Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Hi Amy!

Looking over your pros, I think there’s a big one you missed. Your husband feels like he’s making a sacrifice for you, and if you accept it, it will make him feel good. On the other hand, rejecting it could make him feel pretty bad.

It’s like when your grandmother gives you an ugly, itchy, poorly knit sweater for Christmas. You might not want it… you’d rather have ANYTHING else. But gracefully accepting it and wearing it will bring her joy. One of the greatest virtues we can ever develop, is the ability to make another feel good about themselves.

Even if you don’t agree with the topics, I think there’s still some good you can pull out of it. The temple is a wonderful teacher, of the importance of taking a step back, out of the world, and gaining a broader, deeper perspective. Life gets so busy and messy sometimes, we forget what’s important. As for family history work, there are a couple of good lessons to learn. First, is the joy of serving others outside yourself, even if those you help have nothing to offer in return. Secondly, Martin Heidegger was once asked what we should do, to live more authentically. He responded that we should all aim to spend a little more time in graveyards. Focusing on the dead helps us to reflect and focus on what’s most important in our lives.

Worse case senario: If you go and you hate it, you can always excuse yourself to go sit in the hall, or go sit outside. We all need a breather every now and again. Showing and building camaraderie are very good reasons to go, even if you don’t plan to stay.

We caught a lot of General Conference last year. My husband attended the leadership sessions for the last 2 conferences.

We had a Stake event in October – my husband had a leadership meeting at the same time we had a general women’s session. We were going to split the childcare (still bitter about the impracticality of child-tending – the stake can foster security arrangements for dignitaries, but not bother with childcare if they have both a leadership priesthood meeting and a R.S. meeting at the same time) – send DD#1 with her kindle to stay at my husband’s meeting while I took the baby with me to my meeting. But DD#1 caught a stomach flu and was throwing up or sleeping, so I stayed with both children.

About 20% of DH’s reasoning is that if he sends me to the conference in the evening, he can miss his earlier leadership meeting in good grace (socially) because he is sacrificing his time to babysit for me for that evening session. We only have 1 car, and the stake center is about 30 minutes away for us. He also had scheduled an outside event for his hobby that is during the same time as the earlier leadership meeting. His outside activity might fall through, but I don’t see him sticking around for the adult evening session to babysit if we all go down early to his leadership session and I take the girls to the nursery.

I do not feel that I am in a position to put the temple back in my life right now.

I didn’t mean you should attend the temple. I am not interested in attending myself. But replace the temple with… the local park, a backwoods trail, an art museum, or a planetarium, and I think all the same principles would apply. When they talk about having a temple recommend, you can remind yourself of the importance of periodic self-evaluation, and how silly it is we try to restrict spiritual experiences to the “worthy”.

I would carpool probably – which means if I show up I am there for the long haul.

If all else fails, I’m sure there’s a “temple session” (see above) you can attend close by.

I’ve done what Roy mentions moreso at church lately, at least previously than I used to. I once gave a lesson that included the tenant that the church organization can be many things at different times in our lives, and that that’s how life works. Letting church be a socializing place, or a place where community is fostered, as opposed to the place where I feel the most peace or spirituality, has given me a lot of freedom and ease in interactions at church. We all need relationships in life.

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I’m exhausted just think about the decision process! Every meeting you attend with your husband will send the message you are more an more interested. I have to tell my wife no so I can get her even to listen to why I might not want – and even then she doesn’t care and just gets mad. No win either way here…

I hope this doesn’t come of as psychoanalysis. I believe that your wife does care. She probably cares too much. The prospect of you not keeping your end of the sealing covenant and breaking up her image of eternal families might scare her. Without the church standards to conform to, the prospect of you becoming an alcoholic womanizer might scare her. Any time you say something disparaging about the church may be perceived as disrespectful of her beliefs as best and as a personal attack at worst.

My advice is to try to came to a point where you both are mutually respectful and considerate. This will not happen overnight and may require you (as the person with the greater awareness of the situation) to take the lead of respect and consideration. It sometimes helps me to think of someone lashing out like that as a wounded animal. They may say or do thoughtless or hurtful things as a reaction to their own internal pain, fear, and anxiety. Knowing this can help me not to take it too personally. (Also like a wounded animal, personal safety is a top consideration. If anyone reading this is in an unsafe situation – please take steps to get safe.)

Just my $0.02

UPDATE:

We dealt with the horrid stomach bug that was going around last week. I lost 2 days midweek to sickness, and my husband lost the better part of 4 days. He did not push me to go to the Saturday night session, so I stayed home and took care of the family. I don’t think he was recovered enough to babysit the girls for the duration that day with it ending well for everyone. I also am glad that I didn’t go and infest anyone by accident with any germs if I have them post-sickness.