That's what Nansook Hong says she had to do. She was married to the son of Sun Myung Moon, the founder of the Unification Church (Moonies). The son's name is Hyo Jin Moon, and according to Hong, he is a drunk, a cocaine addict, a wife-beater and crazily out of control.

And, she says, his parents, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and Hak Ja Han Moon, made no attempt to stop the beatings and rapes, the verbal abuse or his use of drugs and alcohol.

Hong's ordeal was so terrible that she wrote a book ("In the Shadow of the Moons," Little, Brown, $23) as a kind of therapy. It is now in the bookstores and selling well.

As I talked with Hong last week, the one thing that surprised me was her inner peace, her lack of latent hostility. She talks of the Moons dispassionately, even though, as a member of the inner circle of disciples, she saw them at their worst.

"(Rev.) Moon is a bully," Hong said. "He puts people in the public realm and humiliates them. He humiliated my parents, who had given up their life for him. They left the church. And every time he saw me after they left, he would tell me my parents are Satan. And if they call, don't even answer the phone."

For his part, the leader of the Unification Church has not responded publicly to the book, although he reportedly tried to keep it off the market.

Moon chose her to wed Hyo Jin when she was 15. Now 33, Hong is the mother of five children who, she says, have all been damaged by their father's brutality. He is now living with another woman and has only supervised visitation.

In addition to her candor about marital strife, Hong talks openly about the condition of the Unification Church today.

As Moon becomes more powerful and corrupt, she says, the religion is being damaged beyond repair. Many members have left and returned to everyday life, and there are few new members joining. The intense recruitment tactics used during the 1980s are now all but forgotten, and the so-called brainwashing is also a thing of the past.

"Much has been written about the coercion and brainwashing that takes place in the Unification Church," Hong writes in her book. "What I experienced was conditioning. You are isolated among like-minded people. You are bombarded with messages elevating obedience above critical thinking. Your belief system is reinforced at every turn. You become invested in those beliefs the longer you are associated with the church. After 10 years, after 20 years, who would want to admit, even to herself, that her beliefs were built on sand?"

As Moon ages, Hong says, he is concentrating on big conferences and on South America, where he buys hotels and newspapers. Apparently all the early talk about world dominance is gone, and even though the 78-year-old Moon has crowned himself king of the universe, there is no longer talk of ruling the world.

"He's giving his money to government officials in South America," Hong says. "He wants to leave a legacy. I think when the South Americans see him, they see green dollar signs."

Money apparently is no problem for the Moons. He owns several homes, drives Mercedes Benz automobiles and travels to churches around the world.

"There are two sets of standards -- very hypocritical -- one for the Moon family and one for the followers," Hong said. "They have everything they want: jewelry, cars, everything. Moon says he doesn't sleep at night because he has to work for God, so he has to have the nice cars so he can rest."

But despite her disenchantment with the Unification religion, the worst experience for Hong was the beatings from her husband, she says.

"At one point, I felt he was going to beat me to death, and I couldn't let that happen because of the children," Hong said. "He told me he was going to kill us all, and because he was on cocaine and would flip, I decided I had to get the five children out of there."

She took some money and her expensive jewelry and bought a house. But times were hard, and she and the children lived on a bare minimum for a long time, she says. Now, three years after leaving a 14-year nightmare, the Barnard College graduate says she wants to work in the field of battered women.

"I wish I had awakened earlier, but I didn't," Hong says. "I still feel like an idiot for being there so long."

Clark D. Morphew