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I think it’s difficult to argue against showing her material that the seminary teachers have been told to learn “like the backs of your hands,” material that could just as easily as not pop up in a Sunday lesson. I’m just thinking about my own mom here. She wants her children to pay her respect and reciprocate the love and closeness she always tried to have with us. After a lifetime of devotion to the church and us, I think she doesn’t mind when I talk to her about my struggles. It’s me coming to her with something important, confiding in her, including her in the meat of my life.
So much depends on the particulars, though. I hope it goes well for you.
Roy wrote:The advice that I am about to give may have limited applicability to your situation.
I believe that the best course of action is to feed the relationship with your mother rather than to complicate it with church stuff. In saying this I am essentially giving the same advice that I would give to someone with a believing spouse…
As far as the religious historical matters, I prefer to keep things very general. I find it difficult to have in depth conversations were I do not either pretend to believe their religious PoV or reveal exactly how far I have strayed in my thinking. If they fall back on a quote from JS, the BoM, or even the Bible for authority I can say, “Good point, that is important to ponder”…. or I can reveal that I do not necessarily take JS, the BoM, or even the Bible as being authoritative. That is precisely the sort of revelation that might cause my own dear mother to worry about me.
Thank you for the thoughtful response. I believe that actually, this is what I’ve been practicing with her for the past year (after growth and movement on both of our parts). Without going into specifics, when I first joined this site two years ago, I was absolutely terrified of what finding out about my faith crisis would do to her. It not only stunted our relationship, but also prevented me from making traction with my faith transition. With this in mind, our relationship has come such a long way and we both are in such better places. She doesn’t know everything, not even the tip of the ice berg, but we are respectful and she does understand I have hang-ups that might keep me out of the Church (even if she is hopeful that I will stay and get married in the Church).
However, despite our successes (which I celebrate because we really have come such a long way) it seems that every Sunday that roles around, she becomes very discontent with her status of not really understanding my faith crisis,increasingly telling me she wants to know what’s going on, which brings me to believe that things are going to change. Whatever decisions I end up making, I want to take my time and make sure that she understands I love her and respect her beliefs. However, I don’t think status quo is going to work much longer.
Ann wrote:I think it’s difficult to argue against showing her material that the seminary teachers have been told to learn “like the backs of your hands,” material that could just as easily as not pop up in a Sunday lesson.
I’m just thinking about my own mom here. She wants her children to pay her respect and reciprocate the love and closeness she always tried to have with us. After a lifetime of devotion to the church and us, I think she doesn’t mind when I talk to her about my struggles. It’s me coming to her with something important, confiding in her, including her in the meat of my life.
So much depends on the particulars, though. I hope it goes well for you.
Thank you. I think I will tell her that line about the seminary teachers when I send them to her. I’m leaning towards sending them to her with a little preface that explains my deep respect for her and her beliefs, and the way I was raised, as well as my reservations about opening up this conversation with her.
Thank you all very much for your input. This has been helpful as I try to sort this out.
My believing DH and I can read the same information and come to vastly different conclusions. Reading the essays doesn’t decrease his belief or make him question the church in any way. I find the essays annoying. I have left the church, he has stayed and is devout. We are on different spiritual paths — just like every other human on the planet. It is our job to support one another. No more than that. We are not meant to be marching to a military beat with uniformed thoughts and actions. We don’t march through life. We meander. We can walk through the same field of flowers and find different things to enjoy, while still believing that we enjoyed the field together.
Maybe focus on what you and your mom have in common? Emphasis the similarities instead of focusing on the differences?
If it was me and my mom kept pressing me for details I would tell her that in order to understand me she would need to doubt the church. As long as she wants to know the information in order to provide apologetic answers and “fix” my faith transition – then she will not understand me. If she were to go “down the rabbit hole” to the point of really seeing what I see then it is entirely possible that she might not make it back out again. She would need to understand that there is no proof to compel faith. That there is at least as much reason to doubt as there is to believe. That the faith that I do now exercise is a deliberate choice on my part to stay hopeful and keep the door open to future eternities that I find so beautiful that I hope for them to be true. She cannot seek to understand me and to change me/convert me/convince me at the same time.
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