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I know everybody is here for different reasons and are in different levels of testimony but I was hoping for some input. Last night I was at my YSA branch president’s house after a broadcast of a devotional. There was some discussion about marriage and people leaving the church post marriage. I was a little frustrated when I heard that a branch president’s wife said her sister said she wished she didn’t marry her husband because he left the church. Everybody was very approving of this attitude and I was little shock that this was accepted attitude towards someone.
I decided to speak up. I said that we should be more merciful to people because sometimes we don’t know what they have seen and experience. We have too high of expectations on people to have everything figure out. I understand there we should have some expectations on people (being a responsible adult) I just sort of stop there because I knew was getting increasingly frustrated with this orthodox attitude.
I hear this conversation at different levels on how judgmental Mormons are towards apostates and less orthodox Mormons.
We have many thousands of members who are married happily in mixed-faith, “part-member” situations. We NEVER say the member spouse should divorce the non-member spouse just because of the difference of religion. We are harder on those who leave the Church or are inactive, mostly because our expectations are higher – and because leaving and becoming inactive mid-marriage changes the rules and expectations in a fundamental, important way for the spouse whose faith has not changed. That is no different for many devout Catholics or Proteatants or Muslims or Jews . . . When the rules are changed unexpectedly and without mutual consent, it can be devastating.
I understand the attitude you describe, even though I hope each couple can get past it. It would be no different than if one spouse suddenly became ultra-orthodox for a spouse who is unorthodox. That happened to a friend, and it was no different. Privately, he expressed a wish that his wife was still the wild and crazy girl he had married and that he might not have married her if he had known she would become a stereotypical Molly Mormon. I helped him get past that, but I understood and couldn’t blame him.
Bottom line: We need to try to understand those who say those things, including the pain and difficulty major change causes. It is not a simple, inconsequential thing.
There was an article in the Ensign in 2012 that refuted this common cultural trend of dissolving marriages when one spouse has lost faith: https://www.lds.org/ensign/2012/07/when-he-stopped-believing?lang=eng Personally, I don’t see how this isn’t an indictment of the so-called believing spouse. What kind of person requires you to have no free agency and to pretend to be who you are not in order to stay married? Unfortunately, some Mormon marriages (and other marriages too) are entered into very lightly, without really loving the other person, using the assumption of a common faith as a heuristic for a workable marriage. Then people change, trials happen, etc., and the spouse dumps the other one because they didn’t get what they were hoping for, they feel like they deserve more. Marriage is difficult. Some people don’t want to do any of the heavy lifting.
mczee wrote:I know everybody is here for different reasons and are in different levels of testimony but I was hoping for some input.
Last night I was at my YSA branch president’s house after a broadcast of a devotional. There was some discussion about marriage and people leaving the church post marriage. I was a little frustrated when I heard that a branch president’s wife said her sister said she wished she didn’t marry her husband because he left the church. Everybody was very approving of this attitude and I was little shock that this was accepted attitude towards someone.
I decided to speak up.I said that we should be more merciful to people because sometimes we don’t know what they have seen and experience. We have too high of expectations on people to have everything figure out. I understand there we should have some expectations on people (being a responsible adult) I just sort of stop there because I knew was getting increasingly frustrated with this orthodox attitude. I hear this conversation at different levels on how judgmental Mormons are towards apostates and less orthodox Mormons.
Good for you. I don’t think the people there had enough information to chime in on the sister’s situation. In conversations like this I like to talk about my favorite brother-in-law, who wasn’t LDS, and sing his praises. Then I like to talk about my uncle’s Lutheran pastor, who helps my family care for our uncle at a great distance. We call him the best bishop we ever had. When one of my girls talked about the unsuitability of an inactive guy she was sort of dating, I told her my concern wasn’t his inactivity, it was other things about his behavior and character.
I would speak up with this one. I would indicate that I have spent time with people who have married someone in the temple, and who later found their spouses evolved into non-believers or non-TR-holders. I would like to share a few perspectives.
I would share about one woman who was with a non-believer how indicated that love should transcend church activity. That taking such a disposable approach to spouses has far reaching consequences for children, and for the spouse who is currently not meeting church expectations. It can alientate people who are merely on a blip in the journey, and certainly doesn’t inspire greater faith or affinity for continued church experience. They may be good spouses in other ways — as providers, as companions, as co-parents. To let the church or even the gospel come between the spouses can be very destructive. As DHO said, that for many, the aftermath of a divorce is often worse than the marriage itself!
Also, that we should never underestimate the power of God to transform people’s attitudes, even when they appear testimony-barren. I might even quote how Christ spent much of his time with the people who needed spiritual support, not with the believers only — if we want to live a Christlike life, we can’t abandon the people who seem to have fallen off the path for a time.
Remember the priorities that were once popularized in the church — God, Spouse, Family/Job, Church, Notice how church is later in the list. Notice how relationship with spouse is second.
I would definitely speak up. My wife threatened to leave me when I had my first commitment crisis. It was over a harrowing adoption, and felt completely beaten-up by the church. To then have my wife want to leave me was a kick in the teeth.
Thanks for caring for us. It’s nice to be thought of. I am learning to phrase many of my statements as “I” comments.
For instance, “I have friends who have chosen to continue their marriages, even in those situations.” or “I have met people who are making it work.” or “I read an article in the Ensign that counters that suggestion.”
I don’t elaborate beyond that. I try to use kind words and a smile. I find it best to remember how water and wind erode big rocks – constant work over a long span of time.
Thanks everybody. I posted the “my husband doesn’t believe” article on Facebook. I love it and I learn a lot from it. I never really thought about the preparation of celestial eternal life outside of Mormon belief system. It’s funny how some Mormons get really tied to the superficial elements of the temple and forget those core principles that you can learn from experience. It’s the yacht club of emotional euphoria that people get from the temple they love, not the principles along the way that they can learn and apply to their fellow man.
Anyways, I’m probably being a too judgmental. It’s just something that gets under my skin. I don’t have much patience for people show a little mercy to those going through a faith transition. I don’t have my endowments so I might be speaking too soon. I’m debating if I should go down that road just to see what happens to me spiritually/emotionally.
mczee – Off the cuff and without reading carefully enough I gave examples of accepting non-members in general, but I think what Ray says is true. One spouse making a major course change after marriage is not an inconsequential thing. It’s a frequent topic of discussion here and there’s a whole sister-site designed for the orthodox spouse in this situation. (faceseast.org) mczee wrote:It’s funny how some Mormons get really tied to the superficial elements of the temple and forget those core principles that you can learn from experience. It’s the yacht club of emotional euphoria that people get from the temple they love, not the principles along the way that they can learn and apply to their fellow man.
You’ve given me a lot to think about with this. Thank you.
Old-Timer wrote:We NEVER say the member spouse should divorce the non-member spouse just because of the difference of religion.
I think this is generally the way it is,…but not everyone, and not as quickly as I would like. From the old SWK days, there were talks about ONLY dating someone who could take you to the temple, was strong and utterly committed to the LDS tradition, etc.
I still hear rumblings and gripes when marriages don’t go the way they supposedly should. Some arguments are: “How could you make a mistake to marry that person in the first place?” (the implications being it was a false or bad start BECAUSE they fell away later),..and even: “God would justify you if you ended this marriage because it isn’t going to be eternal since (he or she) left the church.”
I can feel a change, but I still hear rumblings and gripes that the change isn’t universal. There are many who are ubber orthodox and see unequally yoked marriages as justification to end them. Usually those are the people who are VERY TBM and don’t have a lot of empathy, IMHO.
mczee, Thank you for speaking up. Often people can be judgmental of others simply because they don’t understand. So, it’s up to us to help them understand us and for us to try to understand them. In return, we hope that they will help us to understand them and to try to understand us.
In the particular case referenced, it’s useful to permit that the story may not be complete. The branch president’s wife told of a sister who said… yada yada yada. We don’t really know the reasons for that particular struggling marriage. Heck, we’ve had people here on this site express marital uncertainty because their spouse is still believing. I know a couple who both left the Church together, united in their resolve that the Church was not true, but they soon divorced. I have known people who were very frustrated over a spouse staying and over a spouse leaving. Faith differential, especially one that was not anticipated is a major strain on any relationship. Some are able to make it work, some are not. We have a tendency to take the side of the spouse who is disaffected. All-in members of the Church will tend to take the site of the spouse who remains faithful to the Church. This should be no surprise. Each point of view makes sense to the one with that point of view.
You did the right thing and I hope you can continue to do so.
I believe that there are many situations where a marriage doesn’t pan out as expected. Some of these are small adjustments and others are large. The late onset of mental illness can be a big one. Perhaps a disability that precludes the spouse from fulfilling what had been imagined at the outset. It can be a difficult balancing act between not excusing a divorce and not shaming someone who simply cannot stay in that particular situation anymore for their own wellbeing. I would like for us to view others circumstances and choices with as much charity as possible. At my last EQ meeting the lesson was on strengthening your marriage. At the end, I stated that all of these ideas were great for 95% of marriages. There may be 5% were the marriage will never be great despite all efforts. Not all marriages can be saved and some very few should not even be endured. Sometimes “work harder” just doesn’t work.
In church, we often get very myopic. We are there to learn about gospel principles and teachings…and start to see everything through those lenses and apply meaning to everything and ascribe reasons and judgements based on what we are there in church learning about. We read stories in class about Laman and Lemuel, and then pull examples from friends of a cousin who heard a neighbor say something about their school friend’s father…and that shows us an example how Laman and Lemuel acted.
It’s all stories.
It would be difficult for me to see a successful business man, who is researching cures for cancer, and giving time and money for underprivileged inner city kids, saving for retirement, serving on the City Council, offering hours of service to the ward’s boy scout troop, and planning elaborate romantic getaways with his wife who he talks in depth with about her needs and the children….but he doesn’t believe the church and she wants to divorce him. She would love him to death and deal with the church.
Most of the time it is looked at in a vacuum of losing faith…and just focusing on church and nothing else.
When there is a strain on a marriage, it might be because faith changed and one spouse is “disappointed” in the other because that wasn’t what they thought marriage was going to be like when they dated. That is natural to have disappointments in relationships…and so you choose how to work through that…just like some couples have other disappointments.
The number one reason is financial reasons…not religion. But…that’s may not be applicable to the lesson being talked about in church. We have had those lessons…and they go very similarly to someone losing faith. It is around a strain on a marriage.
I don’t think we can get myopic and think all faithful happily married members will want divorce if the spouse loses faith and there are no other reasons the marriage is a challenge. There are lots of factors involved….which is why your response to not judge is the best response. We don’t know all the factors involved.
Having said all that…a couple should discuss religion and commitment to church before marriage in establishing expectations for what they are going to build together for life. But things can change. Deal with it together.
Also, just to say it, our point of view (singular) doesn’t exist. All of us see some things differently, and some of us see some things radically differently. Quote:
We read stories in class about Laman and Lemuel, and then pull examples from friends of a cousin who heard a neighbor say something about their school friend’s father…and that shows us an example how Laman and Lemuel acted.Heber do you have the same neighbor I do?
mom3 wrote:Quote:
We read stories in class about Laman and Lemuel, and then pull examples from friends of a cousin who heard a neighbor say something about their school friend’s father…and that shows us an example how Laman and Lemuel acted.Heber do you have the same neighbor I do?
😆 Well…I’m your neighbor…aren’t I?
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