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I have teenage children too. They are amazing to watch (all teenagers, but of course I like mine in particular, hehe). There isn’t a whole lot you can do to make them believe one thing or another. I would let your DH tackle his own issues with that. It isn’t your role to cram your children into the parameters of his particular faith comfort zone. To help though, if your daughter really carried through with that declaration, it doesn’t mean she will never be sealed in the temple. It just takes another year for those of us who might get married civilly first and live in the U.S., for some odd reason
Your DD is really just making an emotional declaration. Teens do that. I wouldn’t take it as being some deep, theological disbelief or take it as a lack of faith.
It doesn’t sound like your daughters wish to get married somewhere her grandparents can attend has anything to do with your own issues. Most likely it is just down to her love for her grandparents and a desire for fairness. I think you should see your new position as one of freedom. Unlike most TBM”s who feel a constant concern and anguish that there children will live up to every church expectation, you can relax. You can say with honesty it is your children’s choice. The wonderful thing is you can allow her to develop in her own way.
I feel a huge weight of my shoulders in this regard. I am still teaching my Children 13, 11 and 6 in a basically orthodox fashion, which i think is right for their age after hearing Fowler stages of faith. BUT I am also way more open to discussion and to answer things with a ” I don’t know”. I no longer feel that it would kill me if they didn’t stay members of the church. I want what is right for them and I want to give them a spiritual foundation ( I think Mormonism is extremely effective in this for children and youth) Imo your position is positive, it is so much more healthy for your children and they will thank you for it. See it as a huge weight off your shoulders too.
One more thing,I know this is a bit of a thread jack… In the Uk we all get married at church, big ceremony followed by reception full of nonmembers.
We then ( has to be the same day or else wait one year) drive down to the temple with a small group of temple worthy friends and family to get sealed. It is very down played a nice spiritual end to a great day.
I understand that legally the Uk and EU does not recognize temple marriages as binding so the church has no choice, but they certainly don’t seem to have a big problem with this allowing full on chapel weddings prior to the sealing on the same day. I hear so many people get upset about the situation in the U.S, surely this is one area that the church could change its strict ruling on since it does so in Europe?.
1topen wrote:It doesn’t sound like your daughters wish to get married somewhere her grandparents can attend has anything to do with your own issues. Most likely it is just down to her love for her grandparents and a desire for fairness.
Actually, I think it has everything to do with me. My daughter has long been curious why I do not attend the temple, and why I stopped renewing my temple rec a few years ago. I answered her honestly that I felt unhappy every time I went to the temple because it brought back painful memories of my wedding. I also completely disagree with the rules surrounding who can and can’t attend temple sealings. I will no longer attend the temple until they change those rules. We live in Canada, but the rules here are basically the same as in the U.S. I am the only member in my family, so my parents were unable to attend the wedding of their only daughter. They were so hurt they didn’t even come to Toronto, and I can’t say that I blame them. We DID have a big reception a couple of weeks after the temple ceremony in a chapel in Montreal (where I was living as a student at the time), and about 300 hundred people from my parents’ family came to that. We tried to make it like a wedding for them, but our bishop was a real stickler for rules and read us a whole list of what we could and couldn’t do with regards to a “ring ceremony” following a temple sealing. Basically the rules are designed to make the ceremony seem nothing like a wedding so as to not detract from the temple wedding, i.e. no walking the bride down the aisle by her father, no vows in the traditional sense, bride and groom must enter together as husband and wife, etc.The result was a total mess, and relatives sat in the chapel totally confused as to what they were witnessing. I still get a pit in my stomach when I think about how much I hurt my dear parents with that whole fiasco.
1topen wrote:One more thing,I know this is a bit of a thread jack… In the Uk we all get married at church, big ceremony followed by reception full of nonmembers.
We then ( has to be the same day or else wait one year) drive down to the temple with a small group of temple worthy friends and family to get sealed. It is very down played a nice spiritual end to a great day.
I understand that legally the Uk and EU does not recognize temple marriages as binding so the church has no choice, but they certainly don’t seem to have a big problem with this allowing full on chapel weddings prior to the sealing on the same day. I hear so many people get upset about the situation in the U.S, surely this is one area that the church could change its strict ruling on since it does so in Europe?.
Would that this were so! Oh what a difference that would have me to me and my family.My temple experience would have likely been so different and my parents would have been far more accepting of the church if this had been an option in Canada. Instead, the only option is to wait a year if you are married outside of the temple. The worst part of that is that when my parents found out about that option, they were even MORE hurt because they couldn’t understand why we wouldn’t wait a year for the temple sealing in order to have a traditional church wedding that all my family could attend. In their eyes we were being very selfish. This is where church culture comes into the equation: when couples get married in the church and wait a year to get sealed in the temple it is immediately implied that there are issues of worthiness involved. To my inlaws this wasn’t even an option to consider because it “wouldn’t look good”. They actually laughed off the whole idea when I brought it up. I have found that many hard-core members of the church are very concerned with appearances when it comes to temple worthiness. For example, if my daughter was totally worthy but chose to marry outside of the temple, people would conclude it was because of one of two reasons: she is marrying someone unworthy/nonmember, or she herself is unworthy. Nowadays of course I could care less what my inlaws think (I think the temple wedding also permanently damaged my relationship with them) but back then I was a naive 22-year-old who had only been a member of the church for 1 year. In my mind this was the only way I could marry the man that I loved.
Anyway, I am clearly carrying A LOT of baggage where the temple is concerned, so it is inevitable that some of it would have rubbed off on my kids. Many members of the church who do not have nonmember family have no clue what a big deal this can be. My best friend is from pioneer stock on both sides, and she said she never gave the issue a second thought. I am guessing that is why church headquarters does not think it is something that needs to be addressed. I for one am one of those people who just doesn’t see the need for exclusiveness when it comes to the temple. There is no need for secrecy (you can google the entire ceremony if you are a curious nonmember), and I don’t see how ostracizing nonmember parents from attending the wedding of member children is preserving the “sacredness” of the temple. If someone is unworthy to attend the temple and decides they are going anyway, it is not very hard for them to get in – I have seen it happen many times. If letting an unworthy person enter the temple was going to desecrate it in some way, then that would have happened years ago. I think the rules surrounding temple marriage in Canada and the U.S. create divisiveness and pain in nonmember families, which is exactly the opposite of what a wedding is supposed to do.
There is nothing remotely spiritual about that for me.
(end of rant)
asha wrote:1topen wrote:It doesn’t sound like your daughters wish to get married somewhere her grandparents can attend has anything to do with your own issues. Most likely it is just down to her love for her grandparents and a desire for fairness.
Actually, I think it has everything to do with me. My daughter has long been curious why I do not attend the temple, and why I stopped renewing my temple rec a few years ago. I answered her honestly that I felt unhappy every time I went to the temple because it brought back painful memories of my wedding. I also completely disagree with the rules surrounding who can and can’t attend temple sealings. I will no longer attend the temple until they change those rules. We live in Canada, but the rules here are basically the same as in the U.S. I am the only member in my family, so my parents were unable to attend the wedding of their only daughter. They were so hurt they didn’t even come to Toronto, and I can’t say that I blame them. We DID have a big reception a couple of weeks after the temple ceremony in a chapel in Montreal (where I was living as a student at the time), and about 300 hundred people from my parents’ family came to that. We tried to make it like a wedding for them, but our bishop was a real stickler for rules and read us a whole list of what we could and couldn’t do with regards to a “ring ceremony” following a temple sealing. Basically the rules are designed to make the ceremony seem nothing like a wedding so as to not detract from the temple wedding, i.e. no walking the bride down the aisle by her father, no vows in the traditional sense, bride and groom must enter together as husband and wife, etc.The result was a total mess, and relatives sat in the chapel totally confused as to what they were witnessing. I still get a pit in my stomach when I think about how much I hurt my dear parents with that whole fiasco.
1topen wrote:One more thing,I know this is a bit of a thread jack… In the Uk we all get married at church, big ceremony followed by reception full of nonmembers.
We then ( has to be the same day or else wait one year) drive down to the temple with a small group of temple worthy friends and family to get sealed. It is very down played a nice spiritual end to a great day.
I understand that legally the Uk and EU does not recognize temple marriages as binding so the church has no choice, but they certainly don’t seem to have a big problem with this allowing full on chapel weddings prior to the sealing on the same day. I hear so many people get upset about the situation in the U.S, surely this is one area that the church could change its strict ruling on since it does so in Europe?.
Would that this were so! Oh what a difference that would have me to me and my family.My temple experience would have likely been so different and my parents would have been far more accepting of the church if this had been an option in Canada. Instead, the only option is to wait a year if you are married outside of the temple. The worst part of that is that when my parents found out about that option, they were even MORE hurt because they couldn’t understand why we wouldn’t wait a year for the temple sealing in order to have a traditional church wedding that all my family could attend. In their eyes we were being very selfish. This is where church culture comes into the equation: when couples get married in the church and wait a year to get sealed in the temple it is immediately implied that there are issues of worthiness involved. To my inlaws this wasn’t even an option to consider because it “wouldn’t look good”. They actually laughed off the whole idea when I brought it up. I have found that many hard-core members of the church are very concerned with appearances when it comes to temple worthiness. For example, if my daughter was totally worthy but chose to marry outside of the temple, people would conclude it was because of one of two reasons: she is marrying someone unworthy/nonmember, or she herself is unworthy. Nowadays of course I could care less what my inlaws think (I think the temple wedding also permanently damaged my relationship with them) but back then I was a naive 22-year-old who had only been a member of the church for 1 year. In my mind this was the only way I could marry the man that I loved.
Anyway, I am clearly carrying A LOT of baggage where the temple is concerned, so it is inevitable that some of it would have rubbed off on my kids. Many members of the church who do not have nonmember family have no clue what a big deal this can be. My best friend is from pioneer stock on both sides, and she said she never gave the issue a second thought. I am guessing that is why church headquarters does not think it is something that needs to be addressed. I for one am one of those people who just doesn’t see the need for exclusiveness when it comes to the temple. There is no need for secrecy (you can google the entire ceremony if you are a curious nonmember), and I don’t see how ostracizing nonmember parents from attending the wedding of member children is preserving the “sacredness” of the temple. If someone is unworthy to attend the temple and decides they are going anyway, it is not very hard for them to get in – I have seen it happen many times. If letting an unworthy person enter the temple was going to desecrate it in some way, then that would have happened years ago. I think the rules surrounding temple marriage in Canada and the U.S. create divisiveness and pain in nonmember families, which is exactly the opposite of what a wedding is supposed to do.
There is nothing remotely spiritual about that for me.
(end of rant)
Asha, would you consider doing a copy and paste of this entire post and starting a new thread on the subject of “Marrying Civilly When Temple Marriage is an Option”? I could do so for you, but I just don’t feel right in using your entire post to start a new topic. It’s one that I really, really want to discuss though.
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