I wonder if I had not been so wrapped up in the guilt I carried for being the supposed cause of all our relationship woes, I may have just seen the light of the cult's delusion earlier. And I wasn't the only one dealing with relationship issues, although mine may have been different from most.
Maybe there was something to all these internal issues taking time, and emotional and mental bandwidth.
The arbitrary and frequent splitting up of couples by leadership ("for the Lord's work"), as well as the doctrine of the Law of Love, no doubt, wreaked havoc in any and all relationships in the group. The indiscriminate "sharing" (cult euphemism for having sex) among members "as long as it was done in love," and the shaming of the jealous, made for much introspection, insecurity, and misery. Those who were jealous were "old bottles," "selfish," or "not yielding to God's will," etc., and in need of prayer, extra "word time," and deliverance. In extreme cases, exorcism.
Accordingly, we had a group of people who were so busy fighting personal battles with "sin and self," that no one had the energy or initiative to lift their heads above the clouds and look around and question.
Who can say what would have been? The techniques the cult used to keep its members were (and still are) many and powerful. But surely the distraction of the Law of Love, along with the myriad absurd requirements placed on the shoulders of cult members, was a strong force in keeping us unquestioning and in the fold.
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