. He had been a supremely kind, honest, devoted father, whom everyone loved and respected, but with his important work and PhD from Harvard, he seemed a bit removed, emotionally, orbiting our family like a brilliant and distant star. He may have patted my knee—that would have been like him. My oldest sister, Gail, who was home from missionary work with her husband and two little girls, cried throughout my ceremony, maybe having a vision of my future.
I was still feverish and sick on our honeymoon at a lake in Oregon but felt compelled to proceed with what we were clearly mandated to do on our wedding night, so in the mossy-smelling, cold bathroom of our cabin, I fumbled with my diaphragm, trying to insert it correctly, put on some pink cotton pajamas (a little see-through) then, shivering and embarrassed, climbed into bed and pulled up the covers.
Drew didn’t seem to be worried that he’d catch my illness and proceeded to strip off his shorts. He was already erect, and I clapped my hand over my mouth. Boys had all that in their pants? All the high school boys I’d ever known, my father? I felt like I’d viewed a strange, hidden deformity, gross yet mesmerizing, and l hardly knew what to think.
When he tried to enter me it hurt, and inexperienced, know-nothing virgin that I was, I was scared, and besides, I didn’t feel well, and pretty soon, he gave up. Four weeks later, when we finally managed to do it, I felt almost giddy with euphoria, like I’d experienced the mystery of becoming one flesh, the way Biblical marriage had been described in church. Or maybe it was just relief that I’d done what I was supposed to.
But afterwards, I bled more than seemed right, and when I was still bleeding the following day, I called my mom and had a brief, awkward conversation with her. When she didn’t seem to know, either, whether what was happening was normal, we decided I should go to the doctor.
I wanted to see someone right away. Dr. “Klein,” in a clinic on the north side of Nampa, was reputed to be a thoughtful physician, and had appointments available. After my exam, he pronounced I was fine, then proceeded to give me a lecture.
“This part of your body—it’s just flesh—skin. There’s nothing mysterious about it. It’s like any other part of your body.” He stood back a few feet from me, his arms crossed.
Reflecting now, I can imagine he was trying to reframe the narrative on this topic in a small conservative town where a girl being transferred almost like property from her father to her husband was still the norm, and where conversations about our bodies were not, but in the moment, I felt humiliated and wished I hadn’t come at all.
To be truthful, he seemed embarrassed too, a little irritated to be having this conversation, which did nothing to alleviate my discomfort or my feeling that this was not a subject that could be spoken about freely.
He was a family doctor, and maybe he wasn’t used to performing exams on new brides. But he was the resource I had, and although I was reassured to know I was okay physically, my feeling that this was all shameful and should be kept secret was only reinforced. His demeanor, his red-faced tension, spoke much more clearly than his words at communicating the truth.
+++
After returning from our honeymoon early since I was sick, I spent most of that first summer taking long naps in our dim basement apartment, trying to recover from my illness and adjust to married life, getting dressed most days only in time to fix dinner before Drew got home from work.
But on the morning of July 29th, I got up early to watch another 20-year-old woman get married—me and 750 million other people—plus the thousands who were present in person in London—as Diana Spencer married Prince Charles.
I was transfixed, sitting on the floor a few feet from our 12-inch TV, as her carriage rolled up in front of St. Paul’s, and got a glimpse of her face covered by her frothy white veil. The crowd erupted in cheers as she emerged in her fairy-tale dress with its twenty-five-foot train. That dress! Has there ever been another like it? Still, the most beautiful dress in the world couldn’t upstage her eyes peeking out from under her sweep of blond bangs along with her famous shy smile. Though she was as tall as Prince Charles, her lifted hand looked delicate as she turned back to wave, and my heart caught in my throat.
Something about her seemed vulnerable, and as entranced as I was by what seemed like the most magical event in the history of weddings, tears trickled down my own cheeks as I watched. As she repeated the vows, she stumbled over Charles’ name, as if this was all more than any young woman, barely past nineteen, could handle. Nothing about her new fabulous wealthy life was anything like mine, but she seemed human, like a regular girl, coming from her job as a nursery school teacher, and I identified with her in a way I couldn’t express.
I thought she must have been gutsy, too, that there must have been a little something of the rebel in her to have the courage to leave the apartment she’d been sharing with friends, get out of a carriage in front of millions of people and walk down that very long aisle.
It wasn’t till later I’d find out about Diana’s dire difficulties with bulimia, and by then her unhappiness seemed to be in some ways mirroring my own. I thought of my own eating disorder, anorexia, which I struggled with in late high school and all through college, until I became pregnant and gave myself permission to eat for someone else (the baby, my oldest daughter).
In a documentary I watched recently, “Diana, In Her Own Words,” she says, “they (the royal family) all saw my bulimia as the cause of the problems in the marriage, not a symptom of the marriage,” and her statement struck me as an accurate reflection of my situation with Drew, my own illness, though it took me a long time to figure that out.
I wonder now why we continue to sell the idea of a wedding and marriage as the crowning moment in a woman’s life, when clearly in many evangelical circles or perhaps even most marriages (is this an exaggeration?), women struggle to feel healthy, supported, and loved, and when over and over, we see examples of the familiar and tired story of a woman who is owned and objectified and consumed until in some way, her body and mind says no more, she can’t take it anymore.
Or until she is injured or killed outright by a man who believes she is his possession, in a patriarchal world where too many still think so, too.
There are many ways to be in loving relationships that don’t have to look like that. And there are so many other events and achievements to celebrate (l recently saw a woman who made a gift registry for herself after finishing her doctoral thesis), not the least of which (for all of us) is learning to express and regulate our emotions, and learning how to be in relationship with ourselves.
+++
Drew did come to my appointment with Dr. Gillam, after I’d repeated my request the next morning. We sat in his office in two chairs, in front of his desk.
He wasn’t really set up for therapy with a couch or comfy chairs, and his large desk in between him and us communicated that he was the doctor, and we were the patients. Or that I was the patient.
He did want to hear what was going on with us, though, and as usual, had set aside an hour for our appointment.
We talked about my illness, my symptoms, the fact that I had been sleeping better, in general, and the lack of sex.
I brought up Drew’s late night homecoming and my fears about his explanation.
Dr. Gillam prodded around the way therapists do, but Drew wasn’t forthcoming with any more information.
“I told you that morning at breakfast,” he said. “Before I left for work, I mean.” Drew didn’t really eat breakfast.
I don’t know what I was hoping for. Some kind of a solution, a hopeful idea about how we could improve things, even though almost all I felt for Drew at that point was a mix of anger and numb despair.
“You could try separating for a while,” Dr. Gillam said, and my stomach fell, almost as if I were riding in an elevator. He must have noticed the distress on my face. “Just as an experiment. See how it feels to both of you. Might help you know how to go forward in some way.”
I was shocked at how casually he suggested this, as if separation and divorce were everyday choices a person could make, like going to a party or not. Getting lunch at the Red Steer or not. Buying a new dress or not.
I can’t remember the rest of the conversation, but I remember the ride home, which was mostly silent until Drew pulled into the driveway.
The tension between us was heavy, and it seemed impossible to go inside without some discussion.
The sun was shining through grey sky, a feeble ray of warmth on a November day.
“So what do you think? About what Dr. Gillam said?” Of course it was me that had to bring it up. My palms were sweating, but something in me couldn’t not speak about it. Something inside me wanted this, although I couldn’t admit that yet.
Drew tapped his thumb on the steering wheel, and I waited for him to pronounce his decision.
“I guess I’ll look for an apartment. Sublet, maybe, for a month. If that’s what you want.” He had a way of shifting his jaw when he wasn’t happy.
I was consumed with guilt as he laid the responsibility at my feet. “Maybe just while we get more counseling, so we can work things out.”
“We’re not getting a divorce.”
“No, never,” I said. “We won’t.”
One year later, when Charles and Diana separated, I wondered if she thought that, too.
It was interesting for me reading this because I have felt very very sad these past few years that Jehangeer and I never got to have a wedding before he died, but it also made me think of something Oprah once said, that she never got married because she didn't want to play the role of wife. It is really profoundly amazing to me what a huge gift you gave me in taking us out of this world as children. Thanks to your courage, I got to know what it was like to have a loving partner who saw me as an equal who preferred to choose each other every day instead of participating in a tradition based on the subjugation of women as men's property. I would have loved to have had a party to bring together our loved ones and celebrate that we found each other, but I am so profoundly grateful you set me free enough in life that I was able to find an equal partnership with someone I genuinely loved instead of feeling like I had to become a wife to someone who felt entitled to me in any way.
I continue to be stunned by the impact of your clear, honest writing and how it captures something I had never quite considered so fully before, the deadly impact of fostering naïveté. On the surface it seems harmless, perhaps even protective. But taken fully into account, as your unfolding narrative makes possible, this withholding of basic sex education and essential information for navigating adult life is functionally exposing you to the potentially devastating danger of entering adult life uninformed and lacking in a sense of agency and authority over your own body, mind, and choices. This is not a well-intentioned accident. It is a conditioned tool of patriarchal control. Damn!