Professing beliefs I don’t hold to keep the peace at home

But when she comes at me with pointed, specific questions, I can either tell the truth, which will (and has) trigger pain and crying on her part, OR lie and go on like we have been (which is pretty good most of the time).

Well, I don’t think it has to be either one extreme or the other. One suggestion is to explain that you don’t want to get into doctrinal disagreements; that your faith/belief has changed, that you still see good things, but you don’t believe the whole thing anymore. And then steer the conversation about the good things of faith that you DO have, not things like belief in the Gold Plates and justification for polygamy, but things like approaching God, the power of the Atonement, the worth of souls, the eternal nature of families, etc. Explain that you don’t know everything anymore, like you thought you did once, but you know what is right when you see it… Then, if she does pose very specific questions about LDS doctrine/practice, just explain that that’s not where your faith lies, but in your heart and your belief in God/spirituality/whatever. She doesn’t need to know about the Kinderhook Plates to know that you are a caring, faithful man.

Remember that arguments over opinions about touchy church issues will lead to division, rather than unity. Focus on the common elements of your faith. You felt the spirit when you went to the temple. Isn’t that what all LDS people strive for?

Finally, I firmly believe that having secrets between spouses is the quickest way to disaster. A secret is saying “I believe” when you don’t. Being a loving partner, though, means that two people will support each other in their faith, even if their faith differs. So, if I were a protestant married to a catholic, I wouldn’t keep bringing up the selling of indulgences.

Hi new6, welcome to the forum. I am one that greatly values peace in a relationship, and I will agree that not every thought and feeling needs to be shared – especially when it will only cause pain and disharmony. There are some questions that simply don’t have an acceptable honest answer (think of the “do I look fat in this?” type of question). However, personally I am not comfortable with an attitude of “I’ll just lie to make everything easier” …not for myself at least.

I can relate to your situation. My wife was a big part of my remaining involved with the church, if it wasn’t for her input at a key time I don’t know that I would have looked for any reason to stay involved. We rarely discuss any topic in depth, for the most part we just continue on our path of activity in the church. There was a time when she asked pointed questions and I gave honest answers, it was a difficult time of transition for me and as a result it became a strain on our relationship. Because of those experiences I had to find a path to take – but nothing that I could see was acceptable.

It was then that I gained a strong desire to build a new belief system that (hopefully) could be compatible with full and honest activity in the church. I am obviously still working on it but here are a few pillars:

1. I don’t know or understand everything perfectly, and that is exactly what I will say in church. Joseph Smith said the foundation for Mormonism is truth, and good Mormons are free to take and hold to what they find to be true no matter the source. This is a dual and primary key for me in my concept of the restoration, I can say I have a testimony of the restoration because for me it is all truth — not just the things that I understand or what is taught from the pulpit, it is all truth as it exists in the universe. If the BoM is not historical then that fact eventually becomes a doctrine of Mormonism, this brings me comfort. I don’t claim to have all the answers. I certainly won’t claim to know the historicity of the BoM in full or if plural marriage was endorsed by God. As Henry Eyring Sr. said when asked a question “I believe in whichever way it turns out to be.” I don’t need to nail everything down, I love that I have the ability to learn and embrace truth. “Certainty is a burden”

2. My definitions may vary greatly from how fellow members may view things. I can affirm what I believe using my language without worrying about mis-communications. In religion so much of the message is to feel good about it, gain peace, be motivated to improve personally and love/serve more etc. At least 90% of the time getting caught up in details and definitions is a complete waste of time. The key to this for me is to be perfectly honest in my expressions. If someone wants to drive down to deeper detail with me I will go – but the complexity goes up in that situation exponentially. We will spend a lot of time talking about how hard it is to “know” anything not related to physical fact, or even loosely related to empirical evidence.

3. Revelation is personal. The effects should be personal. Everyone should follow their heart, by all means, even if it seems illogical. A life has no personal meaning if it can’t be led by the dictates of one’s own conscience. I can’t tell anyone else what they need to do, and I don’t think that they truly in the depth of their heart imagine that they can know what is best for me. It sounds so arrogant to assume that we can grasp the whole of the divine plan enough to say we have an answer for another individual life. I personally don’t fully understand the mind and will of God, I value agency, I stand tall on the 11th article of faith. If this church is for everyone on this earth then I am surely living in the twilight zone.

4. All Prophets are mortal, even when speaking by the spirit. Nothing is infallible, we all see through the “glass” darkly, that is mortality.

I can hear a lot of opinion in church that I don’t necessarily agree with. Church is an activity of translation for me, I try to find something in the heart of their message that I can apply to my own inspiration/understanding. For the most part this translation is successful and I can find a way to agree.

Welcome to StayLDS. I’m glad you are here with us.

I have similar issues in my marriage. I’m a little different than a lot of people here in that I had already experienced my faith crisis before getting married, and my wife still married me anyway (not in the temple). Yet I know that my lack of faith and my choice not to go to the temple still causes her pain. We have had very few discussions about faith and gospel issues in our 10 years of marriage for that reason. I can’t bring myself to lie about how I feel, but I also can’t stand seeing her cry—which she has done numerous times (almost every time we talk about it). It must be immeasurably harder in your situation. I don’t envy you, and I really hope you find a way to navigate through it.

My advice (worth a whole two cents) is to answer her questions in ways that leave room for future conversations as she is more prepared to have them. Also, answer in such a way that you leave room for yourself to continue to move through your faith crisis. Some issues that you grapple with today may feel much less significant in a year or three so don’t wed yourself to a position – just let her know you are honestly seeking answers. And that you love her.

I think it’s important to let her know that you are not necessarily closing any doors. You shouldn’t hide your doubt, and definitely do not hide the fact that you are seeking answers—in essence, that you are still trying (assuming you are, in some way).

Pretty much everything Orson said is pure gold.

I am happy to participate (i.e. go to church, go to the temple, pay tithing, hold callings on my own terms). My preference for the long term would be to just participate with the family and not really have theological discussions with my wife. We never really did before my faith crisis anyway. Basically I wish I could undisclose what I have already disclosed to her.

Why are you still happy participating? What is it that has allowed you to continue participating fully and still find peace? Is there a way to communicate that to your wife? Like On Own Now mentioned, anything you can find that you can agree on or believe in common will probably help a lot. Especially if she knows that you are still committed to her and your family.

Hello new6 (and all). I wish I would have read this thread months ago, although I don’t know that I would have done anything differently. I feel like your post is about as identical to my own situation as possible. The problem is that it just got to a point with me that I couldn’t fake it anymore. My wife had no idea that I was questioning EVERYTHING including even the existence of God. My disinterest in attending church (I did so but spend most of my time watching NFL Sunday Ticket on the iPhone) was interpreted by her as laziness and disobedience. I delayed as long as possible telling her my doubts, and when I did, she used the old “that is just Satan working his evil on you” defense. In order to really defend myself and show her that this has been a very deep, dark, and thoughtful period in my life, I had to disclose to her some of the hard historical truths I was struggling with.

I wanted to say something that would hit home with a thud for her, so I laid polygamy and polyandry on her explaining the true method by which JS practiced and implemented. My wife has always had a great admiration for Emma and as I expected, it hit her hard. I used this approach out of self defense and I don’t know that it was the right way to handle it. But I also don’t know how else to show her that my doubts were actually founded on something other than “satan working hard on me”.

In the end, she had a hard couple of weeks but is a much more faithful person than I and worked her way through. But it has been a real blessing because now she knows and understands that I stay despite the dark stuff. I stay because of the good stuff and as Ray said above, I follow and believe according to the dictates of my own conscience, and for her, that is not only enough, but it seems to be very powerful and satisfying for the both of us.

Really, really difficult question. I can’t tell you one way or another.

DW stopped believing about 2-3 years before she told me and stopped attending (prop 8 in 2008 was the final straw, but she kept it to herself for a couple of years).

Either way, there’s a different pressure applied. Keeping them secret puts a pressure on you, it puts up a hidden barrier between you and your wife. The lack of complete honesty has the potential to spill over into other decisions. It means you share things with other people that you don’t share with your wife. There is a relationship impact to all of that. It’s hard to be fully emotionally intimate when you’re keeping things back.

On the other hand… being completely open about your beliefs/stopping attending could be a marriage breaker too. Some spouses can’t accept a non-believing spouse. It sometimes leads to divorce. When my wife told me she had stopped believing/attending I found myself with some really difficult dilemmas. I seriously considered our relationship future. I’m really, really glad that I made the right choice and stayed with it. It was the right thing to do. It was painful for both of us, but we got through it in a better state than before. We now have a better relationship than before. That was the case even before my own faith crisis. 2011 was probably the most “TBM” I’ve ever been due to a few things, but it was also the beginning of a much better marriage, even though it was now “inter-faith.”

I’m hesitant to tell you the positive outcome though. That implies that I think that ever relationship will improve after one of the partners has a faith transition. Unfortunately they don’t.

So I suppose you have to decide:

– Find ways of expressing yourself that doesn’t hurt her while also being true to yourself (or not, if it’s not possible)

– Being entirely open, with the knowledge that doing so will hurt her and could even cause a rift between you.

I’m really sorry for your situation. There is no easy answer.

Not sharing something and lying are two VERY different things; being totally honest is not the same thing as being totally open.

There is a small movement called “Radical Honesty” that espouses full and total openness – and unfiltered bluntness is seen as the only honesty. Frankly, most people in that movement are obnoxious, because they exercise no tact and have no filters – and, as a result, most people don’t talk with them and absolutely don’t share sensitive information or confidences. They believe they are operating from a higher ground, but their ground is an area nobody else wants to inhabit. It’s really hard to have a truly close relationship with them, since there is the warranted fear that they will tell others whatever they hear.

“Discretion is the better part of valor.”

Of course we’re all just relating our own experiences and points of view. There’s probably a different line for every person and every relationship. Discovering where that line is for you and your wife might be a matter of trial and error. As I have slowly shared certain thoughts and feelings with my wife, I have constantly been surprised at how open and loving she is about what I’ve shared. But I have done so very slowly. I think that gives her time to get used to things. I do have an ideal of being as emotionally open as possible with my wife. I hope that with time, our boundary will be expanded so that I can share almost anything with her. I see no reason to share potentially faith-destroying facts anymore than I would tell her something emotionally destructive like “Your hair is really ugly” or “I hate your mom and never want to see her again.” But I can still be emotionally honest enough that she knows what my general concerns are and where I stand on important issues.