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A little history. Josh Weed came out as a gay LDS man that married to a hetero woman and making it work. It made the rounds among TBM’s and really was put up by many as a proof this type of marriage could work. Well the couple is now announcing they are getting a divorce.
http://www.joshweed.com/2018/01/turning-unicorn-bat-post-announce-end-marriage/.html ” class=”bbcode_url”> http://www.joshweed.com/2018/01/turning-unicorn-bat-post-announce-end-marriage/.html It is painful to read. I feel for Josh, his wife, and the kids. I do hope they all can heal from this.
I think all of us who have known people in Josh’s situation were shaking our heads, believing they were either lying or that they were really trying but it wasn’t going to work in the long run. I am more in the latter group, and sadly here they are in the long run. Granted I don’t know many who are or were in this situation, but I don’t know any have made it work long term. It will likewise be very tough for Josh to live a celibate life as a gay man, but I think there is some chance that can work. My heart does go out to him, his wife, and their children.
My heart aches for him, his family, and all going through something similar. I have a very small sample size of 3 of mixed orientation marriages. Two failed spectacularly (ugly and mean divorce and using kids as bargaining chips) and one who so far is making it. I just can’t help but think we are on the wrong side of history here.
Thanks for sharing, LH. It was a very thought-provoking read. It’s a very tough situation to be in; to do what you feel is right, and fully commit to it with all the sacrifice it entails, only to find out it wasn’t right at all. In some ways, it reminds me of what many of us have gone through with the Church. I can’t go back to being the TBM, fully believing member, though some days there’s nothing I want more. And the Church struggles to accept me for “who I am”, despite their outreach efforts. Too often I feel alone, distanced from those closest to me. It’s a tough place to be.
It’s difficult for most people to recognize the difference between “how things are” and how we perceive them. I wish there was a greater emphasis in Church on the virtues of being teachable, and easily entreated, and less of a focus on “stubbornness” (steadfastness) as a virtue. I hope we will live to see many positive change in our outlook towards the LGBT community. I wish Josh and Lolly all the best. I hope they find happiness.
I pick up the vibe that the word “divorce” is thrown into the story…and everyone says…”aww…that is SO sad. Those poor children will be scarred for life.” But…it isn’t sad because the family ends in divorce. Divorce is not a solution, nor an evidence of failure. It’s a choice to handle things to avoid being stuck in the pain that is there, it is one option when all other options are exhausted.
I hear this in the blog post by Josh and Lolly linked above:
Quote:Finally, we were able to live authentically, instead of this life of quiet struggle we had existed in for a decade.
Talking of his coming out and their marriage…it sounds like it would have been awful to live any other way…does God want us to live inauthentic lives so we don’t break the mold of the “ideal” others have? I think not. Right? It had to have felt good for them to be open to others about him being gay, and their choices as a married couple. Good for them. They seemed to handle it in mature ways, figuring out what was best and what they should try to do. They focus so much on love, despite hardships.Quote:We are going to do our level best to explain how a marriage as beautiful and sweet and loving as ours has been can also be a marriage that—for very legitimate, important reasons, and what we feel is the urging of God himself—needs to end.
Is it possible God himself urges some marriages to end? I have a personal witness of my own, that this is the case.
Per
LDS.orgQuote:divorce has become commonplace in many societies and has increased even among Church members. This growing plague is not of God, but rather is the work of the adversary.
I reject such things. Plagues don’t generally bring about happiness and peace and greater love for family members. This teaching is wrong and short-sighted.
But Josh and Lolly have to deal with such perceptions as members of the mormon faith. Because it is what is going to be said in church by many people who have simplified the gospel teachings too far, with limited minds on what God wants for His children. Just like those who fight to keep homosexuals from being married misunderstand gospel principles in favor or simplistic rules and policies that apply to the majority, and alienate the valid minorities.
What Josh wrote below is what I see as truth, and what God wants us to learn in our various circumstances in life.
Quote:I can choose faith.
I can choose to never leave my babies, and to be there with them every day of their lives.
I can choose to love. I can choose to love my friends and my family, even if they struggle with who I am. I can choose to love my enemies. I can choose to love the leaders of the LDS church, and to view them in the most generous light, as I too hope to be viewed in the most generous light. I can choose to love my family—the one that Lolly and I created together. I can choose to love Lolly with every ounce of love a gay man can have for a woman. And I can choose to find a partner and love him as well, adoring him and attaching to him in the beautiful way I was always intended to. And I can choose to support Lolly as she does the same. And we can support one another and our children, together in our homestead, watching the years tick by, continuing to have Family Home Evening every Monday, and continuing to say our prayers together every night, and continuing to read scriptures together as we eat breakfast in the morning, and to attend church every Sunday.
We can continue to be the family we have always been, and we can add to that family. This is a concept I learned from my step-mom, Laura. When she married my dad, she told me that her vision was not one of two separate family groups awkwardly interfacing from time to time, but instead a family unit where everybody in her clan and everybody in our clan felt loved, included, accepted and embraced, fully and completely. And that is how we will treat our family. It is a beautiful vision. Nobody rejected. All invited to the table. All members loved unconditionally, no matter what.
In this way, families really can be tied together—knit together in bonds of love that are unbreakable. It is in this that families can be together forever. It is accomplished by loving and welcoming and embracing one another—all of us. In so doing, we can create the legacy of love and acceptance and inclusion that will last through generation after generation, and onward into Eternity.
I really appreciate them posting their ideas, and I think they have learned a very important truth in this. The choice on how one handles divorce can lead to greater love, or greater pain. Divorce is benign in and of itself, as is sexual orientation.
It is not the temple ordinance (with a spirit of promise), nor the marriage certificate, that binds families together. Married or divorced…we are bound as families by love, in multiple situations and forms that families find ways to express that love. When situations are limiting in this life, they get worked out in the next life.
Josh seems to really get it. There are choices on how to navigate it. Good and positive and healthy choices.
I celebrate their divorce. Good for them and good for their kids who will be taught wonderful lessons as they approach this choice the right way. I believe their children have a greater opportunity to be cared for and grow up learning the correct lessons by the way they are talking about handling their family changes.
Divorce is not necessarily sad. It can be a great tool to allow growth of love and family. Happy day, Josh and Lolly! Good things ahead.
I like what dande48 says:
dande48 wrote:
In some ways, it reminds me of what many of us have gone through with the Church. I can’t go back to being the TBM, fully believing member,…exactly. I think when you reach that point of realizing you wanted it a certain way, and then it isn’t going to be that way…well…you move past constant “wishing” it is going to be different, and instead embrace the current situation, and begin moving forward with how things can be, not how you might have though they should be. You stop fighting the current of truth, and you submit your will to the Father, and find peace in the moment.
Too often, when we cling to fears of our life is not turning out the way we wanted it to be, we stay stuck and stagnant, damned from growth and learning. Damned by our prior views, as we saw things as a child, and have to put away such thoughts. God will want us to open our minds to new paths forward.
God may want us to leave the church…if we find better ways to find His love and how to love others.
God may want us to leave our marriage…if we make choices to increase our love and have better ways to meet our family responsibilities.
God may want us to be openly homosexual rather than live inauthentic lives out of fear of others.
God’s purposes are greater than just having “one way” to obey our way into heavenly mansions.
Thanks for letting me get thoughts off my chest. Sorry I veered from some topics.
And I just found out that a couple that I know in my town that are in this same situation are about to announce they are also getting a divorce. My heart is broken. This was my favorite part (so far)
Quote:“And so I explained to the girls that Dad was a bat trying to live like a bird. I explained that he needed to love himself and be a bat. We told them we would always be a family and that Mom and Dad would always love each other and that we wanted to still live in the same house but that we might find other people.
They cried at first and said they felt like they were in a nightmare. Once we explained that we would still live together and always be a family, they became calm. Anna even said, “Mommy, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but the spirit is telling me that this is the right thing to do. Even though it will be hard. You guys aren’t suppose to be married anymore. When I think of you separating I feel good inside. And when I think of you staying together I feel yucky inside.”
It felt happy and cute. So beautiful.I can also relate to this one:
Quote:Guys, I can’t tell you how difficult it is to look into an abyss you were told was evil and filled with lava and poisonous snakes your whole life, only to be told later by God, “you know that pit you have been drawn to and taught to hate your whole life? Well, I’m gonna need you to jump into it. Without a parachute. Into pitch black. I promise you won’t get hurt. I promise to catch you. I promise to help you fly.” It is absolutely terrifying. It is putting my faith to the test in ways I have never imagined.
It gives me peace and comfort in what I may end up doing (leaving the church), even in the face of how my parents will react.Heber13 wrote:
I think when you reach that point of realizing you wanted it a certain way, and then it isn’t going to be that way…well…you move past constant “wishing” it is going to be different, and instead embrace the current situation, and begin moving forward with how things can be, not how you might have though they should be. You stop fighting the current of truth, and you submit your will to the Father, and find peace in the moment.Too often, when we cling to fears of our life is not turning out the way we wanted it to be, we stay stuck and stagnant, damned from growth and learning. Damned by our prior views, as we saw things as a child, and have to put away such thoughts. God will want us to open our minds to new paths forward.
God may want us to leave the church…if we find better ways to find His love and how to love others.
God may want us to leave our marriage…if we make choices to increase our love and have better ways to meet our family responsibilities.
God may want us to be openly homosexual rather than live inauthentic lives out of fear of others.
God’s purposes are greater than just having “one way” to obey our way into heavenly mansions.
Thank you so much for this comment I really needed this today.
I have so much respect for Josh and Lolly and their story is absolutely heartbreaking to me. Not because they are getting divorced, because I do think that will bring both of them more happiness and authenticity… but it is heartbreaking that they were ever in this situation. I think they both made some very valid points and offer a unique perspective that I hope leaders in the church will read their story and start a new dialogue within the church. Josh gave up romance and true love for 15 years, because he felt that was the right thing to do for God and for his commitment to our church. Not only did it not work, but he has had countless thoughts of suicide. He claims in his post that living that unauthentically is literally KILLING members of the LGBTQ community, and it is so true… something has to change!
I don’t know what the answer is, but saying that it’s okay to be gay but you just can’t act on those feelings isn’t it… It is a core part of who they are and by denying it, they are denying themselves. Josh mentioned that viewing yourself, or part of yourself as “broken” is a very harmful thing. So how can the church not see how harmful the current dialogue is?
I am just at a loss and quite frankly almost ready to throw in the towel.
Wow! The blog post is powerful. It is a long read but I highly recommend it! I do agree that there is some sadness in the transition – but that does not mean that it is not the right step for them.
From Lolly:
Quote:Josh has never looked at me with romantic love in his eyes. He has never touched me with the sensitive touch of a lover. Whenever he held me in his arms, it was with a love that was similar to the love of a brother to a sister. That does eventually take its toll on your self-esteem.
No matter how much I knew “why” he couldn’t respond to me in the ways a lover responds to a partner, it wears a person down, as if you’re not “good enough” to be loved “in that way.”And what I didn’t realize is that as human beings, we actually need to feel loved in that way with our partners. This deficit started to mess with my self-esteem. I almost felt if only I could be thinner, prettier, sexier, maybe it would be enough to catch Josh’s eye, to help him want me in the way we need to be wanted by our attachment partners. In reality, Josh was GAY and it had nothing to do with me. This is where it doesn’t make sense. I knew he was gay. I didn’t think his sexual orientation was going to change. I could have been the hottest woman on the planet and he still would not have felt any different toward me.
No matter how clear I was on the technicalities of this reality, it was impossible not to internalize his complete lack of attraction toward me.Subconsciously, it was a constant message. You aren’t attractive. You aren’t wanted. You aren’t beautiful. You aren’t a good enough woman. It was making me unhealthy. I gained a lot of weight. My self-concept was diminishing over time.
What was worse, I knew my little girls were watching me as their example of what a woman can be, of what healthy womanhood looked like–and they were also watching my marriage. I knew they were getting messages and concepts from me that were not setting them on a path of self-esteem and self-actualized womanhood.It was breaking my heart to see this. The truth is, Josh and I didn’t understand how to conceptualize our relationship. We knew we had a deep love for each other, but honestly, neither one of us had ever loved anyone in a true romantic way. We got married so young and had dated so little, neither of us had really experienced what true romantic attachment felt like. It was just a concept to us, and as such we were able to be in denial about it. We told ourselves that our love was similar to that of an elderly couple after infatuation and physical attraction had died away and what remained was a tender bond of love. That was the framework we used to understand our relationship. Using that framework, I was willing to sacrifice that sexual component because Josh was worth it to me.
However, as the years went by, and the holes in our souls grew larger and larger, we realized that our relationship was not like an elderly couple because, although the elderly couple’s sexual relationship had dimmed, their romantic adoration for one another did not. When we wrote our viral post five years ago, we were still stuck in this delusion, thinking that our relationship had no deficits, and that choosing to love was enough. But eventually we realized what we were missing. We realized the thing that so many people had tried to tell us: that we didn’t have romantic attachment. That romantic attachment was essential to a functioning marriage. And that it was something that we never had and, hauntingly, that we never would.
[snip]
Platonic love is simply not enough, no matter how much we hoped it was. God designed us to need and want romantic attachment.
One thing that has been interesting to me is how people have reacted when I have told them about our decision to end our marriage and how hard it has been to love Josh with all my heart and to not have him love me back in a romantic way. Almost everyone has said to me, with an air of protective emphasis, “Oh, but Lolly,
you deserve to be loved that way! You will find someone else who can love you like that. You deserve to love and be loved in that way!” And I agree with them. The thing that I find interesting is that these are all straight people looking at me, another straight person, and being able to see the injustice of me not experiencing true love. They see that it is wrong that I have never felt that love. They feel it. They can put themselves in my shoes and realize how hard that would be for them. They can see it because it is presented from a straight perspective. The thing that’s so interesting to me is how few people think of Josh in this way. How few people in his life have ever thought these things about him—things that are so obvious, so clear, so emphatic when talking to another straight person. I mean, isn’t the same true for LGBT people?
Shouldn’t we feel the exact same intuitive injustice at the thought of them deserving to be “loved like that”?When the tables are turned and we are talking about LGBTQ individuals, somehow people don’t see the parallels. Why am I, as a straight person, entitled to reciprocal, requited romantic love while an LGBTQ individual is not? I am not sure how a straight person can look at a gay person and say, “I deserve love, but you don’t! If a straight person doesn’t get romantic love it is an injustice. Everybody deserves that kind of love, if you’re straight. But gay people? Well, that’s another story…” I am asking everyone who knows us to please, please not blame Josh for our marriage ending. I deserve love and so does Josh! This decision was just as much for me as it was for him. While our marriage was beautiful and full of so many wonderful things, it also contained a lot of heartbreak for both of us. The one thing we have learned in the last five years is that no one should be asked to live a life without romantic attachment. All this talk of “love” is actually talk of the basic human need for attachment. It is inhumane. We need it, or at least we need the hope of being able to find it eventually, in order to be healthy.
Being in a marriage where both of us thought we would live a life without ever having romantic connection was getting unbearable. Yet, we could not imagine our lives without each other because we do love each other so deeply. That was hell.Feeling like no matter what we did, we would be suffering. If we stayed together, our souls would be missing a huge part of the human experience. If we separated, our souls would still ache for our best friend. That is why the only thought that brought us peace was the thought of ending our marriage, but still remaining a family. Still raising our kids together. Underlining mine. I find these passages to be powerful and thought provoking.
LookingHard wrote:
And I just found out that a couple that I know in my town that are in this same situation are about to announce they are also getting a divorce. My heart is broken.
I saw this couple at church today and I normally shake the guys hand (he is a friend that I have hung out with at times) and usually I will say hi to his wife. But today I avoided them because I knew I would fall apart, or at least make others (including my wife) ask what is going on? They have not told me when they are going to announce.I respect his post about it tremendously. God bless them on their journey. May there be a road.
I know a couple that were in their shoes. They got a divorce and both remarried. I can only assume that both are living happy lives now. Growth hurts, life hurts, so try to grow towards something that will make life hurt less. I had a son that went to UVU for a while and I suspected he might have a faith crisis. There is one person there that I really liked Boyd Petersen. He is on the believing side, but tollerant and understanding of others with different conclusions. I think I remember he was involved with Dialog for quite a while. He is also program coordinator for Mormon Studies at UVU. I was going to point my son at Boyd to have a chat if it came up. If you know about Boyd Petersen, you probably know he married Zina Nibley, a daughter of Hugh Nibley.
I just found out that he and his wife divorced because he is gay and they can’t make it work. They still deeply love each other still. So sad.
I also heard that Jerilyn Hassell Pool actually “officiated” in some sort of ceremony for their divorce (sounds like the Petersens were fully involved). The Petersens apparently did “vows” for how they were going forward, but Jerilyn gave her own vows to them and asked others to do the same. She said, “We promise to honor and cherish your diverging paths, we respect and protect your lives together and apart. And we won’t talk shit about you behind your backs.”
I believe that it is worth mentioning that LDS poet and author Carol Lynn Pearson and her husband made a similar choice. From her biography: Quote:A book that brought major recognition in a different way is “Goodbye, I Love You”, the story of her life with her husband, a homosexual man struggling with the conflicts this brought to his life and marriage. After twelve years and four children, the couple ended their marriage and vowed to remain good friends. Six years later, in Carol Lynn’s home, where she was taking care of him, Gerald died of AIDS. Believing their story could help many others, Ms. Pearson decided to tell it.
It is also worth mentioning that the church does not recommend entering mixed orientation marriages (although by process of elimination that just leaves LDS homosexuals celibate and alone).
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