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Hello everyone, I’ve been lurking on many lds blogs and forums for a few years now, but have never felt compelled to join one and add comments and/or posts until now. Let me give a brief introduction of myself:
I was born and raised in Utah to faithful, Mormon parents. I was always the golden child in the family (at least to all appearances), probably because I seek approval and don’t like confrontation. I graduated from seminary, did well in school, served in my priesthood quorums, went on a mission at 19, got married in the temple a few years later and started having children right away (now have 3 boys). I always believed in the church, never much questioned anything, until about 2 years ago.
At this time, I was serving as EQ President in my ward, I came across the Mormon Stories podcast, which opened up some questions for me. I was ripe with some cognitive dissonance based on the fact that I was supposed to be receiving revelation for my calling, but didn’t feel like I was, so was trying to come to terms with what revelation actually was, so Mormon Stories just added some fuel to the fire. I began to doubt everything, and slowly deconstructed my whole belief system. I researched other world religions and began to wonder what, if anything, made the Mormon church any different from all the others out there.
I lived with the doubts for a while, but finally asked to be released from my calling. This made me feel like a huge failure, since I had never backed out on any calling before and do not like to see myself as a shirker of duty. But I couldn’t go on pretending, as I saw it, to preside over something about which I had so many doubts. The Bishop released me without any thanks and basically never spoke to me again about any of my doubts or questions.
Recently, I moved out of Utah and joined a new ward. They promptly asked me to be the Young Mens President, even after I explained to the Bishop that I had a lot of doubts about things. I didn’t really want to accept the call, but there was a lot of pressure from my wife, and I decided to accept it, as sort of a last ditch effort to find my testimony again through service to others.
All through the last couple years I’ve been reading and studying a lot about church history and other philosophies. I was most struck by Richard Dawkins’ “The God Delusion” and Jon Krakauer’s “Under the Banner of Heaven.” A few months after accepting my Young Mens call, after reading Banner of Heaven and frequently visiting postmormon.org and exmormon.org, I was completely ready to hang it all up and quit the church. So, one night, I told my wife that I was done with the whole deal, didn’t believe in the church and didn’t want to go anymore. She knew of my doubts but has never really listened to any of them and was completely taken by surprise at my conclusions.
A lot went on over the next day or two, but to keep things short, I felt terrible about my decision, not least of which because I was looking down the barrel of divorce. So, I recanted. I still don’t know if I somehow opened myself up to the spirit that day, or if I just backpedaled because I was scared, but either way, I decided to stay in the Church and keep trying to resolve my doubts.
So here I am. I’m still the Young Mens President in the ward, still trying to do a good job, feeling very uncomfortable sometimes, but not claiming to know anything that I don’t know. I’m trying my best to focus on the good things that the church has given me in my life, and ignore all the doubts and problems that I see. I feel like this might be a good place for me, since I am trying my best, at this point, to stay LDS. Hopefully I can find some support here and have an outlet where I can speak openly about what I feel and not have to worry about complicated relationships involved.
Hi JustMike, Welcome to the forums. Thanks for introducing yourself and sharing your story. You will find people here that are going through the same turmoil or have been there. This is a safe haven to talk about it all with people that understand, and who aren’t going to get all freaked about your doubts and concerns. The difference between here and other places is we are actively trying to get to a new place of faith. There’s no going backwards, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel if we keep going forward and plow through this stage in our life (or so I am told, hehe). You haven’t done anything wrong. You aren’t a failure. You are going through a very normal process in your life’s journey, one shared by many others (of all faiths).
I don’t think I could handle being a YM President. I’m not really in the right frame of mind and heart for that at this point. I enjoy being a scout leader and working with the young men though. I have 2 sons in the scouts/YM. I offer that as a suggestion, maybe the Bishop might get some “inspiration” to transfer you if you asked? It sounds like he knows some of your situation. Scouts let’s me still be involved without being pushed into some of those “testimony” situations as often. Scouts is about pracitcal skills and universal moral values.
I would also highly recommend FacesEast.org for your wife, if she is inclined to participate in online support forums. That site is specifically for the more-believing spouse of a disaffected or non-member. I am a moderator there too (I am actually the much more believing spouse in our marriage now).
I look forward to hearing more from you. Please feel free to start topics of discussion. There are some already, but we just got started here a month or so ago.
Mike, Welcome! What a great yet difficult story. Thanks for sharing. I would recommend changing your reading list a bit at this point, leaning toward books that open up questions vs. books that try to be confident and certain about answers (such as the God Delusion). It’s easy to exchange one black and white dogma for another that is equally black and white. A good starting point might be to read about Fowler’s Stages of Faith. Some others you might like have been discussed on the site. Good luck! Welcome Just Mike, you will like it here. There are believers here who are open to all the doubts and discussions and present great ideas on some of the hard subjects. Thank you for sharing and for your integrity with your Bishops. I just recently told my current Bishop and he still allowed me to pray in Sacrament Meeting and has not told anyone as far as I can tell. I have no callings but VT to a very very inactive lady who my daughter found several years ago. I just love her and have NO expectations out of her and she has none out of me except that I love her and listen to her. I dont expect that i will be called to do anything under this Bishop and that is OK. I need time to reflect what to do. I think it would be awesome if my husband did the faceing east thing but he really does not do message boards at all and really is not upset openly by my situation. he is very faithfilled and trusts that I am exactly where Heavenly Father wants me to be. He appreciates my honesty so does not expect me to profess to any belief that I dont have. Gail
Hi Mike! I hope you feel at home around here, I’m glad you registered. I appreciate and can relate to your experience with your wife helping you to reconsider your thoughts on the church. My wonderful wife opened my eyes in a similar way. At one point I wasn’t sure if I would want a long-term relationship with the church. Today I’m confident that I do, even if the family link dissolved (if my wife’s perspective happened to turn for example I would encourage continued participation). Fowler’s “Stages of Faith” was a key for my personal turning in this way, I highly recommend it if you haven’t read it already. It helped me to understand why the church (and most members) see and believe as they do – and it also helped me to see how faith (or mythology if you prefer) is a valid perspective, even among mature scientists. It’s not what I thought it was in my youth, but what it IS is still valid, and a meaningful part of the human experience. Joseph Campbell’s “The Power of Myth” was also helpful in shifting my mindset. I also enjoyed “Mormon Scientist” about President Eyring’s father. I loved the way he had no reservations about believing what he personally felt was true, and saw the gospel as supporting, or demanding that much from him. Again welcome! I look forward to more from you.
Thanks, Mike. It’s good to see you here. It takes some realignment of perspective to see the Gospel and the Church the way I do, but I really like my current view. It is so freeing that’s it’s hard to explain. Ironically, my own testimony of the genius of the Restoration is stronger now than ever, as is my support of the Church. It’s a decision I made consciously, and I love how open and expansive my life is. Nice to have you aboard Mike, thanks for your intro . Salo
Hi Mike, Thanks for joining I enjoyed your post.
I could not help it but while reading your post it was like you were doing what my hubby did for about 3 years, and I was your wife.
My dh husband after several years of “trying” has now made it clear that he no longer wants to be a Mormon. He wont resign or anything, and isnt actually bitter, just kind of knows what will send him mental, and continuing as the “LDS” man was making him more resentful with every passing Sunday.
It took me a long time but I am accepting of this now…it took a lot of prayer etc but now I know that whats in his heart is what matters, rather then the amount of LDSness in his life. He is a good man, my fear thought he would become something else…but this is my porgramming and nothing else…he is still the same great man, and actually improving now he feels he can be open and honest about his spiritual feelings and thoughts.
Ironically now its me that is starting in the process of having a crisis in faith…except I am at least hoping to be able to remain a member, even if I become a kind of non-traditional member (that is – disgarding what I do not beleive and running with the rest etc).
So keep at it….all I would suggest is that you keep trying to communicate with your wife. yes I was the same, I shut down many of our conversations, but now I see that I was wrong, and a lot of damage was created in our relationship. But my dh didnt actually want to pass on his doubts so he also kept a lot of it to himself when he could see I was not ready etc….but in the meantime both of us started to distance ourselves….and I would love it if another couple did not have to go through this part of it!!!!! Thankfully we have recovered. We are closer then ever now. Now that I am experiencing my own doubts he is just there to cuddle me as I cry due to my grief in losing some of my beliefs…he never once has said “see I told you so”….he knows this is a journey…he is okay if I still manage to find peace by attending…for him its too hard…he may come sometimes…but he has now made it clear to all that care that he only ever wants to be a visitor etc.
Good luck with your journey. I hope you can find peace and manage to lead your YM in good ways…even if you are not the total TBM YM Pres you think they should have!
Thanks, SallyM I really appreciate your reply. It does sound like you’ve gone through much of the same things, from the other side. I sound a lot like your husband in that I don’t like sharing my doubts, so I keep everything bottled up inside. It is putting a huge strain on the relationship with my wife and I’m not sure what to do to make things better. When I was considering leaving the church, I thought my wife would accept me no matter what, but after I broke the news to her, she was suddenly talking about divorce and saying she never would have married me had she known the outcome. I thought I was more to her than just a ticket to the celestial kingdom. Now, I feel that distance growing between us, as you say you experienced, too. My feelings about the church are like a wedge between us, now. On some level, I resent her for not allowing me to honestly pursue what I feel is true, and I’m sure she resents me for changing the agreement we made when we got married. I would definitely appreciate any advice you have on how to get through this successfully.
Mike, David here, wanting to join with everyone who has welcomed you so warmly to StayLDS. I have an unusual background. Right now I’m a behavioral health researcher at the University of Utah. As far as I know, I am the first Latter-day Saint who has gone through master’s and doctoral training in history, comparative religion, and counseling psychology. In the next few months I’ll be opening a non-profit counseling center in Salt lake City for Mormons who are going through spiritual crisis. The proceeds from the work of this center, after paying basic expenses, will be invested in efforts like StayLDS.com.
Until the new center opens, I’ll be available by Internet without cost at
edcon10@yahoo.com to anyone who feels I may be of help to them as individuals or as they try to deal with the challenges they face in their marriages and families.JustMike wrote:I thought my wife would accept me no matter what, but after I broke the news to her, she was suddenly talking about divorce and saying she never would have married me had she known the outcome.
That is definitely a hard thing to hear. I remember listening to my wife say “do you realize I never would have married you?” and thinking ‘this can’t be real’. There is nothing fun about that situation. The hardest part is the confusion – speaking what you believe to be the truth is supposed to be the right thing to do, but your integrity gets poisoned and thrown back into your face. I was lucky, when the smoke cleared my wife clarified that she didn’t regret marrying me, she was simply stating something that we both always knew – she always had the goal to marry a ‘strong member’.
I think one of the keys to getting through this rough patch is to become the bigger person. Go out of your way to show your love, do nice things without expecting anything in return. Work on building a personal relationship and hopefully she can make an effort to put the spiritual stuff ‘on the shelf’ for a while. My wife was able to do that, and over time she began to look at some of the ‘bigger’ problems that other people have in their marriages – and became thankful that I was ‘at least’ a good person in most ways. I think a common fear is that a spouse will lose their standards along with their belief, if you can demonstrate you will always be the same person with the same foundational morals, I think that helps a lot. For me, I pictured myself as increasing my standards if anything, because I was unwilling to imply that I believe something if I don’t – and my overall focus turned to unconditional love. Over time I have come to a different understanding of spiritual truth, and I’m not so concerned with how others may view some things more literally than I do (this may be a subject for a later date). I also realize the limit to my own spiritual knowledge, and I’m much more willing to allow the possibility of (elements of) spiritual truth in places where my earlier disaffection held to be extremely unlikely. You might say I’ve softened my hard rules of spiritual ‘truth’ (the books and DVD’s in my earlier post were the start for me down this path), but you can’t press that idea on yourself, you need to allow time for things to develop naturally.
I think it also helped when I tried to see the root of what my wife was looking for. You could say “active priesthood holder” but what does that mean deep down? I believe it’s a sense of security. My wife had a tremendous fear that I wouldn’t be with her in the next life. I tried everything I could think of to express to her that (if there is a next life) I would be right there with her – she wouldn’t be able to get rid of me. It just doesn’t make sense that a God who wants us to grow love in family relationships on earth would chop it down over small details in the next life. I’ve seen very orthodox members that don’t “grow the love” in their family as well as many fringe or liberal Mormons seem to – in my mind it doesn’t make sense that the more cultivated and nourished love on earth would be penalized in heaven. The loving God that I believe in rewards nourished love, he doesn’t cut it down. I think most members would generally agree with this detail, and admit that “we don’t really know” all the details of any afterlife. I think it also helped when I could say I see the good in the church, I told her “the church is true in many ways.” She was obviously still upset that I wanted to put a “just not literally” at the end, but I think she appreciated that I would leave that off and recognize the good that I saw.
So I think the key for me in the end was to realize that I am locked into some sort of relationship with the church. Like any relationship I can try to be a peacemaker, or I can dig in and fortify my position. Personally I would rather be a peacemaker, but I knew I had to remain honest to myself. If there was a TR question on the historicity of the BoM I would have more difficulty, but thankfully there isn’t. I had to consider everything on a strictly metaphorical level for a long time, I think that’s healthy and helpful (you actually see a lot of symbolism you otherwise miss). Reading Richard Bushman, Leonard Arrington, Lowell Bennion, Eugene England and other ‘faithful’ intellectuals also helped me to see that there is more than one way to frame your belief. I no longer worry if my definitions line up exactly with what other members are thinking – I realize that my youthful impression of all ideas aligning in the church was unfounded anyway, the church is much more diverse than I had ever imagined (there is a list of books for this topic too).
I hope something here is helpful. Good luck to you Mike, keep posting on the thoughts and questions that you have.
Dr. Wendy Ulrich’s article on relationships: (you can skip down to the “how do we deal with …betrayal” and read between the lines for the betrayal part)
Hi, JustMike. It sounds like you are at a difficult place right now. It’s good that your bishop has been supportive. Mine has been supportive and discrete also, which helps.
You may not have any special appreciation for the “LDS Restoration” anymore. Or perhaps you do. But in either case, you can appreciate the human hearts and minds and lives that comprise the LDS church. And you can have a place there. And when the insinuation arises that you (we) have no place there, we can say “It’s my church too, and noboby can take that away.” And when confounding things shake you up, you can know we are in the same classrooms on the same folding chairs hearing lessons from the same manuals and struggling as you are to contribute positively.
Kupord Maizzed
Thank you for the link, Orson, and for your words of advice. I had heard that stages of marriage analogy before, but it seems to speak even more to me, now. I see myself perhaps in the third stage with the church and with my actual marriage. Much food for thought. Thanks, again. And thanks to everyone else who has welcomed me here and offered support.
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