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Any ideas on how to quell the rage that my wife and I will not be able to attend the temple wedding of our daughter, you know, the one my wife gave birth to and we raised through thick and thin and now the church steals away from us? Also, the accompanying rage that occurs when there is no mechanism for even voicing an opinion upward about the practice / policy? This is really hitting us hard this weekend, and sacrament meeting reiterated how stupid we are for thinking our own thoughts; not only stupid, but in the grasp of Satan and in danger of evelasting hell.
Focus on your love for her and support her because off that. It appears to be important to her, and it needs to be about her. Keep her as the focus.
Also, I understand the emotion, but she isn’t being stolen away fro you; you are missing an important event. There is an important difference. This is a big thing that I hope changes as soon as possible; don’t make it even bigger than it already is.
I did the same thing to my parents, who were non-members when I chose a temple wedding over a civil wedding, and then waiting a year for the temple ceremony. It broke my parents heart — it caused a rift — a passive agressive one — for years. I eventually apologized but I’m not sure it helped much. They rejected my attempt at including them with a ring exchanging ceremony. We offered to do a a renewal of our marriage commitment at a family resort we all go to after 10 years of marriage, and they didn’t want to be part of that either. Another mistake on their part.
I would do this — accept whatever offerings your daughter gives in place of your attending the temple with her. If she wants to include you with a ring exchanging ceremony, do so. I just performed at a post-wedding ceremony where the bride and groom dressed in their wedding clothing and did a form of a ceremony where they expressed their love to each other and it was touching. This was after their wedding in South America where a lot of guests could not attend from America. It was touching and spiritual. Be part of that if your daughter agrees to it.
If you daughter offers that — accept it (and encourage it)– I made a mistake in choosing the church’s way over including my parents, and my parents made a mistake in not accepting my efforts at inclusion, however, apparently “appeasing” to them it was.
Also, at the time, I was under the belief that I was doing God’s will and his word was paramount and had greater priority than my parents. I no longer believe that, but at the time, I did believe that, and if you realize your child’s perspective, it does deserve some kind of respect — wanting to follow God even at great sacrifice of offending parents. Not great for the parents, but admirable that someone would make that sacrifice, in their view, to be good.
Time is good for anger. I will likely experience the same thing on my daughter’s wedding day if her TBM commitment continues. I am ready for it. I am going to encourage some kind of ceremony or expressions of love, or celebration where there are speeches so I can be part of the day. I don’t know what role you had in encouraging your daughter’s affinity for Mormonism, but in my case, I only have myself to “blame” as I raised her this way when she was young. So, I made my bed, and will have to lie in it. It eases the pain a bit. More than my non-member parents who never invited me to the world of Mormonism, and they were Evangelicals, which makes it even worse.
I want to say, I feel the pain on both ends….as I have seen and lived both sides of it now with my switch from TBMism to Unorthodoxy.
Whatever you do, don’t let this become a rift in your relationship with her, as my parents did. Although an important day, it is not the only day — and if your daughter’s experience is like mine, very few of the people in the temple will be part of her life 10 years for now — except maybe any member in-laws who are TR-holders. The rest will fade into oblivion as life takes over — but you will still be there. I had to learn to live my life without parental support after my marriage, and it brought my daughter to tears when I told her I didnt’ feel the need to see my parents anymore given the huge distance between us due to my Mormonism. She cried when I told her. Don’t let that happen to you — primary goal is keeping a solid, loving relationship between you, your daughter, and your new son-in-law. My wife, by the way, is also alientated from my parents, and that is hard, because she never wants to do much with them or even go to their house as she doesn’t feel included or respected or appreciated given her Mormonism and other characteristics.
Also, consider this — conduct yourself in a way that when your daughter gets older and wiser, will help her see the sacrifice you made in your heart to pave the way for a harmonious relationship in spite of how you must’ve felt on the day of the wedding. She may not see it now, particularly if she is young, but life just might open her eyes about what she is doing, and she may regret it. Life did that to me, 20 years later.
Silent Struggle – is she getting married soon? If it’s not around the corner take a deep breath. If it is follower Ray and SD’s advice. My mom was the convert, the only child, and the daughter. She didn’t realize until she was in the thick of it, how excluded her parents were. Even today you can see the sorrow on their forced smiles during the reception photos. Silent – you are a member, maybe not a temple recommend one, but you get to choose if you will see her wedding day as a personal hit or success. If you can’t attend, or are not comfortable, maybe try making the day for her extra special.
My grandparents needed time, but eventually the strain was mended (everyone had to do their part on it), but that mending gave us years of happy experiences that really shaped two grandkids lives. If you can build a bridge. It will mean a lot in the long run.
Silent Struggle: My whole life I was taught that temple marriage was the goal. Culturally, things were set up that anything less than temple marriage was a sign that I was a slut. I look back and just shake my head. It was so wrong. Unfortunately, there is still a huge element of that in LDS culture. Your poor daughter wants her culture to know that she is worthy of temple marriage. She has been told for years that the only girls that chose otherwise do so for morality issues.
What a horrible spot to be in. She can be considered “worthy” and be married in the temple, or be married outside the temple and be seen as “unworthy” in some way.
I remember calling my own father and telling him that I was going to be getting married in the temple so if he wanted to be there, he needed to get his act together. He had a drinking problem. He replied simply, “It will not be an issue.” A few months later, he was at my wedding. He was one of the witnesses. I assumed all was well. Hah!
There was a family dinner immediately afterwards. He knocked a few back with my husband’s catholic uncle at the family dinner. I didn’t find out for a year .. My husband’s family wasn’t sure how to share that gem.
Families are so complicated. I am grateful that my in-laws didn’t share that information at the family dinner. I’m glad my father was at my wedding .. Even if his drinking problem was so obviously not solved.
For you and your daughter, it is going to be painful to not be there in the sealing room with your daughter. And yet .. LDS weddings are the shortest, most utilitarian weddings on the planet. They run those brides through like cattle. Compensate with an awesome party. Do a ring ceremony. Celebrate the day in other really wonderful ways.
Temple weddings are kind of a let down. She will want something else to make it feel like a true celebration
At my sister’s wedding reception the FIL made a big stink because he didn’t want his ex-wife in the family photo. She wasn’t family any more is what he said. She was not the birth mother (long deceased) but she had raised the groom and he wanted her in the photo. For my kids’ weddings I plan to make it as much as I can about them. To show them our love and support as a sendoff of this wonderful journey called life.
I get that it is frustrating to be excluded. For me it would be even more maddening that entire extended families might be judging me for my non-attendance. I might even consider jumping through the necessary hoops to be present (like amateurparent’s father apparently did). But whatever happens, I would try like the dickens to keep my struggles from my dear child and make the day about them.
P.S. I disagree about not letting “unworthy” family members witness the wedding. I disagree about making couples that marry civily wait a year before a temple sealing. I just feel like that is outside of my control so I would try to focus on what I can control.
That’s all I got.
amateurparent wrote:
For you and your daughter, it is going to be painful to not be there in the sealing room with your daughter. And yet .. LDS weddings are the shortest, most utilitarian weddings on the planet. They run those brides through like cattle. Compensate with an awesome party. Do a ring ceremony. Celebrate the day in other really wonderful ways.Temple weddings are kind of a let down. She will want something else to make it feel like a true celebration
Hi, silentstruggle – I don’t know how close you are to the wedding day, but sorry you’re in such turmoil right now. I second this advice and suggest being gracious, above-it-all, and totally loving toward your daughter. I think she’ll remember your kindness long after she’s forgotten whatever the sealer says. (Honestly, I’ve been kind of appalled at the last several sealings I’ve attended. I really don’t mean to be snarky about something of such import for us/LDS people, but,wow, some of these sealers are so poorly prepared, too casual, and just plain strange. The temple is supposed to be a high church experience, but these unscripted sealings are very low church, IMO.) Thanks for all the advice. You have left some very good points on this post. I can see however, that I maybe should have given more background: 1) We are lifetime, 5-generation Wasatch Front members. I’ve been in many callings, ward mission leader, EQ, bishopric member, as has my wife (RS/YW, etc).
2) Our disillusionment with the church is full and complete and culminated several years ago. I am marginally active to give my daughter someone to sit by in sacrament meeting. My wife is actively not participating, except to support daughter as needed.
3) If I could start over, we would not raise my kids in the church and would raise them very differently than we did, but as it is, our disillusionment came right at a time when my daughter was in her early teens. I feel very badly about that. We recognize the social/cultural value of her being able to be on the A-Team “White Hats” (active LDS kids on the Wasatch Front) and also, recognized that actively trying to pull her away from the church could completely backfire, so, we’ve tried hard not to sway her and to be supportive of whatever she wanted, which by the way, is the opposite of the parenting we received which pretty much gave us no personal choice.
4) That being said, when I say they are stealing my daughter away, I am not talking so much about the temple ceremony itself, as the overall brainwashing she is still actively receiving at the hands of bishops, seminary and YW, with some of her YW leaders being at the forefront and undermining and actively demeaning us as parents.
5) There is no pending wedding. It may still be several years away. The issue is at the forefront, because there is another family wedding coming up in a few weeks where we will miss the sealing. The issue is bothering my wife immensely.
6) My daughter is leaning decidely liberal and feminist, which I can see causing problems for her down the road. Already, she has friends (male) with whom they have mutually decided not to talk about politics, religion or feminism.
7) We don’t give a fig really about actually missing the temple ceremony, and if my daughter were to choose a temple wedding, we would never hold anything personally against her for it. Actually, I can see that she is going to have some soul searching to do herself when the time comes, because none of her immediate family would be able to or want to attend. Her only sibling (brother) has stepped away from the church (after serving a mission).
We are deeply bothered by much of temple ceremony and temple culture, pressure to conform and the whole enslavement/cultishness of it, not to mention the deeply anti-feminine bent (our opinion). We are also deeply troubled by the continuing pressure for kids to marry young and start families immediately.9) We really DO hate the policy of not allowing people to have a private wedding ceremony before a temple ceremony here in the states, and requiring the temple sealing to be posted for a year after a civil wedding. The family church really tears families apart at these, the most important moments.
10) If the priesthood were true, it would be true and able to do sealings regardless of who is present. As I say, I don’t care much about the LDS ceremony, but I think there is room within dogma, culture, to open up a ceremony and the healing benefits for families would be huge.
11) As far as ‘worthiness’ goes, there is really nothing in our lives that has changed, except we don’t attend, and we don’t feed the church financially. It’s a personal gripe that we have family members who are nasty, who have nasty personal relationships with family and others and they get to be recommend holders, but we are labeled as the evil ones.
Sorry for the amount of vehemence here. It’s hard to hold it all in at times. I thought time would water it down, but it’s not.
I am going to say this as gently and kindly as I can, but it will sound more direct than gentle, I’m afraid: Thank you for the extra details, but they don’t change one thing about the advice everyone gave.
You raised your daughter to be herself – and it sounds like you succeeded.It sounds like she has a good head on her shoulders and is able and willing to be part of a group without sacrificing her own identity. She is different than many people around her, in some fundamental ways, but you are complaining that she is brainwashed – that people are stealing her away from you, even though she sounds like she is as much like you and your wife as she is like them. That conclusion leads to the following questions:
Are you upset that she appears to be walking a line you can’t?
Are you feeling like she is rejecting you if she chooses to value the temple in ways you can’t?
Did you raise her to be independent but now are upset that she actually is?
Do you want her to be herself or a copy of you?
This post isn’t about your daughter; it’s about you.Don’t make her life about you; allow it to be about her. That is the only way you will find peace – by not wanting to clone yourself through your kids but allowing them to be different than you, even in ways that are difficult to accept. I know this comment might seem either harsh or uncaring, but it isn’t. I want you to be happy. That is the only motivation in this comment, and I am sharing the only way I know that can help make that happen.
SS, It’s a tough situation, no question about it, and I feel for you. I’ve been on the outside of the temple during weddings for my own children too, and it’s hard. But here’s the crux of it all:
silentstruggle wrote:If I could start over, we would not raise my kids in the church and would raise them very differently than we did
Do you think your daughter wishes you hadn’t raised her in the Church?
S.S. – My mom was not raised LDS, anything but LDS. Her parents never attended any church. As a child my mom thought she would grow up and be a nun, she passed a convent every day and was drawn to it. She even imagined what her religious name would be and everything. By the time she hit High School her life was surrounded by Jewish kids. She grew up in Hollywood CA. Entrenched in it, danced at the same studio as Judy Garland and her sisters, was asked by Bob Hope to screen test for a movie he was making, every Sunday she was out at Knotts Berry Farm or the beach. At 18 she found Mormonism. The two have been stuck together ever since. Her parents didn’t change, all my life they never attended church or talked much church. My grandmother was a bible devoted Christian on her own terms, that was that. My atheist-liberal neighbor has a conservative-Evangelical son. He still can’t figure out how that happened.
As a parent I hear you, we all want our kids to have a wonderful life. For a TBM that means all the boxes checked, they sorrow when that doesn’t happen. For a Catholic they have a list. My atheist neighbor had an image, too. My own parents have wishes for me. The disconnect where it doesn’t pan out is hard. I wish I could make it work. So will your daughter. Can you help her out?
In a lot respects you succeeded. Give her and yourself a hug. She’s smart, healthy, and alive. Your life is blessed.
Thanks for the comments all. And I apologize for my vehemence.
I totally think that my daughter is going to come out of this great and that she is positioned to be a strong and independent thinker.
I also think that we will continue to have a great relationship with her and to be tolerant and supportive of whatever decisions she makes.
I guess what I need to get over is how much control the LDS church still exercises in my life, in spite of carefully trying to extricate myself. I think that’s partly due to geography, density of mormonism and to family and local culture.
silentstruggle wrote:I totally think that my daughter is going to come out of this great and that she is positioned to be a strong and independent thinker.
I also think that we will continue to have a great relationship with her and to be tolerant and supportive of whatever decisions she makes.
This is the key! Sounds like you have a great kid on your hand that has the right combination of independence and support… a rare find indeed!
:thumbup:
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