"I think church leaders AKA God is/are asking you to settle down and find a wife... Just sayin"

A mormon posted this on my friend's FB (also a mormon, recent RM). He is 21 years old...

Poor guy probably feels like a failure. Even if the post was meant in a teasing, joking way...it is in a way still pressuring him to find a wife AT THE AGE OF 21!.

Damn, let people find love at thier own pace...

This is one of the most ridiculous things about Mormonism. It doesn't encourage them to FIND the right person, just do it. Marry!!! How can a returning mish ever settle down to what could be normal and proper when he is rushed off to the Temple. Of course, this is what a cult wants. There is a timetable for everything. Until the young men stop being pushed around it will continue. They truly are like a bunch of 5 yr. olds being led around by their K-garten teacher. SAD for sure.

At BYU, my friends and I had a rule we wouldn't even date a guy who hadn't been home from his mission for at least 6 months. It takes at least that long for a RM to return to his more or less normal self. I had a number of guy friends who got engaged less than 6 months after their missions. How could the girl really know who she was marrying, when they change so much? And how can a guy really know what he wants (other than sex) after a mission when he's been so deprived of female contact and so out of normal human society? Pressuring people to marry young just puts two people together who are more likely to grow apart because they haven't grown up yet. Maybe they will grow together but probably not.

Also, my high school boyfriend came back from his mission and was engaged to 3 different girls within the first 18 months after his mission. He just wanted to get married. One dumped him, the other he caught cheating on him and the third he met at a regional dance. She was from a small town with very few LDS guys and would have married anyone. He actually married her and I found out a couple years ago that they got divorced because... (wait for it).... she read a bunch of anti-Mormon lies on the internet and believed them and quit the church. Guess I dodged a bullet there by not getting back together with him after his mission.

sigh... so true. believe it or not, a few missionary friends and I made a pact that none of us would get married until at least the first year after the mission and that none of us would marry anyone until AT LEAST 6 months of dating them.

There were 6 of us, 2 broke the pact by getting married 8 months and 11 months after their return. Only 1 got married within 6 months of dating a girl * it was the 8 month wedding after his mission.

I almost got talked into dating a girl only 2 months after my mission, had it not been for my growing apostasy I would have done so. It took me 3 months after my mission to get back to normal at least normal to the outside world. I probably would have been back to normal just a few days after i got home from my mission, but I was trying to transition into apostasy, while trying to deal with the "what if mormonism is true?" First week home from my mission I went to a pub with a bunch of old friends... Definitely awkward and they could see it too. It didn't help that I don't drink... I suspect had I gotten drunk it likely would have been even more awkward because of all the religious doubt/tension welling up inside of me.

mine as well flyfisher

He told me to date quickly, find a wife, not get distracted or complacent in the gospel, go to church every sunday, dress like a maturing adult etc. I laughed when he talked to me about dressing nicely and getting married as soon as possible. To his credit he was a great guy and well liked by me and many others, but damn... that last interview was hilarious. I think I made him feel awkward with my layed back attitude and chuckling, my interview was the shortest by far. Apparently something about my behavior and responses during interviews made the mission president feel slightly intimidated and nervous because a few different AP's mentioned how I have consistently had the shortest interviews out of everyone and how the president always makes strange remarks about me to them afterwards. Even as a district leader my interview was shorter than those in my district.

I love it! "Settle down"... what do recent RM's have to settle down from? Most of them go to BYU and start getting an education. It's not like they're off drinking and getting into shenanigans every night. It's pretty funny when Mormons think young adults who are simply getting an education need to "settle down".

My mission president during my last interview before leaving Ecuador told me that my next task was to find a wife and get married!

If I had married the first worthy priesthood holder that asked me, we would have been divorced within 5 years. Marriage is really hard and it is (or should be permanent). The F'ing church leaders are feeding these kids a lie (just get married to any old 'worthy' person and things will work out). It won't!!! Yes, you may stay married, but you may be miserable.

My advice to my kids is to wait until they find that special someone that they can't imagine living without. Then have at least a 6 month engagement to make sure they are compatible. This should be the most well thought out and non-hastily made decision they ever make.

I wanted to kick TSM in the nuts when he made that comment about just finding anyone and it will work out. He's ruining lives!!!!

Hell yes marriage is hard. I didn't marry until my mid 30's and my DH was 31. Yes, I graduated YBU (hell no I didn't want an mrs Degree, what fucking bullshit mentality), and had a career and I don't regret waiting so long.

JelloShotsAreYummy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "I think church leaders AKA God is/are asking you
> to settle down and find a wife... Just sayin"
>
> A mormon posted this on my friend's FB (also a
> mormon, recent RM). He is 21 years old...
>
> Poor guy probably feels like a failure. Even if
> the post was meant in a teasing, joking way...it
> is in a way still pressuring him to find a wife AT
> THE AGE OF 21!.
>
> Damn, let people find love at thier own pace...

Agreed.

I was prepping for a mish when I first heard this drivel about finding a wife the minute you step off the plane fresh from your mission. Even as a TBM I thought it was dangerous, irresponsible advice. Sure enough tons of people fell for it, and I see lots of them in sad, avoidable circumstances.

It's the following sentiment and many related GA attitudes that confuse, pressure and make guilty the general YSA population of the church. And not surprisingly it's SWK again...


"Soul mates' are fiction and an illusion; and while every young man and young woman will seek with all diligence and prayerfulness to find a mate with whom life can be most compatible and beautiful, yet it is certain that almost any good man and any good woman can have happiness and a successful marriage if both are willing to pay the price."
— Spencer W. Kimball

The Mormon women that I have consistent contact and personal conversations with are completely miserable in their marriages. No exaggeration, every one. Each got engaged and married within a year or less of meeting their spouse. How the hell do you even truly know someone in that short amount of time? I feel so sad for them and sorry that they were so naive.

On another note, my husband gets "hit on" by married Mormon women all the time here in Utah. It cracks me up how blatant the propositions can be. He's a wonderful and hands-on father to our three girls and a loving husband and I think these traits are desirable to desperately unhappy women.

When I was at BYU 20-some years ago, girls were more worried about marrying an RM in the temple than spending their life with someone they were truly compatible with. I remember very few who were concerned with compatibility more than they were concerned with worthiness. It was all about the worthiness then, in their minds, everything else would work out. And they married strangers after only a few months of courtship, happily because it was all about getting that temple marriage.

Fast forward 20 years and most of those girls I knew are still married but their marriages are pretty empty. At best, they have a peaceful working relationship. I've lost all track of the number of times I've said to a woman friend something like "Hey, I hear your husband is planning to take guitar lessons" and my friend is totally surprised by that news. They never talk to their men. They have completely grown apart and are starving emotionally and are bitchy in a way that people get when they are hungry. Most are completely disillusioned that the temple marriage didn't provide the happily ever after the church promised.

Thankfully, I was older when I married but I wasn't that much more picky than my BYU friends. I was all about the temple marriage too but at least I had developed into my own personality, more or less, being in my late 20s. I spent the first part of my marriage giving DH all kinds of crap because he wasn't a Peter priesthood and the last few years thanking God that he isn't a Peter priesthood. Mormonism and it's expectations was in the way and made my marriage much harder than it had to be. And DH and I have always talked about everything - to death sometimes. We are both huge communicators so that helped. Post-Mormon, our marriage is so much better and the kids have told me a bunch of times that "You and Dad are so much happier and more in love now that you aren't Mormon any more."

Mormon expectations for dating and a temple wedding set you up for failure and when those expectations continue in the marriage, it hurts the relationship too. I think a lot of Mormon women are miserable and trying frantically to be as happy as they are told to be.

I can't relate to the desire to have a temple marriage because I'm a neverMormon but my co-worker told me that she went a little wild in high school ("wild" by her terms) but always knew she wanted to have a temple marriage. She met her husband and married eight months later in the temple. However, she had sex prior to marriage and remains hateful toward the guy thirty years later for HER CHOICE to have sex with him. I know this because he tried to contact her via Facebook and she sent him a letter and the BoM. I couldn't resist and told her she needs to take accountability for her choices and he's not to blame. She is among the completely miserable married Mormon women I am speaking of.


I lived with my husband for five years prior to marriage and it was the best choice for us because we knew each other completely by then. We also had eight years together before having our first child and that helped build our strong foundation. I also had pre-marital sex with a few men prior to meeting my husband and very grateful for those experiences also!

I remember being on my honeymoon and asking my husband what he liked on his salad and completely freaking out because I was married to this guy and didn't even know something as simple as what he liked on his salad. We'd known each other less than a year at that point and had dated/been engaged only about 4 1/2 months. It was absolutely insane and when I think about what a disaster I could have found myself in, I thank God I dodged a bullet.

But it took some dodging because those first few years of marriage were very, very difficult. I tell my kids that you CAN get to know your spouse after you get married but it's the hard way and if they are smart, they will date for a couple of years and really get to know the person they are marrying before they commit to spend their whole life with them. I think we ended up fine in the end but a lot of that was sheer luck on the compatibility (including sex which we didn't have before marriage and thankfully, was always very good, even when other aspects of our life together were very bad). Sheer luck and the fact we are both incredibly stubborn about making things work. A lot of my friends have just given up on having a fulfilling marriage and have settled for living parallel lives.

I think this whole "marry anyone worthy" attitude must come from looking back on the "goold old days." Heck, my grandparents didn't even know each other when they were married (arranged marriage, or darn close) and everything turned out okay. It must have, because look at me!

What people refuse to recall is that plenty of our parents and grandparents were borderline miserable in their lifelong prisons of marriage.

I think PETA is putting pressure on the church because, as you know, every time a mormon boy masturbates, a kittin dies.

Just sayin'...

Ron