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Do any of you every post stuff here in support where you ask a question that you already know the answer to, but you just want, well, support? That’s what I am feeling like right now. Several years back a family member of mine sexually abused his children, went to jail, got divorced and got excommunicated (not in that order). After getting out of prison, he was eventually re-married. After a very long period of time and repentence he has recently been re-baptized, had his priesthood and temple blessings restored, and in the near future will be sealed to his wife in the temple.
At the same time, my wife, no longer has a temple recommend. She chooses to no longer wear garments. She drinks occasionally (three to four times a year). She still sporadically attends church (although at this point she is ‘taking a break’). During the last year, she missed the sealing of two of my sibblings, and she missed my little brother going to the temple before his mission.
I know I can’t/shouldn’t compare the two, but in the back of my mind I do. My emotional side gets angry. How is it fair that my child-molester family member gets to go to the temple, but my wife, who doesn’t wear garments and drinks occasionally does not. My emotional side also gets angry with my wife. All she has to do is cut out three or four drinks of alcohol a year and wear garments, and she could have come with me to see my two siblings each get married.
I know this isn’t fair to my wife. I know it’s not fair to my family member. My wife has been struggling tremendously and I callously oversimplify and overgeneralize the difficulties she has. My family member has spent over a decade working on repenting for what he did, to get to the point that he could return to the temple. If Christ’s atonement is infinite, it can help him too. I feel guilty for being upset about this, but that doesn’t change the fact that I am.
Do I just need to soften my heart and be happy for my family member despite the horrible things he did? Do I just need to understand that my wife is going through some struggles that I don’t fully understand, and do my best to love her even though she is struggling? Of course I know the answer to these questions is yes. I know that is the right answer, but sometimes it sure is hard to want it to be the right answer.
I agree with you, you know the answers to your questios. That doesn’t make it any easier, especially for those he hurt years ago. What a horrible thing for them to have had to go through. My former brother in law did the same to his neice, who has been scared not only by the violation, but the way it was handled by the local and stake leadership. This is of course a different situation than your family memebers, it’s hard to make comparisions. I feel it’s best to strive to look at these two examples completely separate from each other. It may help to look at them like you said, and love through the struggle. Ultimately difficult as it may be to do.
Thanks scoutmaster. I didn’t really start comparing them until a day or two ago. My wife and I were sitting at the kitchen table. We had just been arguing about something when my family member called me on the phone to invite “my wife and me” to the sealing. Most of my family doesn’t know of my wife’s issues/struggles. In that moment I was looking at my wife knowing she couldn’t go even if she wanted to and talking to my family member who was inviting me to the temple. That is when the comparison started. I do know that I shouldn’t compare though. The situations are SO completely different. It’s all just tough.
When our emotions hurt we often connect things. Don’t add beating yourself up to the situation. As I total outsider and only using what you have written thus far – here are my thoughts.
1 –
Separate your church dreams from your wife dreams. If you have to try to reimagine life as if you had married a woman of the Catholic church. How would your life be different? She wouldn’t wear garments, go to sealings, and would love wine. And if you two had married under those circumstances none of this would bother you. 2 –
You can still attend the sealings of whomever you want.If your family asks about her, just say she had other things to do. (In fairness I know how hard it is to not have the Mormon looking relationship. I know that you know what the believing people are thinking. I know none of us wants to be a project or pitied or looked down on. And yes it ticks me off when believers/insiders make an already rough transition even more painful. But that’s what big kid pants are for.) 3-
The comparisons really don’t match, but I totally get it. My husband and I had a quarrel recently and I did something similar, I took a fairly innocuous situation, but had just read a horrible facebook rant by a friends ex-spouse, and in the heat of things I made a connection. It was bad. 4-
Some of the struggles you have don’t lie with your wife they lie with the church. The sealing/wedding deal really does cut out far too many people. If it was an endowment, okay, but a wedding/sealing really needs to be changed. mom3 wrote:You can still attend the sealings of whomever you want.If your family asks about her, just say she had other things to do. (In fairness I know how hard it is to not have the Mormon looking relationship. I know that you know what the believing people are thinking. I know none of us wants to be a project or pitied or looked down on. And yes it ticks me off when believers/insiders make an already rough transition even more painful. But that’s what big kid pants are for.) This is what I did for the first sealing. For the second, I had said too much to the wrong people. Walking out of the temple I had an uncle come up to me and tell me, “You’ll have choices you need to make” and “You need to think of your children”. Ya, that upset me a little bit. I might have wanted to punch him in the face, but that wouldn’t have been very Christ-like…
mom3 wrote:
4-Some of the struggles you have don’t lie with your wife they lie with the church. The sealing/wedding deal really does cut out far too many people. If it was an endowment, okay, but a wedding/sealing really needs to be changed. I need to do a better job of recognizing this. I will often times defend the church when my wife brings up issues. I need to do a better job of defending her.
In my opinion, these situations highlight some important things that we can learn or take away from church things, even the temple. Is it fair? Nope. It’s not.
Is God fair?
:problem: I guess maybe I dig into it from that approach and separate God and church. In church…people have limited ability to see the heart and so they go by rules and checklists and outward actions, and after that have faith God will make up the difference of oversights, injustices, unworthiness, and everything else that can’t be measured.
The temple is what it is. It has it’s standards and it has the rules of who can or can’t enter. It isn’t meaningless, as people who mostly take it to heart and go there with good intentions are typically being made better people and working to come closer to god as a family.
But most members would agree that it doesn’t perfectly reflect righteousness. Maybe it gets close, but it can’t cover all situations.
And that is when the messy part of the situations it doesn’t cover get revealed…and then…does it break down or holdup as something important to you and your family?
You have to decide that.
But separate out God from church/temple. See the temple as symbolic, less literal. See the value that is there, and also accept the limitations of it. It can make your head spin sometimes.
azguy wrote:mom3 wrote:
4-Some of the struggles you have don’t lie with your wife they lie with the church. The sealing/wedding deal really does cut out far too many people. If it was an endowment, okay, but a wedding/sealing really needs to be changed. I need to do a better job of recognizing this. I will often times defend the church when my wife brings up issues. I need to do a better job of defending her.
Even when you know the answers, talking about it with a support group can help remind you of what you know, or frame it slightly different as others share the answer from their point of view. It just helps. Don’t feel shy to ask questions and ask for support.I know of someone who had a long history of sexual abuse of essentially anything that moved. He had done jail time, was disfellowshipped and then married in the temple. Later, he was ex-communicated and then re-baptized and allowed to work with the YM and scouts. Then sent to prison and ex-communicated .. Eventually, he attended church somewhere else. He eventually declared himself “gay.” In my eyes, he is a child molester, a sexual opportunist, and a predator. It weirded me out when I heard he was re-baptized. To me, it appeared everything was done to put him back into the main steam culture of the church. Nothing appeared to be done to honor or glorify God or commitments to God .. Or protect youth. It was all about church culture.
When I compare THAT to my own situation, I feel clean. My decisions have been done for religious belief issues and not simply for cultural acceptance. I am not asking someone to bend rules or make exceptions in order to make me appear to be something I am not. I feel ethically and morally aligned and congruent. My actions and my beliefs are match. I missed a family wedding last summer. It was a small price to pay to keep my integrity intact.
AZGUY, maybe don’t focus on what you have lost, focus on what you have. You have a wife who knows who she is, she knows what she believes, and she is willing to make a stand for her beliefs .. Even when it would be easier to just go along with the crowd. Sounds like she is “good people”
amateurparent wrote:AZGUY, maybe don’t focus on what you have lost, focus on what you have. You have a wife who knows who she is, she knows what she believes, and she is willing to make a stand for her beliefs .. Even when it would be easier to just go along with the crowd. Sounds like she is “good people”
Good avice!amateurparent wrote:Sounds like she is “good people”
She most certainly is!
:clap: 
azguy wrote:My emotional side gets angry. How is it fair that my child-molester family member gets to go to the temple, but my wife, who doesn’t wear garments and drinks occasionally does not. My emotional side also gets angry with my wife. All she has to do is cut out three or four drinks of alcohol a year and wear garments, and she could have come with me to see my two siblings each get married.
There are individuals that have been excommunicated for political or doctrinal reasons (disagreements over doctrine) that have posthumously had all their blessings restored. If they really deserved excommunication then what changed? Funny what a difference a decade (or a century) of changing perspectives can make. Yesterday’s heresy can be today’s orthodoxy and vice versa.
Roy wrote:
There are individuals that have been excommunicated for political or doctrinal reasons (disagreements over doctrine) that have posthumously had all their blessings restored. If they really deserved excommunication then what changed? Funny what a difference a decade (or a century) of changing perspectives can make. Yesterday’s heresy can be today’s orthodoxy and vice versa.I am reminded of a German member who was excommunicated for going against the Nazi’s during Hitler’s Era. I don’t remember the details, but I remember being very impressed with the man when I learned of his story. The person who told me what had happened was TBM and was verbally trying to find a way to justify the Church’s actions in excommunicating him, I was just impressed with his courage.
University his name was Helmuth Huebener. And it is quite a story. I loved it as a TBM and still do now. I am with AP – and next time an Uncle offers an opinion, tell him you made your choice and smile. azguy wrote:I know I can’t/shouldn’t compare the two, but in the back of my mind I do. My emotional side gets angry. How is it fair that my child-molester family member gets to go to the temple, but my wife, who doesn’t wear garments and drinks occasionally does not. My emotional side also gets angry with my wife. All she has to do is cut out three or four drinks of alcohol a year and wear garments, and she could have come with me to see my two siblings each get married.
I know this isn’t fair to my wife. I know it’s not fair to my family member. My wife has been struggling tremendously and I callously oversimplify and overgeneralize the difficulties she has. My family member has spent over a decade working on repenting for what he did, to get to the point that he could return to the temple. If Christ’s atonement is infinite, it can help him too. I feel guilty for being upset about this, but that doesn’t change the fact that I am.
Just want to compliment you on your self-awareness. I wish I could see myself so clearly.I’m curious whether you’ve had a conversation about garments, or if it just happened. I’m not saying you should, but a lot of emotion and resentment went into my decision to not wear them all the time and sometimes I want to explain myself more. Beyond the short, initial conversation, we haven’t actually talked about it much. On the other hand, I like that he doesn’t seem to think it’s really his business, and his understanding has been a huge plus.
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