The unbaked brownie or the baked brownie

“When I was 18 my boyfriend raped me. It was a super abusive relationship where he would tell me I was worthless. And I believed it, because I had that lesson in young women where they would ask, ‘would you rather have the unbaked brownie or the baked brownie?’ And everybody, of course, wants the baked brownie, the pure brownie.

“He eventually joined the church, but he also used that as a manipulative tool. So if we would break up, he would say, ‘I’m going to stop going to church because I don’t have any friends there and you won’t talk to me. So it’s on you that I’m not going to go anymore.’

“Around that time, a friend of mine was dating Josh, whom I had only known a little bit. When Josh joined the church, I went to his baptism. He seemed so genuine about it. He wasn’t joining the church for his girlfriend and he seemed to have a really strong testimony. That’s what I had hoped would happen with the guy I was dating, which it didn’t. I saw Josh and everything about him made me say, ‘that’s the kind of guy I want to be with.’ And then just over a year later, I was—because we got married. And he doesn’t think I’m worthless.”