It gets better?

This is for encouragement, ideas, and support for people going through a faith transition no matter where you hope to end up. This is also the place to laugh, cry, and love together.
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w2mz
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It gets better?

Post by w2mz » Mon Nov 05, 2018 6:58 pm

For 11 years I’ve been hearing people say “It gets better”. I kept hoping it would. But, the truce regarding religion with my TBM DW has been a stalemate at best, and a slow, glacial paced deterioration at worst, until today that is. Today the fuse to a potential relationship powder keg has been lit. Today DW presented me with a 4 page treaties on her faith and testimony and asked me to read it, and then she wants to have a talk. Crap.

I am the epitome of doing this FC thing wrong. The initial word vomit, followed by years of ignoring the elephant in the room.

Her paper is heartfelt, and it contains all of her history of building her testimony of the truth. She included her struggles with polygamy and BoM historicity, but she feels that the spirit’s confirmation and science have vindicated any concerns. She ends with her testimony and basically her choice to have faith. She really poured her heart into this.

So, I’m at a loss. She said she wants to have a conversation about faith. But, in her paper she has systematically made up her mind as to why she knows what she knows. So a desired conversation about faith, I assume, would be me just nodding and wholesale agreeing with everything she wrote.

Her whole life has been, is today, and is forecast in the future, as a true believer being obedient to the church leaders and living an LDS lifestyle. Her whole family and extended family are uber TBM. It is everything she knows, and everything she is.

I don’t want to take any of that away from her. It’s her framework, the cadence by which she lives and measures her worthiness and life’s success. Why would put a wrinkle in that?

I’m not sure where to even start the conversation. I’ve always had thoughts about this day, but I was hoping we’d ease into it. Apparently not so much.

I don’t see any way I can come out of this as a good guy if we have a real conversation about my feelings. This feels like a losing proposition all around.

We have an amicable relationship other than the church. It just feels like I’m about to lose everything.

I’m not even sure why I’m posting this other than I need to tell someone.

Thanks for your virtual ear.
The church has engineered your eternal family into a commodity that can be purchased with an annual fee. The fact that full tithing payment is a requirement for saving ordinances is the biggest red flag imaginable. Hagoth

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The Beast
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Re: It gets better?

Post by The Beast » Mon Nov 05, 2018 7:14 pm

Dude! I am so sorry. Not being on the same page, or even in the same book has got to be tough. As I recall, you and I joined the old site around the same time, so I know how long you've been on this journey. I don't post much anymore, but you should know some of your posts have been very meaningful to me. I don't know what to say, but I am in your corner.
Are you on the square? Are you on the level?

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Lithium Sunset
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Re: It gets better?

Post by Lithium Sunset » Mon Nov 05, 2018 7:24 pm

w2mz wrote:
Mon Nov 05, 2018 6:58 pm
It just feels like I’m about to lose everything.

I’m not even sure why I’m posting this other than I need to tell someone.

Thanks for your virtual ear.
I am so sorry.... I can only imagine how scary and painful this is. I certainly do not have any words of wisdom but I am glad you posted and I hope knowing you are being heard is helpful and somehow less lonely.

((Hugs))
"The real things haven't changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures; and have courage when things go wrong." -Laura Ingalls Wilder

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w2mz
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Re: It gets better?

Post by w2mz » Mon Nov 05, 2018 7:48 pm

Thanks Beast, I have really enjoyed your posts over the years as well. You and several posters from the old NOM have been great virtual “friends” through the journey. One time Hiding in Plain Sight mentioned he had visited you and that you were an awesome guy irl. I’ve often though how cool it would be if we could have a huge BBQ with all nommies old and new just to hang out, chat and laugh.

Thanks LS as well.

I guess we’ll see how this plays out over the next week or so.
The church has engineered your eternal family into a commodity that can be purchased with an annual fee. The fact that full tithing payment is a requirement for saving ordinances is the biggest red flag imaginable. Hagoth

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jfro18
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Re: It gets better?

Post by jfro18 » Mon Nov 05, 2018 7:48 pm

I'm so sorry - the anticipation might be worse than the actual talk, although from my last few the talks haven't gone much better than the sick feeling all day knowing it's coming.

I don't know the answer. I did everything wrong at the beginning like you said you did. I know that my doing things wrong led to her retrenching back and not trusting me.

So I guess maybe just be honest and tell her you want to be with her but you can't get back to where she is with church. I don't know that going over your issues with the church will matter,but I guess tell her that while you can respect her feelings with regards to feeling that confirmation, you've seen and read too much to believe that God would give that same spiritual confirmation to a polygamous sect as they would the one true church.

OK maybe scratch that last one - I think it really depends on what you're hopeful outcome is here. I am still in that stage where I'm willing to put it out there, but I know that my hope of her opening up is all but dead at this point.

Good luck and let us know how it goes. We're here to chat if it doesn't go well.

I'm sorry you're going through it and I'm sorry this is what the church leads to -- sometimes I wish I hadn't seen all the stuff about the church because there is something to be said for sweet ignorance of the issues.

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alas
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Re: It gets better?

Post by alas » Mon Nov 05, 2018 9:10 pm

Oh, so many ways this could go badly. Since you can already see that this is an argument you can’t win, just plan on not even trying to win it. The best out come possible is that you agree to disagree, so aim for that. Oh, I hate how the church teaches people that baring their testimony is going to over come your evil doubts because when faced with the Truth with that little trade mark symbol, you will see the error of your ways. So, she is going to be terribly disappointed when you hold your ground. But, somehow, you have to figure out how to let her down gently and hold your ground or it will just get worse. Sorry she has decided to fix you.

Let’s see, putting on my marriage counseling hat and pretending she has brought this thing to read to you in my office. Then I would have you do reflective listening, that is how you show her you understand by repeating what she has said, kind of “If I understand you correctly you are saying_____________.” Then when she knows you are understanding her, she will want you to respond to it. I would HOPE that you respond by telling her that you are happy she feels such peace and whatever with her religion, but that while you are glad for her, you still believe differently. Then I would hope you shut up. Trying to convince her at this point that you are justified in leaving the church is not going to work, so stick with just saying you believe differently. You feel differently and you believe differently are about as deep into this as you want to go.

This is really about you being happy for her that the religion works for her and that you do not want to change her. If you tried to change her before, then this is the time to say you are sorry for that, because you live who she is. And she is religious, so you gotta be sure you are finished wanting to change who she is. You love HER, not some woman you don’t even know who would be her out of her Mormonness.

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Red Ryder
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Re: It gets better?

Post by Red Ryder » Tue Nov 06, 2018 8:59 am

Write your own letter that says "I love you more than I hate the church and that's why I choose to stay with you."

My wife an I had a similar stalemate position and we still do but what helped us was me just listening to her voice her concerns and fears. She just needed validation that her fears were rational. They are but clearly over blown.

Sometimes our spouses just need someone to listen and respect their right to have faith. It doesn't solve the dilemma but helps to soften the distance. She needs to feel that her feelings are valid.

Let us know what happens.
“It always devolves to Pantaloons. Always.” ~ Fluffy

“I switched baristas” ~ Lady Gaga

“Those who do not move do not notice their chains.” ~Rosa Luxemburg

Kishkumen
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Re: It gets better?

Post by Kishkumen » Tue Nov 06, 2018 10:05 am

w2mz - I'm sending a whole truckload of thoughts and prayers your way.

It just plain sucks. I wish I had good advice, I wish I could help resolve your predicament. I wish for a lot of things, but lousy situations are a reality of our lot in life. You have my sincere condolences and co-misery.

However, I nominate myself alongside you for
I am the epitome of doing this FC thing wrong.
Just ask RR, Corsair and several others just how efficient I am at making bad choices.

My advice, take her letter and validate her feelings. Express understanding without conditions. Don't initially retaliate with defenses.
Just say something like "Thank you for sharing and being vulnerable on a sensitive subject. I hear you, I care about you."

When the time is right in the near future, respond as you deem appropriate. Talk, write a letter/email, etc. Don't combat her views, just offer your own and express a desire for your relationship to work even with religious differences.

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Linked
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Re: It gets better?

Post by Linked » Tue Nov 06, 2018 10:10 am

That sounds like a huge step for your DW to take toward reconciling the spiritual distance between the two of you. She probably feels like she has bared her soul to you, even if it feels like she is just supporting the party line from the other side where we sit. I think you need to focus on showing her that you are grateful that DW wants to be emotionally/spiritually close to you. Regularly reinforce that you appreciate the effort she put into her letter and that she overcame any fear of being open with you. If she honestly feels like she is sharing with you then this will be appreciated. If she is doing this to reconvert you then hopefully she will have some cognitive dissonance about pretending to share her soul to try to reconvert you.

Hopefully she isn't going into this as an ultimatum that you must be on the same page as her. After showing appreciation for her effort/bravery you need to find out what her goal here is. Is this an ultimatum, "believe or hit the road."? Is this her trying to fix the one area of your relationship that isn't amicable? If it's not an ultimatum, but she would still consider it a failure if you don't reignite your faith, then she is heading straight for being sad.

If she is trying to get closer to you spiritually may I suggest Dr. Kristy Money's Mixed Faith Marriage Workbook? In it she has you write a bunch of stuff about yourselves to share with each other, similar to what your DW did, but with more focus on sharing than on reconverting.

Good luck W2mz!!!

Oh, and I also did the FC thing just like you! Hid it for 2 years, she found out in an email I wrote to someone else that she stumbled upon, then we don't talk about it because it causes too much pain and there is no good solution.

ETA - Maybe you don't need to find out what her goal is. Just appreciate her efforts.
"I would write about life. Every person would be exactly as important as any other. All facts would also be given equal weightiness. Nothing would be left out. Let others bring order to chaos. I would bring chaos to order" - Kurt Vonnegut

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jfro18
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Re: It gets better?

Post by jfro18 » Tue Nov 06, 2018 10:37 am

Linked wrote:
Tue Nov 06, 2018 10:10 am
Hopefully she isn't going into this as an ultimatum that you must be on the same page as her. After showing appreciation for her effort/bravery you need to find out what her goal here is. Is this an ultimatum, "believe or hit the road."? Is this her trying to fix the one area of your relationship that isn't amicable? If it's not an ultimatum, but she would still consider it a failure if you don't reignite your faith, then she is heading straight for being sad.
To me this sounds like a good idea, but just ask the question gently. I think it is *really* important that you know what her goal is before you respond, because it's going to completely change the way you respond back and being able to respond to her goal is really important in having a constructive conversation.

Alas brought that up to me a month ago when DW brought up some of my writings on the priesthood, and Alas was dead on that the conversation wasn't meant to be a conversation but DW trying to prove me wrong. I asked early on and DW confirmed that was her goal, which didn't really help the conversation since at that point it was already antagonistic, but at least I knew where she was coming from to respond to.

I would definitely ask what she's hoping to achieve in the most gentle, unassuming way possible because it will help you at least reply to her concerns and will I think keep the conversation on track better if you both know what the goals are.

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Red Ryder
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Re: It gets better?

Post by Red Ryder » Tue Nov 06, 2018 11:06 am

Kishkumen wrote:
Tue Nov 06, 2018 10:05 am
Just ask RR, Corsair and several others just how efficient I am at making bad choices.
It's bad. Like really bad. I cringe when I wake up in the mornings wondering what drunk shenanigans will be revealed via text.

That's probably exactly how Wendy feels when she wakes up next to the Prophet after a long night of sleepless revelations pouring in.
“It always devolves to Pantaloons. Always.” ~ Fluffy

“I switched baristas” ~ Lady Gaga

“Those who do not move do not notice their chains.” ~Rosa Luxemburg

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wtfluff
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Re: It gets better?

Post by wtfluff » Tue Nov 06, 2018 11:17 am

w2mz wrote:
Mon Nov 05, 2018 6:58 pm
For 11 years I’ve been hearing people say “It gets better”.
I've heard the same. I actually believe "it" does get better, but what does "it" mean? What does "better" mean?

I can truly say that the majority of my "life" hasn't gotten any better via finding out about the Corporation's truth-crisis, though I do believe my mental health has improved.

I can also toss my touque into the ring as doing the truth-crisis thing as wrong as possible. Any hints of discussion of faith or religion with the most important believer in my life get shut down with useless platitudes, and titanium-reinforced brick walls.

As others have mentioned: Hopefully this is just a door opening up. Personally I would welcome anything in my family that might actually open up a real conversation. I have about as much hope of that happening as I have that the Corporation will actually come clean, live up to their own interpretation of honesty, and start offering tithing refunds...
Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you asking the questions. -Frater Ravus

IDKSAF -RubinHighlander

You can surrender without a prayer...

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IT_Veteran
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Re: It gets better?

Post by IT_Veteran » Tue Nov 06, 2018 12:33 pm

Maybe this is a step in the road toward "getting better." Can you live with the idea that your spouse stays in the church and believes - if so, this could very well be a point of reconciliation for the two of you, not one to fight over.

My recommendation would be not to criticize her faith, attack the church, or defend your belief. Simply tell her that you're grateful that she felt safe enough to be vulnerable with you. Let her know that you appreciate what she feels and what she believes. It's okay to tell her that you no longer believe the way she does, but that you still love her and respect her. Let her know that her beliefs are not something that you'll think less of her for.

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RubinHighlander
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Re: It gets better?

Post by RubinHighlander » Tue Nov 06, 2018 1:34 pm

Lots of good advice here, easier said than done!
polygamy and BoM historicity, but she feels that the spirit’s confirmation and science have vindicated any concerns.
That statement is very confusing to me. I can't figure out how science would vindicate anything in the church, but actually does the complete opposite. Maybe if it's the apologist's pseudo science. I'd say you could ask her more about that one but like other have said here, it would probably be best just to validate her feelings and not get into it with her on any specific topic.

From my view, either she is genuinely doubling down or her shelf is heavy and this letter is a cry for help or a sign she's trying to find a way out of the cogdis. When I look back at some of the things I did just a year or two before my faith crisis, I said some things that were in desperation and not completely honest. Here's an example: When my X showed my kids a video on DNA evidence disproving the BOM I started doing gymnastics to try and explain that away, just like an apologist approach. So I stood up in a FnT and said that DNA evidence doesn't matter, that God could change DNA or even skin color if he wanted to. But then the church changed that intro in the BOM to admit natives were not Jewish but could be "among" the inhabitants. Anyway, I was very worried that the science was probably right and the church was probably wrong, just like the 7,000 year old Earth creation story vs. science. I was defensive about it for a while, until so many other thing unraveled.

So what I'm trying to say is you may have some hope that the very fact she mentioned some problematic issues and how she's been able to get around them, that could be a sign they are troublesome to her and she may still come to terms someday with the actual truth. In the meantime, she's being overly defensive about it as a last ditch effort to combat her doubts...but I doubt her doubts will every really go away. If you want to present her your side of it, maybe just give her a copy of the Faith Crisis report because then it's coming from a bunch of other people and not you, yet may represent where you are with things and where so many others are as well.

Good luck!
“Sir,' I said to the universe, 'I exist.' 'That,' said the universe, 'creates no sense of obligation in me whatsoever.”
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Hagoth
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Re: It gets better?

Post by Hagoth » Tue Nov 06, 2018 10:21 pm

Some great advice here. I love Alas' suggestion that you keep it very light and basic. Respectful disagreement is the most mature possible near term outcome of this. The biggest breakthrough with my wife was putting her at ease about her fear that I was secretly mocking her and thinking she was stupid for having faith.

But if we can't grow we're not willing to change. The biggest fallacy of Mormonism is the idea that spiritual growth comes from narrowing of your field of view, when really the opposite is true.

Good luck!
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

Jesus: "The Kingdom of God is within you." The Buddha: "Be your own light."

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w2mz
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Re: It gets better?

Post by w2mz » Wed Nov 07, 2018 8:53 pm

Thank you all for the wonderful, sincere advice. I really appreciate all the kind thoughts and direction.

It has been so busy the last couple of days that we haven’t had any further discussion, but I’m assuming it will be soon.

I really like the suggestions to gently ask her what her end game is for the conversation, but to also let her know that I’m happy she finds joy in her religious beliefs.

And, I agree that this may be the first step toward “getting better”, wherever that takes us.

Thank you again, I will return and report once we have our discussion.

(Very nervous still)
The church has engineered your eternal family into a commodity that can be purchased with an annual fee. The fact that full tithing payment is a requirement for saving ordinances is the biggest red flag imaginable. Hagoth

aoirselvar
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Re: It gets better?

Post by aoirselvar » Thu Nov 08, 2018 6:42 am

I’m somewhat new to this journey. I only came out to my wife a few months ago, and things have been going pretty well so far. This has given me a lot to think about.

I’m glad to see that I’m not alone in the journey with a TBM spouse.


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Anon70
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Re: It gets better?

Post by Anon70 » Sun Nov 11, 2018 9:37 am

alas wrote:
Mon Nov 05, 2018 9:10 pm
This is really about you being happy for her that the religion works for her and that you do not want to change her. If you tried to change her before, then this is the time to say you are sorry for that, because you live who she is. And she is religious, so you gotta be sure you are finished wanting to change who she is. You love HER, not some woman you don’t even know who would be her out of her Mormonness.
This is such good advice.

Good luck w2mz. I have followed lots of advice from these fine folks over the last few years. Going slow, being reassuring, listening and being supporting, etc etc -these things seem to reassure our friends and family the most. Good luck!

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Corsair
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Re: It gets better?

Post by Corsair » Sun Nov 11, 2018 11:32 am

Red Ryder wrote:
Tue Nov 06, 2018 11:06 am
Kishkumen wrote:
Tue Nov 06, 2018 10:05 am
Just ask RR, Corsair and several others just how efficient I am at making bad choices.
It's bad. Like really bad. I cringe when I wake up in the mornings wondering what drunk shenanigans will be revealed via text.

That's probably exactly how Wendy feels when she wakes up next to the Prophet after a long night of sleepless revelations pouring in.
There may have been a few shenanigans that made us envious. That day of drinking and attending a taco festival comes to mine.

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w2mz
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Re: It gets better?

Post by w2mz » Thu Nov 15, 2018 6:23 pm

My apologies for not updating this post. Not sure why but my life has turned into a living hell. This discussion is just one component to it. Man I must have pissed off gob.

I’ll update again when or if things ever straighten out.

Thanks for the thoughts.
The church has engineered your eternal family into a commodity that can be purchased with an annual fee. The fact that full tithing payment is a requirement for saving ordinances is the biggest red flag imaginable. Hagoth

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