To go or not to go?

[hallew]

A few weeks ago I was scrolling through FB and saw a friend of a friend's post sharing a mormon stories podcast of their cousin and spouse being interviewed. I decided to listen.

I told my husband about it and he got upset with me. (Backstory--we previously discussed me avoiding negative forums/posts/podcasts because he felt I was spending too much time, borderline obsessive, on them. He thought these places and content were more harmful, than helpful to my mental health.)

This response triggered me to quickly respond: Well, where am I supposed to go for support? I know you get tired of talking about it. In fact, the other night I brought up "x" topic and you changed the subject. I feel pressured by you that I have to go to church. A place that I feel like a piece of me dies every time I attend. Half of the time I have to hold back tears at some point.

He was taken back. One I don't usually get emotional and he said he never pressured me into going. I said that it felt like it.

Life continued on and religion wasn't brought back up. We missed the last two Sundays since we were out of town.

This morning after I woke up and was snuggling next to him I was wondering what our Sunday was going to look like. Should I go to church or not go? How do I breach this conversation with my husband? I think he felt my concern. He looked at me and said, "I have to teach a lesson today and am going to church, but I don't want you to feel pressured that you need to go. If you need space, that is ok." We spoke more. I expressed concerns about how is parents will react (his dad is part of the stake presidency). He hugged me and reiterated that he has my back and I can set boundaries without having to answer anyone's inquiries. He did want to take our girls with him and asked I would help get them ready. I didn't mind this.

This is the first Sunday where I stayed home alone by choice because it is what I needed. It's bittersweet.

[alas]

It is still kind of bitter sweet for me as I sit home alone with my DH at church after more than 10 years of it. I am happy for him that he likes church, and happy for me that he accepts me not going, but sad that we are so fat apart on something so important. I always hated how church made me feel as a woman, and hated so much of the glorification of the male, from top leaders down to how my sexually and physically abusive father was worth more to the church than any of his female victims. So, now I sit home and read Bishop Bill’s blog, feminist blogs, and NOM on Sunday mornings while my husband goes to church.

[stealthbishop]

It's really hard when we are not on the same page on important matters with our partners. It's painful. He had a decent response which is really good. That change to not going as much or at all can seem threatening to the more orthodox partner in a variety of ways. It will take time for you and him to adjust. I'm glad you have NOM for support. We get it. It's not easy for anyone but when it comes to the one leaning out of the church they need a new support system of people who understand.

[jfro18]

When I stopped going I knew it was really difficult for my wife and it was really difficult for me... it's a really sucky thing to have to adjust to and it feels like a wedge is created where you both have separate "lives" because Mormonism impacts us every day.

For me I couldn't do it anymore and it was making me miserable in large part because my EQ president wouldn't leave me alone, so I had to either accept a calling to be a counselor (because I wasn't going to enough activities) or stop going... and that finally got me to stop going.

That said, me going sucked for me but sucked for my wife too because she became a 'Sunday widow' every week going by herself. I felt bad about that too because she obviously didn't expect for me to stop going. I guess you just deal with it and find other things to try and bridge that gap the church causes or at least find ways to avoid going into that gap.

[Red Ryder]

Sounds very similar to my situation.

Things came to a crossroads when the ward opened back for in person services after the CoVId break.

Sister Ryder responded very similar to your husband in expressing disappointment but overall support.

So now on Saturday nights we check in with each other so that we know what to expect on Sunday morning. It takes the stress out of it. She accepts my choice to stay home and I accept her choice to go.

I’m probably 70% stay home and 30% attend with her for sacrament meeting. I enjoy sitting next to her and reading my phone if that’s what it takes to maintain a happy spouse.

She’s also skipped a few Sunday’s too.

It’s the communication part that bridges the differences.

And just so your husband will know NOM is a positive place… I’ll leave you with rainbows, lollipops, unicorns, and beautiful flowers. May God bless your life and marriage with his abundance love and tender mercies! NOM people understand both sides of the struggle. Positive thoughts!
Helpful advice. Sort of the anti-anti-Mormon board of disbelievers with experience maneuvering through Mormonism.

[jfro18]

And just so your husband will know NOM is a positive place… I’ll leave you with rainbows, lollipops, unicorns, and beautiful flowers. May God bless your life and marriage with his abundance love and tender mercies! NOM people understand both sides of the struggle. Positive thoughts!
Helpful advice. Sort of the anti-anti-Mormon board of disbelievers with experience maneuvering through Mormonism.

In all seriousness I view NOM this way... it's not going to be a group that will encourage anyone to stay in the Mormon church, but it absolutely is a board that I think is so much more healthy for people who are in the process of losing faith in Mormonism than other outlets online whether it's ExMo reddit, facebook groups, etc.

I wish I had found NOM before I found other things because it would've made things a lot better early on especially with communicating to my wife the things I was feeling and learning... having perspectives that are not angry, but just supportive and based on going through it before is so helpful and I wish more people could find that either before or along with the 'usual' avenues.

[nibbler]

I know the feeling. It's ironic, having a spouse give you the greenlight to stop attending church can add more pressure, not take away pressure.

When you don't have the greenlight you're in a mental mode where you're fighting for your right to not attend church. When you're given the greenlight the wind gets taken out of those sails and you find yourself worrying about disappointing your spouse. You might even start to feel guilty for making your own choices.

For me I couldn't do it anymore and it was making me miserable in large part because my EQ president wouldn't leave me alone, so I had to either accept a calling to be a counselor (because I wasn't going to enough activities) or stop going... and that finally got me to stop going.

Black and white thinking extends to black and white behavior. At church we're not very good at allowing people to approach programs and practices on their own terms. Just as with beliefs, it's presented as an all or nothing affair. Church becomes exhausting when the experience is little more than 20 opportunities to enforce boundaries every single Sunday.

I know it's difficult. Everything about it is difficult, the programming, the habits, entanglement in our relationship with the people we love.

One phrase popped in my head when I read the OP. "You cannot heal in the same environment that made you sick."

[Linked]

My wife and I worked it out where we go to church together half the time and stay home together half the time. We are both understanding that the other might want to attend or not attend more often, but so far that schedule has worked ok for both of us. We did miss a church week due to a vacation and DW wanted to go to SM the following week and I wanted to be there with the family more than I wanted to not be there, so I went too. I leave after SM and play with my phone the whole time so it's not too bad. Though I still heard the testimony from the lady who was mad at her dead friend for leaving the church and not being buried in her garments, "she was no longer herself."

Like Red Ryder said, understanding and communication are key. It sounds like your husband is pretty understanding after that discussion you had a few weeks ago, so it sounds like you are in a decent spot. Good luck!

[stuck]

My wife and I worked it out where we go to church together half the time and stay home together half the time. We are both understanding that the other might want to attend or not attend more often, but so far that schedule has worked ok for both of us.

Lucky! That would be a nice spot to be in for me Linked. So far it has been very one-sided for me. Although my wife let's me have my freedom as to whether I accept callings or not and whether to attend priesthood or not. But she still wants to do church when we go on vacation How did you get her to agree not to go half the time?

[alas]

My wife and I worked it out where we go to church together half the time and stay home together half the time. We are both understanding that the other might want to attend or not attend more often, but so far that schedule has worked ok for both of us.

Lucky! That would be a nice spot to be in for me Linked. So far it has been very one-sided for me. Although my wife let's me have my freedom as to whether I accept callings or not and whether to attend priesthood or not. But she still wants to do church when we go on vacation How did you get her to agree not to go half the time?

Your spouse needs to see it as a compromise between what is good and healthy for you and what is good and healthy for them. It is not a compromise between what is right and good, and pure evil apostasy. Nope, that isn’t a compromise they can make.

They have to see your side enough to understand that for you, church is painful, frustrating, and emotionally harmful. It really helps if they see you come home hurting. So don’t do too good of a job of smashing all the feelings inside yourself. If you feel so angry you could smash walls, at least say how you feel. For years I hid how church hurt me because I thought it would hurt my husband, or threaten the marriage. I hit I point where the threat to the marriage was not as much danger as the depression and self hatred caused by trying to believe the church crap. So, I started showing him the hurt and discussing the things that made me hate Mormon god. Gradually he started to see how the church was the same kind of abusive environment that I grew up in, just not physical kind of sexual abuse. No, the sexual abuse was all emotional, body shaming, gender shaming, guilt for being normal. But the kind of emotional abuse that my mother did was just exactly the same as church, perfectionism, never being good enough, almost perfect being failure.

You really can’t heal in the same environment that made you sick.

So, after church, have a discussion, in the car on the way home, in front of the children, or whatever neighbor you are giving a ride home. if it turns into a blow up, that is fine too. It just has to be honest, and no hitting. Tell them how church makes you feel, feel about yourself, feel about God, whatever, just be honest. Then later, you can dissect the conversation and get into the details. Still later you can discuss solutions.

Just like you can’t go from zero to sixty on your bike, uphill in a Hurricane in two seconds, your spouse cannot go from TBM and all the indoctrination about how you will become a drug abusing alcoholic in the gutter (DAAitG) if you stop attending church to a compassionate spouse of a disaffected former Mormon all at once.

It takes seeing your side of things and it takes time to prove you are not going to become DAAitG if you stop attending, and it takes seeing the harm church can do.

So, (1) show or at least tell your honest feelings. (2) talk talk talk. (3) give it time. (4) be the best most loving spouse you can possibly be. I didn’t discuss #4, but it is important too.

[Linked]

Lucky! That would be a nice spot to be in for me Linked. So far it has been very one-sided for me. Although my wife let's me have my freedom as to whether I accept callings or not and whether to attend priesthood or not. But she still wants to do church when we go on vacation How did you get her to agree not to go half the time?

We agreed to the every other week schedule when church restarted after the Covid shutdown. Early on(~7 years ago) I told her I would prefer not to go at all, but that I would attend anyway so she wouldn't have to deal with the attention of being husbandless in SM. Then with Covid we didn't attend at all for months, and when it came back I pitched this and she agreed. The things that led me to this and that I think are important are:

- My pain from going to church be recognized and minimized
- DW's pain from NOT going to church be recognized and minimized
- Neither of us are abandoning our family to pursue our preferred Sunday activity

It's been a good compromise I think. Alas has some good points too. You may have to have repeated conversations over months or years to get any tolerance from your DW of the idea that church hurts you and you are not evil for that.

[Red Ryder]

[The things that led me to this and that I think are important are:

- My pain from going to church be recognized and minimized
- DW's pain from NOT going to church be recognized and minimized
- Neither of us are abandoning our family to pursue our preferred Sunday activity

It's been a good compromise I think. Alas has some good points too. You may have to have repeated conversations over months or years to get any tolerance from your DW of the idea that church hurts you and you are not evil for that.

Too bad an underwear compromise can’t be made.

Of course I’m not wearing garments every other week though so I guess that means I’m not willing to compromise.

[Hagoth]

My wife and I worked it out where we go to church together half the time and stay home together half the time. We are both understanding that the other might want to attend or not attend more often, but so far that schedule has worked ok for both of us.

I have never heard of this arrangement, even though it makes perfect sense. For most believing spouses no reason for not going to church can be seen as a legitimate compromise, just a degree of sliding into darkness.

[Linked]

Too bad an underwear compromise can’t be made.

Of course I’m not wearing garments every other week though so I guess that means I’m not willing to compromise.

It's always about the underwear with you. Or was that the church...? We both do whatever we want with underwear, and there is surprisingly little judgement in either direction at this point.

My wife and I worked it out where we go to church together half the time and stay home together half the time. We are both understanding that the other might want to attend or not attend more often, but so far that schedule has worked ok for both of us.

I have never heard of this arrangement, even though it makes perfect sense. For most believing spouses no reason for not going to church can be seen as a legitimate compromise, just a degree of sliding into darkness.

Yeah, I think it is very fair and puts our family first. My DW has been pretty ok with it from what I can tell. I know she would like to go more and she knows I would like to go less, but we are both sacrificing a little. We also have a lesson at home on the weeks we don't attend, I call it Come Along With Me. These can be about anything either of us wants to teach the kids.

I sometimes wonder if DW feels like you say, but when I probe a little she seems agreeable. And I'm not gonna probe harder when I get a positive response...

[stuck]

My wife and I worked it out where we go to church together half the time and stay home together half the time. We are both understanding that the other might want to attend or not attend more often, but so far that schedule has worked ok for both of us.

Lucky! That would be a nice spot to be in for me Linked. So far it has been very one-sided for me. Although my wife let's me have my freedom as to whether I accept callings or not and whether to attend priesthood or not. But she still wants to do church when we go on vacation How did you get her to agree not to go half the time?

Your spouse needs to see it as a compromise between what is good and healthy for you and what is good and healthy for them. It is not a compromise between what is right and good, and pure evil apostasy. Nope, that isn’t a compromise they can make.

They have to see your side enough to understand that for you, church is painful, frustrating, and emotionally harmful. It really helps if they see you come home hurting. So don’t do too good of a job of smashing all the feelings inside yourself. If you feel so angry you could smash walls, at least say how you feel. For years I hid how church hurt me because I thought it would hurt my husband, or threaten the marriage. I hit I point where the threat to the marriage was not as much danger as the depression and self hatred caused by trying to believe the church crap. So, I started showing him the hurt and discussing the things that made me hate Mormon god. Gradually he started to see how the church was the same kind of abusive environment that I grew up in, just not physical kind of sexual abuse. No, the sexual abuse was all emotional, body shaming, gender shaming, guilt for being normal. But the kind of emotional abuse that my mother did was just exactly the same as church, perfectionism, never being good enough, almost perfect being failure.

You really can’t heal in the same environment that made you sick.

That's great advice Alas! I have been in nursery for the past couple of years with one of my kids, so I haven't had to deal with too much cog dis. But she still gets a bit frustrated when I'm not giving the kids a lesson. My nursery partner has an lgbtq+ child but I haven't talked about it. Maybe that would be good to discuss sometime. I will have to start letting her know more and more about how I feel about church things. Hopefully this will help.