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I’m just going to direct quote myself from my blog here. It’s just easier to copy-paste than try and retype out all of my feelings about this. Marriage, it’s almost everyone’s goal in life. I mean, come on, who doesn’t hope to fall in love one day and maybe settle down with that person? What happens when you throw in sins that prevent you from going to the temple, but despite that, you still hope to one day be married there in the temple?
Yup, that’s where I am at right now. I’m currently in a 2 and a half year relationship with my non-member boyfriend. He’s been an atheist pretty much his entire life and until recent events, hadn’t even really considered the possibility of God and religion. Well, I’m in love with my boyfriend, and would love to marry him if he were LDS. I’ve told him for the past year that I wouldn’t marry him if he wasn’t LDS.
It’s been my lifelong dream to me married in the temple. Even if I’ve made all these mistakes, I want to find a way back to the temple some day. If there was only one thing I could accomplish in my entire life, this would be it.
Well, my boyfriend said he has an interest in the church and has been “meeting” with the missionaries. By “meeting”, I mean he’s only had maybe two or three discussions with the missionaries in the last four or five months. He makes little effort to make plans with them. I probably should push him more, but I don’t feel like it’s my responsibility. Maybe this seems selfish, but it’s his beliefs, not mine. Who am I to force religion on him? I really would like to marry this boy though…
To get to the temple, so that we could even me married, requires a long road of repentance for myself. If I’m going to go down this long road, I’m going to make it count. I’m going to try my damnedest to never go back again.
This is where my boyfriend sees issues. As he put it, he doesn’t see how I think things are going to “magically” change and be good after we’re married. He wants to be able to still drink on a regular basis as well as other issues I know are wrong. Like I stated in the previous post, he feels that you can’t just change like that, it’s part of who you are. Example, he’s brought up the fact that I enjoy sex. He feels that I can’t just stop, because of the fact that I enjoy it. Just because I enjoy it, doesn’t mean I don’t know that it’s wrong. If I really wanted to change and took the steps to change I’m certain I could abstain from sex until marriage. Along with this, I feel that because of the way he already feels about this, that if I did change he wouldn’t love me because I wouldn’t be the “same person”. I guess this also brings up that maybe he doesn’t really love me to begin with if he’s not willing to accept that I can change. It’s really just a long drawn out issue and always seems to be the issue of my life.
When we first started dating I was madly in love. Later on, I started to have doubts about our relationship, especially with the fact that he was dead-set atheist, and I was set on marrying someone of my own religion. During these doubts I thought about finding LDS members that I could possibly relate to. I resorted to dating websites like eHarmony where I did actually meet a few men I was truly interested in. I never cheated, just talked with these men. I know this was terrible, but they were kind of my “back-up plan” if something happened with my boyfriend. We had some more serious issues later and broke up. We eventually worked through things and got back together. It’s been four months since we’ve been back together and I had no thoughts of ever leaving him. I was sure this was the man I was going to marry. We’ve discussed it plenty of times and I told him that I wanted to be engaged soon.
Suddenly, last night I had an odd dream of cheating on him with someone I haven’t had an interest in for a long time. It was unusual, and suddenly today I found myself looking at ways to connect with other YSA men. Why suddenly now? It just seems so odd to me. Maybe all the talk with my sister is getting to me. I talked with my sister about him and it seems as if I have more negative things to say about him than positive, yet whenever I’m with him things are amazing and wonderful.
This makes me feel like there’s enough issues that I need to talk with my boyfriend about, but I’m honestly scared of how he’ll take it and if we broke up again. I really do love him and we already went through a rough breakup before. I don’t know if I could handle another.
Honestly, part of me would rather find someone who is already a member or the church and has a decent background and foundation within the church than try to struggle with someone who seems barely willing to even learn about the church. I know my mother’s never opposed to me meeting someone in the church to possibly get married to… Issues for me always come back to the fact that if I found a good Mormon guy, how would I ever explain what I’ve done and gone through? How often do you hear of virtuous young men in the church completely accepting someone who’s not virgin, let alone had sex with multiple men, or even indulged in illegal substances. Who would accept that?
Honestly, part of me looks for YSA men that are going through what I’m going through; the struggle of church and sins. At least we could relate in our experiences of life. But maybe this wouldn’t be the best, because the few guys I’ve found like this, have little to no interest in ever coming back to church. I struggled with them just for them to fall away faster than myself.
I know this was long, but it’s probably one of the biggest struggles in my life right now. It’s honestly harder to deal with than it sounds like. Even after writing all of this out, I feel more torn than ever. My heart aches right now. I know what I want to do, but I don’t if it’s the right thing to do.
First of all, I don’t think that it’s fair to him for you to expect him to convert so that you can marry him. You’ll have to decide whether you love him enough to marry him, or whether your dream of marrying in the temple is more important. I’m not saying that he’ll never become LDS and take you through the temple, but please don’t try to make him do it for you. It is absolutely not selfish of you to let him take responsibility for his beliefs. Mixed marriages can and do work. They just take communication and mutual respect (just like all other marriages).
Oh, don’t get me wrong, I don’t want him to convert for me at all and he knows this well. He’s too stubborn and has his own thoughts to ever change for anyone but himself. I guess it does still sound selfish for me to tell him that I won’t marry him if he’s not LDS, but that’s how strongly I feel about getting married in the temple.
I know that mixed marriages can work, but I still see how in many marriages like this the member often feels distraught knowing that they aren’t sealed for time and all eternity. I just really don’t want all those feelings of wishing he was member, of wishing he was something he’s not.
My grandparents eloped, my grandmother a member, my grandfather, not. I don’t think he joined the church for another 5 years into their marriage and even then they weren’t sealed all as a family until almost 40 years later.
It’s just scary to me and cutting it too close to continuously HOPE that they’ll join the church, to HOPE that we’ll be a family for eternity.
I just don’t know how long I’m willing to wait to see how his interest in the church grows before I decide if I really want to stay with him or not.
Thinking about it this way makes me feel even more selfish though and I really don’t like it, but I know I should also think about what’s best for me and what I truly want out of life.
First off kiwi, I hope I don’t scare you off this site. I find it very beneficial and hope you do as well and I think there are those here who can give you some good advice, and it’s a safe place to bounce off ideas and concerns. And it is certainly not my intentions or place to say who should or shouldn’t belong here. That being said, I think f4h1 was kind of hinting at something in your introduction response — most folks here are struggling with faith issues dealing with historical and cultural traditions, not necessarily with problems of “living the commandments.” I don’t think this a place for “jack mormons” necessarily, though they are certainly welcome and I’m not putting you in that box, because i don’t know you. Does that make sense? I drink beer – but I don’t consider myself a jack mormon. I don’t have an issue of feeling guilty or shame about it, because I don’t think it is a commandment of god or that the church is the one and only true church on the earth – and I accept full well that I will not be invited to participate in many of the leadership and temple activities of the tribe because of it. unorthodox? yeah, sure. My theology and philosophy are pretty warped, according to most faithful members, but I consider myself to be spiritual, and I have a great relationship with the “gods.” So, I guess what I am saying is, if you want to get married in the temple and live an orthodox mormon life, than you probably need to live the commandments that are required to get a TR. If you believe in the church, that it is the one and only true church on the earth, and you have dreams of getting married in the temple and walking that pathway – well, follow your dreams and do what you need to to achieve it. That is my advice.
The church is good. I have found a middle way to remain so I can reap some of that good for my life. The middle way is tough, and I think in your situation you can do it – with a non-member boyfriend/husband if you so choose – but it almost sounds like you want to “swim in the mainstream” of mormondom, but don’t want to follow the their rules. I understand that, I do too, but that is not my pathway and it is not possible at this time. I don’t know what your pathway is, only you can figure that out. I might add, that 85% of the church membership follow a set, cookie cutter pathway, and it works for them. It will not work for everyone though – that is just a sad fact of life.
cwald wrote:So, I guess what I am saying is, if you want to get married in the temple and live an orthodox mormon life, than you probably need to live the commandments that are required to get a TR. If you believe in the church, that it is the one and only true church on the earth, and you have dreams of getting married in the temple and walking that pathway – well, follow your dreams and do what you need to to achieve it. That is my advice.
+1, Cwald gave wise advice, and I couldn’t have said it better.
KimiKiwi,
You are going to find that people in this community don’t freak out about the behaviors you are describing, so that may be comforting and welcoming. We get it. But it doesn’t sound like you have issues with faith in the LDS Church. It sounds like you have deep internal conflict between your behaviors and goals in life. They don’t match. If you want to live the Mormon dream of being married in the temple, active in Church (so you can go to the temple), and living that whole lifestyle, then you have to change your behaviors — so that you are actually living that lifestyle. Otherwise, you will constantly encounter this conflict. Your actions are not leading you towards your dreams. I don’t mean to say this to make you feel guilt or shame like is common in the church because I really don’t care that much about these behaviors per se (I care, but that is just the best colloquial expression to express the sentiment). You could also be married to this fellow perhaps, not change anything, and live a perfectly happy life too. Life is a crap shoot. Everything changes over time anyway, so it’s hard to say. Anyway…
One common theme we also deal with here (and in other forums) is the tension and stress in marriages where desire for religion and a religious life diverge dramatically at some point in the relationship. People get divorced because of this.
We’re not here to tell you not to marry someone who isn’t a member, but I can tell you from long and painful experience that you would be starting a marriage relationship with a serious built-in problem. Marriage is hard enough as it is. I can almost guarantee that your boyfriend is only entertaining the notion of the Church because he loves you and doesn’t want to lose you. You are telling him about your dreams. He can see that he is not in that dream picture. I really doubt it is about a personal need and desire for LDS religion on his part. You are very likely to setup a resentment in the long run between you two.
KimiKiwi wrote:…What happens when you throw in sins that prevent you from going to the temple, but despite that, you still hope to one day be married there in the temple?…I’m in love with my boyfriend, and would love to marry him if he were LDS.
I’ve told him for the past year that I wouldn’t marry him if he wasn’t LDS…It’s been my lifelong dream to me married in the temple. Well, my boyfriend said he has an interest in the church and has been “meeting” with the missionaries. By “meeting”, I mean he’s only had maybe two or three discussions with the missionaries in the last four or five months. He makes little effort to make plans with them.
I probably should push him more, but I don’t feel like it’s my responsibility. Maybe this seems selfish, but it’s his beliefs, not mine. Who am I to force religion on him?…To get to the temple, so that we could even me married, requires a long road of repentance for myself…This is where my boyfriend sees issues. As he put it, he doesn’t see how I think things are going to “magically” change and be good after we’re married. He wants to be able to still drink on a regular basis as well as other issues I know are wrong…Just because I enjoy it, doesn’t mean I don’t know that it’s wrong…I know what I want to do, but I don’t if it’s the right thing to do. Even if you get married in the temple there is no guarantee that your husband won’t completely change his mind about the Church several years later anyway. It looks like this is happening more now than in the past in part because of anti-Mormon propaganda on the internet. I didn’t get married in the temple mostly because I didn’t want to go through the drawn out groveling “repentance” process but I still believed in the Church and hoped to get married the temple some day. Then when I went back to church years later I got to the point where I just didn’t believe it anymore and didn’t want to pay tithing so I told my wife this and she didn’t understand very well at all.
That’s why I’m not a big fan of the temple marriage doctrine because members often can’t just worry about their own salvation; they feel like they need to worry about what exactly their spouse believes in so much detail. Trying to change men too much as a required condition of a relationship is already one of the most common causes of break-ups even without such unrealistic additional expectations set by the Church because after going along with what their wife/girlfriend wants for a while some of them start to really resent it and wonder if it is worth it anymore.
If you can’t accept someone the way they are there’s a good chance they will never change much so if you don’t think you can live with that then maybe it would be a better idea to look for someone else that that already matches what you want more closely. However, it would make more sense to me to consider other options mostly if there were other problems going on like abuse but I’m not so sure that religious beliefs should be the most important consideration if you are mostly happy with the relationship other than that because things could easily be much worse.
Brian Johnston wrote:It sounds like you have deep internal conflict between your behaviors and goals in life. They don’t match. If you want to live the Mormon dream of being married in the temple, active in Church (so you can go to the temple), and living that whole lifestyle, then you have to change your behaviors — so that you are actually living that lifestyle. Otherwise, you will constantly encounter this conflict. Your actions are not leading you towards your dreams.
This is sometimes refered to as cognitive dissonance, as long as your behaviors conflict with your beliefs you will encounter this problem. To reduce this feeling you may either modify the behaviors or modify the belief to bring them more into agreement. This won’t necessarily help you to make the right decision, just help you to feel better about it. You must determine your own path.
Some random thoughts: I know as a YSA, I felt that RM girls were super spiritual and basically out of my league. I was lucky enough to date some really great women, several of whom were RM’s. While the relationships didn’t last, I was able to come away from these situations feeling like I do have something to offer this type of women. I think of the saying, “the wrong one is the right one to lead you to the best one.” My sweet wife was the best one, but without their help I wouldn’t have had the confidence to approach her.
KimiKiwi wrote:I’m in love with my boyfriend
You seem to say that you love your boyfriend, what does that mean? I would ask myslef if he is going to be a good husband and father. Is he dependable? Does he work? How does he treat you? How does he treat others he is close to (parents, siblings, small children, furry woodland creatures etc.)? Can you communicate? What is it like when you fight or get lost with bad directions?
KimiKiwi wrote:I talked with my sister about him and it seems as if I have more negative things to say about him than positive, yet whenever I’m with him things are amazing and wonderful.
I know what you mean, I dated a girl in HS and when I was with her everything felt great – but when I thought about our relationship when she wasn’t around I wanted out. It was like a drug.
KimiKiwi wrote:As he put it, he doesn’t see how I think things are going to “magically” change and be good after we’re married.
He has a point here, things aren’t going to magically change after a temple marriage- you will both be basically the same people. This is why I believe you are best served by focusing on the attributes that will make him a good husband and father rather than things that are harder to pin down like how much you love him or his religious beliefs.
All the preceding advice has been drawn from my personal experience and is only my opinion, please apply (or not) at your discretion.
I can’t add anything to the advice given thus far – but I do appreciate a Princess Bride reference. Just sayin’. :clap: I don’t have much to say about this other than my parents (non-LDS) had an excellent marriage, which gives me a lot of faith in it. When I was 7/8/9 I noticed a lot of my school mates’ parents were divorcing, I think a lot of people now really don’t think it ever can work. But there is another part to this story, there was a large age gap between my parents, and my father had a horrible first marriage. This has made me want to wait til I meet the right person. If you love the man, and he loves you, I think he should accept and tolerate your religion, and you should reciprocate, whatever pressures may be put on you.
Hi KimiKiwi, I was in a similar situation about a year ago. My boyfriend is a non-mormon. I had some pretty disturbing experiences with “good mormon boys” prior to dating my boyfriend, and had actually sworn off men in general until I met him. These boys came from strong LDS families and had goals of temple marriage, but I found that they were secretly perverted creeps, and ended up getting into an abusive stalker relationship that soured me to the whole male race. So for the next year I focused on living “worthy” of Temple marriage and developed a pretty strong TBM testimony.
Then I met my boyfriend. We were friends for some time, and then started dating. Things were wonderful. I was attracted by his genuine goodness. He is a respectful, motivated, honorable young man. He acts out of an internal drive to be good, although he does not follow any religion. He follows mormon standards more closely than any LDS boys I knew, just because he wants to, and I loved this about him (I appreciate it even more now!). I felt that it would be easy to convert him, and we could get married in the Temple and be happy ever after.
My cognitive dissonance came when he brought up marriage. We talked about religion and tradition, and I asked if he would marry me in the temple. He’s very open-minded and said it was something he’s open to down the road, but nothing felt right about the idea. I knew it would be for me, not him. I had shown him
For the Strength of Youthsome months prior, and constantly felt conflicted about the level of physical intimacy between us. We’re both waiting for marriage, but the passage about “passionate kissing” in that pamphlet created a lot of cognitive dissonance for me. It seems so silly now, but I took it very seriously. I came to a point of such extreme internal conflict that I felt I would have to leave the relationship if he couldn’t grow his own fire of a testimony and if I couldn’t stop kissing him with any degree of emotion. But the more I thought about breaking up with him, the worse I felt. I began to pray intensely, study the scriptures and words of the prophets, research the gospel, and talk to church leaders. The deeper I got into church doctrine, the more awful I felt. I started questioning some of the things I read that seemed to conflict each other. I tried to live the “perfect” TBM life, and it all crashed around me. None of it made sense.
One clear night, I was sitting outside under the stars praying, agonizing about what to do, and it struck me that God was other, separate from all I had been taught, and all I was assuming. I felt as though He were up there among the stars, saying “I want you to be happy. Don’t worry about all that stuff. I didn’t create you to worry. You’re missing the point.” It was this “answer” to my prayer that led me to find the peace I have now, as ironic as that may be. I felt like a huge weight was off my chest. I discovered what “free agency” really means.
From that point, I began to reevaluate my beliefs, casting off a lot of shtuff that was bogus and just plain silly. My poor boyfriend went through a lot while I was in the middle of my faith crisis, but he didn’t judge me. I learned to do the same, to love him unconditionally for who he is. In the end, although I wanted to change
him, I’m happier now that I’vebegun to change. I’ve started on a journey to find my own spiritual path, and he’s been understanding and supportive throughout the whole thing. I’m happier with him than I could ever be with a “good mormon boy.” We can talk about so much more because our hearts and minds are open. I hope I haven’t rambled too much. The best advice I can give you is to pray,
hard.Pay attention for answers, whatever form they may come in. 1) find out what youreally believe, apart from what your mother or boyfriend or friends believe. 2) find out what you really want. Why do you want to marry in the temple? What are your goals in life? 3) find out if your boyfriend is the one you can pursue your goals with. Will he support you in your decisions? Will he help you achieve your goals? 4) Do some serious soul searching and decide if you want to support his beliefs, whether or not they match yours, and help him achieve his goals. Can you make that kind of commitment? These aren’t easy things to think about. The experience I described was one of the hardest of my life. But I can’t begin to describe the peace and satisfaction that comes from knowing yourself and consciously making choices to believe and act a certain way. I wish the best to you on your journey
That was a great post Macalla What cwald said. Thank you. macalla wrote:I felt as though He were up there among the stars, saying “I want you to be happy. Don’t worry about all that stuff. I didn’t create you to worry. You’re missing the point.”
What a great experience, macalla. Well said.
KimiKiwi wrote:Issues for me always come back to the fact that if I found a good Mormon guy, how would I ever explain what I’ve done and gone through? How often do you hear of virtuous young men in the church completely accepting someone who’s not virgin, let alone had sex with multiple men, or even indulged in illegal substances. Who would accept that?
Kimikiwi, in my opinion, of all the things you wrote about your situation you are working through (and my heart goes out to you because I can tell you are struggling over this very important time in your life), this part I quoted above struck me the most.
More than worrying about temple marriage, more than worrying about the man you love, more than worrying about your future…I think you should take note of this part and work on this the most. You NEED to love you! You need to accept yourself as you are, and be proud of yourself, and know that God loves and accepts you as your are. Then you can be the kind of strong woman who can love your boyfriend and show him how wonderful the gospel is to you in your life.
Quote:Preachers err by trying to talk people into belief, better they reveal the radiance of their own discovery – Joseph Campbell
If the church is something that fills your life, let your boyfriend see that radiate from you. If it is something that causes you fear, and guilt, and pain…why would he be interested in signing up for that?
It makes me sad to hear you say about yourself that you don’t think you’d be “worthy” for an LDS man. I’d also question if it really would hold true that some unknown LDS man would be better than the man you have now. Religion is an influence helping people be good or happy, but membership or recommends are not the determining factor of whether a person is good or not, and I know God doesn’t view it that way.
Remember Christ’s example of love to the woman caught in sin? “Go and sin no more.” That’s all. He didn’t say, “Go and sin no more and don’t ever expect to be loved by good people again because your sins make you 2nd class.” That is not the Atonement, it is not the gospel of Christ, it is not the church of love that I know.
As macalla said so well, “You may be missing the point” – which means, there is a learning opportunity here.
I hope I don’t get into this situation. The only woman I’ve ever loved was a non-member, but I was inactive. I can’t say I’ve ever had that much of a special interest in LDS women – some are nice, but nothing more than a slight crush perhaps.
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