How to talk to spouse and family about disaffection?

1. What worked for you and why?

“Feeling out” my wife’s own feelings before going full-on with my feelings. I learned she had SOME dissaffection, but due to different reasons, and to a much smaller depth than myself. I learned that when I started sharing my full feelings, she would shut down the conversation and get upset. So, I learned the boundaries within which I can discuss dissaffection with my wife.

With my father, mother, brother, sister who are non-members and somewhat antagonistic, I learned to also keep my discussion of dissafection within limits or they start broadcasting how their son is a Mormon and also questions if it’s a great religion to belong to. I have learned to limit my discussion to topics like “how do you prevent ANY church experience from interfering too much with your life” and keeping it on topics that are shared mutually between us in our Christian experiences. For example, all people have to deal with Church/personal life balance. We talk about that. This let me talk about issues that spawned dissafection, without personalizing it against the Church, we just talked about how to keep it all in balance, which helped me. And didn’t besmirch the Church at the same time.

Also, be aware of what creates a positive balance of love in a marriage at http://www.marriagebuilders.com. I have found that although my wife doesn’t like my dissaffection, I meet some of her most powerful emotional needs very very well. So, this withdrawal due to my dissaffection hasn’t destroyed my marriage since I do other non-Church things that are very important to her, and this compensates for the withdrawals caused by my Church dissaffection. For example, she thinks I’m a great provider, great father to our kids (even on Church issues) and lately, that I’m attractive again due to weight loss. Plus I talk to her a lot about non-Church and Church things, which meeds her needs for conversation, and I’m also affectionate. Meeting these needs keeps the benefits of staying with me far greater than the costs (including my dissaffection).

2. What didn’t work for you and why?

As I said, full out, unbridled sharing of the true depth of my dissaffection. This only hurt my wife, caused her to leave the room or stop the conversation. Containment of my dissafection is the price I pay to keep my wife happy, and she’s worth it. Weigh the costs of “coming out”, and if you find the costs outweigh the benefits, stop doing whatever incurs those costs.

Also, with my TBM in-laws, they just started saying the Standard Mormon Answers, labelled me, and only made my frustrated. Better to keep it on a different level so they don’t go there.

3. Is it better to just come right out to those closest to you quick, or go slow and get people used to your disaffection in degrees? Why?

Go slow, feel them out to better guage the costs of open dissaffection. Some will find their spouse actually agrees with them and was afraid to say so! Others will learn their family is at stake and can make adjustments accordingly.

4. What resources helped you communicate better with those closest to you?

Just talking about it here on StayLDS, and reading others experiences when they came full out and found they were destroying their marriage and family. This kind of “observational learning” helped me see the huge risks of full disclosure and to share my dissaffection slowly.

5. Marriage counselling? Did you try it? Did it work? Would you recommend it to others?

Didnt’ try it regarding church disaffection, but I did it with respect to other issues and it was useless. The only thing that ever helped me was http://www.marriagebuilders.com for general relationship issues, not church dissaffection.

6. How is telling parents and siblings different than telling a spouse? Different recommendations and stories?

I think parents and sibling are more vocal about your dissaffection to others. If the relationship is not close and regular, I found it’s best just to leave it alone with those people.

7. How is telling friends and co-workers different than family/spouse?Different recommendations and stories?

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For me, telling friends and co-workers is different as again, they tend not to keep confidences as well as a spouse who has a family reputation and important relationship to protect. On the other hand, a really good, distant Mormon friend you can trust to NOT run to the leadership with your secrets is a gold mine. They can provide a real life forum to discuss dissafection without the risks that occur with your family and local ward members when you share locally how you feel.

Sorry to not be helpful.

You were helpful. Learning from the bad experiences of others is just as useful. Thank you for sharing your story.

SD, thank you also for spending time to share your thoughts.

I can’t really report much success with this because so far I have only told my wife that I don’t believe in the Church and to be honest I don’t really want to tell anyone else unless I absolutely have to plus I could easily still end up getting divorced mostly over religious differences. At this point I would much rather just say something like I don’t want to accept any callings or pay tithing without going into too many details about why such as that Church leaders have already been wrong so many times that I don’t see the point of having much confidence in anything they say. Sometimes hearing about specific problems with the Church only makes Church members feel uncomfortable and defensive without really helping the situation so that’s why I would rather just let them face some of these problems when they want to on their own (if ever).

From countless experiences of friends and family members:

What works and why? Don’t be declarative. Make your commitment to your spouse unwaveringly clear up front. Talk about your own feelings without attacking, dismissing or placing blame. Listen well. As Steven Covey says “Seek first to understand, then to be understood”. Don’t think less of your spouse if these issues have less impact to him or her. Respect your differences and value your spouse’s feelings as well as views. (feelings first, though).

The person with the most awareness in a situation always has the most responsibility for the outcome.

Don’t get “hooked” by emotional statements from others.

Whether or not you believe in things like MBTI, “love languages”, or whatever, I think it is essential to recognize that different people can see the same thing in very different ways. Using MBTI terminology, I am a hard-core Rational. My wife is a hard-core Idealist. We complement each other in many ways, but there are some things that we’re just never going to see in the same way, no matter how much we think we are open-minded and understanding. Along the same lines, I firmly believe that it is axiomatic that we can only know to be “true” those things that work for us. And while there may be an objective truth out there somewhere, each of us as individuals can only access that truth through our own contorted and constricting filters. In other words, we end up getting in our own way, and real life “truth” is therefore necessarily subjective. If I can be mindful of these things, I am more than halfway there when it comes to trying to communicate difficulties with others. Of course, it’s a two-way street, and some people will never want to hear what you have to say, no matter what terms you couch it in.

One thing that helps, though, is if to still engage in TBM-like behavior, but for marital reasons.

For example, I still do my home teaching, and if they ask me to teach a class, I do it, although I might be selective about the topic. I still hold FHE but I do it on topics I am comfortable with. Same with Ward socials, and attending Church. I don’t share divergent thoughts with my kids unless there is an issue in front of them and present my view as one of several ways of looking at the situation. So, your spouse can still have the experience of going to Church with a spouse and an LDS experience in many ways, even though you are inwardly disaffected.

Years ago, someone said service is part of successful marriages…I never really understood what that meant until I learned the concept of emotional needs. I view my wife’s need for an active husband as an emotional need i need to meet in order to keep love alive in the marriage. I too have emotional needs, some of which my wife meets, so I understand how happiness in a marriage is something you do have to “work at” — and that means doing things out of service for your spouse. Varying levels of Church activity to satisfy your spouse is one such way of rendering this kind of service.

Also, as I said earlier (perhaps lost in the length of my post), you can lessen your activity and potentially leave the Church emotional need in your spouse partly unfulfilled…try upping the ways you meet their other emotional needs. This can compensate for not being the Church man your wife might want. Some wives will look at the whole package, church, financial, family, companionship, etcetera, and judge whether to stay with you on the basis of the big picture.

Brain, Glad you started this topic. In many ways, family associations have been the most difficult aspect of the transition. I’ll start with what didn’t work (for me)…

2 – What didn’t work…

I held back too long. I talked to my wife fairly early, but didn’t really open up all the way… I left her thinking I was “struggling” or that my “testimony was not as strong”… stuff like that. So, for a long time, she had a concept that I was just working through some things. In addition, my kids were younger then, so I didn’t talk to them at all about it. The result was continually building false expectations that I was going to get through it, and even thinking about it again makes my chest tighten as I type this. I don’t mean that this was somehow my wife’s or family’s fault, but that I was burying it down inside me too much. Depression and therapy followed. Eventually, I was more open with my wife, that I wasn’t just struggling, and there was no hope of a return. By that time I was an atheist, something I was more comfortable telling strangers than my own wife. But I did eventually get past that, was able to be more clear with her, and it was a big help emotionally. After a long time, I came to a cross-roads. One of my kids was going to be married in the temple. I hadn’t attended the temple for more than a decade, and had no intention of doing it under false pretenses. Feeling trapped, and depressed, I turned again to therapy. I got some great advice there, that family secrets aren’t good… which leads me to what did work…

1 – What worked…

Here, I’ll just paraphrase from a prior post of mine from another topic:

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On talking to your wife… and later, with your kids… Family secrets aren’t good. I encourage you to be open. However, I think you are wise not to “unload” on her. I am very very glad that I took a stance early on, that I wasn’t going to try to convince anyone else to believe like me. I had my “faith transition” (a term that Brian uses, and which I find very satisfying and soothing back in the 90’s… I’ve been able to walk the tightrope, and my wife is still a fully believing member. Had I tried to force her to “see the light” I think that would have been very damaging to her, and likely would have resulted in a much less favorable situation. I’m open with her (and my adult kids) that I don’t believe, but I never ever ever try to convince them. That is their decision. We do talk about cultural issues. I don’t like the marginalization of women, and we talk about that freely. But I don’t get into matters of doctrine or past faults of the church… like polygamy, because that could only serve as an argument why she should break with the church, and that’s not something I want for her, because she doesn’t want it for herself. I try also, to be respectful of the church and her beliefs. I’m married to her… I live with her… I love her… so there is no other way I can be, but to be accepting of her faith… One trick I use on myself is to remind myself that I’m the one who changed, not my wife, so the burden should be mine, not hers.

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To that, I’ll add that talking to my kids, once they got older, was a huge relief. Turned out that they still love me, and still respect me. I support them… missions, temple marriages, church activity… Again, I don’t get into the question of why, I just don’t believe, and that is sufficient.