I figured it out, why can't you?

[TestimonyLost]

I posted in another thread seeking advice (and appreciate everyone who shared their thoughts there!). This is just pure venting.

My faith crisis lasted several years. I agonized every day for hours. I searched, I pondered, I prayed, I begged for answers. I wanted it all to be true so badly. I needed it to be true. Almost every quiet moment during this time was filled with stress and anxiety over my faith.

Fast forward to now. Every time I talk about my faith crisis with my wife, she brings up how she went through a period in her teenage years where she didn’t believe but she got through it. Been there, figured it out, you can too. It makes me want to scream at her. I feel like it’s the faith equivalent of a teenager who’s dated a dude for six months telling a married couple of thirty years that they understand what they’ve been through.

Did she go through something real? Yes. Is it remotely comparable to what I’ve been through? Uh, no, I really don’t think it is. Am I being petty? Yes, yes I am.

That is all.

[Korihor]

When was the last time you read your scriptures and prayed to find the answer? I bet it's been a while. Maybe a lack of obedience is the reason your having such a hard time.

I feel ya.

[fh451]

Frankly I don't think you are being petty. Wanting understanding from our peers and companions seems to be a basic human need, and when someone thinks they already understand what you are going through, they stop trying to understand. You might make progress by asking her more details about her teenage experience and have her explain what it was like and why she didn't believe. Then maybe the contrast will become more evident. Good luck!

fh451

[Corsair]

Frankly I don't think you are being petty. Wanting understanding from our peers and companions seems to be a basic human need, and when someone thinks they already understand what you are going through, they stop trying to understand. You might make progress by asking her more details about her teenage experience and have her explain what it was like and why she didn't believe. Then maybe the contrast will become more evident. Good luck!

fh451

One of the most painful things that apostates have to sacrifice is validation from believers. You are simply not going to get any. All of your sleepless nights and endless study sessions will not result in you getting a faithful Mormon validating your concerns. I recognize that perhaps if you end up talking to Patrick Mason, Richard Bushman, or Tyrell Givens you might get some sympathy, but their loyalty to the church will temper their response. I also understand that general authorities might provide a thin layer of empathy over their church loyalty if you get a chance to talk to them. But the average spouse, sibling, bishop, home teacher, or other ward member is hilariously unequipped to deal your concerns.

I will grant that occasionally you might get a bit of sympathy from a person or two. But this is rare and the risk of acute damage to your relationship is quite high. Most of your time at church acting as the "undercover unbeliever" will be laden with the usual pablum from the correlation department. Your spiritual life will be shrouded with disappointment if you depend on having a sympathetic ear from your spiritual leaders and peers. I would love to be proven wrong, but my cynicism has been justified far too often.

[Dravin]

Did she go through something real? Yes. Is it remotely comparable to what I’ve been through? Uh, no, I really don’t think it is. Am I being petty? Yes, yes I am.

That is all.

You're not being petty. She's telling you that your experiences are comparable, you're saying you don't think they are. I suggest asking her to discribe her experience, and then you describing yours. Dollars to donuts you aren't going to describe the same thing, ergo not they're not the same thing even if they can be lumped under some umbrella term.

P.S. On scanning the thread it looks like fh451 had pretty much the same thought.

[MerrieMiss]

It isn’t the same thing at all.

I have a somewhat similar situation with my sister, although we don’t argue about it since we both have the same non-belief in the church so it doesn’t really matter how we got there. She left the church at eighteen, not because of a crisis of faith, but because she states she never believed any of it ever, even as a kid. That’s not the same thing as someone who believed and practiced it, and undergoes a faith crisis.

In my experience, those who experience a faith crisis understand the experience of others who have undergone a faith crisis, even if it is a different religion, differing in duration, in time of life, circumstance, etc., or when the crisis results in each party coming to different conclusions.

An interesting example is Mother Theresa, who until after her death, it was unknown to the public that she lost faith in god long ago. Before I had my own crisis, I may have assumed that was because she didn’t have the truth of the LDS gospel, but as someone who has undergone a faith crisis, I can read her writings with an empathetic and more comprehensive perspective.

http://time.com/4126238/mother-teresas-crisis-of-faith/

One of the best podcasts I have heard on faith crisis/stages of faith is on Bill Reel’s site and is done by Jon Paulien. It’s from a Seventh Day Adventist perspective, but it outlines so well what a person goes through. The stages of faith are funny though, because I think most people believe they are one step ahead of where they really are.

http://www.mormondiscussionpodcast.org/ ... ulien-mp3/

I don’t know as there is any way to get someone to understand what you’ve been through until they go through it themselves. Mormonism (and other faiths I’m sure) cheapens the faith crisis by making little kids think they’ve really pondered these things and are told to go home and pray, they get the fuzzies, and then can say they now know everything is true. That really isn’t how it works.

[Ghost]

The stages of faith are funny though, because I think most people believe they are one step ahead of where they really are.

I think this is a good observation, and something that probably applies even more broadly. I know that at times I have been somewhat in denial about conclusions that I've really already reached about particular things.

And, of course, two people who have "been through" a faith crisis/journey may have stopped their questioning at different points. I can't help but think that we all stop and "choose to believe" eventually, whether our stopping point is inside or outside religion.

[Journey]

Every time I talk about my faith crisis with my wife, she brings up how she went through a period in her teenage years where she didn’t believe but she got through it. Been there, figured it out, you can too.

But you have figured it out! You just came to a different conclusion than her!

[Culper Jr.]

My faith crisis lasted several years. I agonized every day for hours. I searched, I pondered, I prayed, I begged for answers. I wanted it all to be true so badly. I needed it to be true. Almost every quiet moment during this time was filled with stress and anxiety over my faith.

Yeah, know how you feel. I've been reading and studying everything I can get my hands on. I get so irritated when DW or my dad try to "rescue" me and act like my disaffection is just some whim I haven't thought through when they haven't studied or looked at anything objectively themselves. They offer some weak apologetic argument and I feel like I am on the line with tech support for a complex computer issue being asked if my machine is plugged in. Then I throw a truth grenade out there that they can't begin to explain and they really show their ignorance of church history and doctrine. I've found (oddly) all that does is further entrench them in the church and make them become more horrified by my beliefs.

[Vlad the Emailer]

Yeah, know how you feel. I've been reading and studying everything I can get my hands on. I get so irritated when DW or my dad try to "rescue" me and act like my disaffection is just some whim I haven't thought through when they haven't studied or looked at anything objectively themselves. They offer some weak apologetic argument and I feel like I am on the line with tech support for a complex computer issue being asked if my machine is plugged in. Then I throw a truth grenade out there that they can't begin to explain and they really show their ignorance of church history and doctrine. I've found (oddly) all that does is further entrench them in the church and make them become more horrified by my beliefs.

And that's the killer, isn't it? Like me before I lost my testimony reading FAIRMORMON's faithful answers, my TBM DW thinks she knows all about "those anti-Mormon lies", yet she can come up with little beyond "Brigham is just taken out of context on that Adam-God thing". It makes you feel as if you're living with an insane person and trying to get them to convert to sanity. They just cannot get there! The Mormon level of indoctrination is an incredible thing to go up against. If she is like my DW, she is the type of person that is satisfied with the idea that real truth can be completely subjective and does not have to correlate to objective reality in the least to be "true".

Anyway, excellent responses here. Especially Corsair's cynical, yet terribly accurate words.

Sorry, I don't know the answer, TestimonyLost. At what you're trying to deal with, I am an abject failure. Hopefully some of the others that have been more successful will chime in.

In the meantime, just know we feel for you!

[2bizE]

So many good responses that I can't come up with more to add. I'm about at the same stage as you on the path. It is painful at times. Gratefully, you are among friends who understand.

[20/20hind]

Each person has their own personality traits and back grounds. To lump them into one experience will not work.

My tbm wife and I are completely opposite. In regards to the church. I question authority and go my own way, while she is more submissive and compliant.. really nothing wrong with either choice. Its just how we see the world differently.

[Deepthinker]

I'm so sorry. I don't believe you're being petty about it. There is real pain when your spouse dismisses valid concerns you have.

I believe, like my wife, your spouse is just fortifying testimony walls like Mormons are trained to do.

I hope you can work through this.

[No Tof]

Such wisdom in this thread. I can only say I agree that you are not being petty. I like that you also can understand your wife's point of view.

As many of us have decided, our marriage is worth the pain of dealing with "hillariously unequipped" church leaders to help us through this tangled web we call faith transition. I can tell you there is a better life beyond the confines of orthodoxy.

I would say, keep trying, trust that you life will be better as you take control of it yourself and move forward.

[MerrieMiss]

And, of course, two people who have "been through" a faith crisis/journey may have stopped their questioning at different points. I can't help but think that we all stop and "choose to believe" eventually, whether our stopping point is inside or outside religion.

This is a good point. If you look at it from the stages of faith perspective, having a transition isn't clear cut. There's a lot of jumping between stages. Sometimes people go backwards, and people stop. It's entirely possible to live a full life and never progress past level three or level four. And often people will move stages with regard to religion, but not politics, or life philosophy, etc. At some point I did stop. And the choice to stop led to two outcomes: One, I accept that life is a paradox and I (and everybody else) don't have all the answers; and secondly, I was able to come to a place of peace and acceptance. I couldn't keep expending the energy to question everything in my life forever. In the future, that may change - I'm open to that too.

[Corsair]

Fast forward to now. Every time I talk about my faith crisis with my wife, she brings up how she went through a period in her teenage years where she didn’t believe but she got through it. Been there, figured it out, you can too. It makes me want to scream at her. I feel like it’s the faith equivalent of a teenager who’s dated a dude for six months telling a married couple of thirty years that they understand what they’ve been through.

This has largely been my experience with my wife. I love her dearly and I won't doubt that went through her own faith challenges. But whatever she experienced left her completely unequipped to deal with my change of faith. Perhaps I am being cynical, but if her own experience leaves her unable to help someone else in a faith transition, it leads me to be suspicious that she entirely has dealt with the existential crucible of doubting everything and truly rebuilding her moral reasoning.

I'm not claiming that a faith crisis precludes returning to full TBM belief. However, it seems to have produced only indignation at my faith transition, not any sense of sympathy or advice on how to regain faith. Her faith journey stayed within the bounds of a thin, correlated Sunday School lesson. It resulted in a firm but brittle faith that is angrily protected by not engaging me in any real discussion.

[MalcolmVillager]

Amen to the responses thus far. I just wanted to give additional common sense consent to the feedback.

[vankimber]

In one of my favourite books, a comparison is made between two women who have lost someone by this simple statement,"But your heart warn't broken." No one who has experienced the depths of pain brought on by a faith crisis could blithely dismiss it in a loved one. I don't think you're being petty at all. I think your heart has been broken and your suffering has been trivialized. I'm so sorry that happened, and I hope you somehow feel better soon.

[Emower]

This why the forum here is so important. We all need to be understood, and no one can understand like someone who has been there. You are right, what she is comparing is apples and oranges. I have met up with people on this forum twice, and both times I have felt an instant understanding even though within our ranks there are wide spectrums of beliefs. It would be wonderful if our partners could understand. I don't have a good suggestion, I can only offer understanding. You aren't alone.

[MoPag]

Maybe she's saying that more for herself. Like she's tying to convince herself that your faith crisis really isn't that big. It's like a coping mechanism. She can't handle the fact that you really had a faith crisis so every time she has to confront that reality she tries to convince herself that your experience is just like hers was. That way she can delude herself into thinking its really not that bad and you will come back around.

Either way it sucks though.

Just remember, we are here for you!