My Mormon-Evangelical Interfaith Marriage — Divorce?

Note: This is part 5 of a multi-part post. See the end of the post for links to the other parts.
This part of my interfaith marriage series has been some time in the making, largely because I have a difficult time writing about such a painful experience in my life. I also have a hard time telling the story without sounding like I’m putting down my husband, which I do not wish to do. So, I’m just going to try to stick to the facts.
When we had been married for almost a year, my husband sat me down and told me that he had been thinking about divorcing me for the past several months. He claimed that I had been a perfect wife and he had no complaints about me, but he was having second thoughts about a lifetime of interfaith marriage. He had decided that he wanted to get married in the temple and have his children be sealed to him, and he wanted to raise his children in the church, so he thought it would be best if we went our separate ways before any children entered into the union.
From my perspective, his revelation came from out of nowhere and was completely unfair. We had discussed at length the ramifications of an interfaith marriage long before we ever got engaged, and furthermore, he said it all as if he had already thought it all through and made up his mind to divorce me. Our first year had been rocky, but I did not think there was anything beyond the normal difficulties a couple goes through on their first year together. He had never given me any inkling of a hint that he was thinking of divorce, and I couldn’t believe how quickly he was willing to turn his back on his marriage vows.
In my desperation, I offered to investigate the church (again) and see if I could get past the doubts which had caused me to say “no” to the church the first time around. My husband’s answer shocked me. He basically said, “Well, good luck with that, but I’m still proceeding with the divorce in the meantime.” That was when I realized that his desire for a divorce was far more complicated than the question of our differing faiths. It felt like he was hiding behind our faith impasse as an excuse for not dealing with more pressing problems in our marriage.
Right around the time of our first anniversary, I moved out into my own apartment a few blocks away from his, but I continued to fight him on the divorce. I told him that I would not sign the divorce papers willingly unless he did marriage counseling with me. I met privately with his bishop and stake president and told them how he had treated me and how he was telling me that the reason for the divorce was our different religions, yet he had not shown the slightest interest in helping me investigate the church again. They took his temple recommend away.
I continued to argue with my husband and insist that our different faiths had nothing to do with the divorce, told him that he owed it to me to at least tell me the real reason he wanted to leave. Finally he broke down and admitted that I was right. He said that the real reason he wanted a divorce was because I was impossible to live with, that whenever we had a disagreement or something went wrong in our lives, I blamed everything on him. “Emotional abuse” he called it. He said I had gotten so good at blaming him that he could not even try to tell me how much it was bothering him. I was a little shocked, because as I thought about it I knew he sort of had a point and I have never noticed it. But . . . that was also a completely fixable problem. Why couldn’t he give me the chance to work things out and be a better wife? Why had he pushed all this “You’re perfect, it’s our faith that divides us” stuff at me?
He angrily insisted that he was done with me and was not going to give me any more chances. He went to the marriage counseling, but his participation was apathetic and minimal. After a few sessions the counselor asked us, on a scale of one to ten, what was our desire to make our marriage work. I answered 10. Paul answered zero. He said he had no desire whatsoever to see our marriage work out, and as I broke down crying the counselor apologetically told me that she did not think there was anything she could do to help us save our marriage.
After that last counseling session, I came to a resolution. I let go. I told Paul I was sorry I had hurt him and sorry that he could not find it in his heart to give our marriage another chance. I told him that I believed he was sinning against me, but I would always do my best to love him. I told him he could give me the divorce papers, and I would sign them and let him be on his way, just so long as he understood and accepted that the divorce was entirely his choice and not mine. He said okay.
The month of December stretched on and the divorce papers never arrived. My husband started coming over to see me more often. We would eat dinner together, play video games, talk about school and the upcoming holiday season and whatnot. He did not bring up the prospect of getting back together with me, but it was clear that he was trying to be friends with me again. I planned on flying home to Washington state to visit my family for the two-week holiday break. When I had moved out, Paul had given me permission to take most of the furniture and appliances, so his current apartment was sparsely furnished and unpleasant to live in. I suggested that he stay in my apartment while I was in Washington state. He agreed.
The two weeks I spent in Washington state that holiday season were some of the most agonizing of my life. After that last counseling session, I had given my husband up for lost and was already working on adjusting to life as a young divorcee. Was he actually having second thoughts? I kept waiting for him to call me and see how I was doing, but he never did, which I thought was a bad sign. Finally, on the day after Christmas, I called him.
He said that my time away had made him miss me so much more, and he realized now what he was letting go of. He was still unsure about the future, but he wanted to give things another try. We moved back in together when I got back to Utah, and we sold the lease on his old apartment a few weeks later. After a few months he was finally comfortable with throwing out all of the divorce paperwork.
Conclusion
I did not share this story to attack my husband or make him look bad, and he knows it. To this day it still hurts to remember all this, and I still don’t completely understand why he acted the way he did. I think he was just at a point in his life where things were not working out and he felt like something needed to change, and he decided that it was his new marriage that needed to go.
It is so important for couples to remember that interfaith marriages suffer from all of the challenges and trials that normal marriages face in addition to the challenges brought on by the interfaith dimension. My marriage almost broke up because of things that could have happened in any marriage, but the interfaith aspect was the excuse my husband first used to initiate the divorce. People expect interfaith marriages to break up because two people of differing faiths can’t get along. For some reason, they seem to think we’re immune to stress and disagreement over things like jobs, bills, and cleaning up the house, but we’re not. I would say I’ve had far more arguments with my husband over him leaving the butter on the counter than I’ve ever had over how he interprets the Bible. So, if you’re heading down this path, watch out for that. Don’t blame your differing faiths for problems that have nothing to do with that.

Comments

My Mormon-Evangelical Interfaith Marriage — Divorce? — 29 Comments

  1. Wow, that’s a rough story. Can’t imagine what it would be like if me and my wife ever got to that point.
    No comments on how you or your husband handled the situation. To differing degrees, I sympathize with both of you.
    But I will say one thing. Wanting a temple marriage in never a legitimate reason for a divorce. The guy who marries outside the faith, as far as I am concerned, has made his bed and better sleep in it. Marriage vows are no less sacred for not being made in the temple. You have an obligation to those vows. You have an obligation to your wife. Period.
    Your own personal spiritual improvement projects are quite beside the point. The marriage comes first.
  2. After following your story for the past few months, this post really hit me in the gut. I’m so sorry that both you and your husband experienced so much pain, but I’m so glad that your commitment and love have won out.
    This also highlighted a question that I’ve been thinking about the past few weeks…how DO you establish and maintain that trust that your relationship will be stronger than your differences in faith, especially when you were dating? As you pointed out, there are already so many other aspects of beginning a marriage or relationship that require a leap of faith (pardon the expression), and I’ve wondered if you ever hit moments of total doubt–and how you moved past them–when you considered the difficulties that would inevitably lie ahead?
    Thanks again for your thoughtful posts. I sincerely hope that the new year will stop kicking you in the head like 2008 did.
  3. Hey Seth, good to know you’re still reading. I pretty much told my husband the same thing at the time. I cited what the Bible says about divorce and marriage to unbelievers, I cited what LDS prophets and apostles have said about marriage to non-members. They all say not to do it, but once you’ve done it to stick with it. That was part of the reason his bishop took his temple recommend away.
    There’s a lot about the way my husband was acting at that time that I still don’t understand, and probably never will. Talking to him about what happened now only pours salt in old wounds, so we don’t really discuss it anymore. We’ve moved on.
  5. Whitney, in the beginning, when we were dating, I would say my trust was kind of like a credit line. I just had to give it to him and hope he did not screw me over. I’m a very trusting person by nature, I really do make a sincere effort to always see the best in other people, so it wasn’t really hard to start trusting him, though it was risky. I did want to make sure he knew what he was getting into, since I felt his end of the compromise meant sacrificing more than my end did. Giving up temple marriage, not having his children sealed to him, etc. I was always a little uneasy about that and worried that he said “yes” to it all so quickly.
    When he made his vows to be with me for the rest of our lives, I absolutely believed him. I believed he would do whatever it took to make our marriage work. So when he dropped the divorce bomb on me after so little time, my trust was like a glass that just fell to the floor and shattered. I was crushed. I was reeling.
    It took a long time for me to learn to trust him again when we got back together. Only time and the trials we have endured since then have convinced me that this time he’s here to stay.
    When we were engaged, we did have one moment of extreme doubt. He pulled me aside one day and said, “Jack, I don’t understand. The same God that told me to marry you is the God that tells me the Church is true. How can you believe that God wants me to marry you but reject my testimony of the Church?” I did not have a good answer for him then. I still don’t. I think that was the closest he ever came to just calling the whole thing off.
    If I were gonna redo anything Whitney, I would have spent longer dating him. I probably would have still married him, but I think it would have made the merging of our lives a little easier if we had taken things slower.
    Anyways, I hope that’s helpful.
  6. Yup, he’s okay with it. I don’t think he’s sat down and read it, but I did check with him about writing certain parts of our story and I left out what was not really relevant to the interfaith marriage arc.
    I love him. He’s a good husband, a good father, and he’s done a good job taking care of me as I’ve still been grieving the loss of my mother. I don’t know why he put me through all this back then, but it’s been four years and he’s more than made up for it since.
  7. Hm, have you ever read The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman? I REALLY recommend it. Great for marriages, family relations, and children.
    It’s the sort of book you and your husband could read together. If nothing else, it’ll get you guys talking about how you relate to each other and that’s always good. :)
  8. Great story about the near divorce. Welcome to marriage! The crap somehow usually ends up making you bond in a way you never were bonding before.
  9. . He said I had gotten so good at blaming him that he could not even try to tell me how much it was bothering him. I was a little shocked, because as I thought about it I knew he was right and I had never even noticed. But… that was also a completely fixable problem. Why couldn’t he give me the chance to work things out and be a better wife?
    Most people who are abusing others aren’t very fixable in the relationship.
    I’m glad you were able to fix that and that things worked out.
    Congratulations on that.
  10. Stephen ~ I actually don’t agree that I was abusing my husband, even though that was how he termed it at the time. Mormons will make exceptions for divorce in the case of “the three As,” adultery, alcoholism, and abuse, and since I obviously wasn’t guilty of the first two, accusing me of “emotional abuse” was the best he could do to justify the divorce by church standards.
    I’m not saying that I did not need to improve my behavior towards him, but abuse? I lived with a father who was emotionally abusive for years. My husband has never seen emotional abuse, not from me or anyone else.
  11. Life is tough.
    You mention all the difficult things of everyday that we all face… then add religious disagreements – life gets tougher. It has too right? Especially when it comes to Harley? What standard do you use to make decisions?
    I don’t want my son to grow up and become a Mormon. I want him to choose what he believes because he believes it, but I don’t want him to accept the LDS. It seems so obviously not true to me… and I have a very personal connection with God that has nothing to do with the book of Mormon, or with the control of the LDS. I want my son to go to church with me when he grows up – I want to be a real influence on his life – I don’t want the men and women of some other religion help him make the important decisions of his life.
    Until recently I’ve been studying on and off about Islam. Lately I’ve been filling that fix with the LDS. I’m surprised at how similar the two religions are in terms of historical development. Both J.Smith and Mohammed were dissatisfied with the religions around them and wanted clarification. The Bible says that “Satan masquerades as an angel of light.” Mohammed encounters and angel of light and is given the Qur’an. J.Smith encounters an angel of light and gets the gold plates. As the book emerges followers read/hear it and are drawn to the leader and his story (in both cases). They pick geographical locations and make claims about the holiness of those places. Mohammed was more of a warlord. Joseph allowed violence, but it was not his means of gaining converts – it was for protection only. They both developed religious centers and imposed strict rules for adherents. Both introduced polygamy. Mohammed encouraged a limit of 4 wives and equal treatment, but also encouraged Muslim men to feel free to have sex with their slave girls, which would make the number of potential sexual partners unlimited. Both moved from religion to nation (Joseph had dreams of it and the LDS was moving in that direction, but generations that came after Joseph did not have the same dream). Some Muslim countries still allow polygamy (and slavery). Some forms of Mormonism are still polygamous, but I think they have all gotten over the racism thing (though I could be wrong – I’m going to look that up).
    I guess the scariest thing is, What if the angel that appeared to Joseph Smith was actually Satan and the passage from the Bible is meant to serve as prophecy of the coming to two major religions that are inspired by Satan: Islam and LDS? If this is the case, I don’t think Muslims or Mormons believe that they are actually following Satan. Your husband is probably a great guy. I know many Muslims and Mormons who are very nice people – what if Satan’s hope is not to torture Muslims and Mormons in this life, but just to keep them outside of heaven and for them to miss the point of their existence? If you are married to a guy who is caught up in LDS and it is actually in Satan’s control, how are you going to deal with that as your daughter grows up and makes her own decision?
    I’m just writing this because I am concerned. I don’t know that the things I’ve said above are true, but that is what is making the most sense to me right now. A response I think is the Christian response is to love those people who are caught up in it and do my best to be available to have HS inspired conversation with them. I would feel uncomfortable reading the book of Mormon to my son though, especially if it came from where I think it came from.
    Blessings,
    Steve
    swplan76@hotmail.com
  12. Steve,
    I hate to speak for Jack, who is more than capable of putting you in your place on this, but she has the day off, so I’ll just say why you’re bugging me.
    It’s so nice to have someone regurgitate everything they’ve ever read in anti-Mormon pamphlets on this blog, and I’m sure you feel very blessed to have had this opportunity to minister.
    However, while I can appreciate that you have lots of questions about Mormonism, I have to wonder whether they’re actually questions or whether you’re just hijacking multiple discussions here with rhetorical barbs. If it’s the former, I suggest you spend less time spouting off about how Jack probably married a Satan-worshiper, and more time looking at her actual thoughts on many of the points that you bring up. And if it’s the latter, I’m already getting my popcorn ready for when she comes on here to pwn you.
  13. Steve,
    Your comments leave me a little speechless. You’re obviously well-read in evangelical counter-cult writings yet you claim to be a sincere and recent investigator of Mormonism. This leaves two possibilities: you are in fact someone who has honestly been hoodwinked by counter-cult arguments on LDS beliefs, or you are a seasoned evangelical anti-Mormon who has long held to these beliefs about Mormonism and you’re merely trolling as a recent investigator and testing me to see how I react. I’m a huge distrustful cynic, so inwardly I think you’re the latter, but in the name of civility I’m gonna treat you like the former.
    As Whitney stated, I have the day off, but I will get to the questions you raise later tonight after my daughter’s in bed. I’m a little surprised that my regular LDS commentators have not descended on this blog in the meantime and eaten your arguments alive. You’ll find that I have a pretty hostile view of the counter-cult ministry and the people who post here follow suit. (Seth must be busy defending the poor and downtrodden from having their wages garnished today or he’d be all over this. Or maybe he has some evangelical babes he’s busy chatting up that I don’t know about.)
    In any case, I will be back later tonight to answer your questions in more detail, and I will be polite and give you the benefit of the doubt. Can’t promise the same from the other folks who usually comment here. Just giving you a heads-up.
  14. Steve ~ You’ve left comments on my blog here, here, and on this thread. I’m responding here so we can try to focus the discussion in one place.
    Garments
    What’s up with the priestly garments? I haven’t done any research on this but is this connected to the Melchezidek Priesthood?
    I’m not sure if by “priestly garments” you mean LDS underwear or the clothes Mormons wear for temple rituals. They’re both allegedly based on the garments worn by Levitical priests in ancient Israel. I don’t have any interest in ever wearing them myself and I don’t know enough about the subject to explain further. My husband wears his garments regularly if that’s what you’re curious about.
    Blacks and the Priesthood
    Up until 1978 the LDS church had some very racist policies. Black men of African descent could not be ordained to the priesthood and black people of African descent (male or female) were not allowed to participate in temple rituals, though they could be members. This ran contrary to some of the earliest tendencies in Mormonism; Joseph Smith ordained Elijah Abel and some other black men to the priesthood, but later leaders implemented the ban. Mormons regularly taught that the ban was in effect because blacks were the descendants of Cain through Ham and his wife Egyptus and that black people had not been valiant in the pre-existence. They taught that “the mark” God put on Cain was a dark skin and a flat nose.
    Bad news though: the notion that God cursed Cain with a dark skin did not originate with Mormons. It originated with Protestants (!). Evangelical Protestants have a long history of racism and discrimination against blacks in their churches; Mormons just picked up the racist theology of the religions around them and added some of their own ideas. Even Billy Graham was called out by Martin Luther King, Jr. for being a “white moderate” who wanted racial equality to come gradually. There’s a reason black people got tired of us and upped and left and formed their own churches, and most black people still attend black denominations today.
    I think the racist LDS policies of the past are despicable, and I think Mormons have a bit more accountability on the subject because some of them seem to believe their leaders have a batphone to God. But I don’t think evangelical Christians have any right to throw stones at Mormons when we are still a house divided on race.
    And yes, it’s possible that the Book of Mormon teaches that righteousness = white skin and wickedness = dark skin, though many people would contest that. Even if it does though, Mormons don’t believe the Book of Mormon is inerrant, so who cares?
    As far as what my daughter learns growing up, I am far, FAR more concerned about the widespread sexist policies in both Mormonism and evangelical Christianity than I am about this blacks and the priesthood stuff. Institutionalized religious racism is almost completely dead; I can’t think of a single major denomination that refuses to ordain black people anymore, and even Bob Jones University has recanted and apologized for their racist policies. Institutionalized religious sexism is alive and well—Mormons, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and complementarian evangelicals are all just chipper about refusing to ordain women. It’s deeply ironic to me that many of the same evangelical counter-cultists who would protest that blacks were not ordained within Mormonism in the past have no problem saying women should not be ordained in their own denominations now.
    Book of Mormon
    We teach our daughter from the Bible and the Book of Mormon, with the caveat that she understand that I do not accept the Book of Mormon as either history or scripture and why. I’m not horribly wild about that, but at the same time I don’t feel like I have the right to try and prohibit it. My agreement with my husband is that we teach her from the Bible and the Book of Mormon in the home, and if she wants to learn about the D&C or the PoGP she needs to do so at the LDS church. Given that the Book of Mormon contains very little that is unique to LDS doctrine, I’m not that worried about it.
    Theology, Etc.
    Your grasp of LDS theology is very caricatured, but to answer your question, I plan to teach her what I believe and he plans to teach her what he believes. We emphasize the good things that we share: a belief in a loving God who made her just the way He wanted her and loves her for who she really is, and that by putting her trust in Jesus Christ as her Savior she can be saved.
    My Marriage
    Might it be true that neither of you were serious about your faith (to the level that you are now) when you got married. Now, as you realize what each of you believe, and probably you are also realizing that you are each growing in your faith and exactly what you might believe in a few years could be dramatically different?
    Wow. Just wow. Do you also question if Abraham was not very serious about his faith when God told him to murder his son? How about Hosea when God told him to marry a prostitute? Or Isaiah when God told him to walk around in public naked? If there’s anything I believe about faith, it’s that sometimes God tells you to do something dumb.
    To answer your question though, when I got married I was very sure that my husband was a “Calormene warrior” Mormon, that he was saved in spite of believing wrong things about God. After this near-divorce episode, I wasn’t so sure. I’m still not sure that he’s saved, and he knows I feel that way. I don’t know that marrying him was God’s original design for my life.
    I do know this: staying with him is the right thing to do. The Bible clearly forbids a woman to divorce her husband merely because he is an unbeliever (1 Corinthians 7:13).
    I also know this: since I started this blog less than a year ago, I have received many, many comments and private e-mails from other couples in similar relationships who are struggling with this. They want to make their marriages work, but they don’t know how because no one talks about this. All anyone ever talks about is how you shouldn’t do it in the first place. No one talks about what to do once you’re there. They need leadership and guidance, which isn’t me right now, but I do what I can here on this little blog. Someday I hope I can help other people with this subject on a much wider scale, especially by setting an example.
    I’ve also talked with skeptics who are jaded and cynical about religion, believing it is inherently destructive and divisive, and they are touched that a Mormon and evangelical, two people from religions that are supposed to be in competition, are able to make this work.
    So no, I don’t know that God originally wanted this marriage. I do know that He can do great things with it, maybe better things than what He would have originally done had I not married a Mormon. That’s what God does with our mistakes. That’s what God is, He’s the God of second chances.
    My Daughter
    Do I want my daughter to become Mormon? No, I don’t.
    But you know what? I don’t get to choose that. She does. If she becomes Mormon, I’m still going to love her. If she becomes a lesbian, I’m still going to love her. If she gets a sex change and then decides to get pregnant anyways and masquerades around on Oprah as the world’s first pregnant man, I’m still going to love her. There is nothing my daughter can do that will make me stop loving her.
    Do I like having to teach her the LDS gospel? No, not really, but what choice do I have? She is not my daughter, she’s our daughter, and my husband has a right to insist that she be taught his religion as well as mine. In fact, on that note it’s a good thing I’m not a complementarian, because some complementarians believe that the husband has the right to decide for the entire family what church to go to, and the wife has to submit. My husband doesn’t have a patriarchal bone in his body, but I do wonder what complementarians would tell me if he changed his mind and tried to insist that he’s the head of the household and he gets to decide where the children go to church.
    The bottom line is, I trust my daughter and I trust God. I hope and I pray that if I give her the tools and teach her well, God will guide her in the right direction, but I will love her no matter what she chooses.
    Anyways Steve, I hope that answers some of your questions. I broke this comment into sub-headings because it’s so long.
  16. Hey Bridget,
    Thanks for your response. I was home sick and on medication when I wrote my original post. That might explain some of my questions. I’m not overly familiar with anticult texts – I’m just a Christian processing Mormonism (among other things). I’ve shared what my concerns would be – the angel in the cave is a point of concern for me and has been for many years. I know many LDS and really like them – really nice people (a few nuts, but nuts are everywhere). Its not about how nice people are though – if Satan’s hope is not to torture them, or make them into blood thirsty hate mongers, but just figure out some way to keep them disconnected from God so that Satan has them for eternity, and/or twist the teachings of Jesus so that they don’t lead toward Jesus anymore, this is pretty important.
    In reading over what I wrote, some of it was a little bit obnoxious… I’m sorry about my tone in some places.
    Thanks,
    Steve
  18. Angel in the cave?
    For your own benefit, I suggest not trying anymore to tell us what Mormons believe or what their stories are.
  19. I also suggest laying off the drugs before trying to engage someone in a rational theological discussion.
    (Trust me, I left a comment–on a different board–after a few beers, and while I stand by my comment, I definitely had a typo in my name.)
  20. Steve ~ I didn’t mean to sound so confrontational myself. Like I said, I’ve had bad experiences with counter-cult evangelicals and I’m very wary of Internet shenanigans like sock puppets and trolls. I hope my reply was helpful, and I hope you feel better.
    Whitney ~ I just noticed how close the S and the W keys are… guess that is a recipe for disaster with your name.
  21. “I cited what the Bible says about divorce and marriage to unbelievers, I cited what LDS prophets and apostles have said about marriage to non-members. They all say not to do it, but once you’ve done it to stick with it. That was part of the reason his bishop took his temple recommend away.”
    Hi Bridget…I’m currently in a similar situation as you. Where did you find what LDS prophets and apostles said about non-member marriage and how they should stick to it?
    Thank you!
  22. Linda ~ Oh boy, it’s been years.
    I will try to find the quotes for you and get back to you. I’m so sorry for your current situation. Take care of yourself for me.
  23. Hello Bridget, i happened upon your blogs today and they were instantly a blessing to me. I’m a non-denominational christian who is dating a mormon man. i’m pretty sure i will never convert and i’m pretty sure he will never convert either. we are very serious about the relationship and have been talking marriage for awhile. i don’t have a problem with him being mormon, per se. however, since the topic of marriage came up, obviously, i have been thinking about the “how to raise kids” in a dual religious household. i’ve been searching far and wide for articles on the issue and, according to most sources, the outcome is not good for dual faith marriages where neither is willing to convert. i hear stories of kids being spiritually lost and i would not wish that on my child, even though i’m also aware that raising a child on one consistent faith doesn’t guarantee they won’t be confused. i’m so encouraged to see that you and your husband have found a way to make it work. things have not been very peaceful between my boyfriend and i because this child rearing is a hot topic of debate. however, its something that i feel needs to be addressed before we even get to the point of engagement. thanks for sharing your story.
  24. Oh Bridget, that story made me tear up. *hugs*
    Thank you for posting the link on Mormon Expression.
    You’re right that people forget an interfaith marriage is going to have the same problems leading to divorce that shared faith marriages have. It’s easy to assume the religious differences are the cause.
    I don’t know how I could feel secure again if my husband had done the same thing. My heart would have been broken. I’m looking forward to reading your other posts on this.
    We also had a rocky first year, as probably most Mormon newlyweds do. We’ve been married almost 12 years now (with 4 kids now) and were discussing how much we’ve changed since that time. My spouse said something like “I’m still surprised you didn’t divorce me after that first year.”
    I was kind of shocked to hear him say that word in relation to our marriage, and even more that he thought I would have ever been the one to leave.
  25. There’s NO WAY the bishop would take away a person’s recommend because he is considering divorce.
    Honestly, you sound like you were very manipulative. He claimed that you’d been a “perfect wife”? You’ve got to know that’s not true. Then you admit that you knew your first year had been “rocky.” You used scripture to try to teach him that he had to stick with you? That sounds pretty manipulative to me.
    You still write that you “don’t know why he put you through that back then.” Seriously, you still can’t look back and see that you were probably not very fun to live with. If you don’t get that now, then you probably didn’t get that then.
    I do not believe God has a plan for you to marry a specific person; that would take away a person’s agency, and then you’d only blame God for your decision and not take ownership for your choices. It’s too bad you both didn’t have this insight before you got married.
  26. cat ~ You sound like a very judgmental, unhappy person.
    There’s NO WAY the bishop would take away a person’s recommend because he is considering divorce.
    You’re wrong, because that’s exactly what happened. If you’d like I can have my husband come and comment to testify that this is exactly what happened. Maybe you don’t know bishops as well as you’d like to think you do.
    He claimed that you’d been a “perfect wife”? You’ve got to know that’s not true.
    Of course I knew it wasn’t true. That’s why I found his “it’s our faith that divides us” answer suspect.
    Then you admit that you knew your first year had been “rocky.”
    Yes, but I’d been thoroughly warned by most of my married friends that the first year is always difficult, so I didn’t think this was unusual at all.
    You used scripture to try to teach him that he had to stick with you? That sounds pretty manipulative to me.
    This is a bizarre accusation. Why would it be manipulative to direct a person’s attention to what his or her religion says about a serious life decision s/he’s about to make?
    Seriously, you still can’t look back and see that you were probably not very fun to live with.
    I’m sorry, were you living with us during that first year? If not, how do you know that I was engaging in any sort of behavior that would justify a divorce? In any case, “not fun to live with” ≠ “should get a divorce ASAP.” Marriage is a commitment to work through problems that come up, not cut and run at the first sign of them.
    I do not believe God has a plan for you to marry a specific person; that would take away a person’s agency,
    This is possibly the most absurd thing you’ve said in your wholly absurd, angry little rant. Believing that God has a will for one’s life (including marriage) doesn’t take away anyone’s agency. You can always choose not to follow that plan.
    It’s too bad you both didn’t have this insight before you got married.
    We’ve been married for nearly seven years, we have a beautiful daughter, and we’re very happy together. My husband is my best friend. Our religious differences are difficult sometimes, but we find a balance for them most of the time and we each enjoy a very healthy, active religious life. A good number of same-faith marriages would be unable to say the same.
    So we don’t have regrets about marrying each other, and we’re not about to start now. Sorry to disappoint you.
  27. Gee cat, sounds like you’re channeling a few of your own personal life resentments here.
    If an LDS Bishop felt that a divorce indicated other concerns, he very well might place a member on probationary status regarding his temple recommend. This is not surprising at all.
    As for how the scriptures play into this – a worthy Priesthood holder honors his commitments. You don’t agree to marry someone and then abandon them lightly. In this instance the husband realized this and did the right thing.
    Having met both individuals involved, I am happy to say that things seem to have worked out for the best. Both seem happy.
    Unlike certain hit-and-run commenters who seem to have nothing better to do that run around the Internet insulting other people’s marriages.
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