Authors: Elissa Wall
“This is going to be the exact same thing all over again,” I blurted out. “All your promises, they mean nothing. Nothing has changed.”
“I’m doing it out of love,” Allen declared. Everything he did was a contradiction, and before I knew it he was playing the guilt card again. As he continued to put his hands all over me, I just froze.
“Okay, fine,” I uttered. “Get it over with.”
Had the people gathered together and anointed one of their number to be a prophet, he would have been accountable to the people; but in as much as he is called a God, he is accountable only to God.
—
BRIGHAM YOUNG
R
eturning to life in Short Creek was not easy. In the months that had passed since I went to Canada, things had become increasingly oppressive under Uncle Warren. While he’d only been officially the prophet for a short time, years of his influence had already had a huge impact. What had once been a community of industrious people who lived by the motto “Love thy neighbor as thyself” had slowly shifted to become a society of paranoid and fearful souls. Everyone was looking over his shoulder to see what his neighbor was doing, and Warren was encouraging people to report any wrongdoings. It seemed his goal was to rid the society of those he deemed unworthy and who would prevent the rest of us from being lifted up at the end of the world.
Our new prophet’s teachings became more severe and apocalyptic. “Soon the Lord is going to cleanse the people,” he warned. “And it will be revealed to the prophet those who are halfhearted, and they will be weeded out.” The mood in Short Creek continued to grow more sullen and uneasy. Life had become all about “perfection” and watching your neighbor and turning him in if deemed necessary to prove “perfect obedience.”
During a church meeting the previous February, Warren had shocked the congregation when he announced that Jethro Barlow, an FLDS member, had been expelled from Short Creek. Warren singled out Barlow as “unfaithful” and ordered him to “repent from afar.” The news was quite unexpected, since ostracizing usually occurred in private. It was something you’d hear about after the fact, usually in whispers. From what I could recall the only time an announcement like this had been made to the whole church was when it had happened to Winston Blackmore a year earlier. In my life this marked the first time that somebody had been publicly disciplined in this way, and no one knew how to react.
Jethro Barlow was the son of one of the church’s founding elders, George, and taught religious school. That Uncle Warren had deemed a son of George “unworthy” came as a total surprise to many of us. George was one of the community’s ordained patriarchs and was regularly called on to teach the people.
“He has led some young people to be unfaithful,” Warren said of the junior Barlow. “The Lord is dealing with him severely.”
The seeds of this banishment had been sown a few months earlier, when Jethro learned that he was on the “blacklist” of unworthy FLDS members that Warren had been compiling. For months Jethro had attempted to meet with Warren to find out what he had done to be placed on the list, but Warren had refused to even speak with him. Later I found out that Jethro himself didn’t even know he would be cast out that morning. He only heard the news when Warren’s helpers would not let him enter the church meeting.
I wish I could have seen back then that Jethro Barlow was merely a test case for Warren. It presented a chance for him to see how the people of Short Creek would react to such a display of absolute power. If there had been a public outcry, he might have thought twice about making such a bold move again, but no one said a word on Jethro’s behalf. We were all too afraid. It set a dangerous precedent. At this very same meeting, Warren also completely “cut off” Winston, meaning that he could no longer be a member of the FLDS. He declared there was no bishopric in Canada. The people were to look to Warren for counsel and leadership. We were now to treat Uncle Wink as an apostate. The divide that had begun to open up the previous summer when Winston had been publicly handled was now made permanent with the people forced to chose a side with some going with Winston and others following Warren.
I
t was in this unsettling environment that Allen and I were trying to get our marriage on track. Shortly after I returned from Canada, Teressa informed my mother about my miscarriages. She also told her about the difficulties that I’d had with Allen from the beginning, and how he had been forcing himself on me. When Mom finally confronted me about it, she fought to contain her emotion. “Why didn’t you come to me?” she asked, breaking into sobs.
“I was trying to protect you from this pain,” I told her, my heart in my stomach as I watched her tears fall. We’d become so close, and the fact that I hadn’t shared this with her cut her deeply. “I didn’t want you to know how hard it is for me because you already have enough to worry about. You have these two little girls, and you need to make sure that this doesn’t happen to them.”
“I won’t,” Mom vowed. “I won’t let this happen to them.”
She sounded sincere, but I had a hard time believing that there was anything she could do to stop it from happening to Sherrie and Ally—not unless she was willing to forego her eternal salvation and leave the religion with my two little sisters.
Nevertheless, she did do her best to help me. She spoke to Allen and asked him to start respecting my needs.
From that point on I noticed a change in how he treated me, and my outlook shifted as well. I didn’t want confrontation with Allen. I knew that I had a responsibility to my priesthood head, and I wanted to fulfill the vows that I had been forced to make. God had placed me here for time and all eternity, and on a deep level, I believed that he would reward me for following his will.
As part of Allen’s renewed attempts to improve our marriage, he decided to celebrate our second wedding anniversary with a trip to Lake Powell. He planned an overnight at a fancy hotel to try and make up for the last few years.
On our first night there, I surprised him by wearing one of my newest outfits, a straight denim skirt to the ankle and a long-sleeved blouse. Like some of my peers back in Hildale, I’d started to wear clothing that was considered rebellious by the more traditional members of our society. It had become something of a trend among the FLDS teenage girls, and I excitedly bought into it. It felt good to be a little defiant, and I wasn’t as self-conscious when I was out in public. Not only was my skirt straighter than our normal styles, but it had a tiny slit up the back that revealed the two pairs of thick tights I was wearing to hide my church undergarments. In addition, I’d taken to styling my hair with a single pouf in the front, having decided that the signature FLDS wave, which was similar to the 1940s wave only much poufier and much taller, was just not my style. Allen didn’t seem to notice my bold new outfit at first. As I lingered in the room, waiting and wondering when we’d be leaving for dinner, I realized that he was totally entranced by the television and had lost track of the time. Finally I spoke up, reminding him that it was getting late.
I could see the panic on his face when he realized what time it was. Grabbing my hand, he hurried us out of the room and down to the resort restaurant. But the door to the fancy Rainbow Room was already closed, and Allen grew quietly upset. He’d wanted to make this a special night for us, and he was feeling like he’d blown it. I was so embarrassed when he started knocking on the door of the restaurant, pleading with the hostess to let us come in and have a meal. His polite request was denied, and we ended up sharing our second-anniversary dinner at a local Denny’s. I was more amused than upset. I guess being a bit older made it easier for me to understand what it was that he’d been trying to do. I also knew how easy it was to get caught up in the novelty of television, since it was strictly forbidden in our community.
The next day, I did catch Allen’s attention by wearing a pair of pants that I’d purchased during a shopping trip to St. George with Kassandra before she fled. When I put them on, he cautiously asked me, “Why are you wearing those?”
“Because I want to wear them out here on the beach,” I said with an air of defiance. I was certain that my pants were not the only articles of clothing Allen was objecting to. I was also wearing a short-sleeved pink T-shirt that revealed the skin on my arms. Clothing such as pants and shirts for women were strictly forbidden. But he saved his comment about the shirt until our ride home that afternoon. “Please don’t wear it again,” he requested as he steered his truck north along the highway.
After that anniversary, Allen continued to try to follow my mother’s advice and pressured me less, but it was just a matter of weeks before his old behavior returned. For my part, I was trying to obey him as best I could. While I understood his efforts to be more considerate of my needs, nothing could change the fact that I didn’t love him. I still slept at Uncle Fred’s when I could, and I still tried to minimize the amount of time I spent with Allen. When I was home, all that I gave to him was my physical presence. We were living together, but emotionally we were separate. There seemed to be no connection except for his continued sexual advances. When I returned to the trailer, I always knew what was going to happen and I tried to prepare myself. My goal was to avoid conflict with him, but he grew more frustrated by the day, angry that his change in attitude had failed to sway my heart.
Eventually, his frustration would boil over, making many of our disagreements heated and severe. Over the course of a few weeks, his kind demeanor crumbled and his assumed authority as my priesthood leader returned with a vengeance. I did my best to fight him off, but there were times I had no choice but to submit. Some of our arguments culminated in physical struggles. He’d slap me or push me up against the wall. I didn’t understand why he was behaving that way. One minute he would threaten me, the next he was trying to hug me. Once he even hurled a lamp in my direction. Luckily, I didn’t get hurt. It frustrated me that no one could see the Allen that I saw behind closed doors. People would reprimand me for my unaffectionate attitude toward him, but they didn’t understand how he treated me when no one was watching.
To protect myself, I’d grown more stubborn in my unwillingness to do as he wished. I wanted to move my things into the other bedroom and take a break from him. He was furious and lost his temper. He chased after me, and I ran into the second bedroom and tried to close the door behind me. But Allen kicked it in, and the door struck me in the eye. I woke up the next morning with a shiner.
This was not the only time that I’d sustained a bodily injury. My five feet two inches and 145 pounds were no match for his broad frame. At just below six feet, Allen towered over me, and he weighed more than 220 pounds. There was little I could do to stop him once he’d set his mind to having things his way—especially when it came to sex. In the bedroom he’d get rough sometimes, and though I tried hard to fight him off, I was rarely able to stop him once he got going.
What made things worse was how I was manipulated. His mind games were a constant. Most of what he said was to coerce me in one way or another. He’d tell me that if I wasn’t one with him as the priesthood taught us, then our afterlife in heaven was in jeopardy. In retrospect, it’s easy to dismiss his words, but at the time I sincerely believed that he and this arranged marriage were my keys to eternal salvation. Because of all the pressure I was receiving from him, the priesthood, and the community, I had no choice but to obey him.
B
y June, Allen was fed up with the way our marriage was going, and worried about the possible consequences, he initiated a meeting with Uncle Warren. He felt he had tried everything and no matter what he did it was met by my resistance. He refused to see that his version of kind and respectful behavior was not seen that way by me. In his eyes, everything had the same result: I wouldn’t become the submissive, obedient wife that I should be. I was grateful that Allen had been the one to initiate this meeting with Uncle Warren. Perhaps now the prophet would take the situation more seriously and grant me the release I had been asking for. Warren was happy to see us. “How are you doing?” he asked us when he stepped out into the waiting room. He was still operating out of Uncle Rulon’s office, but now that he was the prophet, it was officially his headquarters.
Allen and I sat side by side. “I don’t feel like things are going very well,” Allen said in his humble, obliging way. “It’s been two years, and Elissa is still having problems with obedience. She does not trust me, or allow me to direct her in what she’s doing and what friends she should have. I think she needs some counseling because I feel like she’s being a little rebellious.”
Turning to me, the prophet asked, “Elissa, how do you feel?”
“I have told you so many times how I feel. Honestly, I just can’t trust this man. I don’t love him. I don’t know if I’ll ever love him. And I don’t feel comfortable around him. Things have happened between us that I don’t agree with and that I don’t like or ever want.”
Warren began to ask us questions, trying to determine why we didn’t yet have any children. “Because when you have children, your responsibility changes,” Warren explained. “You are not selfish. It’s not all about you. It’s about children and raising them up to be good, obedient, faithful priesthood children. Sometimes, having children changes everything. And it makes people fall in love because they have another life on earth together.”
I sat silently in my chair staring at the flowers sprouting from the garden just outside. I didn’t want to have children with Allen. I was certain of that. But I wasn’t prepared to say it aloud. We’d already had a number of heated discussions over it, and they’d all ended badly. Listening to Warren speak, all I could think of was a time when Allen had said very much the same thing, insisting that if we just had a baby together, I would love him. When I disagreed, Allen grew forceful, telling me that we needed to start a family immediately. That’s when he’d forced himself on me.