Two telling interactions

[Thoughtful]

1. Spouseman received email from seminary president, wanting our son's contact info. "His friends miss him at seminary." Spouseman replied that son might be willing to talk to her if it's about a real friendship, but if it's just to get him to come to seminary, it would not be welcome. He did not share contact info.

Response: Thank you for the information.

2. Spouseman received a text from MIL exhorting him to return to church activity and access the atonement and stop shunning his family. He responded that we are happy, following God's will for our family, and that his brothers who send aggressive hateful messages to him about being an apostate probably need her encouragement to be decent human beings more than he does.

Response: I know that you think you're on a good path....


This is all so predictable isn't it? We can't know or decide what's best for ourselves. We can't have authority to make our own decisions. We certainly can't expect a "no" to be respected. We've told seminary to back off, so they switch the approach to a student instead of a teacher instead of a stake leader.

[RubinHighlander]

Geez! I send them all a copy of the Faith Crisis Report and tell them to shut the hell up!

I'm so glad I didn't get hammered by family and friends like that.

[Red Ryder]

Access the atonement? Mormon lingo is so strange to me now? WTf??

Quick, somebody go grab access to the atonement and give Spouseman 10 ml stat!

[Linked]

Sorry you and your spouseman are going through this, dealing with TBM family is hard. I haven't had to deal with actively antagonistic family members, but just knowing how they must think of you is depressing. Good luck moving forward through this!

I've shared this before, but it's good so here it is again. Carl Jung wrote of loneliness:

Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.

[Anon70]

I love both of his responses. When family was calling me “filthy apostate” (only half joking) I wondered what they’d say if I called them sheep or cult members. It’s really not a two way street with many Mormons—I’m impressed he kept his cool and calmly responded.