NOM

Apparently I have been a jerk to my wife. I feel about 2 inches tall today.
When I started this journey I knew the dangers of research into church history. I knew that I was endangering my soul and risking being changed in ways that I could not take back. But I still felt very pushed to look into why all my friends seemed to be leaving. I prayed about it and felt good about doing the research. I told my wife, and she got on board with it. Now, here I am.
Fast forward to a few months ago, I was pushing my wife to read a little about the issues, primarily so if I wanted to talk about something she could understand some of the backstory and the whole myriad of issues that contribute to an apostate line of thought. She told me however that she felt driven and prompted to focus her energies on building her relationship with Christ instead. That hurt, I took that to mean that she just did not want to talk about that stuff. She later expressed that it didn't mean she didn't want to talk, but that she didn't want to focus all her energy on the ces letter, or whatever else.
It seems like also whenever I wanted to talk about some things, she also says "I dont know, I havent thought about that much." That is kind of a shut down for me, and I would withdraw from conversations at that point, and I have been trying to leave her alone lately. Shutting her out basically. When she asked why I would shut her out I would basically say "because you told me you didnt want to talk about it and you wanted to focus on Christ."
Last night we had a conversation about how she feels like she supported me when I felt driven and prompted to do something, but now I am weaponizing her desire and prompting and shutting her out of conversations, which hurts her.
Bottom line is, I have been a dick, and possibly more than a little childish, and hurt a person that I love more than anything. I just thought I would post this to stimulate thought about how significant others are giving us space, but maybe we are not doing the same.

Emower wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 15, 2017 8:52 am

Last night we had a conversation about how she feels like she supported me when I felt driven and prompted to do something, but now I am weaponizing her desire and prompting and shutting her out of conversations, which hurts her.
Bottom line is, I have been a dick, and possibly more than a little childish, and hurt a person that I love more than anything. I just thought I would post this to stimulate thought about how significant others are giving us space, but maybe we are not doing the same.

I'm confused. When/how did you "weaponize" her desire to focus on christ, and tell her not to do so? By not "pushing" conversations the "she hasn't thought about" I'd say that you are protecting her from things that my detract from her "focus on christ".

Disclaimer: I'm a complete social reject, and even worse at relationships, so I'm probably just completely missing something...

I know what you're talking about. I've been there, it sucks.

Learn and move on. That's the only thing you can do. For me, I still think I was doing the best I could at the time - I was operating within my worldview as best I could. Learning to leave behind a clouded thought process is hard.

Don't be too hard on yourself, learn from your mistakes, be the best you can be with what you have at that moment. You're a good person and a good husband and father. You're working on becoming even better. She'll love you more for it, but it can be painful at times in the process.

The correct long term attitude towards the LDS church is not anger or opposition. It's indifference. Consider this: what is your opinion towards Don Alden Adams? Have you ever been annoyed or angry at this guy? You probably have never heard of him and frankly, I had not either until I looked him up a few minutes ago since he is the president of the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania, the principal corporation of Jehovah's Witnesses. He's the JW version of Thomas Monson. I still know nothing about this guy nor do I have any interest in his doctrine or policies. I am entirely indifferent to this guy which is a very reasonable and healthy attitude.

Getting to a point where you can exist with some serenity in a mixed-faith marriage is hard. Plus, there are lots of cases where a married couple leaves the church together and still ends up divorced. I have few practical answers for you. Getting to a point of indifference is strangely effective because it hits the church in a place of weakness. The LDS church can handle persecution and anti-Mormon activity. But they don't know what to do when people ignore the church.

Nothing about this situation is fair. One general conference talk emphasizing 1 Corinthians 7:12-14 would help immensely, but waiting for the institutional church to fix the problem will not help you today. To be honest, nothing will fix this for you. You will need to develop your own moral center for your own life that can exist without "needing" this kind of validation. Kindness and charity towards your dear wife is needed even when you were still a full believer. An LDS testimony does not make a married couple happy together as is regularly demonstrated by LDS divorces where both parties retain a temple recommend. All the usual recommendations of a healthy marriage still apply despite your change in faith.

To be fair, it sounds like you did the best you could to interpret the signals she was sending. People don't usually come right and say, "Don't talk to me about that stuff." But we have to figure out what their silence or, "I haven't thought that much about it," actually means. I probably would have interpreted it the same way you did.

Now that you know that you read more into her comments than she intended, you can correct course. Of course, it would help if you learned to clarify before assuming she doesn't want to hear it. It is really tricky to know how much of our faith journey to share. If we say too much, our spouse can feel pressured to stop believing what they believe, and if we say too little, we risk shutting them out of our thoughts too much. It can be a real tightrope walk. So, don't beat yourself up too much. You were not a jerk, but you were trying to respect her feelings, you just read those feelings slightly wrong.

Or, maybe your wife has ambivalent feelings about knowing the problems with the church as is accidently sending mixed messages because she has mixed feelings.

If she wants to move toward Christ then help her. Often "working on being more Christlike" is actually "I want to burrow deeper into my ignorance of church history".

Fine. Study the New Testament with her. Read "Grace is not God's Backup Plan". I believe that a solid dose of "What would Jesus do" ends with "Not what SLC does". You need not point it out because it is glaringly obvious Christ's goals are not SLC's goals.

Corsair wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 15, 2017 12:07 pm

The correct long term attitude towards the LDS church is not anger or opposition. It's indifference.

And indifference can work both ways.

Here's something I realized late into my disaffection that others might be able to relate to. I went through a period of many years of enthusiastically studying LDS apologetics. I was constantly trying to share the amazing "evidences" was discovering with Mrs. Hagoth because they were helping me keep/build a testimony. I was often frustrated that she seemed disinterested. She seemed more devout than me so I couldn't fathom that she didn't want to join me in my noble quest to prove that the church is true. She just didn't seem to care. Indifference.

Years later when my bubble burst I felt compelled to share non-faith-promoting things with her that I thought she needed to know so she could stop being deceived. After the initial period of shock and fear, she began to respond in the same way as she had to my apologetic efforts. She didn't care to know. She didn't try to stop me from studying but she just wasn't personally interested. It didn't serve her needs.

I finally realized that she just wants to have simple faith. She's not like me; she doesn't need to prove anything with evidence. When it comes to religion we each have very different needs. If they tell me it's literally true then it damn well better be true and need to have convincing evidence. She just wants to be part of the community and feel like God is always there for her. True and not-true just aren't that high on her list.

My big misunderstanding was expecting that other people should process information the same way I need to. Together we have learned that a believer and a non-believer can live together and give each other a lot of leeway once they adjust to the idea. Of course, she probably assumes that I believe more than I do and I probably assume that she believes less than she really does, but that's a tale of human nature for another day.

Isn't there some universal principle in relationships that states, "Damned if you do and damned if you don't"?

moksha wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 17, 2017 7:58 pm

Isn't there some universal principle in relationships that states, "Damned if you do and damned if you don't"?

Damned right!

Brent wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 15, 2017 4:23 pm

If she wants to move toward Christ then help her. Often "working on being more Christlike" is actually "I want to burrow deeper into my ignorance of church history".

Fine. Study the New Testament with her. Read "Grace is not God's Backup Plan". I believe that a solid dose of "What would Jesus do" ends with "Not what SLC does". You need not point it out because it is glaringly obvious Christ's goals are not SLC's goals.

Since I no longer believe in Jesus as human sacrifice scapegoat (Catholic & adopted orthodox tradition), I try to imagine "God" (as I currently understand God) in place of Christ. To me, the church and even Christianity provides opposition to the 1st of the basic "lower" commandments - to not have other gods before God.

=

Empower,
Think of your name - what empowers you? Truth is good, but what is truth other than perspective, right? It is true that the church hides history & finances etc. Now we know, so what now? Of all things to focus on, which will empower you most?

I admire your humility with your wife - that's probably a major strength because if you can see how you could improve, chances are better you will than if you were blind to it. To me, church his-story involves various perspectives & interpretations of the past. It doesn't empower me, other than to let go of church leader worship. Just let it go. I want my focus to empower me. I can't change them or the church, so I'm trying to focus on what inspires me within my control.

Anyway, I'm a work in progress too.

wtfluff wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 15, 2017 10:39 am

Emower wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 15, 2017 8:52 am

Last night we had a conversation about how she feels like she supported me when I felt driven and prompted to do something, but now I am weaponizing her desire and prompting and shutting her out of conversations, which hurts her.
Bottom line is, I have been a dick, and possibly more than a little childish, and hurt a person that I love more than anything. I just thought I would post this to stimulate thought about how significant others are giving us space, but maybe we are not doing the same.

I'm confused. When/how did you "weaponize" her desire to focus on christ, and tell her not to do so? By not "pushing" conversations the "she hasn't thought about" I'd say that you are protecting her from things that my detract from her "focus on christ".

Disclaimer: I'm a complete social reject, and even worse at relationships, so I'm probably just completely missing something...

When I went down the rabbit hole, I told her what I was doing before I jumped and I asked for her support. She gave it and has been amazing.
When I asked her to do some reading, she said she didn't want to at the time, she wanted to focus on a relationship with God and Christ, and she asked for my support. I told her I would give it. Then I start pushing her away and citing her desire to not read as the reason I was pushing away. Thus, not really giving support. I can see it.

Corsair wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 15, 2017 12:07 pm

Getting to a point of indifference is strangely effective because it hits the church in a place of weakness. The LDS church can handle persecution and anti-Mormon activity. But they don't know what to do when people ignore the church.

I'm not real good at being indifferent, but I can see how it could be a benefit.

alas wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 15, 2017 3:28 pm

It is really tricky to know how much of our faith journey to share. If we say too much, our spouse can feel pressured to stop believing what they believe, and if we say too little, we risk shutting them out of our thoughts too much. It can be a real tightrope walk. So, don't beat yourself up too much. You were not a jerk, but you were trying to respect her feelings, you just read those feelings slightly wrong.

Or, maybe your wife has ambivalent feelings about knowing the problems with the church as is accidently sending mixed messages because she has mixed feelings.

Thanks alas. I think she does have mixed feelings. So its just a big slurry of mixed up feelings around here. Life is grand.

Newme wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 19, 2017 9:24 am

church his-story

That's hilarious, I love it! Thanks for the encouragement.