Find Your Child A Mate

[Nope]

People think that Muslims are so much worse than Christian fundamentalists. I don't know if I can agree. Let me see if I can compare my situation to your wife's friend.

I wasn't actually in an arranged marriage per say, no one cared about the 2 families joining. I was 16 when a 25 year old youth pastor slowly gently took my virginity in dark church during a teenage lock-in. I kept begging him to stop, but I didn't fight him. I was crying and saying it was wrong, but I didn't fight him. He confessed our sin to my parents and they insisted on marriage.

1) Did they take my happiness into account- they thought that securing my eternal soul was more important than my happiness on earth. They assured me that if I was a faithful wife, god would teach me to be happy in my marriage.
2) Did they encourage blind submissiveness? Yes, not only did I show my parents bruises, but I lost a pregnancy after a particularly harsh beating, and ultimately left my ex after he stabbed me when I was pregnant with our youngest child. I actually very timidly (I was fucking terrified), asked in a meeting with my ex and a marriage counselor (read as church elder posing as a marriage counselor) what I should do if I felt like my husband was raping me (he definitely was but I didn't want to be accusatory). He told me I should do whatever it takes to help my husband avoid adultery and pornography and that it was a shame that I would complain about my duties as a wife when my husband took such good care of me.
3)repercussions after divorce? I eventually had to run away and cut off all contact with everyone I knew because my family wouldn't stop trying to make me get back with my exhusband. They would go as far as threatening and black mailing me.

In America we are trained to believe that Islam is worse than Christianity at any and all levels. Muslims are more in the open and perhaps there are more of them, but Christian fundamentalism is pretty fucked up too. People try to turn a blind eye to it because it's hard to look at and we don't think it's our place to intervene. I disagree. What these people do to their children is wrong and it shouldn't be allowed. Not in any country or under any religious mask.

Holy fuck! You got stabbed. Your ex should be in prison for a long fucking time. Mad prompts on rebuilding your life and happiness. I've never suspected you went through something this horrible.

And raped. The people who should have been most outraged, next to you, at your treatment should have been your parents. I can't help but imagine my daughters in your place and it makes me angry for you. It is a form of betrayal when parents don't protect their children.

I wish I could hug you, not that it makes anything better, I guess.