Confused, directionless, and lonely

[Zack Tacorin Dos]

I feel like all my posts on here are so damn whiny.

TL,

Your situation sounds a lot like mine when I first came out to my wife. If it were just a fraction of what I went through that first year, then I'd say your reaching out for support was anything but whiny. It's hell brother. Without exaggeration it's the worst thing I've ever gone through in my life. What you're doing isn't whining. It's self preservation. I'm glad to see you're being well taken care of by a superb cast of NOM heathens.

Keep taking care of yourself and your wife. It's hell for her too.

My best,
Zack

P.S. You joked about her reaction to you trying Coca Cola being like a reaction to proposing an open marriage, and that made me chuckle, but at the same time reminded my of my wife's reaction to my disaffection. To my wife, it was as if I had committed adultery. (Oh the irony of this coming from someone singing praises to the man, but I digress.) It really felt that way to her. She would bring it up constantly. Even said she'd rather I'd have committed adultery, because she could tell my apostasy was much less likely to be something I'd "repent of" or put behind me and come back to the Church. She even had a friend who's hubby had just been found out for committing adultery. She envied that friend over her own situation. Point of long story: Your wife's fears of the uncertainty may make every little change seem like a possible indication of future horrors like adultery.

[TestimonyLost]

Wait, just to make sure I understand - she's morally opposed to drinking coca-cola?
That's a tough one there. Is Sprite OK?

Weeks ago, I tried to start with drinking Coke as a small start but, by her reaction, you might have thought I’d proposed an open marriage.

I can give a bit more context. She is morally opposed to caffeinated sodas, but it's deeper than that. When I met my wife, I was an active, faithful Mormon but I was looser than her in almost every way (TV on Sundays, caffeine guzzler, R-rated movies). She asked me to commit to giving those things up. I loved her like crazy and really wanted to have sex so I agreed to all of it without a second thought.

So when she freaks out about a Pepsi, it's the Pepsi itself and what the Pepsi represents (promises I made to her).

Weeks ago, I tried to start with drinking Coke as a small start but, by her reaction, you might have thought I’d proposed an open marriage.

Perhaps this is a place to start small. The LDS church does itself few favors in this regard. This has been debated by faithful Mormons for decades since Bruce McConkie and Joseph Fielding Smith decided to one up the Word of Wisdom by restricting the most popular soft drinks also. The LDS church would not say anything official until finally Mitt Romney achieved national scrutiny in the 2012 presidential election and one of the dumbest "scandals" was being caught drinking Diet Coke. Finally, LDS public relations announced: OK, Mormons, drink up — Coke and Pepsi are OK.

David O. McKay was far more tolerant of Word of Wisdom violations than much of the LDS church. This includes the incident when he was at a movie:

Iit was intermission and his host offered to get him some liquid refreshment.

“‘I said, ‘President McKay, what would you like to drink? All of our cups say Coca Cola on them because of our arrangement with Coca Cola Bottling, but we have root beer and we have orange and we have Seven-up. What would you like to drink?’
He said, ‘I don’t care what it says on the cup, as long as there is a Coke in the cup.'”

Love that anecdote! She will acknowledge that caffeinated soda is outside the Word of Wisdom, but it's still a very important personal commitment she's made. So anyone else drinking a Coke or not doesn't make a difference to her.

As for what I want, I’ve posted other threads about some of the changes we’ve fought over. The only thing I’ve agreed to back down on completely is alcohol. Things like R-rated movies and coffee remain very contentious. She’s agreed to some things in principal like tithing changes and allowing me to step back from church attendance but when it comes to actually implementing even the smallest changes, she freaks out.

I'm not sure if this will apply for your marriage, but something I've noticed with my DW is she will freak out about something the first time, but eventually it becomes more normal. Like with garments. I stopped wearing them one day and she cried. I wore garments again for a few days and then stopped again and she cried less. After that she stopped crying even when I wear whatever underwear I want. And I made a point not to throw it in her face, but not hide it; I think that was important. Also, with R-rated movies, my wife will never watch them and that's fine, but she knows I watch them when I feel like it and she seems to have gotten used to it.

Weeks ago, I tried to start with drinking Coke as a small start but, by her reaction, you might have thought I’d proposed an open marriage.

It sounds like you have had the discussion, and set her expectations. I can't tell, but maybe you even got a coke, and she freaked out. So I think it might be good to occasionally get a coke when she is around as though it is normal and not a big deal (because it is normal, and it's not a big deal.). You may be at a point where it's time to stop discussing some of these things and just do them. She may be disappointed and sad, but she won't be too surprised.

Though I would go with Dr. Pepper or Mt. Dew if it were me...

No way, man. Pepsi trumps all.

I think you're right about dropping the discussion. I did commit to "table" the behavioral changes for a while but after some time has passed, it may be the kind of thing I just need to start doing.

Though I would go with Dr. Pepper or Mt. Dew if it were me...

But Diet Coke has the Uchtdorf seal of approval.

Seriously, I can relate. My wife had a conniption when she found out that I let our son drink a caffeine free coke. It was a gateway drug in her mind.

Oh wow, that's actually further than my wife will go. A rare feat indeed. I can drink a caffeine-free Pepsi anytime I want. Such freedom!

Just sending support. I see myself faking it for years to come if the recent conversations I've had with my spouse are any indication. I can think or feel anything as long as I don't talk about it or quit going to church.

I can't imagine. I've been in total faker mode for three years and it's a constant mental and emotional burden.

TeLo, I feel for you. Something that helped my wife was watching this video together with me....

http://www.linkingarms.org/2014/11/12/our-story/

There is nothing in it that should cause her to be directly confronted with the "issues" that we have with the Church, so it is "safe" to watch. When he references meeting with a GA, he is talking about emeritus Elder Marlin K. Jensen. When the video was over, my wife said to me, "I understand you a whole lot better now than I did before." This was really helpful for her in turning a corner with me, my disaffection, and our relationship. It is by far the single most helpful thing she watched or read over the last six years.

Good luck!

I'll have to check it out. Thanks for the suggestion!

I feel like all my posts on here are so damn whiny. But you folks are all I've got, so here I am.

Never feel that your posts are so damn whiny. NOM quite literally saved my life at one point by giving me support through posts here and in a few cases a few members of the board checking up on me through e-mail, Facebook, and in person. This is a support group and one of the biggest reasons I stick around is because I was helped so much by all of you, that I hopefully in turn can provide support and love to others who need it.

So, whine away, my friend.

In regards to your OP, you understand that both of you have been thrown a curveball. You have come a disaffection / faith crisis of a life-enveloping religion and your wife's eternal marriage and life is changing. You are both feeling confused and lonely. It's a gamble as to what advice she may receive from those in her religious group, and there may be very little support for her there. The confusion that she feels will change her feelings daily.

I went through my faith crisis then disaffection before my then-wife. It was horrible for her (and for me as well). She was ashamed to bring it up at church and just wanted to hide it. Talks of a strong presiding priesthood holder in Relief Society tore her soul apart. She was confused and her attitude towards my questions changed on a daily basis. One day she was fine, the next she was horrified and saddened, the next she was angry, the next she was back to fine. She told me well after the divorce (don't worry, our divorce was not over the church, it was well after we both left) that my disbelief at the time felt like an affair to her.

That doesn't mean that you have to give in and ignore your feelings. It does help to acknowledge that both are feeling the pain, and that both of you haven't done anything wrong. There is a significant difference between infidelity and a faith crisis, one party hasn't done something wrong that requires forgiveness. While the emotions may have similarities, once both realize that the other is _not_ trying to church the other and that nobody is doing _bad_ things by staying faithful to the religion or not, then some healing in the relationship can take place.

Thanks. I'm surrounded by TBMs in almost all aspects of my life, so reading the posts here and the Exmo Reddit serves as a regular sanity check. It's easy when everyone around me is absolutely all in on the church to feel like I've gone crazy.

I feel like all my posts on here are so damn whiny.

TL,

Your situation sounds a lot like mine when I first came out to my wife. If it were just a fraction of what I went through that first year, then I'd say your reaching out for support was anything but whiny. It's hell brother. Without exaggeration it's the worst thing I've ever gone through in my life. What you're doing isn't whining. It's self preservation. I'm glad to see you're being well taken care of by a superb cast of NOM heathens.

Keep taking care of yourself and your wife. It's hell for her too.

My best,
Zack

P.S. You joked about her reaction to you trying Coca Cola being like a reaction to proposing an open marriage, and that made me chuckle, but at the same time reminded my of my wife's reaction to my disaffection. To my wife, it was as if I had committed adultery. (Oh the irony of this coming from someone singing praises to the man, but I digress.) It really felt that way to her. She would bring it up constantly. Even said she'd rather I'd have committed adultery, because she could tell my apostasy was much less likely to be something I'd "repent of" or put behind me and come back to the Church. She even had a friend who's hubby had just been found out for committing adultery. She envied that friend over her own situation. Point of long story: Your wife's fears of the uncertainty may make every little change seem like a possible indication of future horrors like adultery.

Thanks for the commiseration. I don't think my wife would say she'd prefer me to have stepped out, but she'd probably agree that her pain is close to comparable.

It's been a weird three months. I feel like her emotional state has been the reverse of what I expected. Her initial reaction was almost ridiculously positive ("We can get through this!") and it's gotten progressively worse as the various realities have settled in. She chalks it up to the stages of grief (her words) but I keep wondering when we're going to turn a corner. It's especially worrisome because I have yet to make any changes. I worry a lot that she will spiral even further as the changes start happening and she's already accepting that divorce is a possibility here.

[SeeNoEvil]

TestimonyLost wrote: We have talked about counseling. After a particularly bad row a month or so ago, she actually said we had to have counseling to even keep talking. We agreed on going to an LDS counselor that wasn’t from LDS Social Services. But things calmed down and we’ve had some more positive talks (in relative terms, of course) more recently, so for now that idea has been set aside. She saw her parents go to counseling for years and years while she was growing up and it never did anything for them so I think that makes her reluctant about the whole thing.

If you are serious about going to counseling and can get her on board for it I would STRONGLY consider going to a NON LDS counselor or find one that will be sympathetic to your LDS concerns. If you are in the MorCor pm me and I can recommend one. I haven't personally been to him but have heard he is pretty good and mormon. In fact he was someone Hermey suggested. I think his office is in S. Jordan.

[Newme]

Seriously, I can relate. My wife had a conniption when she found out that I let our son drink a caffeine free coke. It was a gateway drug in her mind.

One kind of traumatic moment that stands out in my childhood is when I accidentally ordered Mountain Dew, thinking it was like Sprite.
My sister flipped and I felt like I had just committed the worst sin!

When I was dating my DH, I was drinking Iced Tea (which has less than 1/2 the caffeine of some sodas) and he grabbed it out of my hands and threw it in the trash (red flag I ignored). I've explained to him that doctors will sometimes suggest drinking tea or coffee (in moderation) but would never recommend sodas.

[Newme]

She sees the pain it causes me. But she’s feeling a whole lot of pain herself so I think she’s wrapped up in that right now more than worrying about my pain. I don’t know. Maybe that’s unfair of me, but that’s how it feels.

I wonder if because of mind-control/church teachings, some TBM spouses believe that a faith crisis is a sin - like we're doing something wrong and intentionally "sinning" by not believing in the church. So, I tried to explain to my DH, "Imagine if you were raised in Islam - your whole life you believed that it was the only true religion, until finally, you realized it wasn't and that it had some major flaws. Then people around you in Islam were telling you how bad you were for questioning it. Well, that's a little how I feel." And I also pointed out how Joseph Smith and Jesus were considered heretics - apostate etc. for following what they knew in their hearts to be true.

Thanks for the commiseration. I don't think my wife would say she'd prefer me to have stepped out, but she'd probably agree that her pain is close to comparable.

It's been a weird three months. I feel like her emotional state has been the reverse of what I expected. Her initial reaction was almost ridiculously positive ("We can get through this!") and it's gotten progressively worse as the various realities have settled in. She chalks it up to the stages of grief (her words) but I keep wondering when we're going to turn a corner. It's especially worrisome because I have yet to make any changes. I worry a lot that she will spiral even further as the changes start happening and she's already accepting that divorce is a possibility here.

My DH also threatened divorce - and gathered friends and extended family to gang up on me to try to force me to believe as they did.
Why do so many marriages and families have to be torn apart simply because a church is held up as god and as more important than love?
Don't they understand that Jesus (who the church is named after) taught that the greatest commandment was NOT to obey the church, but to love others as well as ourselves?

Sorry to vent a bit on you.

What changes would you like to make?

[MerrieMiss]

I can relate to feeling whiny. I was seeing a therapist a few years ago. She was great for the depression, but it wasn't working out for the religious stuff. NOM has been far more helpful. Pile it on. Sometimes it just feels really good to be heard.

I've found the most difficult thing in my marriage is that I can't be honest with the one person I am supposed to be closest to and the distance that creates is overwhelming. Someone who hasn't gone through this simply can't understand the physical toll it takes on a person to pretend. Pretending is an easy solution to avoid conflict, but unhealthy in many ways. And as you pretend, the gulf between you just gets wider and wider.

You can try counseling together or just on your own. My own problem with it was that my therapist didn't know anything about Mormons, so in order to explain my issues, I spent a majority of the time explaining mormonism. I felt like billing the therapist. So my only suggestion is to find someone who is sympathetic to a person in faith transition and who has some kind of knowledge of Mormonism.

[Anon70]

Pretending is an easy solution to avoid conflict, but unhealthy in many ways. And as you pretend, the gulf between you just gets wider and wider.

I can empathize with this--I feel this in my situation as well. I have been focusing on being ok where he is and trying to help him to do the same for me. Saw some improvement this week which made me feel hopeful.

[TestimonyLost]

If you are serious about going to counseling and can get her on board for it I would STRONGLY consider going to a NON LDS counselor or find one that will be sympathetic to your LDS concerns. If you are in the MorCor pm me and I can recommend one. I haven't personally been to him but have heard he is pretty good and mormon. In fact he was someone Hermey suggested. I think his office is in S. Jordan.

I'm in the Boise area. Part of both our hesitation to go is that we both recognize I'm likely to mistrust an LDS counselor and she's likely to mistrust a non-LDS counselor. Getting away from LDS Social Services was at least something we could agree on, but for now at least, we're not pursuing that route.

Seriously, I can relate. My wife had a conniption when she found out that I let our son drink a caffeine free coke. It was a gateway drug in her mind.

One kind of traumatic moment that stands out in my childhood is when I accidentally ordered Mountain Dew, thinking it was like Sprite.
My sister flipped and I felt like I had just committed the worst sin!

When I was dating my DH, I was drinking Iced Tea (which has less than 1/2 the caffeine of some sodas) and he grabbed it out of my hands and threw it in the trash (red flag I ignored). I've explained to him that doctors will sometimes suggest drinking tea or coffee (in moderation) but would never recommend sodas.

It's funny the weird stories that come out of an oddball culture like Mormonism. Not a Mountain Dew!!!!

She sees the pain it causes me. But she’s feeling a whole lot of pain herself so I think she’s wrapped up in that right now more than worrying about my pain. I don’t know. Maybe that’s unfair of me, but that’s how it feels.

I wonder if because of mind-control/church teachings, some TBM spouses believe that a faith crisis is a sin - like we're doing something wrong and intentionally "sinning" by not believing in the church. So, I tried to explain to my DH, "Imagine if you were raised in Islam - your whole life you believed that it was the only true religion, until finally, you realized it wasn't and that it had some major flaws. Then people around you in Islam were telling you how bad you were for questioning it. Well, that's a little how I feel." And I also pointed out how Joseph Smith and Jesus were considered heretics - apostate etc. for following what they knew in their hearts to be true.

Thanks for the commiseration. I don't think my wife would say she'd prefer me to have stepped out, but she'd probably agree that her pain is close to comparable.

It's been a weird three months. I feel like her emotional state has been the reverse of what I expected. Her initial reaction was almost ridiculously positive ("We can get through this!") and it's gotten progressively worse as the various realities have settled in. She chalks it up to the stages of grief (her words) but I keep wondering when we're going to turn a corner. It's especially worrisome because I have yet to make any changes. I worry a lot that she will spiral even further as the changes start happening and she's already accepting that divorce is a possibility here.

My DH also threatened divorce - and gathered friends and extended family to gang up on me to try to force me to believe as they did.
Why do so many marriages and families have to be torn apart simply because a church is held up as god and as more important than love?
Don't they understand that Jesus (who the church is named after) taught that the greatest commandment was NOT to obey the church, but to love others as well as ourselves?

Sorry to vent a bit on you.

What changes would you like to make?

Everyone in this thread has reassured me that this place is for whining and venting, so go right ahead!

My wife has said she doesn't believe that I'm deceived by Satan but she also thinks I'm deeply wrong. So I don't know how she internally reconciles that. Maybe deep down, she does feel like I've sinned and speculates on what could have taken me down such a wrong path.

To her credit, I wouldn't say that my wife has threatened divorce. She's made it clear that she thinks it's a possibility but I didn't take it in a harsh way. If anything, I sadly agree with her. Some of the hurdles we have ahead seem near insurmountable.

As for changes, I just want to live as an open nonbeliever, take some formal steps away from church (not looking for resigation at this point though), and make a few behavioral changes. It's actually the last one that has my wife the most freaked out. She just can't imagine me drinking coffee or watching R-rated movies (as a couple examples). I broached the topic of alcohol and it was clear that was a total dealbreaker so that's the one thing I've agreed to let go.

I can relate to feeling whiny. I was seeing a therapist a few years ago. She was great for the depression, but it wasn't working out for the religious stuff. NOM has been far more helpful. Pile it on. Sometimes it just feels really good to be heard.

I've found the most difficult thing in my marriage is that I can't be honest with the one person I am supposed to be closest to and the distance that creates is overwhelming. Someone who hasn't gone through this simply can't understand the physical toll it takes on a person to pretend. Pretending is an easy solution to avoid conflict, but unhealthy in many ways. And as you pretend, the gulf between you just gets wider and wider.

You can try counseling together or just on your own. My own problem with it was that my therapist didn't know anything about Mormons, so in order to explain my issues, I spent a majority of the time explaining mormonism. I felt like billing the therapist. So my only suggestion is to find someone who is sympathetic to a person in faith transition and who has some kind of knowledge of Mormonism.

Yeah, the lack of openness and communication on something so important to both of us is very challenging. And living in Boise surrounded by Mormons and her family that's all super-TBM, LDS life is in our face all the time. It's tied into everything.

The physical toll (brought on by the mental and emotional toll) is actually what prompted me telling my wife everything a few months ago. I just couldn't imagine faking it all forever and it was wearing me down. Of course, I've been even more anxious and depressed since then so I keep wondering when my decision to come clean will bear some fruit.

Pretending is an easy solution to avoid conflict, but unhealthy in many ways. And as you pretend, the gulf between you just gets wider and wider.

I can empathize with this--I feel this in my situation as well. I have been focusing on being ok where he is and trying to help him to do the same for me. Saw some improvement this week which made me feel hopeful.

I have hope that one day we'll just be working to understand one another. With so much up in the air right now, it feels like we're just trying to get through it on our own. Neither of us has the energy to really empathize with what the other one is going through.