Joy-Anna Duggar, the latest member of her family to enter into a courtship, is already making the most of her time with Austin Forsyth.
If you know what we mean!!
NOTE: We don’t mean Joy-Anna Duggar breaking courtship rules, actually. She may well be, but that’s not the crux of this new report.
“We’ve gotten to experience so much already in our relationship,” Joy-Anna, 19, says in the latest issue of People magazine.
Again, we are not talking about rumors that Austin got Joy-Anna Duggar pregnant, which would rival some of Josh’s scandals.
Not in terms of being terrible human beings, but in terms of the Internet breakage that would follow if such a true story broke.
Their courtship sounds pretty vanilla, to hear her tell it.
“Lots of church ministries, road trips, hiking, hunting and remodeling houses together,” Joy-Anna says of her boyfriend of several months.
She and Austin Forsyth, who announced their courtship in November, have a unique relationship by Duggar standards, in that they met long ago.
More than 15 years ago, as a matter of fact, when his family moved to Arkansas and started attending the Duggars’ church with the family.
“It’s really special that I got to grow up with him and my family knows him really well,” says Joy-Anna of her future husband (call it a hunch).
Three of her sisters (Jill, Jessa and Jinger) have already been through the courtship process, so she’s getting plenty of advice from them.
Every relationship is different, of course, but there are themes.
“Watching my sisters go through that with their courtships sets a really good example,” says the Counting On star of navigating this.
“I was able to ask them just a lot of questions and wisdom about what they did and didn’t do and then just making it special,” she adds.
“Showing him how much I appreciate him, it’s been amazing.”
As for if (or let’s be honest, when) she’ll walk down the aisle?
“I’m not sure when the next step will come,” she admits.
“You would have to ask Austin what he’s thinking and my dad, but I’m excited to see what God has in store for us in the next year.”
If you watch Counting On online, you know this isn’t anything new. Jim Bob calls the shots, though there has been resistance of late.
Jinger Duggar and Jeremy Vuolo can attest to that.
Those two seemed to relish in pushing the envelope with Jim Bob throughout the process; Jessa even threw shade at Jinger for this.
As far as Joy-Anna and Austin are concerned, some sources say they’ve been an item for well over a year, and have been … intimate.
“Despite this ‘courting’ nonsense, Joy-Anna and Austin have actually been having sex together for a year,” says a source close to the family.
The Duggars not only forbid premarital sex, obviously, but non-married couples aren’t permitted to engage in any kind of physical contact.
Seriously. Full-frontal hugs are not allowed in Tontitown.
The insider says Joy-Anna and Austin made it clear from the start – not unlike Jinger and Jeremy – that they will be charting their own path.
Says the family insider, in the understatement of all time:
“Jim Bob and Michelle can preach all they want about their children’s chastity, but the plain fact is that their kids are like anyone else’s.”
“[By] the late teens, their hormones are raging.”
“Joy-Anna is no different, and she and Austin [are] way past the hand-holding stage,” says the source, alleging the aforementioned rumor.
“It led to them getting the fright of their young lives.”
Again, Joy-Anna is not pregnant, and there’s scant evidence that she and Austin, hormonally charged as they may be, have gone there.
Still, it seems like Jim Bob is slowly (okay, very slowly, but noticeably) may be losing his grip on power with each passing year and courtship.
