Secret Lives of Mormon Wives: Jen Affleck is a liar and I relate to her
*Major spoilers and tw for talks of suicidal ideation
There is something that Mormonism and the Indian culture have in common: lying. Any strict religion or culture will be a breeding ground for lying because people, especially kids and teenagers testing boundaries, are going to break rules. Lying to be able to do things or avoid punishment was second nature to me and my friends. As I grew older and diversified my friend group, a lot of my friends who were not Indian or didn’t have immigrant parents were floored by the amount of lying that I described growing up. I don’t think I fully realized how weird it was that little lies (and sometimes really big ones) were just totally normalized in my family and my friend group.
That brings me to Secret Lives of Mormon Wives season 2 premiere. As a refresher, one of the breakout couples of last season was Jen and Zach Affleck. Towards the end of the season, the cast took a trip to Las Vegas and one of the girls (aka production) “surprised” the group by taking them to Chippendales. A group of Mormon girls + Chippendales = trouble. Zach started to rage text Jen after learning that she participated in this outing (aka her JOB). He told her he didn’t love her anymore and that she wasn’t a good mother. It was heartbreaking to see her so distraught that night and it’s clear that at the beginning of season two, they are still working through the fall out from it. Jen is trying to fix her relationship because it’s all she knows. She got married at 19 after knowing Zach for 6 months and popped out two babies in succession.
As the season progresses, we see Jen’s friends start to turn on her for being a “liar”. As I continued to watch, I saw myself in her. I learned to lie when I was younger from my mom who would do it to avoid making my dad angry. It became a survival mechanism for me so I could attempt to keep the peace in a tumultuous household. I would lie about test scores and homework so that I wouldn’t get in trouble. I kept boyfriends hidden and exact plans vague to avoid further questioning. I would even lie about what I would eat for dinner, opting for the answer that would cause the least amount of questions and judgement. Beyond my household, I saw people I knew lie to their parents about having boyfriends, taking birth control, drinking alcohol, and more. We were all trying to survive a strict and judgmental culture that clashed with American norms we saw around us.
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Although my outright lying was saved mostly for my dad, I had a lot of people-pleasing tendencies that would result in omitting or delaying the truth. I was conditioned to not make waves and avoid the potential of anyone being mad at me. I have been lucky to be surrounded by people in my adult life who make me feel safer than I did at home. I’m not constantly on eggshells waiting to be yelled at or criticized. Watching Jen made me feel so lucky that I wasn’t on reality tv at the height of this behavior and have it be open season for the world to criticize me.
Jen has had two rough seasons, however, she came out of season one with the world and the cast on her side. Her husband Zach is fucking awful. He is verbally and emotionally abusive in a relationship that has a clear power dynamic - he’s older than Jen (she’s 25 to his 28), he’s white (she’s Ecuadorian), and he comes from a rich, prominent, Mormon family (she grew up poor).
It’s clear as day to me that Jen will say her truth at first and start to walk things back when she senses that she will have to deal with Zach’s rage later or when she thinks she’s going to disappoint her friends. In season 1, Jen told the girls that Zach gambled away the money his parents gave him for med school. Zach, who threatened to divorce her for going to Chippendales because it wasn’t very Mormon of her, gambles. I absolutely believe that he gambled away an insanely large sum of money. Jen’s friends, especially Jessi and Demi, are livid on her behalf in season 1. They worry about her relationship and want her to get out. Following the airing of the show, the entire audience also wants this for Jen. Everyone is rooting for her to get out of the obviously abusive relationship she’s in.
In season 2, there is a glimmer of hope as Jen explains to us that her and Zach are separated and she isn’t sure how to move forward with him. It starts to go off the rails when Jen asks Zach to make peace with Jessi and Demi as part of his amends to her. He follows through by meeting up with the two of them at a coffee shop and is confronted by the girls about gambling away his school tuition. He denies it, implying that Jen made it up, and they BELIEVE him. Jessi and Demi leave the meet-up talking about how Jen is a liar and they don’t know if they can trust her.
In a follow-up scene, we see Jessi, Demi, Jen, and Zach hanging out. Demi and Jessi confront Jen about making up the gambling story in front of Zach. Jen turns to Zach and encourages him to clear it up and he turns it back on her. She gets the hint that she needs to lie to save face for him so she does. She knows that she’ll face Zach’s wrath if she doesn’t lie and she has no support system beyond him. It was so disappointing to see Jessi and Demi fall for this and come away being on Zach’s side, especially after they saw how he treated Jen.
Sometimes it’s hard to remember how deeply entrenched these girls are in the patriarchy because they’re not like regular Mormons, they’re cool Mormons. They talk about wanting to push the church forward and bring down the patriarchy. Most of them got pregnant without being married, some are divorced, and some drink. These girls out earn their husbands easily by 10x. They aren’t necessarily very religious but Mormonism is embedded in Utah, even if you aren’t part of the church. It’s hard to grow up indoctrinated in a cult and leave it completely behind.
On top of that, the audience is also deeply entrenched in the patriarchy given that it is the backbone of this country. I wouldn’t say there was quite a 180 from the audience after season 1, but I was shocked to see so many posts on Reddit about people thinking Zach had grown so much. He was able to get his act together for the cameras somewhat and that was enough for a chunk of viewers to turn against Jen. The bar for men is truly in hell.
Although it seemed like Jen was getting a villain edit around mid-way through the season (if you fly too close to the sun, production will bring you down to earth), by the end of 10 episodes, I was heart-broken for her. It seemed like maybe she was considering leaving Zach but instead she got pregnant with her 3rd child. That was one of the hardest scenes to watch because Mormons LOVE babies. We see 4 joyous announcements through the 2 seasons and in contrast we see Jen have a breakdown upon learning the news.
She started to question her identity and contemplated suicide, leading her to check in to a facility. Production stopped filming with her to protect her mental health. It was awful to see how callous most of the girls were towards her when she was probably going through the worst time in her life. On the flip side, I think it’s also very confusing to understand how to support someone with an abusive partner, especially if they are not going to leave their partner. Zach does his best to sow discord between Jen and her friends so she can be isolated and she will ultimately choose him over her friends until she doesn’t.
Surprisingly, there will be a reunion airing on 7/1 and I’m curious to see what kind of updates we’ll get to see about where Jen stands with everyone. My hope is that there is some type of repair and it clicks that lying is a survival mechanism for Jen because her life fucking sucks. I’ll be tuning in and potentially reporting back but my coverage of this show is far from over!
