Posted by:
tiredofhiding
(
)
Date: February 18, 2015 04:33AM
Oh, it's been a fun day!!!!
First, my FIL called MY father. My non LDS father. My never been LDS father. My sent my daughter to a special camp/program in Malaysia to unconvert me after he figured out that the LDS church was actually not what he thought it was (it didn't work, sadly). I have no clue what he was trying to achieve by calling my dad but he did give my dad a nice laugh.
Next, he sent my husband a text message informing him that he, my husband, would make himself available for a Skype conversation at 7pm. He was to be in a quiet room, without the children or his wife. He was to have his scriptures and a copy of his Patriarchal Blessing with him. If his wife has destroyed his copy of this*, they still have the original that had been provided and he can scan and email it to him if he will please provide his parents with an email address that his wife does not have access to. All email correspondence from this point on will have to go to this email address that my husband will have to provide them with because they are unwilling to speak with him on one they are sure that his wife is reading. *
My husband emailed his father back from his personal email address
VVVVV
"Dad, I love you. I love mom. I know this has been a lot for you two to come to terms about. I understand that you would like to have a conversation. I WON'T allow my wife to be disrespected or portrayed as the one who corrupted my faith and the balance of the family. When you and mom are ready to speak with both of us, we will work out a time with you that will fit into our schedule. We will, make sure that the kids are in bed when we have this conversation because trying to have a conversation of substance with children around will end with someone screaming and someone crying. I will not have my scriptures. I will not have my patriarchal blessing. This conversation will not be a conversation to debate or discuss our reasons for leaving the LDS church. We could have that conversation until we are both blue in the face and we would both walk away from it still believing what we believe and all that would change is we would have an even greater wedge between us than the one that is here now. I will not at any point Dad point at my problems with scripture, doctrine or practice to you in this call other than what I say in this one line.
Your Articles of Faith 1:11 states,
"We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may"
Dad, I respect your right to believe, worship and practice your faith. I simply ask that you respect the same for me. This was not something that my wife decided and pushed on me. This was a decision that I had come to on my own well before my wife had and when -tired- shared her struggle, I shared that I had the same problem and we then together prayerfully over time decided what we were going to do. Our decision for our family was to resign our membership from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We fully understand, from the LDS perspective, the eternal ramifications of what our decision means. We understand that all ordinances will be revoked. Please respect our decision.
Again, -tired- and I both love you and we hope that once you and mom are able to get past the initial shock of the news, we can begin to work on building a stronger relationship within the healthy boundaries we have established. Please feel free to email me at this address. This is my personal address, as it has always been. -tired- does not make a habit of checking my emails but I also do not hide my correspondence from her and will not begin to do so now. "
^^^^^
I thought it was an okay'ish letter. There were about 101 things I would have added and 20 things I would have taken out but you know, it's fine.
Well, I guess dad didn't think that was an okay'ish letter. FIL called about 35 minutes after my husband sent the email. Husband let it go to voicemail. FIL sent a message
"I am the parent. You are the child. You do not dictate to me how our relationship works. You will not dictate to me how and when I will communicate with you. You will answer your phone when I call. You will have your scriptures with you and your Patriarchal Blessing with you and your wife is not welcome to be part of the conversation. You will respond to this with Yes Sir and you will get moving. I will not tolerate this any longer."
No... Really. This is what he sent to his grown son. His son who has not lived under his roof for over 15 years. His son who has paid his own way for absolutely everything in life for over 15 years. His son who has his own family. A military career. A successful one. Who has served two combat tours. Who owns a house. Who is completely debt free. And not talking just credit card debt. We are completely we have not a single red cent debt free. And this is how he talks to his son because he will not bow down and sing praise to the man who communed with the peep stones in his top hat. (sorry, I'm a bit ticked off at the moment)
And so my husband has had enough. And sent the last email that should be sent for the last good while.
VVVVV
"Dear Mother and Father,
It is unfortunate that it has come to this point but your continued actions and refusal to change your behaviors, attitudes and demands have forced me to make the drastic decision to cut off all communication at this time. As of today, Please do not call, email, text message or send any correspondence to members of my family to include myself, my wife or either of my children using any mail or shipping service. Please do not make any attempts to reach out to us with social media. This request is being sent by email. A more formal request will be sent by certified mail this week. If you or mom continue to contact us after this point, it will be considered harassment and I will have no choice but to seek a court issued order of restraint. If and when we are ready to reopen lines of communication, we will make contact. Again, to be clear, we are stating that we want no contact. There are to be no phone calls, no emails, no text messages, no Skype calls, no Facebook messages, no postcards or other traditional letters, no packages or gifts, no contact whatsoever.
Thank you.
Your Son
^^^^^
So, again, I guess it was good'ish. Again. Things I would have changed. But ok
Honestly, Honestly, I would have waited until tomorrow to even respond to anything but his dad's last mail really lit a fire under his butt and he was just done. And I understand that, to a point. Well, his Do Not Contact letter just lit a fire under his dad's butt.
I guess his parents then started calling every sibling, starting from the top, and going down the list. And that didn't end as well as they thought it would. Our phone has been ringing off the hook. It's a little annoying actually. The only siblings that have called to express their anger that we would treat his parents with such disrespect and that all his parents were trying to do was save us from wandering away from the path and ending up in outer darkness or some nonsense were the three siblings that have a child actively serving a mission right now. Of the other 4 siblings?
Well, they learned things weren't so perfectly happy. We got calls from all the siblings basically saying that Grandma and Grandpa were being put on a timeout because the conversations went badly. They understood why we had cut them off but they all did hope that we were going to one day reevaluate things and maybe let them start back with little steps. Maybe. Well, the three with the kids on the missions called us selfish and some other things. They are on time out now too.
And so that brought us back to the beginning. Pretty much they have nothing left to hold over us. In an ideal world, My FIL would come to his senses and send my husband an email apologizing, simply stating that he sees now that he crossed a line, he is sorry and that he will respect our request to close communication and will wait for us to make contact. But that doesn't sound like they way they play BINGO.
When I went in to speak with my nurse about some med changes Tuesday am, when ever that was, she noticed I looked tired. I mentioned we had a bit of family drama going on with extended family. And then she gave me a good old fashioned mommy lecture. With wagging pointed finger and everything. And then she called my husband and she wagged her finger at him while she was talking at him on the phone. None of this is healthy for me. None of it. None of this is going to help me get better. None of it is going to help me have a positive outlook. And "As much as running over your MIL with a bus might make you feel better, you need to remember that the health care you would get in prison is crappy" (My nurse said she is going to cross-stitch that into a little wall hanging for me)
*Below are the nitty gritty details for anyone that cares. I'm not going to bother defending myself to that woman because even if I did, she wouldn't believe me but whatever.
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Wife May Have Destroyed PB Issue
-I do take great offense to their trying to imply that I would have destroyed his PB. Like, I can't think on what planet I would ever do something like that. Even if he asked me to! That is his! If he wanted to destroy it, he is welcome to destroy it. It is laminated, along with mine, along with every other "important" church document (baptism records, his priesthood records, our sealing records, our son being sealed to us, ect) and in a file in the file cabinet. And when we get a resignation letter, it will go in there too. Do they really think I that much of a vindictive witch?
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Email Detail
- We have one joint email address for our son's preschool teacher and for our older son's homeschool co-op. This can be checked on both our phones, laptops and desktop computers.
- I have one personal email address that is my primary address. This can be checked on my phone, and my laptop. (I guess I could always log in the old fashion way through the desktop but it isn't preset/programed on the desktop)
- I have one "junk" email address. This isn't saved/programed anywhere. I have to manually log in on the desktop in the web browser every time I want to check this. I honestly don't bother with it but maybe once a week, like Fridays.
- He has one personal email address that is his primary email address. This can be checked on his phone and his laptop.
- He has one email address that he uses for semi professional purposes but not so much so that mail needs to be sent on his .mil address. He can get this one on his laptop.
- He has one "junk" email address. Like me, he has to manually log in for this.
- The children have a shared "personal" email address that the 12 year old currently uses to email my parents, one cousin and get notifications for one of his classes. We both get notifications on our laptops for this email.
So anyhow, I've given you this long breakdown to show that we are a family with multiple email addresses. And yes, I do have a folder, in our safe, with the username and password for every single account we have. So if I really wanted to sneak into his accounts without him knowing, I could. I guess if I really wanted to, when he gets up to go to the bathroom in the middle of a show, I could grab his phone and scroll around his messages and see if there is anything I want to read. Or, you know, with our marriage being healthy and all like it is, I could just simply ask, "Hey, honey, I'm feeling a little insecure right now, and I know it is completely dumb, but can I see your phone to look at your messages?" And he would roll his eyes at me and hand me his phone.
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Here was the rundown of the "Perfect" LDS family that my MIL thought she had. Seems I'm somehow at fault for all this too. Well, at least she still has 3 on a mission she can brag about.
- 2 now go to a completely different church but never bothered to resign from the LDS church. When they moved for jobs, they just never bothered to get set up into LDS circles. When their kids started school and made friends, they started going to church where their kids had friends and felt welcome. So one goes to a Methodist church and one is going to a Non Denomination Community Church (they aren't like "members" but they are active at least 2 Sunday's a month, and at least 2 Wednesdays a month there)
- One seems to have been waiting to find the right time to mention to mom and dad that his wife had left with the kids back in the fall because of his "issues" and he isn't really even bothering to do anything about it, becuase, (these are his words) if his wife is using sex as a stick/carrot in trying to get him to get on her big health craze, he is going to take care of his needs himself if he has to.
- One is fairly active in the church but SO had actually decided that the church was full of crap about 3 years ago and promised to go on holidays, when the kids were giving talks and if needed to help bring something inside.
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