Family relationships

[Anonymous]

Rix wrote:

Okay, therapist hat on….

Wendell, my dear friend, consider the possibility that you are going through the stages of mourning…mourning your previous paradigm of life, purpose of life, “traditional Mormon family” life, and the status of all your relationships. Kubler-Ross described the stages of mourning the death of a close friend, but many have utilized her paradigm to include the transition one makes when making a major life change.

You are certainly doing that.

Of course in the end, it is you. It is your new journey. After the mourning, life will be normal and happy…most of the time. But until then, you will have bouts of denial, anger, sadness, doubt and reconsideration…and this is all a natural part of the process. Keep talking to people, keep expressing your feelings — they are neither right or wrong, they just are. The tears are like “blood-letting,” allowing the old to be replaced by the new.

Let us all be your sounding board. Many of us have been through similar pain and understand much of what you are feeling. Your true friends make no judgment about you. We love you no matter what.

Take care, my friend!

thank you my dear friend. You are a wonderful man with TONS of incredible advice.

[Anonymous]

bridget_night wrote:

Hey Wendell,

Bridget here. Sorry, I have not kept in touch. We are in the middle of packing and trying to move to Florida. Plus, I have been really sick and stressed out as well. I do understand the introspective time you have been going through. I have been doing the same in my own personal life. It’s interesting how difficult it is to do the ‘seek first to understand and then be understood’ thing. It is so typical of active members in the church to believe that if they just point out all the wonderful things about the church and gospel, that you will see the light and come around. Instead they should be asking you what has bothered you about the church and what you are going through. It’s just to painful for them and they also don’t want to hear it for fear it might rock their own boats. It wasn’t that long ago that my sister told me how upset my dad was when I left the church for a while about 15 years ago. My dad was so shook up and crying, asking my sister how this could happen when he thought he had raised me to have a strong testimony. The problem was that my dad had dedicated his life to doing genealogy and temple work and if the stuff I had shown him that had shaken my faith were true, then all his years of work would have been in vain. I admire you for keeping it all to yourself for so long and being so patient with your family. I know how members and family get though when you upset them. They become accusatory and that you must be doing alot of sinning to have lost the spirit so much. This IS so awful and I can imagine how much this must have upset you. So, much anger builds up over time and sometimes we just have to let it all out. It’s like a time bomb and the explosion is an ugly mess. I hope that there will be perspective in time and that people will try to understand each other better.

That is my favorite thing about this forum – everyone here has similar stories/situations to deal with. I love the humility on display here.

Thanks so much my dear friend,

Wendell

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