How to be honest with your spouse?

This might sound chauvinistic, but from a guys point of view it is difficult to stay angry when your wife is being free with the lovin’.

Great advice so far.

Some thoughts. I don’t know your situation, other than just a handful of lines, so all I can offer is projecting my own situation, and you find what works for you. I had my faith crisis in the mid 90’s. I am still happily married to the woman I married in the temple long, long ago. She is still a full believer. Our kids are still all active in the church.

The thing with the Diet Coke. When I first started to express to my wife that I was no longer a believer, there was worry and concern. For me, I felt pretty devastated, set adrift, confused, lost. I didn’t know where life would take me. I didn’t know what to do with myself. That was my side of it. It turned out that my wife also had a side. It was that she felt sad for me, devastated, confused, she didn’t know where life would take her. She didn’t know what to do with me. She didn’t know if I was going to start to become an alcoholic, stop spending time at home, get tattoos on my forehead, quit my career and become a drifter, become an angry person, become anti-mormon, have an affair, etc. At the time, I kind of felt like, “of course I’m not going to do that”, but now that I look back, I realize that all those things were potentially on the table, because I was experiencing a sea-change about my own self-identity. Well, not the affair, and maybe not the forehead, but everything else was a possibility. It was an uncertain time for me, and it was also, differently but just as intensely, an uncertain time for her. It could simply be that your husband is more sensitive to warning signs along those lines. I suggest laughing together about the Diet Coke thing, and then getting serious and reassuring your husband that you are still the same person that he married and that while your faith is changing, that your core is not. You still want to be a good person, you still want to have a full life together, and that more than anything else, you love your husband, and need him more now that ever. And by ‘need’ I don’t necessarily mean in the sense that Brown said

Ray’s already given some good advice, which I echo. You don’t need your husband to understand everything. It’s fine to be honest about your spiritual struggles, and I think even that you don’t believe some/most/all of it anymore. But IMO it will only lead to trouble for him and for you and for your marriage if you take it as your mission to try to show him WHY you feel the way you do. I have boundaries that I don’t cross. I will freely voice frustration about practices of the church, like the second-class roles of women, expectation of excessive time commitment, or how much tithing we pay, but I never ever (ever) get into doctrinal discussions with her. Here’s the thing. She believes. I love her. I love the way she is. It is her prerogative to be a believer. She loves it. I’m not going to take that away from her. If someday, she becomes a non-believer, my life will be simpler, but her life will be sadder. I’ll sacrifice my simpler life for her happier one. I don’t pretend. She knows I am a non-believer. And I’m not fully supportive… I only go to SM, but I do support her in the church and try to enjoy the good things together with her.

Most importantly, I realized long ago that between the two of us, I was the one who changed. Not her. On the day we were married in the temple, we both thought we would live a full life together in the church. She is still in the church and I am now a non-believer. I feel like it is my responsibility to accommodate her more than for her to accommodate me.

Personally I don’t regret telling my wife that I don’t believe in the Church anymore even though it was painful at first but I would be careful about this kind of thing. You probably know your husband better than anyone but I definitely believe there is such a thing as too much honesty sometimes because some people are just not going to understand or react to it very well and in cases like that I’m not sure that some of the unnecessary harm that can easily be done in the name of truth is really worth it over the long run. It seems like one of the most common mistakes typically made by people that have lost faith in the Church is wanting to unload everything they are thinking all at once on their spouse or even trying to de-convert them but many TBMs don’t necessarily want to hear all this and sometimes some simple comments like, “I don’t know if I want to pay tithing right now” would already be sufficient to get started on working through some of the worst sources of resentment without needing to go into every detail about why.

I’ve mentioned this a few times on other threads but I’m happy to repeat it.

I was once the terrified husband. My wife left the church about 2 1/2 years ago. She still attends occasionally and has not ‘resigned’ but wouldn’t really consider herself Mormon.

She suffered in silence for about 2-3 years and only slowly talked about her doubts. When she finally said she was ‘done’ I freaked out. I was convinced that her leaving the church meant she’d become a raging alcoholic who went out to parties and slept around. If she went to buy something on a Sunday (if we’d run out of bread of something) I’d see it as a symbol for all the ‘bigger’ commandments she’d soon be breaking.

It was almost the breaking of our relationship. It only wasn’t because I think we both realised that we wanted each other more than the ‘ideal spouse’ we now differently desired. We both had to find a lot of charity and compassion.

Remember one thing. You’re the one that’s changing. It’s scary for him. He thinks he might lose you or the values you hold dear.

While Brown’s suggestion might be a little ‘crude’ – there’s some truth to it. Show him (in every aspect of your relationship) that there is nothing for him to worry about. Be balanced in your behaviour and conversation and try not to put up any walls or barriers because of your different perspective on life. Take your time and try to see things from his perspective.

She suffered in silence for about 2-3 years and only slowly talked about her doubts. When she finally said she was ‘done’ I freaked out. I was convinced that her leaving the church meant she’d become a raging alcoholic who went out to parties and slept around. If she went to buy something on a Sunday (if we’d run out of bread of something) I’d see it as a symbol for all the ‘bigger’ commandments she’d soon be breaking.

It was almost the breaking of our relationship. It only wasn’t because I think we both realised that we wanted each other more than the ‘ideal spouse’ we now differently desired. We both had to find a lot of charity and compassion.

I too would caution against changing most behaviors. I for one attend church with the family every week, hold a calling, and wear my “G’s” day and night, but when I was invited to a night out with “the guys” and the invite said BYOB – DW thought I might come home drunk. When I looked at her askew and said, “Sweetie, I don’t drink.” Her response was, “Well everything else seems to be changing with your religious beliefs. How am I to know what is next to go?” The point being that your spouse may fear you going completely off the rails, and I would advise not adding fuel to the fire of these fears. I had to seperate belief from behavior in her mind.

It has taken some time and many assurances to get to the point where DW is feeling more secure in our relationship. DW knows that I do many things because of her but that she can count on me to do those things. She doesn’t need to be surprised by gradual slippage in “commandment” adherance. I don’t pay tithing (Tithing was the one sticking point) and don’t hold a TR but everything else is the same. She can count on that. I’m still the same person she fell in love with.