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Was talking with my wife recently. She said that she doesn’t want to forge any relationships in our Ward anymore. We’ve been in the Ward for more than a decade, and she finds it hard to make good friends, only to see them fall apart when people move. I personally like to have solid friendships that last long after the people move. That’s the Relator (a Gallup personality trait) in us, I guess. All the other relationships I have fall apart when the people move. Even all the people at my wedding in the sealing room are no longer part of my life. And if I called them, they would think it weird. There is no depth to it. The only people who are permanent are the family members on my wife’s side who came. I have ONE good friend in the church. It was a relationship forged over 25 years ago when we were newly married. We still stay in touch with each other. I really value that friendship.
People have talked about community in other threads about the benefit of being a member of the church. How do you deal with the temporariness of it? Doesn’t it make it something you don’t feel like investing much in, as it won’t last?
I’m not sure all of us crave/need those types of long term relationships. I don’t have anyone from my childhood or high school I keep in touch with, no old “military buddies” (and I was quite close to a couple guys in the army), nobody form college, etc. People come and go in our lives and that’s just the way things are. I’ve been observing my own children, all of whom are young adults now. My oldest (late 20s) has two friends from her growing up years she keeps in touch with (one is a member of THE church) but neither of them live here anymore (nor does my daughter). The oldest son has two friends from HS he tries to see when he is here but otherwise doesn’t seem to have tons of contact with. He also has a couple mission friends he keeps in touch with regularly. The next son does have a group of friends about 4 friends here that he keeps in regular contact with, and they were all very close in HS. The youngest (currently on a mission after a year at BYU) does not keep in touch with any of his HS friends and expresses little desire to. He is not at all TBM, but he does say that they have all gone in a directions different from where he wants to go (even the one that we’re family friends with and is actually a pretty good kid). To answer your question, I’m not one of those who gets much out of the community aspect of church. I rarely go to activities*, partly because I don’t want to hang around some of the boors there (I’m sure there are some who feel the same way about me). Thus I don’t put much effort into church relationships from the git-go. It’s actually very much like work relationships, there are people I like at work but none I hang out with.
*I am going to the Christmas party this year after not going the past couple years. This year they’re having a dinner (ham and funeral potatoes) instead of the disasters they’ve tried over the past few years (a brunch last year because the old RSP doesn’t like to drive after dark, and pancakes the year before).
Your ward is made up of individuals. Personally I’ve treasured our ward. It is very transient, but I do value some of my longer term friendships. I am resistant to having missionaries over for dinner. It is hard for me to invest in people that will be gone in 6 months. OTOH, very few of our relationships are lifelong.
I suppose that there can be a sliding scale in how much I am willing to invest in people. Family and spouse on one end of the spectrum, relative strangers, coworkers, and missionaries at the other end, and friends, people that share my interests, and ward members somewhere in the middle.
It can be very painful when dear friends move – especially if we aren’t expecting it. I tend to prefer a few close friendships (like, 1 close friend) over several.
I was naive when I made strong bonds in my early days of marriage and assumed that everyone would stay the same. It was definitely devastating when I experienced the “loss” of good friendships when a family moved. I was ill-prepared for it and my emotions caught me off guard.
I have since embraced the fact that we are all temporarily in our locations. It’s unusual that anyone of us stays in the same place for any length of time…though we lived in our first home after marriage for almost 20 years, so we have a different perspective.
Anyway, I started entering friendships with the thought that it would be temporary. I don’t invest my whole self into friendships anymore and part of me mourns that connection, and the other part of me is glad that I’m looking ahead to future changes.
Amid that, I found a soul sister that I believe will be my (one) solid friend forever. She is a rare find for me, and I feel that I am the same for her. She moved several years ago and I cannot tell you how much that taught me.
I also realize that if I truly care about a person and I have since lost contact, I’ll have all of eternity to get to know them more.
As we are in a new ward (not by choice) and b/c my husband is a new bishop (1 year in), I find that I have hesitated in making friends here. I feel in unstable territory and I’d rather just sit quietly in the back. That said, I also like to invest in people who could use a friend, so it’s joyful and a challenge for me to find someone overlooked by others. Those are the best kind of people.
For your wife, I soo feel her pain. It’s a hard thing to do. We all have our “hiding places” and for her, it may be with her family.
Most often, others don’t need us as much as we sometimes need them, so keep that in mind as well.
It can also be hard to think that the friends that we wish to make also have families and lives and we are in the periphery.
Keeping that in mind may be helpful in drawing a balance between developing solid, strong friendships and being friends.
This rambling here may not help you at all, but please share with your wife, if you can, that she is not alone in her feelings.
I’m anxious to follow this thread and any follow ups you can share about this.
Thank you for your post.
If we aren’t willing to make the effort & extend ourselves, then we can’t expect others to make the effort either. I try to be friendly to everyone. It doesn’t mean that we will be having a life long relationship. There are people
in our ward & neighborhood, who have gone “the extra mile” for our family. We have tried to help them in return.
We have lived in the same neighborhood & ward for the past 45+ years. My wife taught in the public school system
& taught many children in both categories.
My experience has been that the relationships we develop depends on our own expectations & willingness to
engage. There are members of our ward whom I’ve been acquainted with for the 45+ years & really don’t know
them. Except to say hello. There are others that I can meet and within 5 minutes want to know them better.
IMO it isn’t necessary or required to have close relationships in life. My experience is that it helps to get through
this life if I’m willing to engage & have a few close friends.
Shamelessly stolen: Quote:Nobody talks about Jesus’ miracle of having 12 close friends in his 30s.
Being able to turn water into wine probably helped.
I guess long-term, meaningful relationships are like panning for gold. You have to put a lot of sand and material into the pan so the gold nuggets come through after filtration. You don’t know whether a long-term relationship will blossom from a short-term relationship until the person moves, I guess. So if you never invest in the short-term relationships, you’ll never have any long-term relationships. You have to date before you marry, so to speak. So, that means having a lot of short term friends, and then seeing which ones work for the long-term. Not everyone likes a few close friends — there are some people who like a lot of shallow ones. That’s something to consider as well.
I am fortunate that I have one really good, long-term friend. We’ve had out ups and downs as I fell off the church wagon, but so far it’s survived over 25 years. We still talk every couple months and I travel to him, an over 24 hour drive (I fly) and we do things together on vacations. I value the friendship. There was a time when I wasn’t getting his messages to my phone and I thought he had dropped me as a friend. He’s spoken sharply to me a few times about my church attitudes, and I thought I’d pushed him over the line, but he still comes back. I have to phone him, or nothing happens though. I’d rather he took the initiative but he doesn’t. But he’s that kind of person — doesn’t really take initiative with much in his life — and by his own admission, is into “energy conservation” (that’s a euphimism for another word).
Anyway, that’s my take on short-term church Ward relationships. They are the farm team for longer-term relationships, if you’re so lucky to get one.
I wonder if that’s only one part of it, the moving. I wonder if really, the other ladies who stay, don’t jive so well with her, or maybe there is some underhanded cliches going on, or maybe it has to do with too, some people drop you the moment you’re no longer their assignment, or any mix.
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