- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
I’m really struggling lately. I’ve read so much about the church, from both sides, and I don’t feel I have blinders on. DH has made sure I know all the evidence. I’ve read the CES letter, I’ve read the essays, I’ve read a few books and a ton of info from the internet. I know there are problems and I’ve chosen to believe anyway, because it’s made me happy. But it’s getting harder and harder to be happy, the farther we go down this road. It seems like the goofy issues with the church, which I can believe in spite of, are constantly in my face. And it’s not always DH’s fault – he actually talks less about church things than before. But I can’t ever fully relax and just believe anymore. I still feel peace at church, but only when he’s not there. When he is I’m on edge, because I know he hates it and is inwardly rolling his eyes at everything being said. And if he’s not there, he asks later what the lessons were about, and I can’t tell him because I know what kinds of things he’ll say/think. It ruins the good feelings I had there. Lately I’ve been yearning to just be done. Sometimes I wish I could leave the church, but I can’t because I still truly believe it. Sometimes I wish I could leave DH, but I can’t because I love him like mad and he’s a good, good person (and because of the kids). I really want to just move away from all of it and start from scratch, in a place where there’s no DH, no kids to worry about, and no church. I feel done with all of it. The things that always brought me joy are the things I can’t stand to be around, and I don’t know what to do. These days, I have a hard time scrounging up the energy to be any kind of wife, mom or Mormon. I feel like something’s got to give, because I don’t know how long I can go on being this unhappy.
The other day, I told DH I’d leave the church with him. He turned me down, because he knows I don’t really want to. I appreciate that, but I’m still stuck right where I was. I feel like if I keep rehashing all this church stuff in my mind, I’ll probably end up leaving anyway, because it seems like that’s usually what happens with people. The outlook isn’t good: I’m on my own with DH and the kids, just moved a bazillion miles away from anyone I know, the faith I have is shakier than it used to be, I’m always reminded of problems in the church, and the marriage I love is under a constant strain. In this situation, it seems pretty far-fetched to think I’ll be able to hold onto my faith. I think DH is waiting on that, but at least he’s not rushing me. Looking at the odds here, I’m wondering how much effort I should put into keeping it. If I want to go down fighting, I could be unhappy for a long time. I don’t want to just give in, but it’s appealing. I’m thinking of becoming inactive and then just waiting for the testimony to extinguish completely. It’s not what I want, but I don’t think my chances of staying are good no matter which way I go. I’m not sure how much pain I’m willing to endure myself, and cause DH and the kids, before I finally lose the battle.
Hi Stonegypsy – you and I are in similar situations, it’s been part of my marriage for 8+ years, and I want to assure you – you can make it. Or you can stretch until you have made a decision you feel at peace with. It sounds to me like you need some place or time to process the avalanche of information you now have. That isn’t unreasonable. I have moments of wanting to live on my own island and just get away. We invite you to process here. Take time to read the threads that interest you, learn how others have grown with their faith changes, feel free to recreate your faith. You say you believe – what do you believe, even if it’s a feeling, give yourself to that. Examine it, embrace it, and claim it. And if that is all you have for the next year – that’s good.
Among us we have athiests, agnostics, nuanced believers and respectful practitioners. Each has a different reason and way for staying, copy those if you need.
Most importantly – breathe. Take a lot of long slow breaths. It really helps.
Welcome aboard.
I don’t have any feedback for you but I just want to send my virtual hug towards you. StoneGypsy: You just moved away from everything that was familiar to you. So right now, you have a different place to live, new people in your life, a different city to learn. Everything that was solid in your life is gone .. Home, friends, culture, routine. All gone.
My advice: Breath. Take time to catch your breath. Get a routine going. Figure out all the other basics in your life. Organize the new home, get to know a few people, explore the new community, establish a new routine with your family. Be patient with yourself. Be kind to yourself. Be kind to your family. Recognize that it takes quite a bit of time to settle a family into a new location.
Don’t avoid your faith questions, but put them back on the shelf for a little while. Get everything else situated. Relax. Breath. THEN start exploring your faith questions.
I moved a lot at one point in my growing up years. I thought I was fine with moving. I thought it was no big deal. And yet, i found other parts of my life would start falling apart. For me, in my life, I found it took a full year before I was really situated after a move. A full year. Unfortunately, it took me a number of moves before I figured out that trend.
Maybe your faith issues have nothing to do with the other stressors in your life, but assume the move was hard on your marriage and your children. Give everyone time to adjust before adding another stress.
Please keep us in the loop.
SG, I’m sorry that you are going through this. I’m in a situation where my wife is a believer and I’m a non-believer. We’ve been able to make it work specifically by not trying to convince the other person and by accepting the other person as they are without judgment. From your description, I feel like your biggest issue right now isn’t faith but marriage. At a minimum, I think you need to sit down with each other and discuss your relationship and how it will operate in a mixed-faith marriage. You should be able to feel good about your faith without feeling “on edge”. He should be able to be at peace with where he is without the need to ‘fix’ you. In my experience, there is give and take needed from both parties. I would suggest counselling, at least for you and maybe for the two of you as a couple. Your description reminds me a lot of my emotional state during an earlier phase of my faith transition, and it was something I could only get through by counseling. There is no shame in doing it. I found it helpful just to be able to give voice to what I was feeling to someone who had no dog in the fight… and who had professional training in how to help someone like me.
On the topic of ‘belief’ let me say that religion puts far too much focus on belief. IMO, it’s more powerful when we take the belief out and concentrate on how it makes us feel, how it makes us act, and how it makes us want to be better people. If the Church works in those areas for you, take a step back, don’t worry about belief right now, and focus on how you feel. Religion in this way can be sort of like spiritual yoga. People into yoga seem to feel it is good for mind, body and spirit, but I doubt many of them are concerned with whether God approves.
I often encourage people on the edge to find a way to get to the heart of the LDS/Christian message by reading the Book of Mark. I am not trying to convert you to anything in doing so, but I found a lot of peace when I concentrated on the main message of the Gospel. I’d suggest Mark, then Luke, then John, actually. I’d also suggest a more modern translation, like the NRSV or the NIV, because they are so much easier to connect to. The reason I think this is a worthwhile exercise is that the bombardment you feel is over fringe issues. Who really cares about polygamy from a spiritual perspective? I mean, hey, I think it was/is terrible and I hate it as much as anyone on this site, but polygamy is not a part of my spiritual lexicon. It only serves to detract. It’s a non-spiritual fact. For many, myself included, it served as a catalyst for faith crisis. But at some point, I needed to run toward something rather than away from something and the NT Gospels gave me something to run toward.
StoneGypsy (love this name), the key to everything you said is:
Quote:Sometimes I wish I could leave the church, but I can’t because I still truly believe it. Sometimes I wish I could leave DH, but I can’t because I love him like mad and he’s a good, good person (and because of the kids).
If this is your conclusion, my only advice is: do everything you can to strengthen both.
Avoid everything else.
Thank you, everyone. Mornings are sometimes the hardest time for me; it’s overwhelming to face the full day ahead while feeling like I do. But I read your replies this morning and they meant a lot to me. My sweet kids decided to surprise me with breakfast today too, since DH is out of town and they wanted to help me out. Between the two, I’m feeling more supported and loved, and maybe I can manage to do the things I need to. Quote:I think you need to sit down with each other and discuss your relationship and how it will operate in a mixed-faith marriage. You should be able to feel good about your faith without feeling “on edge”. He should be able to be at peace with where he is without the need to ‘fix’ you. In my experience, there is give and take needed from both parties. I would suggest counselling, at least for you and maybe for the two of you as a couple.
Part of the problem is that we’ve discussed it to death for over a year, without coming to any lasting conclusions. Not like DH is constantly saying/doing hurtful things, but he’s not a subtle person. He’s one of those people who makes it obvious what he thinks of something, even without saying a word. It’s only been a minor annoyance in our marriage until now, but it’s caused a few bumps in his career and his relationship with my family. Also, he’s having a hard time making up his mind about what he wants to do. He has enjoyed attending the UU church for a while, but they asked him to take their class to become a member, and he’s balking at that and isn’t sure if he’ll go back. He’s agnostic now and he would rather not attend any church, but he thinks the UU would be good to help me and the kids transition away from being LDS. He was going to go talk to the UU minister this week, and also visit his workplace chaplain, but he got busy and didn’t do it. I was frustrated. I want him to clarify what he wants to do so we can move forward.
I think counseling is definitely needed. DH doesn’t love the idea, but I think I can get him to go if I press the issue. I just don’t know when. He’s busy, and he won’t want to make time for it. As for myself, yes please! I would have been there months ago if it weren’t for this move. The summer was so hard. We spent 3 months living out of suitcases before we finally arrived and moved in. I hoped my emotions would settle down when we got here, but it hasn’t happened. I think that even with everything I still need to get done, I’m going to have to be forceful about bumping counseling up the list of priorities.
SG– when I read your post, it sounds like you’ve been through a major change. I have this sense that this is a spike in your angst that may well reduce to some extent with time, and as you get used to your new surroundings. My advice is this — you love your husband and your kids. Put THAT relationship first. The unspoken, and often misspoke assumption of members is that the church and its often “conflated” gospel comes first, and then family second. That causes angst when the church attractiveness wanes. Put your family first, and let a new perspective toward the church evolve — one that considers the church as something you manage for the benefit of your family’s needs — including your marriage.
Walking away from it all may well sound attractive at first (it can be therapeutic just to DO SOMETHING, even if it’s not wise for the future), but you will be far worse offalone or estranged than you will be if you stay connected to your family and even Mormonism. Loneliness can really be a bear. Just remember all you have with your current family, and what you will lose with a major change like the one you are contemplating during this difficult time.
My advice — don’t look at this with any sense of urgency. The nice thing is that issues of testimony and commitment are rarely urgent unless there is some kind of immediate choice in front of you — such as whether to be worthy for a child’s near-future marriage in the temple, etcetera. And depending on the age of your kids, that may not be on the table right now. As Amateur parent said — take it slow.
One thing to work on — for your inner peace — is to get to the point where the church can be as quirky, egocentric, mean, kind, wholesome, or destructive as it wants, and it doesn’t both you too much!! It took me a while to get there. And it came after I had my own personal declaration of independence take root in my thinking. Start claiming your own belief system without broadcasting it or forcing it on anyone. Look critically at every assumption you have about life, every doctrine you have just accepted, and decide what YOU think about it. StayLDS is a fantastic place for getting ideas about how to interact with the Ward and sometimes, even family members when you are in the church, but not OF the church.
So, I would take it easy right now, take it slow, adjust to your new surroundings, and then post issues here for discussion and perspectives. I felt tremendous angst toward the church at one time. but posting here over the last five years or so has really helped me pave my own way. It has helped me find happiness and passion in life outside the church, while still remaining connected within it — but on my own terms. I believe you can have the same….looking forward to other posts you make…
SD
StoneGypsy – I loved reading your intro and am glad you’re here. :wave: Welcome and you have had some good advice. One other suggestion I might give you is to consider going to a therapist. They sometimes can be quite a help.
SG, I know you’ve been on this board for a while, and been working on things so hard for so long. It must weigh on you heavily to keep at it. I think it is very normal to feel exhausted and at times want to get away or throw in the towel.
I don’t know if there are easy answers for you. But…I’m so glad to hear your kids stepped up and raised your spirits. Seeing how wonderful your kids are must give some reward that you are blessed and loved and are teaching them right.
One piece of advice I received was to try to stay balanced. Reading all the problematic teachings of the church is needed to be aware. But I would listen to conference talks on the way to work also, trying to read and study both sides.
I found at times the conference talks would make my eyes roll…”oh my gosh that doesn’t sound right to me”…and other times I felt uplifted. Truly uplifted.
It would help remind me to follow my heart. When things uplift me, I don’t want to shed those things in my life.
Instead, I tried to accept the less than perfect, let go of my prior vision of my perfect family I was never going to have, or my perfect church doctrine I was never going to find, and embrace paradox. That while something may sound wrong, it can also be right.
I can’t explain it, but I felt the pull to keep me in the church, even if I was open to leaving it. I no longer HAD to stay, I chose to. Even when there are serious things I do not believe, I choose to hope and believe in it because I feel better when I do. Over time, it has helped me. I follow my heart.
Don’t try to bury it and hope it goes away. Don’t try to open all and address everything at once. Take things slow and one issue at a time, while trying to cling to things that are good and happy.
Quote:The nice thing is that issues of testimony and commitment are rarely urgent unless there is some kind of immediate choice in front of you — such as whether to be worthy for a child’s near-future marriage in the temple, etcetera. And depending on the age of your kids, that may not be on the table right now.
It’s not so urgent as an upcoming wedding, but DS turns 8 soon. He wants to be baptized, but DH is against it. Our families don’t know what’s going on, but it will definitely be noticed if there is no talk of baptism soon after that birthday. Then the questions will start, and I don’t know what I’ll say yet. Both our families are likely to take it pretty hard. Even DH is scared to tell them.
I am curious about the baptism. Why not treat it like any other rite of passage, and have your son baptized for family unity? Your son will make his own decisions when he gets older anyway. Baptism does not require a TR or even the Melchizedek Prriesthood, so provided your husband is even partway active, he might do the baptism. Gift of the Holy Ghost is another matter, but a family member could do that part of it, and perhaps your DH could stand in…. Just some ideas, recognizing that I don’t know your family situation.
Quote:Why not treat it like any other rite of passage, and have your son baptized for family unity?
That would be fine with me, but DH is against it. He would prefer the kids not be at church at all, and really wants to avoid having them officially on the records. However, we’ve got some family situations that make him feel pretty scared about making waves right now by telling everyone. When it comes down to it, I don’t know which direction he’ll go.
DS wants to get baptized, but we haven’t talked much with him about any alternative. DH is afraid that he’ll do it just because that’s what his friends do, and because he’s always been told that’s what happens when you turn 8. I can’t disagree with that fear. DS is a big people-pleaser. And if I truly believe what the church teaches, that the age of 8 is one at which children can make up their own minds, then DS should be able to explain and defend his choice to his father. I think there are going to be a couple of interesting conversations between the three of us before it’s all settled.
Strongly split religious differences, where a middle ground can’t be found, are hard on any marriage – no matter the specific denominational affiliation. If your husband decides to be more open and public about his view, might he find a church and have the family attend both – letting the kids choose when they are at a certain age on which you both agree? Unless he is willing to do that, refusing to allow your son to be baptized seems the worst of all options, since it will open your entire family to questions of why and pressure to have it done – especially if your son wants to be baptized.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.