Hating it

Discussions about negotiating relationships between faithful LDS believers and the apostates who love them. This applies in particular to mixed-faith marriages, but relations with children, parents, siblings, friends, and ward members is very welcome.
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Korihor
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Hating it

Post by Korihor » Sun Dec 11, 2016 11:59 am

I'm simply hating things right now. I'm in SM and I'd rather smash my head into cinder block wall than keep listening to this drivel. This dudes talk was 5 'minutes of how awesome "light the world" is.
I come to church to support DW. I can do it for her, but she knows it's hard sometimes and I wear my emotions on my sleeve. I can't vent to her in the middle of SM because that destroys the point of coming. If I did that, it would be better to just stay home.
I'm just hating things right now. And the wifi is slow because everyone else is on their phones trying to dull the pain.
Reading can severely damage your ignorance.

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Corsair
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Re: Hating it

Post by Corsair » Sun Dec 11, 2016 12:59 pm

Much commiseration, my apostate friend. I just got out of stake conference which has the benefit of being one hour shorter but was still disappointing for real substance. There were two talks that accidentally bumped into interesting territory, but neither really comprehended what was going on.

One speaker brought up the challenges of the Jaredite people and how difficult it must have been to be in these barges with animals and bees and having the wind and waves turn them over during 344 days of travel. This is a story that hands down beats Nephi's transoceanic crossing for sheer incredulity. No apologetics arose in her talk. She just admired them for singing day and night to bolster their spirits. Obviously this was no opportunity for me to publicly cross examine the complete lunacy of the Jaredite ocean crossing myth.

Another speaker was a lady who had been dating a Jewish man. At one point his father came to visit them upon announcement of their engagement. Future father-in-law had researched some sticky points of LDS history and confronted her with these facts. She apparently had enough apologetic background to reasonably defend herself and she did get married to this Jewish man who converted to Mormonism. The father-in-law was impressed with her knowledge enough to allay his fears about what kind of person she was.

It was a nice story, but of course none of the actual issues were at all discussed of mentioned. She called it an "interrogation" and I would love to see a transcript. But, as these encounters usually turn out for a TBM, it would not be relayed in stake conference if it was not chalked up to the "win" column for this believing woman.

Being the undercover unbeliever in church is not easy. I now view it as training in maintaining dignified composure in face of such silliness. But perhaps I'm likewise just mentally tormenting myself in the face of such epistemological naivete.

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Culper Jr.
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Re: Hating it

Post by Culper Jr. » Sun Dec 11, 2016 8:18 pm

+1 commiseration. It just gets more excruciating every Sunday.

They keep assigning both speakers the same topic in my ward, not different aspects of the same topic, but the exact same topic. Then the speakers only quote from conference talks. I have a difficult time following if the story the speaker is relaying is about them, the person who's conference talk they are quoting, or about a person in a story relayed by the person who gave the conference talk and again relayed by the person now quoting the conference talk. It's like the movie Inception, where instead of dream levels you are like three "talk levels" down and time moves even more slowly.

I've taken to not saying amen when I hear a talk I don't agree with generally. My daughter has started to notice this and asks about it later. Planting independent thought seeds...

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trophywife26.2
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Re: Hating it

Post by trophywife26.2 » Sun Dec 11, 2016 9:02 pm

What about downloading a podcast and getting wireless headphones. But I guess men with short hair can't pull that off. Threadjack but during geometry class I had some headphones in listening to music and the wires under my long hair running down my jacket to my discman in my pocket and I thought I was pretty badA.

Church can be brutal. Hang in there. What about bringing a book? Or do your kids need to be wrangled so much that it wouldn't be cool?
Even if it's something disappointing, it's still better to know the truth. Because people can deal with disappointment. And once they've done that, they can feel that they have really grown. And that can be such a good feeling. -Fred Rogers

Korihor
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Re: Hating it

Post by Korihor » Sun Dec 11, 2016 11:05 pm

trophywife26.2 wrote:What about downloading a podcast and getting wireless headphones. But I guess men with short hair can't pull that off. Threadjack but during geometry class I had some headphones in listening to music and the wires under my long hair running down my jacket to my discman in my pocket and I thought I was pretty badA.

Church can be brutal. Hang in there. What about bringing a book? Or do your kids need to be wrangled so much that it wouldn't be cool?
It's all I can manage to just play on my phone occasionally. I stay for SM, but virtually every Sunday i go to the gas station for a Coke in either the 2nd or 3rd hour. Sometimes I make it to SS, sometimes not. Same goes for EQ.

I can't tune out the what they're talking about because it just angers me. I hate it that the church still has this control on my life.
Reading can severely damage your ignorance.

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Emower
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Location: Carson City

Re: Hating it

Post by Emower » Sun Dec 11, 2016 11:47 pm

SM for me was awful as well. Talks about Joseph smith from the couple missionaries. She even incorporated sound effects in her talk when it came to the story of Joseph's leg operation. Full on sound effects I'm talkin groaning, little screams, gasps of surprise etc...
It was weird.

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Deepthinker
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Re: Hating it

Post by Deepthinker » Mon Dec 12, 2016 7:56 am

I feel for you, Korihor. I've been in those sacrament meetings. Sometimes what helps is imagining I'm in their shoes when I was TBM, or if that doesn't work try to tune out.

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alas
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Re: Hating it

Post by alas » Mon Dec 12, 2016 9:08 am

Is it time you had a talk with your DW about how you want to support her, but it is making you crazy? If you have toddlers, you could offer to stay home with the ones who are too young to get something out of church. It just sounds to me like everyone may be happier if you and the little ones stayed home. How is your mood for the rest of the day? For me, I found that church wrecked my mood for hours afterward. So, hubby goes alone and our lonely neighbor divorcee grabs him to sit with. The ward is going to think something is going on.

Korihor
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Re: Hating it

Post by Korihor » Mon Dec 12, 2016 9:34 am

alas wrote:Is it time you had a talk with your DW about how you want to support her, but it is making you crazy? If you have toddlers, you could offer to stay home with the ones who are too young to get something out of church. It just sounds to me like everyone may be happier if you and the little ones stayed home. How is your mood for the rest of the day? For me, I found that church wrecked my mood for hours afterward. So, hubby goes alone and our lonely neighbor divorcee grabs him to sit with. The ward is going to think something is going on.
I appreciate the support from everyone. I'll be fine.
We've already had talks about how to support one another in church. We have a 2 yr old and 4 yr old. I'd offer to stay home with them, but I don't want to split up the family either. The 4 yr old likes church - more or less. He has friends there and they play games.
Lately I just go to SM and play on my phone the entire time. I almost always duck out during SS or EQ to get a coke.

There is another family in our ward that is in a similar situation, he doesn't believe/attend and she does. But she hauls 4 kids by herself every week. I don't want to do that to Mrs Korihor, even if the most help I can offer is helping load kids in the car.

Going to church destroys my mood. Usually starting Saturday evening through Sunday afternoon.
Reading can severely damage your ignorance.

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Vlad the Emailer
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Location: Lower Midwest

Re: Hating it

Post by Vlad the Emailer » Mon Dec 12, 2016 12:18 pm

Wow, Korihor, we are sooooo in the same place. I even leave for that Coke sometimes, especially when DW isn't there and I'm just dutifully hauling kids to church, because, you know, teaching kids to go to church is just the right thing to do! Especially the one and only true church (whose truth somehow doesn't have to be real for it to really be true!).

DW has commented on my lack of a poker face and how I sit there looking miserable, while at the same time not giving a holy sheet whether I'm miserable or not. Ah, those stalwart Mormons.....so Christlike. If you don't believe it, just ask them. :roll:

Sorry, man. I have no advice but to keep getting those Cokes! At least if misery loves company, we have that going for us!
When an honest man discovers he is mistaken, he will either cease being mistaken, or cease being honest. - Anonymous

Say what you want about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying. - Kurt Vonnegut

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Enoch Witty
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Re: Hating it

Post by Enoch Witty » Mon Dec 12, 2016 12:44 pm

I've been torn on a similar issue lately.

On one hand, I attended for more than five years purely on behalf of my wife, though to be fair to her, I did not express these feelings to her until just a few months ago. She has since freed me from attending church, and so I haven't the last several months. She is awesome and does not give me crap for it.

In theory, I'm willing to attend SM to be a supportive husband. However, we have a two-year-old who is out of control. Since I don't care one bit whatsoever what is being said, I of course take the lead on chasing the kid through the halls and whatnot. But it occurred to me a few months ago: "Why am I coming to church only to chase this kid around? It's not like we're sitting as a family together in meetings, and I'm certainly not personally getting anything out of attending." So our current situation is that I am willing to someday attend SM as a family, but there doesn't seem to be much of a point to it right now.

However, my wife wants our son to have the nursery experience, so she still takes him. It's kind of silly, because then she does the chasing around and misses things, our son still continues to get nothing from it at all, and I'm not there to help, since my position is that I could/would much more happily chase him around our home than the halls of the church. It's a bit of a vicious cycle, because since it's just babysitting, I could totally attend, but I'd rather just do that babysitting at home, so I don't attend, but then taking the boy alone adds stress to my wife, so I should attend, but she is choosing to add that stress to her own churchgoing experience, so it's not my problem, and then... See how many ways one can view the situation?

I'm also deeply concerned about the upcoming indoctrination of our son, so there's a part of me (probably the bad-husband part) that wants to make said indoctrination as difficult as possible for those who are going to carry it out. But the cognitive dissonance comes in when I consider that I love my wife and want to help her avoid difficulties and reach her goals. In 99% of cases, however, our goals are aligned. In this case, there are such conflicting emotions.

All of this is to say: you should probably be adding some rum to those EQ cokes, Korihor.

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trophywife26.2
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Re: Hating it

Post by trophywife26.2 » Mon Dec 12, 2016 10:24 pm

Korihor wrote: It's all I can manage to just play on my phone occasionally. I stay for SM, but virtually every Sunday i go to the gas station for a Coke in either the 2nd or 3rd hour. Sometimes I make it to SS, sometimes not. Same goes for EQ.

I can't tune out the what they're talking about because it just angers me. I hate it that the church still has this control on my life.
Just staying for SM is an accomplishment in my book! Give yourself some credit. You are doing great. It's natural for these things to upset you. You've devoted so much of your life to the church.
Even if it's something disappointing, it's still better to know the truth. Because people can deal with disappointment. And once they've done that, they can feel that they have really grown. And that can be such a good feeling. -Fred Rogers

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Mormorrisey
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Re: Hating it

Post by Mormorrisey » Tue Dec 13, 2016 11:51 am

It seems like you have the right idea about attending, especially with small kids - it's not about church, really, it's about helping out with the younguns. There's nothing wrong with helping out and clawing your ears out during SM, and then when the kids are "safely" off to Primary, doing your own thing. I had a long conversation with a teetering family member, and their new strategy to deal with church is when they hear something they hate, they just leave. And you know what? NOTHING HAPPENS. What can they do? Nothing, that's what. So a lot of good strategies to deal with it.

This Sunday, SM wasn't bad, I actually gave a little talk on one of my favourite hymns, a really quiet guy gave a pretty good talk on Jesus, and then Sunday School was pretty good. I didn't want to jinx it further, so I bagged HP and left. Saves my sanity, and it seems to be a common strategy here.
"And I don't need you...or, your homespun philosophies."
"And when you try to break my spirit, it won't work, because there's nothing left to break."

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