What Was the Final Straw?

We all know that the relationship between Jill Duggar and her parents deteriorated over the years, long before it reached its breaking point.

But even after Jill’s parents accused her of corrupting her siblings, she wanted to stay close to them all. Isn’t that sad?

In a new interview, Jill is shedding light on what the final straw was when it came to clashing with her dad.

He backed her into a corner and forced her to choose. And she chose.

On the Tuesday, November 14 episode of the Ask Dr. Julie Hanks podcast, Jill Duggar spoke alongside her husband, Derick Dillard.

“As we paved our own path, it became very difficult for me,” Jill expressed.

She explained that it became challenging “because I realized I could not please my parents and do what I feel like we’re being called to do.”

“I think whenever it got really toxic,” Jill described, thinking back to that time.

She said that that moment “is whenever I was almost forced to choose.”

Jill quickly added: “and I wouldn’t have chosen that, I wanted to please everyone.”

“I can’t,” Jill then emphasized.

“If you’re going to put me against my husband,” she affirmed, “I’m not gonna to pick you.”

Jill then added: “I’m gonna to pick my husband.” That makes sense. While many people despise Derick, and with good reason, Jill chose her husband (up to a point). She didn’t choose her parents.

She didn’t stop there, but continued to elaborate on how the rift emerged with her awful, irredeemable parents.

Jill was already a married woman with one small child.

She and Derick were looking to leave reality TV behind them. We all know how Jim Bob felt about that.

“We were headed in a different direction with our lives as a little family unit,” Jill recalled.

This was a new path “than the one my parents had kinda laid out for us,” she acknowledged.

“And,” Jill pointed out, her parents had “just assumed that we would follow” what they wanted. Forever.

Jill reminded everyone that Jim Bob saw reality TV as more than just a ploy to enrich himself. He presented it as a “ministry opportunity.”

Simply put, reality TV was a way for Jim Bob to advertise the twisted cult lifestyle as merely quirky and alternative rather than sinister. Some more gullible viewers may have seen it as somehow desirable for its simplicity.

But to do that, he had to make it seem like all of his kids were onboard for life. He used money to exert a lot of control (which is why he had TLC pay him directly), but most if it was just social pressure and cult programming.

“I didn’t want to be put in that position,” Jill emphasized of when her horrible father finally pushed her too far.

“But whenever I felt threatened that way,” she reflected, “that’s when push really came to shove.”

Jill described: “And I was like, ‘You’re gonna make me decide that I’m going to take this next step, and you’re not gonna like it.’”

Jill and Derick are still pretty much on the extreme end of society in a lot of ways. But they are, arguably, part of society — rather than living in a cult that abjures the real world.

What’s really sad is that Jill would still like to have a good relationship with her parents.

Despite everything, there’s part of her that loves them. Even though they do not, and could never, deserve it.