I will have to write this in a couple of installments but it will be nice to finally be able to discuss this subject with someone who has been through this. I would like to say at the beginning that you can use this in your home page if you like but I don't want my e-mail address given out. Thankyou.
I have been a Mormon all my life. My grandparents are related to the first pioneers that came to Utah. Needless to say, my whole existence revolved around the church. I was taught from a very young age that I was one of the chosen generation to bring the gospel to it's full potential in these latter days. I remember feeling quite superior to my friends outside the church. And "every member a missionary" was my motto. I think I must have been truly annoying. I had this inflated sense of importance that was not based on my own accomplishments or set of values that I had come to know through my own reasoning. Of course, I was not encouraged to develop my own reasoning powers, "trust not in thine own understanding" etc...
Some of my memories of the things I was told at church are very vivid. Other teachings I received were more from the constant repetition of them.
I have a strong memory of being fourteen and being in the young women's program. They had a special reception at the church for all the girls. We were told to dress up real nice and that it would be very special(there's that word again). When I got there I saw the relief society room was all decorated with candles and roses. It was very nice. We were told all about the young women's program and then they had one of the leaders talk to us about chastity (the first of a million talks I would hear on the subject over the course of a few years). She took a rose out of a vase and remarked how beautiful and clean it was, how pure... Then she started bruising the petals and crumpling them up till the rose was no longer clean and pure. That's how we girls were, all clean and pure. But if we allowed boys to touch us and play with us and do those things only reserved for marriage, we would end up like the broken rose and no one would want us after that.
It was very powerful imagery! I was seventeen before I allowed a boy to kiss me. I was in college before I made out with anyone. And as for married sex, it was a struggle to overcome some of my ideas. But that is a story for another time.
Another very strong lesson took place at a youth conference aboard the queen mary ship in California. We were all brought into a room and told to sit in these chairs and relax. Then this guy, who I think now must have been some kind of hypnotist, talked us into a very relaxed state. I remember him saying that I would remember this all my life. He told us to picture one of the temples in our minds. Then he talked us through the images of what we would wear to our weddings and how we pictured our mate to be. Then he told us to picture kneeling across an altar and holding hands with our mate. I was very impressed. Temple marriage was the only way I would go!
The constant repetition of "temple marriage", and "Saturday's warrior" and "chastity" and "every member a missionary" and "you have the truth" really kept me together through my "not so perfect" home life. I had deep underlying insecurities stemming from my parent's divorce and the poverty we lived in. I never worked through any of that till I left the church. I didn't have to think about who I was because I was told all the time who I was and what to do to have a happy life.
I also never aspired to be anything but a wife and mother. My guidance counselors would try and get me to choose a field of interest but I always told them that I was going to be a wife and mother so I didn't have to worry about a career. After all, isn't that what it was all about? I was told through the church many times in many different ways that a woman's place was in the home raising babies. Every talent I possessed was to be directed towards becoming a better wife and mother.
I remember a sacrament meeting talk where a story was told about a woman who had a beautiful singing voice. She could have been an opera singer. But when it came to making the choice between marriage and a career, she said, "I would rather sing a lullaby to my infant than hear all the applause in the world."
I went to college to find a returned missionary to marry. (BYU where else?)It took three years but I found him. We met at a ward activity and we were engaged three weeks later! I had dated a lot in three years and had the art of making out but not "going too far" down to a science. We were pretty hot for each other but we were being good until we got engaged. Then we were bad. We had set a date for our wedding to coincide with his parent's coming into town from Hawaii for someone else's wedding. It was in three weeks! He was leaving to go to Hawaii where his parents lived to get a job so we could afford to get married. I was to stay and make all the arrangements. The night before he left, we "went too far". Or so we thought. We called our bishop at six a.m. the next morning in a panic. We were sure that we would not be allowed to marry in the temple. We held the emergency meeting at the church house. And come to find out "heavy petting" with all your clothes off and having orgasms was not going too far after all. The bishop asked us if we had actually had intercourse and we said, "No but..." Then he said that since my fiancee was leaving today we would still be O.K.
I felt relieved of course, but at the same time wondered how it could be that we had clearly crossed over the line of chastity and still could be accepted into the temple.
I will have to finish this later. I feel like I have only begun to lead up to our leaving the church...aaauurgh! If you would like more info on any aspect of what I have written thus far, please let me know.
I believe I was talking about our engagement. Well, my fiancee went off to work. The plan was that he would fly back into town the day before our wedding. Now keep in mind that I had only known him for three weeks and he was going to be gone for three weeks. It amazes me that this seemed perfectly O.K. at the time. Of course I was disappointed that he was leaving but I had faith that it would all work out. All this time I was praying for that "burning in the bosom" that would tell me that he was the guy for me. Well, I never got it. But that didn't stop me. After all, I had always done everything I knew how to be a righteous girl and I was going to marry in the temple to a returned missionary. And that little episode that we had confessed to the bishop was all right because the bishop said so.
So, while my intended was working away across the Pacific, I went to the temple for my endowments. I went with my mom, two sisters, and my fiancee's sister and her husband. Many people expressed their concern that my fiancee would not be there to bring me through the veil. But I didn't know anything about it so it didn't bother me. A lot of other things did bother me however, starting with where they asked if anyone in the room was not ready to agree to the promises they would be giving. That person was to raise their hand and they would be escorted out of the room. I wondered then why they would ask that when I didn't even know what I was going to promise! I felt very uneasy about that until I looked over at my mom and sisters. They were all smiling so I felt reassured. The film turned me off right away. There's Adam and Eve. She is standing in the background the whole time while all the action is going on. No one talks to her or even looks her way! Then came all the handshakes and signs. I felt very weird about the words and the actions that accompanied them. I was seriously beginning to wonder what I had gotten myself into. Once I passed into the celestial room, we could all talk freely about the ceremony. The most common comment I got was, "It's not what you would expect is it?" Damn straight it wasn't! How could a person go through life in an organization and not even know how bizarre it was at the very heart of the thing? I didn't even have my fiancee there to explain everything.
This is getting long. I'll try to cut this down to size. My husband and I moved in with his parents after the wedding to save money. I got pregnant right away because I was working on my life's calling and didn't want birth control. Besides, although the church never came right out and said no to birth control, I had heard many talks about not postponing a family for financial or educational reasons.
Five months into our marriage (and still in his parent's house) my husband started acting very distant. He wouldn't pray with me or read scriptures at night with me. He would barely talk to me! I thought that he wanted a divorce. One night I forced it out of him. He hadn't wanted to hurt me but he no longer believed in God. Needless to say, I was devastated! My center didn't want to be my center anymore. He just wanted to be him- self. And he wanted me to be myself. He didn't want a divorce but could understand if I wanted one. He would go along with whatever I wanted, stay active in the church, whatever but he didn't believe any of it. I couldn't ask him to live that kind of a lie. But while we were still in his parent's house, we continued to act as though nothing was wrong. I was extremely upset for weeks. I spent a lot of time in my room crying quietly so my mother in law couldn't hear me.
We moved to Provo after our son was born. We had friends in our ward so we kept going to church because I still believed and we didn't want our friends to know that my husband was "falling away". I started letting nagging doubts creep into my mind.(you see, the devil will take advantage of any little opportunity to drive a wedge between you and your beliefs. All he needs is a little crack, then he pounds on the wedge until you finally have no faith left.) I even started allowing myself to listen to my husband's reasons. They made such sense! I felt so guilty.
After a time, I began to feel better and free of the guilt. I realized that to question something is perfectly natural and even smart! And that if my faith couldn't stand up to a few questions, it wasn't worth the effort. My faith didn't stand. About the same time, I became pregnant with my second child and I hit a depression. Because along with the freedom of the mind I was experiencing, was the fact that I no longer had anything to center me. I felt adrift in a black hole. A Mormon will tell you that this is the devil at work, "come back to safety, come back to the light!" But I couldn't go back to that. It was way too wacky to believe.
I know now that I was lost because I had never learned to think on my own, to reason things out. I no longer had anyone telling me who I was or my purpose in life.
And to think I was going to have six kids! My second child was born and I fell further into depression. I was not cut out to be a mother I thought. I always thought it would be so fulfilling. I thought I would never want anything else. I felt trapped with a capital T.
I entered therapy and took anti-depressants and began to climb slowly out of the hole. My husband graduated from BYU and we were offered a job out of state. We grabbed at it. We now live a normal life surrounded by normal people who don't even know what a ward is.
I have found myself back where I started, at home taking care of my family. I tried working full-time and learning a trade. I did the working mom thing for several years. I found out that my family is the most important thing to me. I have time to pursue my own interests and still have energy for my family. When my children are grown, I plan to pursue some of my other talents. For now, I'm happy with the simple pleasure I get from being here for my family and riding my horse. But what's most important about this is that I did it myself. No one tells me how to live or love or what is most important. I have decided that for myself and it has made all the difference.
Thanks for listening