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Hello all. I am relatively new to this board. I have been lurking for only a couple weeks. I am 35-years old and I have two children, a son age 10 and a daughter age 7. I have been through two divorces. My children are from my first marriage. I was married in the temple the first time, then got a cancellation and was sealed to my second wife. I was legally divorced from my second wife, but the sealing hasn’t been canceled yet. My first marriage lasted 9 years, my second one was only 3 years. I have been going to individual and group therapy for almost two years now. And who knows how long I have been in a faith transition. I suppose the first seeds of it began in 2009 when a branch president told me that I was “deceived by the devil” for wanting to get a divorce. He read the stories of Korihor and Cain to me as examples of deception. I suffer with scrupulosity, and so the things he said at that time in my life were extremely traumatic. It took me one and a half years to work through the intense feelings of shame, fear, and doubt from his comments in connection to my decision to get a divorce. That was the first time in my life that the reliability of priesthood leaders, as representatives of God’s will, began to be shaken. It was very painful for me to recognize that it was possible for me to disagree with a priesthood leader and not be dragged to hell through devilish deception.
It wasn’t until 2011 that I started to have more and more doubts about certain teachings in the church. I began to question the rigidity around sexual teachings. I questioned more and more the authority of priesthood leaders, because all of them responded differently to similar issues. I began to see the shame and close-mindedness in much of the LDS culture. I started trying to sort through the differences between LDS culture and LDS doctrine.
In 2013, the questioning started to increase. I read Rough Stone Rolling and I found it to raise both challenging issues and also faithful desires. I had faith that people could be imperfect and still receive inspiration or revelations. I started to realize that revelation is not crystal clear for anyone, including prophets. I also started seeing how much white-washing the church has done about church history. In addition, all of the therapy I have been doing the last couple years helped me to see just how shameful, afraid, and rigid I was as a result of my culture and my father. Most of my shame has been around sexuality. I have spent most of my life obsessing about and fearful of masturbation, to the point of it being abusive and debilitating. I confessed to so many bishops about it, always feeling afraid of my sexual desires. It has taken a lot of work for me to not automatically feel shame about sexually-related things.
Now to where I am now. The last 6 months has been an acceleration in my faith transition. I feel like a puzzle that has been dumped all over the floor and now I get to put the pieces together, but this time relying on my internal authority instead of relying on external authority for approval. I have had to boil down the spiritual experiences I own for myself down to their bare bones. I realize how much of my ‘testimony’ was based on my spiritual experiences, overlaid with a very specific perception that the church has taught to me. I have to find out for myself now.
I am currently engaged to a woman who is not LDS. I purposely decided I did not want to be married to an LDS woman. I recognize that not all LDS women are in the same place as far as their beliefs, but I wasn’t willing to risk the chance of being in another rigid relationship, especially given the faith transition I have been going through. Ironically, I find more unconditional love and maturity in my current relationship than I ever have in any LDS relationship. My fiancé and I have also decided to be sexual, because we will be married in the near future. I simply cannot buy into the letter of the law in the church regarding sexuality, yet I also have never felt so much honor regarding sexuality. I firmly believe in protecting people from sexual abuses or infidelity or harmful sexual behaviors. But I don’t believe in the rigidity regarding sexual rules in the church. The rules have a spirit of the law that drives them, and when those rules are separated from the spirit of the law, they can become abusive. There are obviously many other issues I have that I am working through with the church.
I am here to just get support and continue to work through this transition. I feel a strong responsibility and desire to be faithful: to live a life of faith and belief. I refuse to let skepticism kill my desire to grow closer to God and to believe in things greater than this world. But I also refuse to live a life of rules that have outlived their usefulness or are detached from their real purpose. I also can no longer accept the authority of others just because they say they have authority. I need to consult with God and carefully pursue my path with integrity before God.
One of the biggest struggles I am having right now is navigating LDS culture and LDS policies while disagreeing with some things. I do not feel unworthy to go to the temple, but I am certainly unworthy in the eyes of any priesthood leader. I have not been to church in a few months, but will be returning shortly. However, I am afraid to go because I recently moved in with my fiancé and we are just waiting for some ducks to be in order before we can be officially married. I am afraid of a bishop finding out “I am living in sin”, so to speak, and take corrective action against me. I feel this desire to go to church and worship God and reconnect more fully, yet I have to be afraid of the police finding me. I feel such intense shame even when a bishop requests to speak with me, because of all the abuse I have been through previously at the hands of a couple priesthood leaders. I hate that I have to be afraid of this when I just want to go and worship. So, I have been debating returning to church until I am officially married so that no one there has to know. It all just feels secretive when it shouldn’t have to be. I am not ashamed of my choices, but the LDS rules tell me I should be.
I am sort of rambling here, but I have no one to talk to about this within the church. My fiancé is very supportive and wants me to pursue whatever beliefs I feel good about. She is willing to go to church with me, to pray with me, to collaborate on all things spiritual, but she obviously doesn’t know what it is like to be LDS. She grew up Catholic, so she is at least familiar with Catholic guilt, as they call it.
It is so painful to have experiences within the church that God is officially involved with, yet find so much that is unhealthy or even abusive at times. I don’t know how to reconcile it. I don’t believe Joseph Smith lied when he saw God and Christ. I don’t believe some of the early prophets fabricated stories out of thin air when they said they saw Jesus Christ standing in specific places in the temple. I watch the progression of the church throughout the world and I see a kingdom being forged that will change the world, but which is still going through Stage 3 growth. I want to believe these things are true. But there is so much that challenges this. Sometimes I just don’t know if the LDS church is any different than any other and if it is just a fluke that it is lucky enough to grow so quickly and be so unique. I expect the church, if it be God’s church with official authority, to be more ahead of things and to not need the world culture to push it along out of dysfunctional teachings and policies. It bothers me that ‘the fallen world’ as the church calls it, seems to be more advanced in many ways in the defense of humanity than the church that claims to be ahead of the world in all things.
This is getting long, so I will stop here. Lots of things to work through and ponder on. I just need someone to talk about this stuff with. My family is worried about me going off into apostasy, so obviously no support there. Glad to be here to receive and give support!
I would stay away from your home ward until you get married. Attend a different Ward where you can be kind of anonymous, take part in the worship, and avoid the scrutiny of your local leaders. I know what you mean about sexual rigidity. I still subscribe to no sex outside of marriage policies, but I know the church’s policies regarding singles really caused me huge angst when I was a Young Adult as I constantly felt guilty about my thoughts.
I also understand your loss of faith in the authority of local leaders. I have ample examples of misuse of that authority, or outright problematic leader behavior, and have very little faith in any supernatural qualities leaders are purported to have at any level in the church now. You said it very well that they all experience revelation differently, have different opinions on the same issues (even central ones sometimes) etcetera. To me, they are just men. Often talented, reliable men from whom we can learn a lot, but sometimes, selfish, political, indifferent, and sometimes, incompetent too. Just like other men.
Good luck with putting the puzzle back together. I like the puzzle analogy — the only problem is that that pieces don’t fit like they did originally, but you can make it all work together to form a different picture. My picture is different now, and many ways, better. I am very happy in many ways now too, although the church does cause its share of angst given how connected I am to it. And I still call myself a Mormon….good luck!
Welcome. The idea that a Bishop would reference Korihor and Cain in a discussion about divorce is . . . indescribably stupid. People are people, and none of us is perfect, but . . . that is seriously messed up.
If I can offer one bit of advice, based on what you have shared, I would suggest holding off on attending church until you are married – for one ironic reason: Once you are married, you can answer with complete honesty that you are living the Law of Chastity. There is no need to confess anything prior to your marriage, since that is not asked nor held against anyone who is sexually active prior to baptism but marries in order to be baptized and continues their sexual activity up to the point of their marriage.
If it’s good enough for converts, it’s good enough for members looking to return to activity, imo.
Also, there is a really good framing of the idea of a mosaic instead of a puzzle in our threads. If you search “mosaic” you can find it. I think you will like that analogy a lot.
Welcome to the forums. thalmar wrote:I feel like a puzzle that has been dumped all over the floor and now I get to put the pieces together,
but this time relying on my internal authority instead of relying on external authority for approval.That’s a good place to be. I went through a similar transition and it made a world of difference, I had finally found a way to be happy again.
Welcome to the forums. I’m sure you will find people here that can relate to each point of your concerns. I feel like I always say I have much in common with new people to the forum, but it’s also true. I totally agree with you about the church and sexuality and the guilt associated with it, and in particular masturbation. I really liked you description of the faith transition as a puzzle you’re putting back together – I immediately thought, “Yeah, that is what it’s like.” Then Ray brought up the mosaic thing. That one describes it, too.
I hope you find the support you seek here. This site has been such a lifeline for me.
Welcome to the forum. I agree with the rest of the gang on the recommendation to wait to attend church again until you are married. It will save a lot of headache and possible problems. Returning to activity newly married will be easier for you (and for your bishop perhaps) than returning while not living the law of chastity. Right or wrong, I think most church members and leaders assume that all premarital sex = promiscuity. But once you are married and faithful, then it’s easier to reframe it as PREmarital sex, not just uncommitted fooling around. Hard to explain, but that’s kind of how it is viewed. Welcome Thalmar, you are not alone. Thank you to everyone for your support and responses. It is appreciated I had been pondering on the model of mosaics when I wrote the following post. http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=4583&hilit=+mosaic Unfortunately, in my google searching there is very little written or said in the church that supports this sort artistic license in framing our understanding (as opposed to building our understanding according to the prophetic instructions/blueprints.)
I dislike the way that the puzzle model is presented in church because it requires treating errant puzzle pieces in 2 main ways.
1) I know this piece belongs but I am having a hard time with it. Perhaps if I were to force it in with a mallet and apologetics…
:crazy: 2) I know this piece belongs but it doesn’t match the rest of the puzzle. Perhaps I am lacking in information and should put this piece on the back burner until more information is revealed.
With the mosaic model we take existing pieces and combine them in whatever ways speak to our soul. This appoach has been quite a relief to me in opening wide the doors of possibility.
Welcome to the StayLDS ward family. You are among friends here!
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