If we want to understand what went wrong with Tom Cruise’s failed relationships, we need to talk about his involvement with the Church of Scientology, which had a huge impact on his married life, his ex-wives, and basically, all other aspects of his life.

In 1985, Tom Cruise met his first wife-to-be, Mimi Rogers, who introduced him to Scientology. Her father was a Scientology mission holder, so her religion was an important part of her life since a very early age. According to Rogers, the reason why she wanted him to get Scientology training was that of his philandering. They got married two years later, on May 9, 1987. Unfortunately, it didn’t last. And here comes the interesting detail about all three of Cruise's failed marriages— apparently, he divorced all of his wives the moment they reached the age of 33. He was married to Mimi Rogers for 2 years, to Nicole Kidman for 10 years, and for Katie Holmes for 6 years before the Rule of 33 came to pass. Was it just a coincidence or is there more to this story? Well, we don’t know for sure, but it definitely seems interesting.

However, before he divorced his wives, he made them follow some unusual requests. Most of them had to do with Scientology and we are about to take a look at 15 of them right now.

A Completely Transparent Marriage

If you have been wondering about how much the Scientology organization is actually involved in the lives of its members, the answer is— much more than you would expect. Apparently, they know everything, up to the tiniest and most intimate of details. The members have to keep reports about everything, for example, how often the couple shared the bed and how exactly it went. Try to imagine somebody somewhere reading these kinds of records about you and your partner. It seems pretty ridiculous and bizarre, doesn’t it? Well, Tom Cruise’s wives had to learn how to deal with it for as long as they were married to him. Basically, they didn’t just marry Tom, they married the whole organization and that had a huge impact on their every-day-life and came with a complete lack of privacy.

Ultrasound Exams Every Day

Every pregnant woman should have an ultrasound exam every once in a while but when you are expecting Tom Cruise’s baby, you have to be prepared to undergo those exams EVERY SINGLE DAY! What is the purpose of that? Well, there is actually no rational explanation for this, except for maybe Tom being a little bit too obsessive. When Katie Holmes was expecting their baby, Tom bought a portable ultrasound machine, had it installed in their home, and gave Katie exams on a daily basis. Taking into the consideration that he hasn’t had any kind of medical training, he probably wouldn’t know even if there was even something wrong with the baby by looking at the sonogram. Some things are better left to the professionals, don’t you agree?

Scientology Is More Important Than His Personal Life

Many women who have married Scientologists have confirmed this, so there is no reason to believe this wasn’t the case with Cruise’s marriages. Apparently, when you are married to a member of the Scientology organization, you have to accept the fact that the organization will always come first; it will always be more important to the man than his own wife. What that means is that he will often spend much more time with the other members than with the wife, he will attend the meetings and other events, and the wife will have to spend a lot of time alone, never complaining about it because he doesn’t want to hear it. So when we take Tom’s busy career into the consideration, plus all the time he spent in the organization, his wives were probably left alone most of the time.

Tom’s Career Always Comes First

All of Tom’s ex-wives are actresses and they all had to accept the fact that their career will never be as important as his was for as long as they were married to him. When talking about this, Nicole Kidman said that when they attended events together, like the Academy Awards, her role was to put on a nice dress, look lovely, and support her husband.

It is no wonder that the marriages didn’t work in the long-run because this is something that can be very hard to accept, especially for women with strong personalities like Nicole’s. Truth to be told, she wasn’t too well-known before she married Tom, she was young and her career was at its beginning but once she realized there was a great acting future in the store for her, she decided to step out of her husband’s shadow.

The Reputation-Smearing

One of the ways, if not the only way, to get divorced from your husband if he is a Scientologist is to escape Scientology altogether. However, if that is something you are planning to do, you have to be ready to take as much reputation-smearing as you can possibly imagine. Look at Nicole Kidman, for example. She was basically portrayed as a complete psychopath to her own kids and she has very little contact with them even today, years after the divorce. The church will do almost anything to completely slander one’s reputation if they leave Scientology. Katie, on the other hand, knew that she had to do something about that if she wanted not to end up like Nicole, so she made it legally impossible for the organization to get their hands on her daughter.

The Organization Might Break Your Marriage

Since the Scientology organization is very much involved in the lives of their members, there is a chance it might actually break your marriage if they aren’t happy with it. There is a good reason to believe this is what actually happened with Tom Cruise and Mimi Rogers. Tom Cruise has always been a valuable asset to the organization— a popular, young actor with a great perspective was just what the organization needed when he joined. Apparently, some members of the organization encouraged the affair between Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise at the time he was still married to Rogers in order to push her away. Of course, the whole thing was arranged and orchestrated so that Rogers would find out what was going on. After the Scientology’s marriage counseling, Rogers was informed by one of the members that it was time to end the marriage.

The Parents Aren’t Allowed To Visit

When marrying a Scientologist, you have to be aware of the fact that you are marrying a man with a very strict set of rules and you have to be sure you are ready to take them on. To other people who aren’t members of the Scientology church, those rules often come off as mentally abusive. One of the most disturbing ones is the rule that your parents can’t visit you whenever they want and you aren’t allowed to see them if the organization doesn’t agree with it. Some of the women married to Scientologists have claimed to only be allowed to see their parents once a week, while others haven’t seen their families in years. We aren’t sure how often Cruise’s wives were allowed to contact their families but there is a very good possibility there was some rule in place regarding this.

Your Child Will Grow Up A Scientologist

If the wife is not a Scientologist, take Katie Holmes for example, and the husband is a Scientologist, there is absolutely no discussion about the faith of your child— the child will grow up a Scientologist, no questions asked. Growing up as a Scientologist means a lot of things, not just certain religious beliefs, but they will often be separated from their parents and forced to attend ranch camps. Their education will be pretty lousy, as the religious doctrine is basically the only kind of education the members of the organization believe their kids need, if the child (or the wife) is mentally ill, they will not get the help they need because Scientology is against any form of psychotherapy. Children as young as six will often be interrogated to extract information the organization might find useful etc. Many people believe that children raised in the Church of Scientology are completely robbed of their childhood.

You Will Have Restricted Access To Medicine

Scientologists believe that every person is capable of healing their own ailments if trained correctly. This is something that Scientologist teach their kids from the very early age and the principle is to try and transfer pain from your body onto a solid object as many times as it takes until you feel better. Whether you have a fever or cancer, the procedure is the same and if it doesn’t work, it simply means you are not doing it right and it is your own fault. Conventional medicine is to be avoided as much as possible, as well as comfort and nurture. Out of all of the rules, this one might be the hardest to accept, especially once you have a child and you want the best possible medical care for them, yet you are not allowed to ask for it.

They Control Your Daughter's Pregnancy

If Katie Holmes stayed married to Tom Cruise until their daughter Suri reached her pubescent years, there was a chance she would be forced into marriage or even into an abortion if she got pregnant. The lack of proper s*xual education is a big issue among the teenage Scientologists, as they engage in the activities they are naturally inclined to do. If a young couple is caught being intimate, even kissing, they might be forced into getting married. If they aren’t caught, pregnancy is a high possibility because they have no access to birth control. If that happens, there are two ways Scientologists handle those situations: the girl is either forced into having an abortion or she is disconnected from everyone she knows.

The Disconnection Policy

One of the most intimidating tactics among the members of the Scientology organization is the so-called "disconnection." It is publically stated that disconnection is self-determined, but former members insist otherwise. So what is disconnection? Well, basically, it is the complete severing of the communication line between you and other significant people in your life, such as your family and friends. Members of the Church of Scientology are often told to completely stop communicating with the people whose Scientology practices aren’t up to the organization’s standards. Long story short, this is what happened between Nicole Kidman and her kids after she divorced Tom Cruise. There is also a reason to believe that Tom’s wives have been told to disconnect from some other people in their lives while they were married to him.

Auditing And Interrogation Are A Must

Auditing is one of the interrogational forms used by the Scientology organization to extract information from its members. All of Tom’s wives had to go through it repeatedly. If you don’t understand why the organization needs people’s personal information in the first place, it is for the worst possible reasons. It has been confirmed by some former members that they often use the information to blackmail, criticize, and manipulate the members. The worst part of it is the fact that children are also subject to auditing from the moment they turn six. They are made to hold metal tubes during the process, which they believe will somehow monitor electrical particle changes on the skin. The truth is, the tubes actually do nothing; they are just used as an intimidation technique to force them into telling the truth.

All Forms Of Communication Are Monitored

Once you marry a Scientologist, you can wave goodbye to your privacy. Not only will you be questioned about the tiniest details of your life and will there be a record of your marital bedroom activities but all possible forms of communication will be monitored as well. All of your phone calls, your emails, your text messages, internet use, and basically any other kind of contact you may have with someone will be monitored closely. Every regular couple has a little secret or two, there is no harm in that, as they are completely irrelevant. However, Tom Cruise’s wives had to deal with the fact that they will never be able to tell someone something in confidence without Tom (and the rest of the organization) knowing all about it. This lack of privacy and personal space must be really hard to get used to.

If You Misbehave, You Might End Up In “The Hole”

A handler for the Tom Cruise household, John Brousseau, gave an insider look at "The Hole," which is the Church of Scientology’s so-called prison. It started out as a building where David Miscavige (the current leader of Scientology) would keep around 50 people locked up for an unspecified offense. The inmates there were subjected to various punishments, for example, they had to scrub toilets with toothbrushes, doused with water, made to stand in a big pile of garbage, etc. During the night, they had to sleep on the floor and the only food available was some kind of slop. After all of this was exposed in 2009, the conditions improved but barely. The Hole was the place where Tom Cruise’s wives would end up if they ever misbehaved or did anything that the members of the Sea Org weren’t happy about.

Don’t Talk About The Church – EVER

All of Tom Cruise’s wives are well-aware that even now, after the divorce, they aren’t allowed to talk about the Church of Scientology in a negative way. Why? Well, because the consequences might be worse than you thought. One of the cases that can give us a pretty good idea about why these women still abide by the rules is the case of Shelly Miscavige, the wife of David Miscavige, the Church leader. She disappeared in 2006 and was briefly seen one year later at her father’s funeral. That was the last time anybody has ever seen her. However, her disappearance wasn’t reported until 2013, when Leah Remini filed the report. When the topic came up at Tom and Katie’s wedding, Leah was instructed not to talk about it. Rumor has it that Shelly’s been held at CST (Church of Spiritual Technology) against her will.