I Was Born A Poor Mormon Child

Friday, October 27, 2006

I have written about some of the details surrounding my experiences with and exit from Mormonism. Let me give you a more broad overview so you can see the whole picture.

My wife and I were married in 1993 after a short engagement. We were both barely 19. I saw marriage as a terrific, acceptable alternative to going on a mission (which I resisted subconsciously. I would learn much later that I never embraced Mormonism, I simply lived it). She and I married civilly first (We weren't temple worthy. Try to guess why not.) The local ward gym cleaned up really nice and we had a lovely ceremony with a band and no receiving line. We even managed to put the basketball hoops up so the Priests wouldn't crash the party to play basketball.

Now, here is a classic case of the church having heavier influence than I should have let it... I was thrilled not to have married in the temple. I was afraid of the unknown experience and, frankly, wasn't into church that much. I was happy to have a girlfriend who liked to fool around and seemed to have as much ability to shrug off church as I did.

Once we were married however it was as if things had changed 180 degrees. She no longer seemed interested in the sexual relationship and even showed signs that she felt enormous guilt about it. Her focus became fixed on getting to the temple as soon as possible. I felt compelled to keep my new wife and her family happy by going through the motions. I felt, at the time, that my heart was in it, but I know now that I did almost everything I could to resist. Nevertheless, we went to the temple. We were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple one year to the day later.

I can honestly say, in fact I actually I said this to my wife shortly after attending the first time, that the temple was the strangest thing I had ever been a part of. I thought for sure my feelings would be shared by my wife, but they weren't. So, I tried to reconcile my feelings of doubt with that which I had been taught I should love (the temple).

As time went on I found myself agreeing with less and less of what was being taught in church. I, of course, only studied church-approved material. I fasted. I prayed. I read. I pondered. One day in 2001 I decided I simply could not live with calling myself Mormon when I know that I did not agree with its teachings. I told my wife this and said I would not wear my garments any more. She was devastated.

After some time I decided that perhaps my feelings about the church came from having a less-than-solid understanding of a great many things. I decided to start fresh. I wiped my mind clean of any preconceived thoughts about anything and attended church again with an open mind. I went alone as my wife and I were separated (due to a series of stupid mistakes on my part)

I found again the teachings of Mormonism to be incompatible with my own heart and mind. I decided to never go back. My wife, however had different ideas. My renewed church attendance had been, in part, a condition of her re-accepting me into her arms again. I tried to explain that my attempts to reinvestigate the church were sincere but I believe she saw the events of our separation and my "apostasy" as inseparably related (i.e., I would not have left the church were it not for want of an excuse to sin). Therefore, my inactivity in church comes across as renewed activity in sin. That couldn't be farther from the truth.

In fact, I attend therapy once a week (voluntarily, as I have done for 3+ years) in an effort to continually improve myself, my marriage, my communication skills, etc. Because of the teachings of the church, in part, and her family, in particular, she cannot manage to separate that I can be a good husband and father without being a Priesthood and Temple Recommend holder. She accepts on the surface that I am good and worthy as a person, but it is clearly not a deeply held belief.

At one point, last summer, we stayed at her parent's house while our new home was being built. There is not a day that went by that I didn't hear some implication that I am not trusted, or not worthy due to my lack of Mormon faith. This still weighs so heavily on my marriage that it can scarcely bear the weight some days. Within a week of moving into our new neighborhood I formally resigned my membership in the LDS Church.

The upside is that despite all the years of troubles, therapy works. The skills I have learned there have been invaluable in navigating the difficulties of marriage. Without those skills and a lot of hard work on my part, Mormonism surely would have crushed my marriage by now. I would have succumbed to its weight without so much as a whimper and would not have even recognized what had happened.

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Permanent Link: I Was Born A Poor Mormon Child
Filed under: Marriage | Mormonism

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