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Having a faithful, believing wife can be hard as I’m sure most of you know. I don’t want her to be in pain, but I can’t give her everything she wants from me right now. I keep running across things that I feel might help her, like the Faces East forum or the Ensign article “When He Stopped Believing.” But for some reason it just feels weird for me to be the one sending them to her. They’re the kinds of things that feel like they ought to be coming from her mom or friends. On top of that, I often get the feeling that to her, I’m the broken one. And sure, I’m broken in lots of ways. But we’re all broken in our own ways, and that doesn’t mean I have no insight to offer her. I just don’t know how to go about it. Just my two cents, but I think it’s great that the suggestions are coming from you. I like it when my husband (the “TBM” one) talks to me directly. Even though I know that he might call his brother, or cousin or whomever when he’s feeling alone and stressed about our situation, I appreciate that for the most part this is something that stays between me and him. Quote:But for some reason it just feels weird for me to be the one sending them to her. They’re the kinds of things that feel like they ought to be coming from her mom or friends.
Would her friends or mom even know about these things to send them to her? Faces East is part of the unknown for most members, unless a FC hits. The Ensign article may never have been read. It’s been years since we took the Ensign, but I never read them cover to cover. I’d pick a couple, usually ones with topics I cared about, and left the rest.
As to the broken one – you may need to square your shoulders and let her feel that way right now. I don’t know how you came to your crisis, but my husband’s crisis took me by deathly surprise. Worse for us, was the more I tried to study and learn the more behind I became, the more passionate he became and we hit a wall of silence that was almost relationship ending. Even today – though we are wiser, he still can’t figure out how I know everything, but come to a different conclusion. Now who is broken?
She won’t understand, she is terrified, the church has yet to create a safe place for families in this situation. I think it’s an unknown to them. Until they do, it’s up to us. Enough sage people from Buddha, to Gandhi, Mother Theresa to Nelson Mandela – have pointed the answer to us. Love. Love her above yourself. Remember how frustrated you are with the church, take one step back and that will be her.
Intimacy is weird, and the patterns for communication within a marriage are often so established it’s very hard to change them. But I agree with those who say it’s a good thing for this to bring you closer together. I still maintain (as I say in other threads) the key to a good marriage within disaffection is to meet her other non-Church needs very well. If its child rearing she loves in you, step up your fatherhood game, if its financial security she loves, do a better job of that — compensate for lack of churchy-wurchy. And don’t mention the disaffection unless she brings it up and deal with it then. I think sending articles and such is a trigger for dissatisfaction in marriage. I wouldn’t do it unless she wanted to talk about it. I am in your wife’s situation–my husband has chosen to be barely active. Our marriage had been struggling even before he went inactive. I think what silent dawning told you is some fantastic advice. I kept trying to explain to my husband that i could deal with his church issues much better if we had a good relationship. I had people showing me the Ensign articles—and it didn’t help, in fact, it was more frustrating, because the couples they talked about still had good relationships. They had SOMETHING to hold on to. My husband decided one day that he did not want to fight with me anymore. there has been much improvement in our relationship. We still fight, but i have been apologized to more in the last 3-4 months than I have been for probably our entire marriage. If you can’t be the priesthood holder she needs right now, be everything else for her that you possibly can.
Another +1 for SD’s comment. That’s what seems to work for me, too. I got a great letter from my missionary son for my birthday last week that drove this point home for me. One of the things I like about this forum is the many different perspectives people bring to the table. It’s so helpful to see the issues from different angles. I am maybe more lucky than some of you, because my wife knew about some of my problems before we even got married. I had been basically inactive ever since we met, although I still went to church every now and then. We dated for three years before getting married (not in the temple), so we have a pretty solid relationship that’s not dependent on the church. The bad news is that she thought I would eventually “get over” my faith issues. I promised her that I would always go to church with her. But when I still hadn’t “gotten over it” after a few years, she finally went to the temple without me. We have always had pretty good channels of communication. We’ve gone through some pretty rough challenges and always managed to talk them over and respect one another.
The exception would be my faith issues. We seldom talk about that. It’s hard for me to be open when I know that my opinions cause her pain; she ends up crying every time we talk about it, and I hate feeling like I’m disappointing her and ruining her dreams. I hate knowing that no matter how much she loves me, I will still never be everything she wanted unless I can finally take her to the temple. On the other hand, I love the idea of being open with her. I want to be able to tell her how I feel and have that extra level of intimacy. I want her to be able to “get” me and accept me for who I am, including my lack of faith. I doubt that would ever happen, but at the very least I want her to know what I really think and feel.
I don’t know why it feels so weird to me to point her to the Faces East forum. Maybe it’s because she’s been so immovable about what she wants out of me, and sending that to her is kind of implying that she’s not going to get it. And I don’t want to disappoint her any more than necessary.
Not talking about you Daeruin, because I don’t know what you have or haven’t talked about, but putting it out there for the thread… one thing I think that is an easy trap to fall into for people with a faith crisis is that when we want to talk to friends, family, spouses about it, we have a yearning to explain ‘why’. It is as if we need justification… “It’s not me… it’s the Church. Let me prove to you why it’s inevitable that I feel this way…” While this is very human, it’s can be a deadly trap from a relationship standpoint. I’m not saying it’s never appropriate, but that has inherent dangers that run deep, and which we can’t control in others. The problem is that if I start to explain all the things that make my skin crawl about the Church to someone, even a close friend, who is still faithful, then the conversation will almost certainly become attack/defend. Even if I think I’m clearly not attacking, the other person will likely perceive it as such. If another person has faith in something, and you are challenging that faith, then they will feel like you are challenging them.
In my opinion, it is much better to take the approach that I am not a believer, and to own the reasons why within my own heart. It turns out, I don’t need justification from anyone not to be a believer. And then the next critical element is to buy in to the idea that I must accept the faith of someone else with exactly the same commitment as I hope that they will accept my non-belief; not in how much they actually do, but in how much I hope they will.
My own experience went a lot smoother than I thought it would. I had imagined that it was going to turn out worse than it actually did and I went in feeling like “the broken one” which I now realize wasn’t a healthy attitude. Still that undercurrent of being broken helped me approach the situation with a higher degree of humility. I remember my thought process at the time. I didn’t want to communicate the specifics or details of my faith crisis for various reasons:
I didn’t want to cause someone to have a faith crisis. By the time I communicated my feelings to DW I had suffered on the inside for years and years. I wanted to go back to those happy days but couldn’t. I was worried that the information I “knew” would inevitably lead a TBM to a dark place from which there was no escape. I still hadn’t found my path out, I definitely didn’t want to carry anyone else there – especially DW.
- Even though it’s contradictory to what I just said I also recognized that my faith crisis was a natural process. I don’t think it’s something you can simply push or pull a person through. A person finds and stumbles through the path as a part of their own journey… via a natural process.
- I was aware of how I as a TBM might react to hearing the specifics of my faith crisis. I wouldn’t have looked at them with an open mind, I would have probably gone into resolve the concerns mode. The classic scenario where a discussion is had and both parties go away even more firmly entrenched in the beliefs they carried into the discussion. A waste of time.
I put myself in her shoes. That probably intensified “the broken one” mentality. I felt like I was destroying her blissful temple marriage dream and I felt terrible. That also generated the desire to communicate to her that I wasn’t going to change. I wasn’t having a faith crisis because I wanted to sin. A good thing because that was her primary concern… that she would have to do everything on her own with no help from me. That’s not what my faith crisis was about, I’m still there for her 100%, just saying that can often be the impression that a spouse of someone going through a faith crisis might have.
I actually love the fact that DW is a TBM and I often communicate as much. I marvel at her faith and it helps me to remember that there was a day when I too believed. She was an anchor that prevented me from drifting too far into the nothingness until I rediscovered purpose in life. The dynamic in our relationship still serves as a strength in my life. If DW naturally gets to a point where she believes as I do, fine; if DW stays a TBM, fine. She might feel the same about me – If I go back to being a TBM, fine; if not, fine… with the stipulation that I don’t become a bad person or cease to be a helpmeet for her. I still have to live the norms of the church, but the norms of the church are aligned with my own norms.
The take away? What would be reassuring to you if the roles were reversed? That and DWs want to know that our behaviors aren’t going to change drastically as a result of a faith crisis.
mom3 wrote:Quote:But for some reason it just feels weird for me to be the one sending them to her. They’re the kinds of things that feel like they ought to be coming from her mom or friends.
Would her friends or mom even know about these things to send them to her? Faces East is part of the unknown for most members, unless a FC hits. The Ensign article may never have been read. It’s been years since we took the Ensign, but I never read them cover to cover. I’d pick a couple, usually ones with topics I cared about, and left the rest.
As to the broken one – you may need to square your shoulders and let her feel that way right now. I don’t know how you came to your crisis, but my husband’s crisis took me by deathly surprise. Worse for us, was the more I tried to study and learn the more behind I became, the more passionate he became and we hit a wall of silence that was almost relationship ending. Even today – though we are wiser, he still can’t figure out how I know everything, but come to a different conclusion. Now who is broken?
She won’t understand, she is terrified, the church has yet to create a safe place for families in this situation. I think it’s an unknown to them. Until they do, it’s up to us. Enough sage people from Buddha, to Gandhi, Mother Theresa to Nelson Mandela – have pointed the answer to us. Love. Love her above yourself. Remember how frustrated you are with the church, take one step back and that will be her.
As someone who was also once the “TBM spouse” to someone who lost faith, I can only give a ringing endorsement to what mom3 said (as usual).
It was really, really scary. When my wife stopped believing and attending I was terrified all manner of negativity would kick off. It didn’t. She remains a good person. Loving and caring and supportive.
Avoid imposing anything on her, just as you wouldn’t want her to do to you.
I think that perhaps if you were to say something like “I imagine it must be very difficult and worrying for you right now. I came across an Ensign article/support forum written by someone/people in a similar position to you. I could send you a link if you’re interested.”
Yes, we all change, but don’t forget that as a “TBM,” your wife considers your decisions to have some pretty big consequences in the eternities. Be considerate of those fears. Accept that you
havemade a big change and she might feel on rocky ground. And love her, care for her, look after her. Make even more effort than ever before to be the best husband/father (??) possible to help her see that a change of faith doesn’t mean a change of values. Hang on in there. It gets better
On Own Now wrote:Not talking about you Daeruin, because I don’t know what you have or haven’t talked about, but putting it out there for the thread… one thing I think that is an easy trap to fall into for people with a faith crisis is that when we want to talk to friends, family, spouses about it, we have a yearning to explain ‘why’. It is as if we need justification… “It’s not me… it’s the Church. Let me prove to you why it’s inevitable that I feel this way…” While this is very human, it’s can be a deadly trap from a relationship standpoint. I’m not saying it’s never appropriate, but that has inherent dangers that run deep, and which we can’t control in others.
The problem is that if I start to explain all the things that make my skin crawl about the Church to someone, even a close friend, who is still faithful, then the conversation will almost certainly become attack/defend. Even if I think I’m clearly not attacking, the other person will likely perceive it as such. If another person has faith in something, and you are challenging that faith, then they will feel like you are challenging them.
In my opinion, it is much better to take the approach that I am not a believer, and to own the reasons why within my own heart. It turns out, I don’t need justification from anyone not to be a believer. And then the next critical element is to buy in to the idea that I must accept the faith of someone else with exactly the same commitment as I hope that they will accept my non-belief; not in how much they actually do, but in how much I hope they will.
Excellent advice.
I had a friend who left the church 8 years ago. At first he said he wouldn’t tell me the reasons he left unless I asked, but then started saying things like “if you’re happy in the church, don’t look into Joseph Smith’s polygamy,” then started dropping nuggets into the conversation about concerns/issues. It always left me feeling uncomfortable and we slowly drifted out of contact.
And it actually really is “us.” There are hundreds (1000s?) of members who know exactly the same information as we do and retain a complete conviction. If different results happen from the same stimulus then it’s the reactor, not the stimulus that is causing it.
If you jump off a cliff then I, like everyone else, will fall. It’s gravity. I took the leap, but gravity caused the fall.
When I “took the leap” into church history it was not inevitable that I would fall. It’s not like gravity. I might have responded, as someone like Jeff Lindsay or Dan Peterson, with increased faith.
I think a conclusion of disbelief (or changed belief) is reasonable, but not inevitable. Continued belief is not unreasonable, but not inevitable either. Something in us makes the difference. Our personal paradigm, our values, our perspective on the what matters or what’s important influences whether the same information that builds faith in one person, hurts faith in ourselves.
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