- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
i know I have talked about the frustration I have had with my ward and getting help with my marriage. My hubby and I are doing much better these days—but my hubby has also become semi-inactive, and this is a very sensitive subject in our marriage. I’ll try to give the short version. Hubby was put in primary as a team teacher for approx 2 years—they were a great team. this man was also my husband’s home teaching partner. Can’t remember for sure how well they got their teaching done. Hubby was given a new primary teaching partner who was NOT reliable. Hubby would sometimes have to teach extra lessons because partner did not show up—I don’t think my hubby always knew when his partner would be gone. I would skip my meetings and go to primary with hubby so he would not be alone in the room with children.
Hubby was released and put in as young men’s president. He went on the campouts, he taught the lessons when it was his turn and was told he did a good job. We have a very difficult boy in our ward. I was one of his 11 yr old scout leaders—I pretty much had to work with him one on one to get him to cooperate with anything–but we got him through.
My hubby went on a campout, this difficult boy sat behind my husband and repeatedly flicked hubby in the face with his fingers for some time–with his patience finally shot, hubby turned around, grabbed the scout by the shirt, and told him to keep his hands off him. the kid held it against my husband, who felt awful about it, even though he did not hurt the kid. The bishop’s counselor tried to make hubby feel better by telling him that he had once hit a scout. The sunday after the campout, my husband was called in and released as young men’s president–they said,”we know it looks like it is because of what happened over the weekend–but it’s not.” My hubby was shoveling the sidewalk and just broke down into tears and went home. Our son was just about to move up to be in scouts with his dad.
Hubby didn’t come to church at all for several weeks. he eventually started coming during sunday school and cleaning the chapel like he used to, but he would not go to priesthood meeting. he stayed for sacrament, and then we had to fly out the door to leave as soon as possible. (our sacrament is backwards every two years)
A counselor called my hubby in to ask him to teach sunday school, he was burned out and said all he had done since being in this ward was teach–but he didn’t say no the counselor told him if he didn’t take this job, that the only thing left was the nursery, so hubby said, “put me in the nursery,”of course the counselor didn’t mean it–i think it was a little bit of intimidation—-he was supposed to meet with the counselor again the next week. hubby asked me if I would be willing to team teach with him–I asked if he would make me do everything–he said, no, he would take his turn—I was willing to team teach with him–even if it meant 2 jobs—I wanted him to be back at church and I had been wanting to go to sunday school with him. (I played piano in RS)
The next sunday, my husband left early to speak with the counselor, i walked past the clerk’s office, the counselor was speaking to my husband, with the clerk in the room and the hall door open, and talking loud enough that I could hear him in the hall saying,”does your wife want to do that?” I walked on, figuring it wasn’t my business to be listening in. My husband didn’t get an answer as to whether or not they would let us team teach together–and a couple of weeks later, they put another couple in team teaching that class–our son was just about to move up in to that class. two opportunities missed to work with our son,and my husband now only attends sacrament meeting. He would be coming to church if they had let us team teach together–he was going through a difficult time and was struggling when he had hesitated–but he had never said he wouldn’t do it. The jist recently released the couple teaching—and put in another couple to team teach that sane class—talk about two slaps in the face!!!
I told the Bishop I thought the nursery joke was inappropriate, and that not tal;king to my hubby in private was inappropriate—he has only made excuses for the counselor—one was that my husband just happened to be in the clerk’s office so the counselor had talked to him without thinking—-my husband had an appointment to meet with the counselor and left home early.
I knew that the anger and sadness i felt every sunday when my husband went home after sacrament meeting was only hurting me–but I felt like I needed to talk about it. I went in to see the bishop, he remembered we had talked about it before–I told him that I thought he had made excuses for the counselors inappropriate way of dealing with my husband (and the guy is a counselor by trade!!) I mentioned my health and that because of adrenal insufficiency i can’t handle stress very well and that sometimes I get overly upset
then the Bishop told me he thought I was making a bigger deal of this than it was!!!!! My husband has become semi-inactive because things were handled poorly and my husband was struggling—yes, I know people are humans and they make mistakes and we are supposed to have our own testimonies—but people still sometimes struggle, and if you treat them wrong, they don’t want to hang around–besides, when I make a mistake–I always feel an apology is appropriate.I think the biggest mistake made was that they grossly misjudged my husband. I asked the Bishop why they would not let us team teach together–he said he would have to ask the counselor. I asked him the same question later, and was told the counselor thought my husband would make me do all the work. It was some time before i told the reson to my hubby—he looked at me and said,”based on what?” Then he reminded me,that he had always done his church callings—i wish I had remembered that when the Bishop told me the reason they wouldn’t let us work together—i did tel him that my hubby was the teacher, not me—I’m a lousy teacher—I do music.
I told the Bishop that I had a hard time believing that there was discussion, prayer and inspiration used in my hubby’s calling since the Bishop didn’t even know why the counselor wouldn’t let us teach together—then the Bishop tells me that there had been some discussion that my hubby might make me do all the work!!! Now he remembers there was discussion about it when I express my doubt. Then the Bishop asked me if I thought there was a calling that my husband and I would like to do together. Since when do we choose our own jobs?
I feel horrible–I know the church is where I belong–but i am angry and sad about the way things went with my husband, and I feel like it was disrespectful for the Bishop to tell me I was making a bigger deal out of things than they really were. I’m having a hard time feeling trust and confidence in my Bishop and the counselor—the other counselor has always been good to my husband and supportive of him. I want to be able to renew my temple reccomend at the end of the month–but I’m afraid I have too many negative feelings towards my leaders.
I don’t think my hubby will return to activity in this ward unless there is some sort of major change–we actually have our house up for sale, trying to move back to our old ward—we have other reasons for moving also.
How do I deal with this??
hi momto11, Having serious disagreements with your church leaders is difficult and emotionally taxing. I feel for you. It’s especially difficult if you’ve promised to not engage in evil speaking of the Lord’s anointed and were taught that offering suggestions is “steadying the ark”. It sounds like your bishopric did several things poorly.
My only suggestion is to not do anything rash or to do something that you may regret. Ward boundaries change frequently and I’d hate for you to move only to have the ward re-aligned and they become your leaders again.
Sometimes our leaders are thoughtless, prideful, obtuse, or simply clueless. Many of them (and their spouses) would actually agree with those assessments.
Good luck. Hang in there.
I am sorry about what your going through. My husband is going inactive. It is really hard on the whole family. We have been in our house for years. The ward boundaries keep changing every few years. They Stake President keeps putting in changes. Even if you move you could ended up in a similar situation.
It is the leadership that affects how the ward operators. Would it help to mention the situation when you
to the Stake President? When I first moved in my ward I didn’t have a calling for years.I was getting my temple recommend signed and the Stake President ask what my calling was. I told him I didn’t have one. He saw to it I got a calling. That is just an idea. I would prayfully decide what would be the best thing for you to do. I really think if you are willing to do a calling with your husband if shouldn’t matter how much each you do in the calling. As long as the calling is getting done. Just wondering are you in Utah?
sometimes the church works, sometimes it doesn’t. it is completely made up of imperfect individuals, and our dysfunctions often get in the way of this little vision we call “zion”. i have found that if a given calling hurts, it is time to be released. i am not saying yes to any calling, unless i get a confirmation that it is right for me. don’t believe the lie that you can’t say no. what is the worst they can do to you?
my heart goes out to you and our husband.
I’m not in Utah. I asked to be released from my RS piano calling because i was having so much trouble with the shakes from asome medication and then one sunday my stopic dermatitis was so bad my hand was swollen and muy fingers were stiff—i told the bishop that day that I needed to be released. I have really appreciated that for awhile my bishop was taking the time to visit with me regularly for awhile–but he has said a couple of things to me that have bothered me. I used to worry that some of the comments I made stirred things up a bit—-like the day I disagreed with someone that depression was a tool of the devil–and read them a quote from a GA’s talk that spoke out about how we should treat people with mental illness just like we treat people with diabetes or heart problems and not be so insensitive to them—I got a couple of patronizing remarks later(you look like you need a hug) from the stake–actually one of the people said something more along the line of knowing about depression. Just before sacrament meeting started, one sister in the ward came up to me and quietly told me that she was so glad I had made that comment in RS because she had been dealing with depression for years. Another day I made a comment, and a visitor asked me a bunch of questions after RS, then finally said, “I knew there was a reason i came to this ward today.’
I’ve come to realize that there are people that need to hear what I have to say sometimes—I’ve grew up with a lot of challenges, and have had a lot of challenges with my children and my marriage–sometimes I think I have some insight into things that some people will never understand–and my insight doesn’t always exactly fit the perfect picture of the perfect mormon family and life.
I mentioned something to the bishop once about the comments i made because they weren’t exactly “Primary answers” as my older girls call them. I could have sworn that my bishop told me to sit on my hands–as if he was telling me not to make comments—I guess he could have been kidding me.
i also got very frustrated during a lesson about drugs? and made the comment that a lot of the medication i take would be illegal if someone else took it—the teacher jumped on that and said she was glad I brought it up and proceeded to tell us that her sister told her you have to be really careful about prescription medications—I was trying to tell her about RX medications from personal experience and what i knew about them, and she just kind of brushed me off and kept referring to what her sister said—don’t know anything about her sister. I finally looked at the lady next to me and said i couldn’t stay in there and walked out.
I was trying to tell my bishop about my frustration about this and how people have such a lack of understanding about people with chronic pain that need narcotics. He gave me kind of a weird look and told me that it sounded like it was a fine line. I realized he had very little understanding of what i was talking about–but his family was home schooled and they are in to using herbs and such–great if that works for you–but it doesn’t work for me.
I took the time to look up how callings should be handled in the handbook–and if we are given the handbook to help guide us to do things properly, according to how the first presidency wants us, they really blew it with my
husband.
As far as moving, i am living in the house I grew up in, when there was only one stake in our town. My hubby and i lived in the other stake, on the other side of town for 18 years—there is no chance of a boundary change putting us back with the same people.
We would really like to move back to our old ward. We were the second youngest couple in the ward when we moved in there—and we moved in with 4 children—one only 6 weeks old, and then had 6 more children while we were there. presently, our old bishop, who my husband gets along with very well, is the stake president in that stake. I don’t do well with changes, and the move was hard enough, but struggling with my children leaving home, my health problems, my mother moving away–and now my husband being semi-inactive—and having been depressed almost since the time we signed the papers—i just feel like I need the support from the people that i have known for over 20 years—some of them are like surrogate parents and friends. i actually think that I would have weathered the changes in my life and my family better if we had not moved and i had been surrounded by my “ward family” that I had known for so long and who were so supportive of us.
I honestly think they would not have let my husband slip away so easily, either—they had known him for too long. i have visited my old ward a couple of times—and it hs changed a lot—but there were still so many familiar faces.
I hate feeling negative towards leaders–i don’t feel it is right and I feel I need to figure out how to get over it. Our stake president seems to focus more on the spirit of the law than the letter of the law. i once told him I had to be released from visiting teaching–who can’t visit teach—he told me that when they had their “special” child, his wife couldn’t visit teach. i said I had turned down callings–he didn’t seem to think that was a major issue—even when i pointed out that they tell us in conference we should never do that. I joked that my daughter went to BYU I and told her roomates that she learned to swear from her mother—i asked her if she told them it was only hell and damn–the stk pres said, are they swear words, they’re in the bible.
When he talked to my husband, and my hubby told him they were insisting he had to have a job, the stake pres said he didn’t need to worry about that right now, he just needed to worry about getting back to church.
And this is the best one. This stake had a really funny attitude about children—I almost felt like children were ostrasized at church. the couldn’t sing for Mother or Father’s day, they couldn’t bear their testimony if they were under 12, they couldn’t sing with their family for a musical number if they were under 12. I don’t remember very many bishopric messages in Primary where I was temporarily substituting in music–maybe i just missed them. i was told the stk Primary president showed them in the handbook where it said children under 12 were not supposed to participate in sacrament meeting. I looked up the music in the handbook—and I knew the kids could sing. We got a new bisho, and a new primary pres–and the kids sang for Mother and father’s day–that was great. The new handbook took care of the problem about testimonies—saying as long as they could do it without any help, they could bear their testimony.
The attitude about children never felt right to me–and really bothered me. i asked the stk pres one day about it–and he mentioned the no one under 12 participating in sacrament meeting—and I asked him if he had looked at the music part specifically. he told me that I had given him a challenge and that he was going to look it up because he was supposed to be teaching on the handbook. I’m not even sure at this point if we were even talking about the same thing—but i know we were talking about some sort of restriction on children under 12.
The next time I saw him, I asked him what he had learned—he told me that I had been right and that he had apologized to the people he was teaching because they had taught them wrong, but that they weren’t going to advertise it—which is fine—it will trickle down over time and take care of itself. I was impressed that he could admit to being wrong and apologize to the people that had been taught wrong—I have more respect for him because of that.
I guess I feel like I could regain respect for my ward leaders if they could maybe apologize to my husband for handling things so poorly when he was struggling and for not doing things according to the instructions we are given by the church when they tried to get him to do a new job–and for grossly misjudging him by assuming he would make me do all the work if we team taught, when he had nothing but a good record for always doing his job—but that is probably wanting too much. I just know that if i offend someone, I want to apologize and make things right as soon as possible.
forgot to say—our town now has two stakes and we are wanting to move back to our old ward in the other stake.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.