Marriage Trouble because of Religious Conflict.

Here’s a couple of thoughts.

Make whether or not you get married about your relationship with your husband – nothing more nothing less. I’m reading between the lines that you are concerned that if you get married that it casts your relationship in different roles. I’ve seen that happen before where someone thinks of a wife or husband in a different way – that they somehow have more control over them or higher expectations and a relationship is damaged by marriage – I saw it happen with my wife’s uncle. Perhaps that is why you are concerned?

If it is right for your relationship then get married – don’t risk it to fit in. Perhaps it is the right choice – maybe recommitting to each other in that way would be good for both of you and that relationship.

God won’t punish you are damn you for making a loving relationship work the way that it works. If you feel God is sending you miracles and guiding your life that seems a indication that you are OK. (Of course this is coming from me – someone who formerly believed in God and currently doesn’t.)

I can see your conflict, and to me, it just shows that families come in different forms, and we need faith to make it work because the ideal family isn’t the same as reality.

Having said that, I cannot see how excommunication helps the situation for you or your kids.

If you want to live the religion, pick those things you can do and live it. But be honest with yourself. Not being married and living with someone is not going to be accepted by the church and the family can’t be sealed yet in those circumstances. If you want the sealing blessing, you’d need to change your life style.

If you can’t or are not ready yet to make some lifestyle changes, you can still attend but realize the circumstances, and hopefully you can find things you can work on, one at a time, line upon line.

Sometimes the children need to be taught that faith means it is not perfect now, but we can work towards it hoping for the blessings later. If their father isn’t invested in the church, they can still have faith that doing what they can will make those blessings available to all who work to be worthy of them. God doesn’t go by checklists, he goes by the heart of what we try to do with our strength in our circumstances, and many things are worked out over time, even beyond this life. Focus on doing what you feel is right, even if that is hard to do.

Welcome Angel, :angel:

I married a wonderful man who was also raised LDS but was not active. Religion was never an issue until our first child passed away, then it seemed to come to the forefront of our marriage. I became very active in the church and even went through the temple. My husband felt betrayed by God and chose not to have anything to do with religion.

I would like to highlight grief and religion and how it plays out in different people. My faith crisis was triggered by the stillbirth of our third child, our daughter Emory. In the ensuing aftermath, I felt compelled to various coping mechanisms – talking, reading, and writing. My employment had an EAP counselor on sight and sometimes, I could hardly wait for our next session. There is great therapy in just being listened to.

My wife, OTOH, shut down. She would lose herself in and endless parade of TV series’ as a form of reality avoidance. She would cry in the bathtub or other times when she was alone but didn’t like to let me into that part of things. She was aware of my faith transition – but she was too distant to do anything about it (either hope to understand, accept, and support me in my changes or to strongly condemn my drifting).

My point is that for me my journey with grief was not a choice. It was like a fun house where there is a motorized cart on a track moving you from room to room. There were choices made along the way but the choices were more about form rather than substance (the substance part being almost physiological). I felt so relieved when I found information on the reconstruction of assumptive realities, that this process was known and understood. I also try to give DW charity in her own grief path, knowing that a good part of how she deals with grief is not a choice that she made.

As a result of these experiences, I have been fascinated by how people but particularly LDS people process grief through the lens of religion/faith. I have talked to individuals where the tragedy had a firming effect on their commitment in the sense that they now need to be extra righteous in order to be worthy of association with their loved ones in the next life. I sometimes wonder if I might have reacted differently if I was in a functional and supportive ward at the time, or gone to an LDS grief counselor, or gone to a support group with other LDS people, etc. but that is just speculation at this point, we already passed through that portion of the fun house tour.

You can read more about my specific story and journey here: http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=1937

As far as the rest of your post, I have come to believe in my heart of hearts that the relationships that we build with our loved ones in this life are eternal. I believe that the temple ceremony is symbolic of the eternal bond and points us toward a partial understanding of this principle, but the real sealing power lies within our hearts.

Whatever you decide, relationships matter and should be given plenty of consideration.

There are multiple threads in our archives that deal with this basic topic. I would suggest finding some of them and reading the comments in them.

Everyone who has been here a while probably expected that from me, btw.