Good Day

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Eiriceach
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Mar 19, 2017 5:25 pm

Good Day

Post by Eiriceach » Tue Mar 21, 2017 11:53 am

Just wanted to throw my intro up here since I have a few minutes. I used to lurk and occasionally post on the old newordermormon.org site, but was just notified by a friend that these forums were up as well. I was BIC, served a faithful mission, married in the temple, and had a child. A while back I got divorced through no fault of my own (yes, I realize there is fault on both sides for making a marriage good or bad, but I didn't commit any major sins or anything like that). The ex then got remarried and applied for a sealing cancellation. I was told by my BP, SP, and a family member who was a TP that the church generally doesn't give out cancellations unless there was some major sin involved. The cancellation got rejected, but then she got pregnant. Doctrinally speaking, since we were still sealed together, her child with her new husband would be sealed to me (what a way to screw over your ex, right?!). She applied for another cancellation and this time it was granted. I was kind of lost at that point because I had a million questions about sealings, what would happen to my child since the sealing that we had is now gone, etc. I asked any authority figures I could come in contact with and none could give me any answers. I was convinced there had to be some deep doctrine that maybe isn't mainstream any more, so I decided to try and find the answer myself. The was the first step down the rabbit hole...

Pretty soon I was reading everything I could get my hands on regarding temples, church doctrine, scripture, church history, etc. I discovered all of the unsavory details that I never knew about before and was blown away (the extent and circumstances of polygamy, European mysticism as a root for Mormon ritual practices,the witnesses of Joseph's time and how they saw things with their "spiritual eyes", the millions of anachronisms in the BofM, etc.). I tried really hard to hold on and then realized I couldn't any more. I didn't have the strength to perform the mental gymnastics necessary to be a full on believer in pretty much anything that church put out. Now I'm semi-active for family (and somewhat cultural) reasons. I won't hold a calling or give any more time back to the corporate church that I need to.

Anyway, good to find an online community again to discuss and vent when needed!

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Red Ryder
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Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2016 5:14 pm

Re: Good Day

Post by Red Ryder » Tue Mar 21, 2017 5:39 pm

Welcome.

I remember as a ward clerk having to see others go through the same process of requesting temple sealing cancellations. It seemed there was never a standard answer and most people got emotionally jerked around a lot. The poor bishops were always the messenger too.
“It always devolves to Pantaloons. Always.” ~ Fluffy

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redjay
Posts: 411
Joined: Sat Mar 11, 2017 12:20 pm

Re: Good Day

Post by redjay » Wed Mar 22, 2017 3:44 am

Welcome!
At the halfway home. I'm a full-grown man. But I'm not afraid to cry.

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AzCommando
Posts: 57
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2016 2:09 pm
Location: within sight of Moroni the hornblower.

Re: Good Day

Post by AzCommando » Wed Mar 22, 2017 6:23 am

Welcome. Thanks for introducing yourself!

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Corsair
Posts: 3080
Joined: Fri Oct 14, 2016 9:58 am
Location: Phoenix

Re: Good Day

Post by Corsair » Wed Mar 22, 2017 8:06 am

Eiriceach wrote:
Tue Mar 21, 2017 11:53 am
Anyway, good to find an online community again to discuss and vent when needed!
We're glad to have you join us. I also served as a ward clerk and helped write a few sealing cancellation requests. The Office of the First Presidency does jerk around the members with the rules on making and breaking sealing ordinances. I'm glad that the burden of worrying about it has been discarded.

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MalcolmVillager
Posts: 702
Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2016 8:01 pm

Re: Good Day

Post by MalcolmVillager » Wed Mar 22, 2017 3:01 pm

Welcome to the ward! Temples and institutional control of families suck!

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RubinHighlander
Posts: 1906
Joined: Tue Nov 08, 2016 7:20 am
Location: Behind the Zion Curtain

Re: Good Day

Post by RubinHighlander » Wed Mar 22, 2017 3:27 pm

Thanks for the intro and welcome to an awesome forum!

You mentioned something that really touched an old nerve for me. The local level mucking about with melded families, cancellation of sealing, adoptions, etc. This was a big item on my shelf, but it got pushed to the side for all the other crap that quickly got put up there relating to church history.

After my first marriage of 12 years ended with my X's multiple affairs and resigning from the church before they could X her, I stayed faithful and found my now DW a year later. We went through the long process to get the cancellation of sealing from former spouses, having to write letters that laid out the misery of our former marriages with a pleading to let us now put those aside and be sealed together. It took months and seemed to not be a priority for folks at the Stake level. I think this might have had something to do with local leaders judging my new spouse, perhaps based on her past or judging me based on my failed first marriage and now being a 2nd class church member who could not make an eternal marriage work.

Not only that, but when we finally went to the temple to be sealed the workers mucked up the whole process, like they had never done one before. It was awkward and after it was over it just didn't feel right, like it was rushed, half-assessed and not done correctly. But we'd never done it before so we just moved on.

Adoption/sealing debacle: A year later I adopted our youngest kid from DW's first marriage and we had her sealed to us. At first local leaders were cool with that, then it got to the jerk SP and he said we didn't need to have her sealed to me because she was covered under the covenant of my DW's first celestial marriage. Here's the thing, my DW didn't have a current recommend when she had that kid and that dad was not a member, so was the kid really sealed to anyone!? And besides, what the hell harm would it have been if they would just let us go into the sealing room and let us do the ceremony? The double and triple seal dead people to each other in those temples everyday! That was bitter moment for us. As a melded family we were always treated like lower class people, like we were always broken in some way. DW and I really hated that about the church and are so glad to be out of it!
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Newme
Posts: 863
Joined: Sun Nov 27, 2016 12:43 pm

Re: Good Day

Post by Newme » Thu Mar 23, 2017 5:17 pm

Eiriceach wrote:
Tue Mar 21, 2017 11:53 am
She applied for another cancellation and this time it was granted. I was kind of lost at that point because I had a million questions about sealings, what would happen to my child since the sealing that we had is now gone, etc. I asked any authority figures I could come in contact with and none could give me any answers. I was convinced there had to be some deep doctrine that maybe isn't mainstream any more, so I decided to try and find the answer myself. The was the first step down the rabbit hole...
Sorry you went through tough times, but some good seems to have come out of it - in finding deeper truths.

I think that everything is symbolic in a way - even words. Temple sealings are not the marriage themselves, but like a blueprint or hope. But relationships are really as good as the relating. As above, so below.

Welcome. I hope you will find some sense of empathy and support here.

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GoodBoy
Posts: 410
Joined: Tue Oct 18, 2016 8:32 pm

Re: Good Day

Post by GoodBoy » Fri Mar 24, 2017 8:32 am

RubinHighlander wrote:
Wed Mar 22, 2017 3:27 pm
We went through the long process to get the cancellation of sealing from former spouses, having to write letters that laid out the misery of our former marriages with a pleading to let us now put those aside and be sealed together. It took months and seemed to not be a priority for folks at the Stake level. I think this might have had something to do with local leaders judging my new spouse, perhaps based on her past or judging me based on my failed first marriage and now being a 2nd class church member who could not make an eternal marriage work.
I'm convinced that many of these requirements originate from voyeuristic interest in other people's lives, problems, and the salacious details about their sex lives. That, and a smug, feeling of self-righteousness as they look down on you and condescendingly shake their head in pity.
Always been the good kid, but I wanted to know more, and to find and test truth.

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Ghost
Posts: 415
Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2016 11:40 pm

Re: Good Day

Post by Ghost » Fri Mar 31, 2017 4:23 pm

It's always interesting to hear the many different experiences and questions that have served as starting points in discovering the avalanche of new information that we all know so well. Welcome to the site.

tryingtogetitright
Posts: 28
Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2017 8:04 pm

Re: Good Day

Post by tryingtogetitright » Sun Apr 02, 2017 4:22 pm

The letters that talk about sealing cancellations pretty much also say that it doesn't affect anyone's sealings except the person who requested the cancellation. All other sealings remain intact.

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