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Roy wrote:
You mention that you have been “white-knuckling” it for the last 6-8 months. What does that mean? Are you comfortable with your wife being inactive forever or were you hoping that it was just a phase?
Early on when my wife was going through her faith transition (I don’t like Faith Crisis), she told me she thought this was just a phase she was going through. Later on when she told me she needed to “take a break” from church attendance, she made it sound like it was a temporary kind of thing. In my mind, because she was letting me know these were temporary decisions, I have been holding to things just “returning back to normal”. That is the ‘white-knuckling’ I am talking about.
I think I need to just let go of the “normal” I am looking for and embrace ‘us’ as a couple the way we are. That will allow me to loosen my death grip on ‘normal’.
I was definitely hoping this was just a phase she was going through. I think this was also why she floated the idea of resigning. At the time she said that, she was thinking it would help me to recognize that this was no longer a phase, but a decision she had made.
Roy wrote:Because you have been able to live and function as an active non-literal believing Mormon, is it possible that you expected that your spouse might be able to do the same?
Absolutely yes. A thousand times yes.
I am so glad that you and your spouse are communicating and understanding each other better. I know it still isn’t easy. You are clearly making progress. AZguy, I’m sorry you have been through so much grief. I hope you can have peace. azguy wrote:Early on when my wife was going through her faith transition (I don’t like Faith Crisis), she told me she thought this was just a phase she was going through. Later on when she told me she needed to “take a break” from church attendance, she made it sound like it was a temporary kind of thing. In my mind, because she was letting me know these were temporary decisions, I have been holding to things just “returning back to normal”. That is the ‘white-knuckling’ I am talking about.
In saying this I realize that I’m likely only contributing to what could be a false hope but how long a phase lasts is different depending on the person and the circumstance. After an October session of general conference I might be spun up but then things go back to “normal” a few minutes, hours, days, weeks later. You might have expected her inactive phase to last a few months but she may need a few years. Again, I don’t want to create another false hope.
azguy wrote:I think I need to just let go of the “normal” I am looking for and embrace ‘us’ as a couple the way we are. That will allow me to loosen my death grip on ‘normal’.
I like this. I’ve had experiences where I tried to maintain a death grip on “normal.” After time I started to realize that there’s really no such thing as “normal.”
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