The Cost of Child Marriage: A Survivor’s Story as Missouri Stands at a Turning Point

Her story reveals the devastating impact of marriage on a pregnant teen and the dangers of legal loopholes that allowed her to be wed at just 17. As a married pregnant minor, she soon realized that she was trapped—her abusive husband making decisions that should have been hers alone.

Despite these challenges, Brandi has become a powerful advocate for change, helping to push Missouri toward this crucial moment. As we await the governor’s signature, her voice reminds us why this legislation is so critical—to protect children, close dangerous loopholes, and prevent future generations from enduring the hardships she faced.

AHA Foundation: Can you share your experience with child marriage and how it shaped your perspective?

Brandi: When I was sixteen, I met a twenty-four-year-old man who lived with some boys in my high school, and with stars in my teenage eyes, I believed he hung the moon. Four months later, I found out I was pregnant, and a year after that, I was begging my mom for parental consent to marry my boyfriend after the attorney representing him on criminal theft charges suggested that we do so before his sentencing hearing. Since my boyfriend was a persistent and prior felon, the attorney wanted to use our marriage in arguments for leniency on his sentence to show the judge he was a changed man, a “family man” with a wife and baby. In 1997, at seventeen, I became his bride; he was twenty-five, and his prison sentence was suspended. 

Over the next nine years, we would go on to have another child, and despite the betrayals, I loved him. With every “I’m sorry, babe, it won’t happen again,” I sailed out further on the sea of danger that was him and into the statistics that surround child marriage, such as the high likelihood of poverty, lack of further education, and enduring many forms of abuse, all of which rang true in my marriage. In addition, I had married a sexual predator, which was something I struggled to see even after the sheriff leading the sex crime investigation said the only difference between the other girls he had abused and me was that he married me and I had evidence of the crime, our son’s DNA. 

In 2007, he pled guilty to domestic assault, and two counts of statutory rape (one of those counts of statutory rape is for the crime he committed against me); we got divorced, he went to prison, and I struggled to let go.

“Hindsight is a powerful thing; when we know better, we do better, and when I look at my story with distance, love, and a much stronger sense of self-worth, I can see I was vulnerable. Manipulated. Groomed. I can see how the long-term effects of abuse and trauma have played out in my life and my children’s.”

I had been in a relationship with my abuser since I was sixteen; he was my everything. This was my family. I was his wife. A mother. And my identities felt like they were under attack. I could see that what he had done to others was wrong, but I couldn’t see what he had done to me. I thought I had to be bleeding, bruised, or sitting with broken bones to be considered a woman of domestic violence. I thought if I was his victim, then I couldn’t say I was a wife. I thought if I accepted my child’s DNA was evidence of statutory rape, then I couldn’t call myself a mother. 

I knew I wasn’t supposed to love my husband still, but I did. I loved him more than myself. At the expense of myself. And losing him felt like I was losing a part of myself. He was my identity, and without him, I didn’t know who I was. But I knew I had to keep moving forward to better my life and the lives of my children. I went back to school, became a certified medical coder, and in 2015, I began attending church and journaling to make sense of the past that still felt like it was haunting me because even though I was no longer in a relationship with my ex-husband, the toxicity of my life with him was still in my system. Writing became my therapy. The more I wrote, the more I learned about codependency and trauma bonding. The more I learned, the more I started to see clearly what had happened to me, and I could finally say I was abused.

Hindsight is a powerful thing; when we know better, we do better, and when I look at my story with distance, love, and a much stronger sense of self-worth, I can see I was vulnerable. Manipulated. Groomed. I can see how the long-term effects of abuse and trauma have played out in my life and my children’s. I can see how old mindsets and generational trauma distort our decision-making and feed the cycles of abuse. I can look back at that starry-eyed teen and say getting married wasn’t the right thing, and I am sorry no one protected you. However, it is so hard to see when you’re in it. 

It has taken me a lot of years to finally see, accept, and say I am a child marriage, domestic violence, and sex crime survivor. I lost my childhood, and along the way, I lost myself. Through rose-colored glasses, red flags are invisible. They distorted my perception of reality, leaving me to rationalize many bad things under the guise of marriage; I couldn’t see them as clearly as the sheriff, the prosecutor, and the judge could, nor could my parents, which is why I share my story to advocate for change by helping others see what I couldn’t.  

“It was difficult at first because I wanted to dismiss what I had gone through because I knew other survivors had experienced so much worse, and I didn’t know if my experiences had a place in this fight.”

AHA Foundation: What was the turning point that made you decide to speak out and join this fight? 

Senator Holly Rehder (right) with Brandi (left) in Missouri advocating for a child marriage ban

Brandi: When I was working on my memoir, Girl, Uncoded, I searched the internet for Missouri’s marriage laws so I could add a footnote to the chapter that discussed my marriage. I came across articles that spoke of the changes to the marriage laws that were made in 2018 and a morning show interview of former Missouri Senator Holly Thompson Rehder, who was a Representative at the time of the interview, speaking about the legislation to raise the minimum age in Missouri, the dangers of child marriage and the debates that were taking place amongst legislators on the issue. I felt her passion, the care she had for the children of our state, and a connection to her story. I wanted to learn more.

I read her memoir, Cinder Girl, and numerous articles about the legislation she brought forth as a Senator to end child marriage in Missouri, which ultimately led me to Unchained at Last, a survivor-led nonprofit organization dedicated to ending forced and child marriage in the United States through direct services and systems change. When I saw their Child Marriage Legislation: Progress Map, I couldn’t believe how many states were still allowing this human rights abuse to take place and keeping our children at risk, particularly girls, and I wanted to do whatever I could to help, so I clicked the link to join the movement and became a Survivor Ally for the Missouri and National Coalitions to End Child Marriage. 

AHA Foundation: Was it difficult to take that first step and become publicly involved? 

Brandi: It was difficult at first because I wanted to dismiss what I had gone through because I knew other survivors had experienced so much worse, and I didn’t know if my experiences had a place in this fight. I wanted to help, but I didn’t want to do anything that would hinder the efforts to help the children and/or harm other survivors. However, the more publicly involved I became, the more I realized that we all have a place in this fight and that together, change is made. 

“Teen pregnancy is life-changing and usually unintended, and we do a disservice to rush in and say, ‘Okay, now you need to get married.'”

AHA Foundation: How did the loopholes in the marriage age law affect you or others you know?

Brandi: In 1997, when I got married, Missouri allowed exceptions to its marriage laws to allow minors to get married as long as they got consent from at least one custodial parent or guardian. Since I was seventeen, I wasn’t old enough to legally contract (aka, sign for the marriage license), so the only way I could get married was if one parent would sign. My dad didn’t think getting married was a good idea, so I knew convincing him would be much harder and I couldn’t wait until my 18th birthday because my boyfriend’s court date was before that, and we needed to do what the attorney suggested because it was the only way we could keep him from going back to prison. So that is why I begged my mom to sign. 

In 2018, when Missouri changed the marriage laws, they raised the minimum age from fifteen to sixteen and added that even with parental consent, anyone over the age of twenty-one couldn’t marry anyone under the age of eighteen. Had this change been enacted in 1997, it would have protected me and prevented my mom from making a decision that, at the time, she believed was in my best interest and that of my son. It would have lessened the guilt she feels today, knowing she was the one who signed for the marriage. It would have protected me from being manipulated into a marriage only to protect him from going to prison, and it might have protected the 14-year-old girl he victimized less than a year after we were married. 

AHA Foundation: Why is it critical to ban all marriage before 18, with no exceptions? 

Brandi: Because child marriage destroys children’s lives, particularly girls, which is the lens I speak through to answer this question. There is no reason for a child to be married. What is the rush? If they are in love and marrying for all the right reasons, then they can wait until they reach the age of majority, which is when they have all the legal rights of adulthood and can legally sign for the marriage license. 

The argument I often hear when it comes to waiting is, “What if she is pregnant?” 

One of the statistics surrounding child marriage states, “Teen mothers who marry and then divorce are more likely to suffer economic deprivation and instability than teen mothers who stay single.” 

In high school, I had to attend a pregnant and parenting teen class alongside other girls and a boy who were all expecting or were already parents. I was the only girl among my group of friends in the class who got married as a teenager, and I was the one who didn’t further my education and lived on welfare the longest. Those other girls stayed single, stayed at home with their parents, and went on to further their education. Education opened options for their lives, while getting married narrowed mine.

I say all that to point out that pregnancy isn’t a legitimate reason for a girl to get married. 

Teen pregnancy is life-changing and usually unintended, and we do a disservice to rush in and say, “Okay, now you need to get married.”   

It is an emotional time, and studies show that teen girls who become pregnant have an increased risk for adverse outcomes. Girls who are about to become mothers need resources, connections to services, and guidance to navigate the challenges they will face as teen moms, not spouses.

“I have learned that my voice is strong, my story matters, and I am the one who can best tell it.”

AHA Foundation: What was the most challenging part of fighting for this legislation?

Brandi: The most challenging part of the process is waiting for the bills to move through the legislative process. Patience isn’t easy when the issues are so important. 

AHA Foundation: What motivated you to keep going, even when the legislative process faced setbacks?

Brandi: What motivates me is knowing there are children to protect. Whether they are fifteen or seventeen, they are children and shouldn’t be allowed to get married until they have all the legal rights of adulthood. The children of today, who may be in a similar situation to mine, don’t yet have the benefit of hindsight. They only have the present AND all of us who are willing to fight to end this harmful practice because, in 2025, we can clearly see and know the alarming statistics of child marriage and the risks to our children that far outweigh the benefits. 

“Working alongside everyone has been so empowering and renewed my hope that change is not only possible but is going to come.”

AHA Foundation: What support do you think survivors need or would be most helpful?

Brandi: To know they aren’t alone and that there are resources and places they can go for help, where they will find people who are equipped and supportive, and who will stand beside them to tell them that what happened to them is wrong, isn’t their fault, that they matter, they deserve help, and that they are loved.  

AHA Foundation: Throughout this grueling journey, what have you learned about yourself—your resilience, voice, or ability to create change?” 

Brandi: I have learned that my voice is strong, my story matters, and I am the one who can best tell it. I have learned that I can talk through the nerves, take authority over thoughts that try to make me cower behind a wall of silence, own my story, and stand to speak. I have learned that getting where I am today hasn’t been easy, but I will keep showing up each day, knowing that God’s hand has been and is on my life every step of the way, even when I can’t see it.

AHA Foundation: How did working alongside lawmakers, AHA Foundation, and other advocates shape your journey?

Brandi: Working alongside everyone has been so empowering and renewed my hope that change is not only possible but is going to come. Fraidy Reiss, the founder of Unchained, is a force for good who is breaking chains and changing the world. It is an honor to advocate alongside her, her team, lawmakers, other survivors, and AHA Foundation, which works relentlessly to improve the lives of girls, women, and children.   

“I hope this victory will send a message to other states that have yet to ban child marriage that Missouri protects and values the future of all of Missouri’s children, including our sixteen and seventeen-year-olds. They matter, and so do their futures.”

AHA Foundation: What emotions does this bring up for you, knowing Missouri is on the cusp of taking a historic step to ban all child marriage? 

Brandi: So many emotions have come up for me, and while I am nervously and eagerly waiting for the Governor to sign, I am happy and proud that I was able to give my sixteen and seventeen-year-old self a voice that helps others. I am also amazed by the drive, determination, and resilience of the advocacy groups and advocates who have continued to show up year after year; all their efforts have brought us to this historic moment in 2025. 

I hope this victory will send a message to other states that have yet to ban child marriage that Missouri protects and values the future of all of Missouri’s children, including our sixteen and seventeen-year-olds. They matter, and so do their futures. 

And if Missouri banned child marriage, so should you!

To those still fighting to end child marriage in other states: Thank you for being a difference-maker. Change is coming, one state, one broken chain at a time. #togetherwecan #18noexceptions #endchildmarriage 

*The views in this blog do not necessarily reflect the views of AHA Foundation*