‘Jill And Jessa: Counting On’ Recap: Jill Dillard And Jessa Seewald Admit They Should Have Waited To Defend Josh Duggar
Jill Dillard and Jessa Seewald are back with their TLC special "Jill and Jessa: Counting On." As previously reported, the three-part series will follow the Duggar daughters' journeys into motherhood as they try and move past their brother Josh Duggar's numerous scandals. It was revealed in July that Jill and Jessa were both molested by Josh when he was a teenager. Two months after that news broke, Josh admitted to having accounts on the cheating site Ashley Madison and being unfaithful to his wife, Anna Duggar.
Season 1, episode 1, titled "A New Chapter," focuses mainly on Jill and her husband Derick, and Jessa and her husband Ben. Jill and Derick, who are new parents to their 6-month-old son Israel, are preparing for a mission trip to Central America. Meanwhile, Jessa and Ben are getting ready to welcome their first child. (Their son, Spurgeon Elliot, was born Nov. 5).
Throughout episode 1, Jessa goes shopping for her baby and Jill starts getting her things ready to leave the country. In between scenes, each woman reflects on the past four months and talks about how they've been coping after finding out that Josh has been living a double life. The former "19 Kids and Counting" stars also open up about Josh's molestation scandal.
"[There are] tough days," Jessa admits to the camera, saying that as time goes on things do get a bit easier. "Life over the past four months has been pretty crazy for my family. We've endured a lot, and it's been really difficult."
Jill adds that the past four months didn't turn out as she had planned. One thing that's clear from "Jill and Jessa: Counting On," is that the sisters have already forgiven Josh for the molestation.
Jill and Jessa, however, admit that it was harder to forgive their brother after he confessed to cheating on his wife.
“The police report was released to the world and that wasn’t right. They shouldn’t have done that. Basically, we had moved on from [that],” Jill explains in her confessional. Opening up about his infidelity, she adds, "Just thinking about what Josh is speaking about and what our whole family believes, it was just like, 'No, this can't be true.'"
"It seemed like it was a bad dream," Jessa says.
Interestingly, even though both sisters say they've forgiven Josh for the molestation, Jill admits that she should have waited before she publicly defended him.
Reflecting on her and Jessa's joint interview with Megyn Kelly on "The Kelly File” in June, Jill says Josh should have stopped them from speaking out until they knew all his secrets.
“It wasn’t right to let us speak our words without having the full knowledge of what he was hiding,” Jill says, wiping away tears.
At the time of the interview with Kelly, Jessa said she wanted to "speak up in [Josh's] defense against people who call him a molester and pedophile." However, on the TLC special the 23-year-old also admits that, like her sister, she should have waited to publicly comment.
“It was one thing when months before we looked back on the situation that happened when he was a teenager and saying that was so long ago, but here’s something present day, like today,” Jessa explains. “The other situation we had already brought closure to that, but for sure it was really difficult to come to grips with that.”
"Jill and Jessa: Counting On" will continue next Sunday at 8 p.m. on TLC.
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