Tia Levings escaped a trad wife cult.

Content warning: This post deals with domestic violence and child loss. 

When Tia Levings was a teenage girl, she was preparing to serve a husband she hadn't even met yet.

Levings' only goal was to be a 'trad wife'. Really, it was her only option in the eyes of her Christian Fundamentalist family. It was an environment where marriage was not a partnership, but a contract between a domineering man and a subservient woman who made no choices for herself. 

"Dating was more like a job audition. I wanted to prove I could be a good wife and mother," she tells Mamamia's No Filter podcast this week.

Listen to the interview. Post continues after audio. 

Levings' family wasn't always extremely conservative. When she was 10, they moved to Jacksonville in Florida, as her parents wanted to provide their kids with a "protected childhood". The message in Jacksonville was that the best way to raise your kids was to join the biggest church in town.

"It was a Southern Baptist mega church," notes Levings. "I was there six days a week, and all the women there were growing to prepare to be Christian wives and mothers essentially. Then by the age of 19, I did exactly that."

In her late teens, Levings married a man. She says he was charming, but quite erratic. He also had an obsession with theology.

"We were engaged four weeks after meeting. He had decided that I was the girl who he wanted to marry. And I was in pursuit of a husband at the that time, so I was primed and ready to receive whoever said they were God's will for my life," Levings tells No Filter.

Her family went "all out" for her wedding day. Levings' mother was a seamstress, so she spent hours making the bridal and bridesmaids' dresses. There was a horse-drawn carriage, candle lights, and flowers. 

"I felt like I was celebrating this launch into the rest of my life. I knew that we would have sex [on the wedding night]. I didn't fully understand what sex was. I knew there would be insertion of anatomy and that it would hurt but that it would be romantic and loving," notes Levings.

"What actually happened is that I had three sexual assaults on my wedding night and no language to describe that or any idea of how to ask for help."

"A week later, I ended up with a raging infection and a doctor who shed light on the fact that there had been battery involved and violence. Men in this environment feel entitled to women's bodies, because they're raised from childhood to believe that. I didn't know that I could say no, or that I hadn't even consented."

Soon Levings and her then-husband were part of the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), an independent Christian Fundamentalist organisation founded by William W. Gothard Jr., an American Christian minister. It's a controversial religious sect where they preach for women to be subservient to their husbands. Followers are expected to shun dancing, television, music and much of modern popular culture. Levings describes it as "a cult without walls".

One famous family who used to be members of IBLP are the Duggar family, who were the stars of TLC's reality series 19 Kids and Counting. Many of the Duggars have since spoken out against the sect, and levelled serious allegations.

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A post shared by Tia Levings (@tialevingswriter)

Three months after Levings' wedding, she miscarried. 

Months later, she was pregnant again and gave birth to her son.

"I loved being a mum, and I loved having my babies. But I wanted to give my body a break. I thought I had sound arguments for using contraception, and I did use contraception on the sly. The leaders also didn't want me to give my children vaccines, or to visit a pediatrician because they would 'pressure me' to use Western medicine."

Within a few years, Levings had given birth to five kids in total. Sadly, one of her children, Clara, passed away at nine weeks old because of a heart condition.

Knowing her daughter had been sick, Levings had pushed to get an allowance for Clara to get expert medical help. The experience ended up completely shifting Levings' views on the system she had been trapped in.

"I was immediately immersed into a world where women could be doctors. The entire experience of Clara absolutely broke me open, it broke the spell of mind control. When I got back home, there was so much pressure on me to not grieve too long. I just couldn't box myself into that anymore."

Levings soon realised that her existence was akin to The Handmaid's Tale. Ironically, the book's author Margaret Aptwood used real Christian Fundamentalist groups as inspiration.

It took seven years after Clara's death for Levings to find the courage to leave. Sadly, Levings says domestic violence was becoming more and more common in her household.

"I had to get to a place where he was about to kill us in order to put my foot down and say enough is enough. When you try to leave an abusive person, it becomes much more dangerous and violent. And that's what happened, the violence escalated."

In October 2007, Levings narrowly escaped with her children in the middle of the night.

"We had gone trick or treating, which was the first time our children had participated in Halloween. After we got home, he [her husband] had some sort of psychotic break," Levings recounts.

"He held me hostage for four hours, threatening to kill me and kill the children. He suddenly left. I heard a voice in my head, mind and heart say, 'Run'. So I packed up, grabbed some clothes, the children, my laptop and we drove away. He had gone to his work office to get his gun. If I had stayed... we wouldn't be having this conversation right now."

At the time, her children were between the ages of 10 and two and a half. Levings was 33.

The next 12 months were a blur. Levings and her kids went into hiding, and she began custody and divorce proceedings, which involved investigations from law enforcement. There were 10 years of trauma therapy. Five years of faith deconstruction. Becoming a single parent. Raising four children. Falling in love again. Developing a career. Finding her voice.

Right now online, #tradwives is a growing movement. It's packaged as 1950s'-esque women being homemakers and bakers and looking flawless while doing so. 

For Levings, she has lived a true trad wife life. It's something she wouldn't wish on any woman.

"These social media trad wife accounts are entrepreneurial, they are not showing what's behind the scenes. One of the most heinous abuses in fundamentalism is the parental suffocation of daughters being expected to care for their younger siblings, take care of the home, bake and be a homesteader. Young girls' futures are robbed. The most insidious thing for me with that content is that it gently influences you to self subjugate. It's not empowerment, it's passivity."

Levings' story is about survival, indoctrination, fundamentalism. She's a former trad wife who got away. She's written about it in her new memoir, A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy.

"I was formally ex-communicated and shunned from my church. All of those groups now see me as a dangerous woman who lives a worldly lifestyle. It's been a long road to healing and freedom."

You can listen to the full conversation on No Filter now.

If this has raised any issues for you, or if you just feel like you need to speak to someone, please call 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service.

Mamamia is a charity partner of RizeUp Australia, a national organisation that helps women, children and families move on after the devastation of domestic and family violence. Their mission is to deliver life-changing and practical support to these families when they need it most. If you would like to support their mission you can donate here. 

Feature Image: Instagram @tialevingswriter.

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