16yo forced to marry Utah teen by a cult, but the ‘marriage’ didn’t last. But fate had other plans

Nineteen years after the end of Warren Jeffs’ cult, something good finally came out of it. A couple of teens who were born into the cult entered a fixed marriage, only to later reconnect after both escaped. Now they’re a shining example that there’s life after cultism.

In 2003, Angela Johnson was a 16-year-old teenager — a little rebellious toward authority, eager to learn more about life, and, much like everyone else at the time, a Britney Spears fan. But unlike most of her peers, she had to do all this in secret because she was in a cult — the notorious Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, to be exact.

At that time, the cult was under the firm control of Warren Jeffs. Although Angela revealed to People that she didn’t have direct interactions with him, the cult was very much built in his image. Polygamy was expected, and education was discouraged for young girls. Angela herself wasn’t expected to get past the 10th grade — and that was the case for most girls born into the cult.

What Angela was “born for” was getting a husband. And the cult chose Cade Johnson, 19, for her. By the time the two were forced to marry, Jeffs had already risen into the top 10 of the FBI’s Most Wanted List — usually reserved for some of the most sadistic minds in American history. Angela and Cade exchanged vows in a laundromat because, at that time, the ceremony wasn’t allowed to take place in a church. A red flag in itself — and a fact about their marriage that Angela struggles to fathom even to this day.

But the “marriage” didn’t last long. Both Cade and Angela felt they were simply too young for that kind of commitment. Angela’s unruly behavior eventually led to her being sent to live with her aunt — effectively ending her sham marriage to Cade. Angela now shares that her time with her aunt introduced her to a version of life she hadn’t thought possible — one where she was finally allowed to be a teenager.

Around the same time, Cade also decided to escape the cult. During his years there, he’d often questioned the rules and even snuck a beer or two — both strictly forbidden acts. As fate would have it, his friend started dating one of Angela’s friends, and through that, the two became another case of post-cult reconnection.

They first bonded over their shared experience of escaping the cult. After Jeffs was arrested in 2006 and the cult slowly dissolved, Angela and Cade began meeting and texting — and soon, love blossomed. They often joked that the worst thing that could come from their reconnection was getting divorced, since they were technically already married. Eventually, they decided to settle down and now describe their relationship as one of “healing through trauma.” They have three children of their own, whom they’re raising far from the shadow of the cult.

Nowadays, they take pride in letting their children fully express themselves and be exactly who they want to be.