- This topic is empty.
-
Posts
-
Over the past year and a half my wife has struggled with the Temple and now the church as a whole. Because of a promise she made, she is coming to the Temple with me one last time. To be honest, I have been putting this date off to hopefully give her more time. It feels almost like going to a funeral, which is a strange way to handle going to the temple and I am struggling with it a bit. She is still active in the church, partly because she likes the people, and enjoys her callings doing piano for the choir and for primary. Also, because our oldest who is still in primary and is on the spectrum, would have a hard time copying with the change of her not coming to church. She wants to explore outside of church.
I am trying to be supportive of her and I love her now more than ever, and in some ways I feel closer to her then ever. To be honest our marriage is pretty great and I believe will continue to remain great. And she is an amazing woman. But, this is part is hard for me. The idea that I can’t go to the temple with my wife anymore, isn’t something I ever thought would happen. We used to enjoy going to the temple when we did go, though I never liked the temple as our only date night (because you aren’t ever really by your spouse), but the act of going, the spirit we felt and the smile on her phase after a session are still there for me.
It is her agency and I cannot change her, to be honest the hardest part of everything has been, I don’t know what to pray for. I don’t feel like I can pray to change her will, as that to be honest doesn’t feel Christlike. I try and pray for her happiness, whatever that might be for her.
I know this day will be hard for me and that we will have brighter days ahead, it just feels so weird to be headed to the temple with so much sadness. How can I make this a better experience for her and for me?
supportinghusband wrote:
I know this day will be hard for me and that we will have brighter days ahead, it just feels so weird to be headed to the temple with so much sadness. How can I make this a better experience for her and for me?
I’m sorry that you’re feeling sadness over your wife’s decision. I have always felt that people should do whatever they are inspired to do.
She did it for the past year & her feelings haven’t changed. Maybe with the passage of time, she will feel differently & go back again.
My wife doesn’t particularly like to go either. I look at the experience as a kind of school where we are taught by repetition.
The lesson being taught is for my benefit & understanding alone. Besides, I’m a very slow learner & I need repetition.
Try not to look at this experience as a loss. I’ll be thinking of you today.
It’s great you’re supportive and wanting to help. I was on the other side of this equation in that I am the doubter and I am the one who stopped coming to church. I remember asking some questions early on in my crisis on another forum (before I found this place) and I actually did get some good advice – this isn’t what my wife thought she was signing up for. She married a worthy TR holding guy who she thought would always be active in the church. Trying to see the issue from the other side of the table was helpful for me. It might be helpful for you too. In those early days of questioning and doubt, going to temple was not high on my list, partly because I wasn’t even sure there was a God much less that the temple was “God’s house.” Nothing made sense anymore and the temple was a stressful place for me because it actually seemed to make some things worse. In truth, 15 years down the road I still don’t look forward to going to the temple and I don’t very often (I also have the excuse that it’s 2+ hours away). My wife likes to go, but more out of a sense of duty than anything else. I don’t much out of the sense of duty anymore, at least where church is concerned. If I’m going to go to the temple I’m going to go because I want to go.
Part of what I think I’m hearing from you is that you love the temple and don’t understand why she doesn’t. You may never understand. Some people just don’t like it for a variety of reasons. And sometimes it’s only temporary (in an eternal sense) because the individual needs to find their own answers or just sort things out. But you can’t change her or what she feels – even through prayer. You can change you. I’d advise you to let it go. If you still want to go to the temple, go but don’t be a travel agent of guilt for her. Find something else you both enjoy doing together.
I don’t have any sage advice for this particular one trip. I can sometimes be blunt as people here can attest to – IMO it looks like you’re the problem tonight. You’re the Negative Nancy because you’ve made it about you as opposed to us.
I’ve been on the other side. While I was going through my faith crisis, my wife started to recognize going to the temple was more and more of a stressful ordeal for me. I’d have pretty bad anxiety whenever we’d go through. I think our last time, we went to have sealings. She figured it was short and we could leave whenever we wanted. I don’t think I lasted 20 minutes. It’s very hard to go through what you’re wife is going through. I know it’s been hard on my wife, what she’s had to deal with with my disbelief. It’s incredibly hard for the both of you. I don’t have any advice on someone in your shoes can cope. Heck, a lot of the time I feel like I ruined by wife’s life and happiness when I told her I no longer believe. Sometimes I wonder if it’d be better if I died, so she could remarry and have a happy, normal Mormon life. It’s a very hard place to be, even when your spouse is as wonderful and supportive as mine is.
I guess if I was throwing out suggestions how to best help her, I’d recommend not holding her to her promise. I’d take her out to dinner instead, tell her I love her, support her, and will stick with her no matter what. I think attending the temple together will make both of you sad, for much the same reason. It’s not over till it’s over, and your wife might very well change her mind. Or maybe not. But if she returns to the temple, it should be because she chooses to. And if not, it’s important to love her and learn to accept her.
supportinghusband wrote:
I don’t know what to pray for.
I’d pray for
amori fati, or the love of one’s fate; that deep down no matter what has happen or what will happen, good or bad or a complete mess, we’ll take it all with a grateful heart. Everything’s alright. You’re going to be ok. 
Thanks for the thoughts everyone. Believe, me I know this has been harder on my wife then it has me. Which is why I often pray for her to find happiness and peace. I have had many doubts in the past as well, but I have been able to reconcile a lot of things, that make the church fit well in my life. I actually very much understand a lot of the issues my wife has with the temple. Some, I am trying to learn more on. We are planning on doing sealings tonight. I think partly for my own sentimentalities sack. As for me the least enjoyable ceremony in the temple is the endowment. I would much rather do sealings or initatories anyway. I have asked my wife if she wants to go and she says she does. But, if she didn’t want to, I would be fine with that as well, probably much easier on me as well.
Without question I need to focus less on me and I am being the negative one. Again, I am fairly sentimental, so that is what a lot of this is as we don’t go to the temple a lot. I enjoy when I do, but personally find it boring. And when you do the math, it won’t take long for everyone to be endowed in the millennium anyway. I have issues with the temple as well, but I look at the church as something that can continue to improve and the problematic language can eventually change, so it doesn’t bother me as much as her.
Overall, I just want her to be happy. We honestly love raising our family together, we love being business partners together, we love playing together, talking and philosophizing together, serving together, our sex life is great. We have few disagreements and have always had few disagreements. And she is going to continue to be a wonderful person. So I think I am just struggling with this change and I will enjoy this time with her tonight and try and savor it for what it is.
You picked an appropriate name for this site. There are thousands of people that wish their spouse would be so supportive. Many attempt “unrighteous dominion” and force their companion to comply (even though they don’t believe).
But I do recognize the pain. It hurts me that my loss of faith really hurts my wife. I appreciate how you are dealing with the pain.
Best of luck to both of you.
Welcome Supporting Husband, DW and I have had a long journey together on this road. For the longest time my wife treated my changing beliefs as though I was going through a phase. It felt incredibly patronizing, as though she was telling me that I was being cranky and I needed a nap to make it all better.
😯 It made sense to her way of thinking. The church teachings are the light of the gospel and the only eternally true perspective. Some people may become temporarily confused by the trickery of Satan. However the light and truthfulness of the gospel is always available if we but turn to it. It was natural for her to assume that I could revert back to my former belief.I think that she felt that if I did not believe that I could change back then that itself would become a self fulfilling prophecy. She felt that she had to help keep that door open for me by reminding me that I could change back – which I in turn understood as her delegitimizing the faith journey that I was on and generally expressing discontentment with me as her husband.
There was a moment that changed all that. I explained to her that my current belief is that God does not intervene (or almost never) in mortality. This belief was the result of a personal and family tragedy that I had thought that God would prevent because of our faithfulness. My wife lived through that dark time with me and was very sympathetic and understanding of how I got to where I am. I continued to explain that because I do not believe in God’s interventions, any things that may be possible blessings would be interpreted by me as not being from God. In order for me to start believing in God’s interventions again I would need to experience a divine intervention that is so powerful, undeniable, and jarring as to completely change my paradigm. It would have to be a Alma the Younger or Road to Damascus moment – meaning that God would have to initiate. My wife agreed and from that moment on I feel like my wife has been able to accept me as the good husband that she has rather than trying to change me back into the good Mormon that I was.
Long story short. All of us have failings. In a marriage it can be vitally important to focus on the good that your spouse provides rather than to bemoan those areas where the spouse is lacking.
supportinghusband wrote:
She wants to explore outside of church.
I can definitely understand this part. The church can feel very limiting and insular. There is a whole world of ideas, chaos, and wonder out there. Curt sometimes says that there are settlers and there are explorers. The settlers tend to need stability, safety, and routine. The explorers tend to need adventure, new thoughts and ways of looking at things, and wide open spaces. Both can coexist. Both serve a useful and mutually beneficial purpose.
All of my advice borrows heavily from my personal experiences. It may or may not apply towards your situation. Feel free to use what works and discard the rest.
I don’t know how I can help you except to talk a bit about the last time I went to the temple. To me, it was more like the nail in the coffin than one last chance to see the light. I felt nothing. No spirit. Only anguish that it was ‘over’ for me. I now haven’t been to the temple since Al Gore was our VP. However, I have recognized that it is a positive experience for my wife. She doesn’t lament that I’m not there, and that makes it easier for me to support her desire to go. On my own, I do feel sorry that she has to go alone. She never makes me feel that way. We’ve both reached an equilibrium where we just watch out for each other and for our common best interest. We go to a lot of Temple Open Houses, as a way to celebrate the good of the Church together. One thing I can suggest. Don’t think of it as her free agency. She likely didn’t actively choose this. Think of it more as part of her belief/faith that it unique to her. It’s not lacking (which would be the outcome of choosing something away from the Church – agency) but rather something present in her (the way she sees God, the Church, her friends, her family).
My best wishes for both of you tonight and going forward together.
Continue to love and support her, as you have been and are doing. You have been sealed to her. Not attending the temple doesn’t change that. Keep working on becoming one. Let God work out the rest – and believe he will do so lovingly and compassionately.
supportinghusband wrote:How can I make this a better experience for her and for me?
God allows things to happen in this life so we can learn and grow.
There is great growth in how to love by letting go of conditions we place on others, and accepting things in this life as they are, while still having faith that there are greater things in the next life and not all is final now.
What decisions are made in this life are not final, and there is time later in the eternities to work things out. So…what we do now is learn to love and build relationships by accepting others where they are at, and not ruin relationships now because they aren’t what we want them to be. We can learn that some things are of less importance than building relationships based on love and trust and acceptance. The rest takes care of itself.
Some examples of things we can learn from:
– Investigator chooses to smoke, but comes to church. Can we accept them or do they need to wait until they are smoke-free to join us?
– A couple finds out they cannot have children. Can they build loving plans for the eternities while accepting the conditions now are not what they always wanted it to be?
– Through unavoidable divorce by the choice of another person, the divorced couple is still sealed to the person they aren’t married to anymore. Can they have faith it gets worked out in the next life even if this life is not the standard happy family unit they thought was promised to in their patriarchal blessings or the blessings promised in the temple?
I think there are situations that happen in life that make us re-evaluate conditions we expected to be blessed with through obedience, only to learn life is more complicated, less certain, and we don’t control others or even the outcomes in our own lives.
We simply have to learn to let go of needing to have it one way for it to be ok.
My advice is to realize you may go through the stages of grief we all go through when things change and we lose what we wanted, but we work through those stages and come out a better person for it.
Loving your wife, and accepting her choices, may be the things that save you and your own spirit in become more god-like…and enhances your own temple experience, by expanding your faith to know that the relationships go beyond this world, and there is much to be worked out in the next life, and that is OK with God. It is part of his plan. There are sometimes no other ways for you to learn these things unless you experience it, and how you have a greater capacity to love even when you have to let go of what you “thought” it was going to be like.
Faith.
Love.
That is what the temple experience is trying to teach us. Regardless of individual circumstances that vary.
Be humble to realize you are not better than her because you are in the temple. You can choose to use the temple to become a better you, and she may choose other things to become a better wife. But your way to become better does not mean it is better for her, or everyone else. It is YOUR way…and focus on that.
You can grow from this. You can find greater meaning in the temple from this. You can understand God more from this.
I’m sorry it won’t be easy.
I am usually sharing this quote with ex/post-Mormons so they can present it to their believing spouses/family members. But it applies here. Quote:A prophet of God once offered me counsel that gives me peace. I was worried that the choices of others might make it impossible for our family to be together forever. He said, “You are worrying about the wrong problem. You just live worthy of the celestial kingdom, and the family arrangements will be more wonderful than you can imagine.”
Good quote LH :clap: supportinghusband wrote:
How can I make this a better experience for her and for me?
Revel in the fact that you have a person with whom there is love and companionship. People in relationships don’t always have that. Let that be enough. Ignore all the church “shoulds” there are a lot of unknowns about what will happen to us after we die — enjoy the fact that you have someone you love and that there is a good relationship. Work on making your relationship better and better by loving her and supporting her in the whole temple thing.
I won’t be too autobiographical, but I’ve been in a temple marriage for decades and there isn’t a lot of love and companionship in it. Even when we had the temple (we aren’t TR holders). And so many of my friends are divorced or older and single now. Having a loving relationship with someone, whether in or out of the church, is good for your health, your longevity on the planet etcetera. Revel in that — not all have it. Believe me, and as the achievements of life are accomplished, one by one, and your body grows older, a satisfying relationship becomes even more important. Revel in the one you have, and DON’T LET THE CHURCH HURT IT.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.