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(Faith background: I’m not a literal believer of the BoM but believe the church is a good thing. I believe in god and Jesus Christ. Still figuring out Joesph Smith. He isn’t the devil or a saint. Somewhere in between.) I need your feedback on figuring out some dating problems post faith transition.
I usually try to keep things light and fun but at some point I need to figure out if this is going to work and I figure out if I’m wasting time and energy on both sides.
One of the things I learned over the last year is aligning values with your partner. So I ask “What is your top three values you are looking for in a spouse”. It’s a little to the point, but really, it’s something I need to talk about.
My concern is (as you’ve seen my past thread) my concern is that value #1 is temple/church/gospel/testimoney. I see this as a red flag when it’s #1.
Why? I want somebody to marry me for me, not because I’m the extension of the church. I’m not their VIP card to heaven. I’m ok being temple worthy. I’m ok temple marriage. I’m not ok with the unhealthy orthodox mormon lifestyle. My self worth shouldn’t be tied to my obedience to church, it should be tied in how responsible, honest, emphatic husband I am.
More specifically, I don’t want to be with a woman who flips her lid and divorces me if my faith transition gets me out of church. Even smaller examples is I don’t to be with a woman who thinks telling my kids that mission isn’t a requirement, being in YW, YM, and scouting is optional, and that if I miss church for one day every bluemoon isn’t the end of the world, Mormon Stories isn’t the antichrist, and priesthood session can be watched at home.
Obviously I can’t have it all and there will be compromise. I just need to figure out how to communicate those concerns. Figure what they expect out of me.
So right now my strategy right now is the following:
1. Have fun, don’t care about it for the first couple dates.
2. Ask them what are their top three values and what are the top three values they are looking for a spouse.
3. If church/temple/gospel/testimony comes up I ask them what does it look like. What’s a good testimony?
4.
this is where I get loss. I guess at this point I have enough information to figure out if it’s going to work or not. My gut feeling is that I should open up here and just be vulnerable with them… it just sucks to do it. I think I might need to man up.Anyways, feedback is welcome. Thank you for your help.
I’d hope that they do share some of the better values taught in the church, such as looking after other people, and being kind. TBH I’m barely at the stage where I can guess who’s interested anymore.
I think your steps are correct. On #4 (the hard part) I think I would share just a bit and see their reaction. If they are “cool” with it, after a pause expose just a bit more and see. More questions like, “what do you think about people that struggle with doubts”. This last step is sure to be the hard part. LookingHard wrote:I think your steps are correct. On #4 (the hard part) I think I would share just a bit and see their reaction. If they are “cool” with it, after a pause expose just a bit more and see. More questions like, “what do you think about people that struggle with doubts”. This last step is sure to be the hard part.
Obviously that question will raise red flags on their part. I think I just need to embrace that’s part of the process and rejection is soon to follow for the better. If it doesn’t raise red flags, then that’s even better.
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Let’s say your 3 hour block is from 9-12. Try suggesting going on a hike or some other outdoor activity at 10:00AM on Sunday. See the reaction.
1) Hike!?!?! On a Sunday!?!?! Then you know.
2) Ok we can hike but but that’s during church. Oh yeah, duh. How about 2:00PM? But then you know a little more.
3) Cool, church is boring. Then you buy a ring.
nibbler wrote:Let’s say your 3 hour block is from 9-12. Try suggesting going on a hike or some other outdoor activity at 10:00AM on Sunday.
See the reaction.
1) Hike!?!?! On a Sunday!?!?! Then you know.
2) Ok we can hike but but that’s during church. Oh yeah, duh. How about 2:00PM? But then you know a little more.
3) Cool, church is boring. Then you buy a ring.
I have no other response to this besides Bahahahahahaha
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Thread Jack here – Dingobex – I was looking for your introduction in the Intro space and couldn’t find it. Welcome. Take a minute and introduce yourself. Thanks. Focus on #1. Have fun. Fun fun fun. Date and have fun and let them know you like to enjoy life. Let the deep conversations come after 6 or 7 dates or as they bring it up. I think you can tell by the kinds of movies they go to, skipping church to hike or not, if they want to read scriptures or not.
I think there are as many women who are non-literal believers as men. They are out there.
Heber13 wrote:Let the deep conversations come after 6 or 7 dates or as they bring it up.
This is my exposure to weakness here. I rather do the serious talk sooner than later because I’m afraid ill be to attach and do something a bit irrational. Like justify why it would work in my head but it really wouldn’t work. Being overly attach to people is something I’m working on.
nibbler wrote:Let’s say your 3 hour block is from 9-12. Try suggesting going on a hike or some other outdoor activity at 10:00AM on Sunday.
See the reaction.
1) Hike!?!?! On a Sunday!?!?! Then you know.
2) Ok we can hike but but that’s during church. Oh yeah, duh. How about 2:00PM? But then you know a little more.
3) Cool, church is boring. Then you buy a ring.
YES. Brilliant!
I just got to put my method into practice tonight. Different girl from my other post. I ask what her values are and what values is she looking for a future spouse. Of course testimony was on top. Then I ask what does that mean? She said temple worthy, priesthood holder, and serves faithful. I inquired about “servings faithfully”. She said serving their calling. I was open how I only home teach when I need to. I don’t even do a lesson when I do. I just let them know I exist and understand their lives. She seem ok with that. Then I drop the bomb.
“What do you think if your husband had doubts?”
She answered about being being supportive and saying it’s he needs to read and pray. She reel back a bit admitted that she had no idea.
I pointed out that it was #1 on her list. I ask her if she had a husband who left the church that would the relationship had to be “redefined”. She said yes.
So she ask me where was this coming from. I told her about my faith crisis and transition and I feel a need to protect myself from women who expect me to be a extension of the church for them.
She was very understanding and talk about how she didn’t has a perfect testimony and everybody can have a strong testimony. She has family in my position.
So anyways I was happy I opened up. I notice she change her stance a bit but I don’t know if I’m for her still.
I noticed that when she was talking about testimonies the subtext is that my testimony isn’t strong but that’s ok. This tells me she isn’t understanding the situation. By my definition, my testimony is fine. By the church narrative it isn’t. She was doing her best to comfort me how my lack of testimony was ok…. Well this is news to me. It’s a normal narrative to have but it raises red flags. Anyways, I honestly think she did her best to sympathize. It was just coming from the wrong view point.
Anyways I learned a lot from it. It makes me oddly proud of myself and I want to do it again. Weird.
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Just putting a few thoughts out there. It seems to me that most “women” in the church who are still dating age have little life experience and are somewhat isolated in their views. They are giving you more or less the standard Sunday School answers. Their patriarchal blessing probably talks about them being entitled to a worthy priesthood holder who will take them to the temple. What they don’t realize is that “worthy priesthood holder”s who will take them to the temple are a dime a dozen. Finding a friend who becomes a lover is much harder to do and more worthwhile. I found dating relationships at BYU to be very shallow and superficial, as if anyone who met the outward markers of worthiness was interchangeable and would do, so from that starting point it all boils down to who is best looking and/or has the most earning potential. Looking back as a middle-aged woman with tons of life experience I can see that’s a recipe for divorce. I think your approach is good, but you should bear in mind that many many of these women have never given these things any thought whatsoever. A little bit of thought will go a long way. You could use a hypothetical, say you have a friend or relative who left the church and they were then divorced after. That you want a relationship based on mutual love, not on what the other person gets out of it.
That’s honestly the core problem with Mormon marriages: the commoditization of spouses. They do become interchangeable because it’s all about what you, the consumer, wants from your spouse. It does become an extension of the church. Another core problem with that is that it makes for a really lousy sex life.
hawkgrrrl wrote:That’s honestly the core problem with Mormon marriages: the commoditization of spouses. They do become interchangeable because it’s all about what you, the consumer, wants from your spouse. It does become an extension of the church. Another core problem with that is that it makes for a really lousy sex life.
A very unenthusiastic “amen”hawkgrrrl wrote:That you want a relationship based on mutual love, not on what the other person gets out of it.
That’s honestly the core problem with Mormon marriages: the commoditization of spouses. They do become interchangeable because it’s all about what you, the consumer, wants from your spouse. It does become an extension of the church.
So much depth here. Thank you for the thoughts. I never really thought about commoditization of Mormon marriages. It’s really true and it’s oddly very selfish. I was always taught temple marriages is the purest thing you could do because it was for gods plan.
I also agree that at least giving them the thought will help them. I don’t want them to change their values for me though. They need to do it because they believe it for themselves.
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I don’t know where you live but I just returned from hanging out with my daughter in Colorado. Her YA ward has a strong progressive, millennial strain to it. Many still appear to practice orthodoxy, but listening to the comments, reading some face book posts they aren’t so traditional as surface may present. While I was there my daughter and her room mate took me to Dawali – Hindu Festival of Lights, both girls fully participated even placing offerings and praying. Since college my daughter has added midnight mass to her Christmas ritual. She also has a post-Mo dad and Middle Way Mormon Mom – she worries that she won’t find a guy who is comfortable with the situation. It’s similar to your quest – how do you find, love, and connect. Her dad and I keep suggesting men of other faiths. But she will make her way. Don’t get discouraged, when you consider how many families are going through faith transitions at this time, there are bound to be many children in a similar place to yours. Keep heart.
On a final note, I don’t get the feeling Terryl Givens was ever a traditional believer either and it worked for him.
mom3 wrote:I don’t know where you live but I just returned from hanging out with my daughter in Colorado. Her YA ward has a strong progressive, millennial strain to it. Many still appear to practice orthodoxy, but listening to the comments, reading some face book posts they aren’t so traditional as surface may present. While I was there my daughter and her room mate took me to Dawali – Hindu Festival of Lights, both girls fully participated even placing offerings and praying. Since college my daughter has added midnight mass to her Christmas ritual. She also has a post-Mo dad and Middle Way Mormon Mom – she worries that she won’t find a guy who is comfortable with the situation. It’s similar to your quest – how do you find, love, and connect. Her dad and I keep suggesting men of other faiths. But she will make her way.
Don’t get discouraged, when you consider how many families are going through faith transitions at this time, there are bound to be many children in a similar place to yours. Keep heart.
On a final note, I don’t get the feeling Terryl Givens was ever a traditional believer either and it worked for him.
I’m in Colorado. PM me the ward! My experience has been mostly orthodox mormons.
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