Gloriavale leaders discovered he was operating a private bank and TradeMe account and gave him no choice but to leave. In Gloriavale no one is above the collective.
After her husband was sent away, Mrs Ben-Canaan came under tremendous pressure.
"There is a decided path that you're supposed to choose," she said.
"If your husband is sent away, you are to decide that you don't see him again and that's the end of your marriage and you live alone for the rest of your life."
Being apart from her husband was the hardest thing she said she has ever had to do.
When he came to visit her and her seven children a few days after he was kicked out, she was manipulated and told that seeing him was against the word of God.
"The four-and-a-half weeks that I was separated from my husband, it was very, very traumatic. He came to visit one Saturday, and I was told that I wasn't allowed to see him or to be breaking my commitment of breaking the word of God," she said.
"But then they turned around and said 'we can't tell you what to do, you have to decide this for yourself'. And I said that 'you've just told me that you don't want me to and you've just told me that, you know, what you're telling me is breaking the law, you are putting pressure on me to go your way'."
The Gloriavale Christian community at Haupiri, near Greymouth. Photo / Kurt Bayer
Mrs Ben-Canaan said they were pressuring her to go their way, so that way senior leaders at Gloriavale would not wear any of the blame.
She said they told her if she did decide to see him, she would not be allowed to live at Gloriavale anymore, and that would mean her soul was lost, and she would be going to hell.
The separation of family members who are defecting from the status quo in Gloriavale is a strategy used to stop a whole family by leaving, by turning them against the defector.
Former Gloriavale member Tim Hartnell left the commune 34 years ago.
He stressed there were good people in Gloriavale but splitting families was horrible.
"It's a strategy that they've used for many, many years and I believe the separation of families is wrong."
At first, the technique did not work on Mrs Ben-Canaan. She could not bear to be away from her husband any longer. She decided to leave with him, and her seven children when he visited.
However, the pull and control Gloriavale had over her life were too great. She returned to the West Coast community within 24 hours, with four of her children.
She said she was terrified about living elsewhere.
"I was completely convinced I was going to hell, and that I had to be on the property at Gloriavale to be saved."
But her return was met with consequences. She was stripped of all her previous responsibilities and was no longer allowed to work as a teacher.
Mrs Ben-Canaan said it was a way for those in charge to send a message.
"It was their way of saying, you've been put down. You are in rejection. We are rejecting you because of what you have done. You have created a precedent. And you don't do this if your husband's sent away where you stay here."
Soon though, Mrs Ben-Canaan could not bear it anymore.
