Getty; Courtesy of Derick Dillard/Instagram
Derick Dillard Claims Father-in-Law Jim Bob Duggar Will ‘Cut Off’ Family Members He Can’t ‘Control’
Jill Duggar’s husband, Derick Dillard, has not been shy about discussing his negative feelings toward father-in-law Jim Bob Duggar and his “control” over the Duggar family.
“I think what’s sad is that the pattern we’ve seen is kinda happening to us, where if you’re somebody that he can’t control then you’re cut off,” Derick, 34, told Entertainment Tonight around the release of the couple’s memoir, Counting the Cost. “It’s like, ‘I can’t control you, so you’re cut off.'”
For her part, Jill, 32, added, “It’s not like it used to be … It used to be, you would get pulled to the side into a room and [told off], you know, behind closed doors.”
She went on to say that because of the boundaries set in place by the pair, her father’s tactics “would not fly.”
“He won’t bring anything up when we’re all together,” Jill continued, adding that she and Derick “would pick up and leave [if] something [like] that came up.”
“You can hang out sometimes, and have surface-level conversations,” she said, adding that it “might be awkward,” but that is “what I am actually wanting right now.”
This is not the first time the Oklahoma-based couple has dished on the former reality star’s “control” over the family and direct threats to “cut off” his children.
“My dad texted the entire family group text (since we’re still in the group thread) and he was just saying, ‘This is so sad’ and basically threatening that if anybody speaks out against him or my mom [Michelle Duggar] that they would be cut out of the inheritance,” the Counting On alum told Today.com while promoting their book.
According to Jill, the text in question was sent after news of her memoir was first released in May. The 58-year-old also suggested that his 19 children “owe our lives” to the founder of the Institute in Basic Life Principles, Bill Gothard. She noted that Gothard had encouraged Jim Bob and Michelle, 57, to continue having children.
“My relationship with my dad got pretty toxic to the point where we had to cut off individual contact with him … It got to the point where Derick was there to step in and kind of say, ‘Hey, don’t reach out to my wife individually or else I’ll have to file a protective order,’ just because it was so hard for me to handle,” she continued.
Derick went on to claim that Jim Bob “would play” into Jill’s “tender hearted” nature. “I’d asked, ‘Please don’t contact her on her own, one-on-one.’ And then he had done that again. That’s when I basically said, ‘Hey, if you can’t abide by this boundary, because we’re trying to do better setting boundaries, then I’ll have to file a protective order,” Derick added.
As for where Jill and Derick’s relationship with Jim Bob currently stands, the mother of three said, “There’s limited contact with my dad.”
“We’ve had to draw some pretty strict boundaries just for our own health and well-being,” she told Vanity Fair in September.
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