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Not to be a drama queen with my situation, but just as an update so you all know the latest… I’ve spent the last week in a hotel room. Things at home came to a critical point again, and in exasperation, I moved out and told my wife we are done. This happened once before several months ago and after settling down and having friends and family talk to me about trying to salvage the marriage for sake of kids, and me being insecure in making a decision of this magnitude, I signed up for more and kept trying to find a way to make things work at home. Since that time, some things have become worse, and some things became better…and in the end, here I am back in this situation again.
I haven’t been able to be as active in moderating as I’ve been dealing with this. Sorry.
My Heber13 name is not so anonymous anymore, so I can’t really post much on the website since it is being looked at a lot. I may try to signup for a new username…if I do, I’ll let you all know so you know who I am posting under.
Basically, my mind is racing a lot because I took my son to Priesthood, and Pres Monson’s talk got me thinking a lot. He directly said those that are thinking of divorce should avoid it at all costs, and warned against unrighteous dominion in the home, and talked about the need to always try to keep you marriage healthy.
It did not inspire me. It confused me. It made me mad also, because I feel like if we really are supposed to follow the prophet and humble ourselves, then here is a situation where I’m just leaving my wife and the prophet’s message comes now. I can take this in 2 directions: Look at this message as a warning that before I make a divorce final, I still have time to go back to my relationship and keep trying…and have hope that God sees me trying to be obedient.
Or the 2nd option is to realize his words are general statements, but don’t really apply to me for several reasons.
The second is more logical…since I’m not an abusive or unrighteous dominating husband, or fit into the categories that he talked about (worldly or selfish men)…and yet…isn’t that exactly what the 14 fundamentals is all about…warning that the proud reject the prophet because they think it doesn’t apply to them?
I came away from Priesthood last night thinking this is a classic LDS paradox I’m living. Trying to StayLDS, learning new ways to look at things, yet when I go to church, they teach and preach things that make me feel bad about myself in being able to do what the church says (the opposite of what I’d expect from the church). I came up with some responses I can live with, like saying that the prophet is talking in generalizations that don’t apply to my specific circumstances…but holy cow, if that is the case, who was that talk given for? Who would benefit from that? Was he preaching to the choir, so those who do have strong marriages are reminded to keep them strong? If so, why talk to the rest of us in a prophetic warning voice at all? To me, this is what leads to CogDis, because in my situation, it begins to make everything unravel with no guidance or certainties in life…just choices to make that ultimately don’t matter, the only thing that matters is how I keep my heart healthy to keep loving others, while realizing it is impossible to please everyone and I will ultimately hurt some people also…there are no “right” answers, there aren’t any “no pain” options…I just have to pick a path and go with it and let the consequences follow.
Give me some advice if you can. You now know my situation. So how do you see Pres Monson’s talk applies to me? How am I supposed to process it?
Actually, Heber, he didn’t say that. It was said explicitly that there are some marriages that can’t be saved. I mean that. It was a direct, explicit statement that some marriage simply cannot be saved, no matter the effort put into them. I’m not saying yours can or can’t be salvaged. I’m not saying you should divorce or remain married. I can’t make that call. However, it is really, really, really important to realize that you might have missed the part that actually does apply to you, since it was said that some simply can’t be saved.
Also, there was a STRONG focus today on receiving personal revelation for personal situations in our personal lives. I’m not in your situation, but I just didn’t hear the message you heard in as extreme a way as you heard it – and I really do think you might have tuned out the statement I mentioned in your despair over the generality.
Heber13 – I agree with Ray (not that I went to the PH session – actually here in Asia, we’re on a week delay anyway). The only other caution is that sometimes something hits you with more poignance because you should pay more attention to it, and sometimes it is amplified by your own emotionally heightened state and as E. Scott pointed out in a talk 2 years ago, you can’t savor the grape while biting a jalapeno. I think when we are biting a jalapeno (have an emotional response take over) we can no longer catch the nuances of “the spirit” or the “true message for us” (the grape). That’s how I interpret the analogy anyway. He was using it slightly differently, but I like my way. Thank you both for the responses. I like it your way too Hawkgrrl. When I think back to it, I think when I was listening I heard Pres Monson start talking about divorce, and my emotional state went up, and my mind started racing thinking of my situation…that I actually don’t think I was focused to hear the rest of it, or the spirit of it. Almost like I turned off for a bit in my own deep thought. Or I have ADD and can’t pay attention, one of the two.
😳 Thanks for responding. I will check out the talk again when it is published or available online. Thanks again for your responses to help me keep thinking straight!
:wtf: Heber, Last summer was a very difficult time for my wife and I. We went through 2 marriage therapists. The first one (a former LDS bishop) made the marriage worse and almost led us to a divorce. The second one was a godsend. AdamF (aka Shenpa Warrior) at Wheat and Tares helped me find a therapist in my area that uses a technique called “Emotionally Focused Therapy.”
My wife and I visited with a therapist named Jack for a few months, and then learned our insurance company wouldn’t cover the visits, so we stopped going. However, even though we didn’t finish the therapy, Jack not only righted the ship from the bad therapist, but put us back on a more healthy trajectory. You might want to read the book “Hold Me Tight” by Sue Johnston. The book is helpful, but I don’t think you can get the help you need without a good therapist. I don’t know where you live, but here is a link to a website with trained EFT therapists in the U.S.
http://www.iceeft.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=59&Itemid=54 I can send you some more info via PM if you’d like with some other books and references to read. I really think EFT is a very helpful tool for highly distressed couples.
jmb275 also recommended that EFT marriage therapy, and shenpawarrior who posts with us at Wheat & Tares is a therapist who specializes in EFT. Sounds like it’s worth a shot! Much appreciated. We may be past the point of this helping, but you never know, so it is definitely worth trying everything. I’ll take a look at it and give it a try. I appreciate everyone’s words.
H13
Having had longer discussions with you about this Heber13, your problems are NOT unrighteous dominion or not trying like a super hero to make your marriage healthy. If that’s what TSM said, and even if it was revelation from God to the Priesthood body, it wasn’t addressing yoursituation. Sorry to hear about how things have developed. I am not surprised, but still feel for you…
Thanks for the encouraging words, Brian. I signed up for a new user that I can anonymously post under, as Heber13 is now known to my family.
I registered under a new name, PiperAlpha.
I quickly found my yahoo email received confirmation of registering my new username, and since that email isn’t secured, I wanted to go in to my new profile and change the email to a different email address.
That locked my account, and it is inactive until an admin accepts the changes. I logged back in as Heber13 but don’t see that I have access to it. I don’t know if Ray, Brian, or Hawkgrrrl have access to approve that user name email changes. If so, can you approve and unlock that profile?
Secondly, are you all ok with me keeping H13 to use as a moderator with access rights to moderate as usual, but then use a different name to post stuff if I need to? I think jmb did this for a while. Is that OK with everyone?
Well, I have admin access but this is the first time I’ve ever used it. Heber, I activated your PiperAlpha account, so you should be able to login now. (If I did it wrong, we’ll have to wait for Brian or Ray, but I think I did it right.) If you need to be PiperAlpha, it’s fine with me.
mormonheretic wrote:I have admin access but this is the first time I’ve ever used it. Heber, I activated your PiperAlpha account
That worked. Thanks.
I went in and had Heber welcome Piper … I’m totally a dork!
By the way, I did go back and reread Pres Monson’s talk, and as Ray said, it didn’t say what I initially heard. There are some marriages that can’t be saved, and shouldn’t be, IMO. (I’m just glad I’m not a single guy…he was very direct with that group!)
Well, this weekend we drive as a family from Denver to SLC to meet with another therapist. This therapist understands my wife’s severe bi-polar disorder, and recognizes that no kind of therapy by itself can help our situation, and medications must be used to balance the chemical situation, and then therapy can start to help, but not before.
We are not going to help save the marriage, we are going to get my wife stabilized so we can begin talking about next steps, whatever that means. and the kids have suffered greatly, they need a safe environment to open up and get support.
Send prayers my way if u got ’em.
Heber, you’re in my prayers.
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