Former ‘traditional wife’ reveals the ‘ugliness’ behind her perfect appearance

Enitza Templeton seemed to be living the perfect “traditional wife” life, baking her own bread as a stay-at-home mom and giving birth without anesthesia.

However, despite her glamorous exterior and family-first attitude, this erstwhile traditionalist isn’t happy with her lifestyle and can’t help but think about her daughters.

“I remember watching TV and folding towels and thinking, ‘I wish somebody could help me out of this. If I had the money, the means, the skills, I wouldn’t be getting married. I hate this. I don’t want this for my daughters,'” the 41-year-old Denver resident tells PEOPLE.

“If I want my daughters to change, I have to show them with my actions,” she added, recalling her commitment to making “changes” in her life until she left her husband, whom she married in 2009.

Now, she’s shocked by the celebration of the “traditional wife” lifestyle on social media, noting clear similarities between her past life and that of Hannah Neeleman of “Ballet Farm” fame, who recently made headlines for sharing details of her traditional life as a stay-at-home mom and mother of eight in Utah.

The Traditional Wife has been criticized by skeptics who see it as “romanticizing” a retrograde lifestyle, while others embrace the so-called family values ​​and minimalism that the Traditionalists represent.

“I’ve seen women stray from their roots and compete with men,” Estee Williams, a traditional woman in Virginia, told The Washington Post in 2023. “That’s not how it’s supposed to be. We are women, and we need to accept that.”

Williams explained the motivation behind her lifestyle.

“The Bible says that wives are to submit and serve their husbands and be helpmates to their husbands,” she said. “The Bible specifically talks about gender roles, and I fully support traditional gender roles.”

However, despite the creators claiming they are happy with the path they have chosen, Templeton insists she can “hear the sadness.”

“I see a deep desire within them to validate this lifestyle and to say, ‘Look at me. I’m so perfect and beautiful and everything I do is amazing,'” Templeton said of the “Traditional Wife” influencers. “It’s so sad. It’s also a little bit hypocritical. I know what that feels like. You’re not showing the full picture. There’s a lot of ugliness behind the scenes.”

She added that the quest to be the “perfect trophy wife” was nearly impossible.

“She’s beautiful, she has kids, she does it without drugs,” Templeton explained. “It’s a stupid, stupid, stupid goal, and it’s always moving. You can never reach it, because if you bake bread, well, did you use fresh yeast? Oh. Well, did you grind the flour? Oh. Well, did you grow the wheat that you grind the flour? And they can keep pushing it back.”

She added that the “traditional wife” lifestyle is often rooted in religion and is often adopted by couples who don’t have as much money.

When Templeton married her ex-husband, she was 26 and had just graduated from college with a degree in graphic design, and the couple tried to make ends meet with his student loans and “happy” odd jobs.

The couple decided they wanted to have “as many children as possible” and, despite the financial struggles, “just trust that God would provide for their growing family.”

“We would say — and this is common in small Christian circles — that we are living on loans and love now until we can get out of this,” she said.

They shared a bank account — which prevented Templeton from saving for his own splurges and spending — but he controlled the cash and even her income.

Her day starts at 3 a.m. with feeding her youngest, a few hours of sleep, and then preparing fresh bread and making breakfast for the other children before starting homeschooling. At the “peak” of her traditional life, she says, she straightens her curly hair, puts on makeup and wears a dress every day — whether she’s tired, sick or pregnant.

It wasn’t until her fourth pregnancy that she was finally able to use disposable diapers instead of cloth diapers.

After lunch, and after enjoying freshly baked bread, Templeton would take the kids on some sort of afternoon outing before going shopping.

“I really just wanted to get out and about,” recalled Templeton, who would cook dinner while the kids played.

“That’s it. Just cooking, taking care of the kids and meeting other people’s needs. That’s all day,” said Templeton, who doesn’t allow fast-acting yeast in his baking.

The monotonous, routine life became more difficult when her second child was born, born with Down syndrome and a heart defect that required multiple surgeries. But her young child’s health complications did not stop the couple from having more children.

Templeton was juggling pregnancy, homeschooling, childcare and cooking meals from scratch when her daughter “teetered on the brink of life and death.”

She said the balancing act was “unsustainable” and “not appropriate,” and in retrospect, she admits she should have paused on having children.

“I was having a baby, and the baby was having heart surgery, but I was pregnant with another baby. Then I was pregnant with another baby and had another heart surgery,” she said. “And then I was trying to homeschool one of the kids and trying to keep that one alive with oxygen, and then I got pregnant with the next one.”

After being warned by other mums, she decided to abandon her carefully curated life – which she then began posting on social media.

She took a nursing job, using mental health as an excuse, to prepare for her departure.

“I was brought up not to believe in women’s right to think and ask questions,” Templeton explained of her decision to go public with her experiences online. “I thought if a woman didn’t have children, she would be miserable her whole life. I didn’t understand that some women were just content to live and be themselves.”

Eventually, after a fight with her husband, Templeton said she wanted a divorce.

That was five years ago, and now the single mom has a boyfriend, hosts a podcast called “Emerging Motherhood,” and feels “younger” and “more vibrant,” she says.

“When you see a problem and feel there is a solution, you have a responsibility to act,” she said. “I feel like it’s my job as a mother to clear the way for my daughters. I have to do what I can to make the biggest impact for them.”

“I don’t want them to grow up in a world like this.”