“You Belong to Me Now. Legally.”

I grew up in a broken home. My parents divorced when I was four. I am one of ten children from two marriages. Divorce, family, the court system, custody agreements, my father’s military service, and religion all made childhood chaotic. The abuse from my father, religious ideologies, technology, and my childhood needs for love and stability all played a role in my forced child marriage.

When my mother took the courageous step of leaving my abusive father after 10 years of marriage with five children, she had no education, no access to work outside the home, no money, and no help. My father allowed her to suffer further by refusing to help; rather, he took my mother to family court and accused her of malnourishment and child neglect.

The family court system wanted to divide the five children equally between my mom and dad, sending me back and forth every year for holidays. My dad refused to divide us—not to keep us together, but to place us all with my mother, knowing she could not financially sustain us. She inevitably could not care for us and work simultaneously, with the youngest being only one year old and nursing. My mom lost custody and the family court system did what it has always done: placed us children back into an abusive home with the person who had access to financial stability, my abusive father.

The court awarded my mother full custody of her first son, born before her marriage to my father when she was just 17, and partial custody of the other four children, including me, allowing her three visitations a year: spring break, summer break, and winter break. During these breaks, the four of us were shuffled back and forth across the country as unaccompanied minors, between wherever my father was stationed at the time and Salt Lake City, Utah, where my mother lived. On one of these visits, when I was 10, I met my eldest brother's teenage friend. I'll call him John. He is the man I would later be forced to marry.

John had a baby boy with his high school sweetheart, whom he later married and divorced before the boy was two years old. He later remarried another woman and joined the military. During his second marriage, he began showing interest in me during summer break when I was 13. He came home to Utah to visit friends and family, and he showed me attention I didn't understand.

I was taken in by his attention and compliments. He told me I was growing up so fast. He said I was more beautiful than he remembered. No one had ever told me that before. After all, I was just a little girl starving for attention among three older brothers, two younger brothers, and at that time, two baby sisters. John was 20 years old when he groped me on the couch during video game time that summer. He showed me how to download an app on my iPod called “Kik.” This app, along with WiFi access, let me text friends and family.

John was one of those conversations started on the app. He began texting me incessantly. He would message me, “you're so amazing, i wish i could be with you.” He manipulated a little girl. I wanted to be wanted. I wanted to be loved. This continued for years, escalating into what is now recognized as internet luring of a child and child exploitation. These are not the only crimes John committed against me.

He left his second wife, divorced her, and discharged from the military. That was when the abuse began to escalate. I began sleeping 15-18 hours a day and stopped attending school. I hardly came out of my room, even for dinner, before going straight back to sleep. Eventually, my father dropped me out of high school and started homeschooling me.

When I was 16, John texted me in the middle of the night, not unusual for him, that he was coming to tell my father what I had been doing with him all these years. He said he and my brother were coming to take me away from the abuses of home. I was terrified. I knew if my father found out what I had allowed John to do to me, he would be furious. It wasn’t uncommon to watch my little brother be smashed over the head with a textbook, beaten until bruised, or food withheld from us for disobeying him. I was sure if John told my father, he would lose his mind and I would pay the price.

The next morning I let John take me away in his white Chevy Cobalt stick shift. John took me across state lines, where he held me hostage in his parents' home in Sandy, Utah. They had no idea I was being hidden under his bed, in his closet, and in his car to keep me trapped. Often, I went a whole day without food or water. I have never shared all of the abuses I endured during those months, and I'm not sure I ever will.

John was financially irresponsible. So much so that he insisted I “pitch in for the free room and board”. Never mind the childcare I did for his son for free, often. He allowed me to find a job at the local movie theater, shoveling popcorn into bags and sweeping up trash from under seats. It was only my second shift that police came in through the front doors and spoke to the managers. “There have been reports of a 'runaway' child working here. Her name is Brittany,” they told my manager. When they came to take me, I was hiding under the countertop that held the popcorn machine. Shaking and crying. “Please don’t let him take me,” I said again and again.

The police dragged me out, cuffed me, and placed me on a bench to interrogate me. “Did you sleep with the man you left home with?” they asked. I didn’t answer. I didn’t speak to them at all, not one word. “It's not illegal here in Utah as long as he isn’t 10 years older than you,” they said. That was the moment I realized my father had reported me as a runaway.

I found out years later, after obtaining the police report myself, that my father waited several months to report it to the police. I waited there with the police for what felt like hours before my father, stepmother, and John arrived with his son. I didn’t speak at all when they uncuffed me and handed me over to my father. My parents took everything: my phone, wallet, money, even medication. They took me back across state lines to my then childhood home in Colorado. I didn’t speak to anyone for weeks. I wasn’t allowed to leave the house without a chaperone. I wasn’t allowed to work, go to school, access the internet, or use the phone. This was the time of my first unsuccessful suicide attempt.

Weeks passed, trapped in my room. During one weekend, my father took us kids to the local rec center to swim. There, I saw a flyer for lifeguard training. After some convincing, my father let me walk to the rec center for the classes—as long as one of my brothers came with me. There, I was able to use the computer to access my Gmail and found tons of emails from John. “I'm still here for you”, “don't give up hope”, “I love you, we will find a way to be together,” they read. I sent one email back: “I get my lifeguard certification from the Woodmen Hills Rec Center at 1 p.m. this Friday.” Send.

That Friday I finished my course and received my certification. By this time, I was allowed to walk to the rec center alone and would be picked up by my stepmother afterward. After leaving the locker room for the last time, I saw him standing at the end of the hall, arms open. I thought I was dreaming, but the moment we embraced, I knew for sure he was real. He had come to take me away again, but this time he didn’t drive me to Utah. He drove me home. I was shaking. Panicked. “He’ll kill you,” I said. “Please, let's just go.” John said he would talk to my father man-to-man and that my father would respect it.

When we arrived home, we waited on the porch. Realizing I wasn’t at the rec center like I was supposed to be, my stepmom tore through the neighborhood around the corner and slammed into the park in the driveway. She climbed out of the driver's seat and started screaming at John, “Get the hell off my property!” she yelled. She called her sister who lived in the neighborhood. My aunt arrived and sat with me and John on the curb until my dad finally arrived home. When he did, John, my stepmom, and my father went to dinner. I was instructed to stay in my room, and I did.

When they finally came home around 10 p.m., there was a knock at my door. “Come downstairs,” my aunt instructed. When I came down the stairs, the adults were all seated in the living room. My father, stepmom, step-aunt, and John all looked at me. My dad said, “John will be sleeping on your aunt's couch for the night. In the morning, you and John will be right with God.” My step-mom gave me my wallet and cell phone that they had taken weeks before, when I was recovered by the Utah Police. I was sent to my room and immediately texted John: “Right with God? What does that mean? Was he angry? What happened?” John responded: “We came to an agreement. Tomorrow, we’ll be married.”

I didn't sleep that night. I couldn’t. I cried until I couldn't anymore. My mind was churning. Thinking of what it meant to be married. I couldn’t be a mom!? I’m just 17. No high school diploma, no job, no money. John promised me for years that I could go back to school. That I could live my dreams as an athlete and be free from my parents' constant battle. I had no idea what was waiting for me after I signed the license at 9 am the next morning. The three of us drove to the Colorado Springs El Paso County DMV, where the plump, middle-aged white lady behind the counter asked to see my I.D. “Oh, that's why they gave me my wallet back last night,” I thought. She issued my father the marriage license and we drove home.

I stood in the living room across from John, while my little sisters and cousins sat on the floor looking up at us. My dad placed a poorly constructed ring with a dangling white crystal onto the ring finger of my left hand. “By the power vested in me by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Patriarch of this home, I now pronounce you husband and wife,” my father announced. “You are now right with God. You may leave my home.” I signed on the dotted line.

I got into the white Chevy Cobalt stick shift. Waved goodbye to my little sisters and cousins on the front porch. John drove 10 minutes through my childhood neighborhood, stopping in an empty church parking lot. Turned to me with dead eyes and said, “You belong to me now. Legally”. He moved the clothes my stepmother had tossed haphazardly into boxes out of the backseat and raped me. Then, I sat in what he had done for 10 hours as he drove us back to Salt Lake City, Utah, where I would be his wife for the next year and a half of my life.

After escaping, I scraped by without a home but eventually made it back to Colorado and found work. When I recovered from the divorce, I was able to test for my GED and join the Army Reserve Military Police Corps stationed at Ft. Carson, Colorado. I later remarried my now-husband, and we share a wonderful daughter, also born in Colorado.

I consider Colorado my childhood home. My family settled there after my father was discharged from the Army when I was about 10. I was later forced to marry in Colorado at 17 years old.

In many ways, Colorado holds memories of pain and abandonment. However, it also holds many joyful memories. Like the birth of my daughter, purchasing my first home, meeting my spouse, and joining the military. I want my child's birthplace to be a safe place for all children. The best place to start is raising the minimum marriage age to 18, without exceptions.

But wanting change and knowing how to fight for it were two different things. For years, I carried my story quietly, unsure whether anyone would listen. That shifted in 2023, when one person’s story cracked something open in me and made it impossible to stay silent.

In January 2023, I was sitting on my couch with an awful hangover when I turned on the History Channel. The Selection: Special Operations Experiment came on. In this show, 30 civilian volunteers train like members of the U.S. military's special-operations units under the guidance of Navy SEAL, Green Beret, and Army Ranger veterans. As a prior service member, I was compelled to keep watching.

Then Christian Griffith appeared on screen. As Christian was being interrogated by military trainers as part of the operation, he was asked, “Why are you here? Why not just give up and go home?” He responded with pure bravery and truth. He spoke openly about surviving child sexual abuse and said he would never give up on bringing awareness to the issue. He was on the show to tell the world his story. To help the children and adults who have experienced similar violations of their lives and bodies.

He cried and I cried on my couch. Experiencing his pain alongside him. I grabbed my phone and researched the incredible Run to Heal campaign Christian started to raise awareness: he ran the length of America in 2018. This is when inspiration struck me. The next day I spoke with my spouse about a crazy idea to swim, bike, and run 3000 miles to raise awareness for child marriage in the US. In February 2023, I shared my 3000-mile triathlon campaign on social media and started the fight for sobriety. I've been speaking publicly against the practice of child marriage ever since.

When I began speaking out about my childhood experiences on TikTok, my story began to catch people's attention. About a year later, I bought a flight to San Jose, California, to attend an event with the nonprofit Unchained at Last founder Fraidy Reiss. When I arrived at the meeting location, the entire room went silent as I walked in. All the survivors and advocates already knew who I was. It was the first time in my life I felt like I was truly seen for the life I had lived. These women saw me, truly saw me. The women who have offered their time and energy to fight by my side are the greatest resource in my recovery.

On TikTok, I received dozens of messages from survivors and their families. What impacted me the most was the children born to child marriage survivors. Their stories filled me with sorrow and grief. They poured their hearts out to me and I am so grateful to have created the space for them to be seen and heard.

I've been published in The Sun magazine, CBS Inside Edition, Konbini News, and many more. I have traveled with Unchained to testify in committee hearings across the country. The world is listening. It's frightening and wonderful simultaneously. It has exhausted me and encouraged me.

Over the years doing advocacy, I’ve learned to balance self-care and service—a lesson I desperately needed. The most profound impact has been on my sense of self. As a young girl, I was taught the cruelty of self-abandonment and victimhood. Sharing my story without shame has cracked open my self-esteem and filled me with self-love, forgiveness, and a strength I never knew I had.