Ever had that happen to you?

Never mind that his bishop didn't know me. He also apparently didn't know I was married to someone else at the time.

I'm just wondering how often bishops and stake presidents give this kind of outrageous advice. I'm sure i'm not the only one this has happened to.

My friend's little sister had a boyfriend who went to jail for 6 months. When he got out, he had nowhere to stay and no money so my friend's parents said he could stay in the studio apartment above their garage. The bishop took offense at this arrangement, saying if the sister and boyfriend were living together, they'd excommunicate the sister AND her parents for letting them live together under their roof. It didn't matter that the sister lived in the main house and the boyfriend was in a separate apartment above a detached garage. The bishop said "Either make that man move out or make your daughter marry him. If you don't, I'll excommunicate YOU (the parents)." So my friend's parents made their daughter marry this ex-con, who she probably would have broken up with if she were given a few months to get him out of her system.

Bishops can be really messed up.

Parents can be messed up too, apparently. So these parents, to insure that they'd avoid excommunication and therefore be able to enter the CK, made their daughter marry the jailbird living over the garage?!

I had the opposite happen. The SP wouldn't sign our temple recommend until two days before the wedding. The closest temple was a six hour drive away or else I'm sure he would have insisted on the recommend interview being the day before.

At the interview SP told my DH that he would not sign our recommends because he wanted DH to go on a mission. DH replied that he couldn't serve a mission because he was in the military. SP scolded him and said he should have chosen a mission over the military. DH told him that he was a recent convert and had been in the military for quite some time. SP encouraged him to go AWOL and serve the Lord. DH said he wasn't willing to serve jail time to go on a mission.

SP said he didn't think DH should marry me and told DH to reconsider. He said DH could have his pick of ANY girl in the entire stake and shouldn't have to "settle."

I thought DH was going to flatten him right there in the church building. DH told the SP that he had the girl he wanted and that he was going to marry me with or without his permission. The SP signed our recommends but made it very clear he didn't approve of the match. He had an eligible daughter and I'm pretty sure he wanted DH to date her.

The insanity is sometimes almost too surreal to believe.

visiting Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> SP scolded him and said he should have chosen a
> mission over the military.

Uh . . . . Thomas S. Monson chose the military over a mission.
Follow the prophet.

From the official biography on the official Church website:

"Born in Salt Lake City on 21 August 1927, . . .
"President Monson served in the United States Navy near the
close of World War II. He married Frances Beverly Johnson on 7
October 1948 in the Salt Lake Temple."

http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/background-information/leader-biographies/president-thomas-s-monson

WWII ended on September 2, 1945, 12 days after Monson turned
18. He was married shortly after he turned 21. Nowhere in
there was there a church mission. Between the end of his
military service and his marriage he attended the University
of Utah and got a bachelor's degree in business.

Follow the prophet: Don't go an a mission, get an education
and only THEN get married.

Love it, baura! That was really enlightening!

DH and I married when Benson was prophet. I was brainwashed and subservient back in those days. Now, DH would have to be the one holding me back from flattening the SP.

I have a friend whose Bishop played match maker and encouraged her to marry a recent convert in the ward. She was in her late 20's and had never been married, old maid by LDS standards. They got engaged. She found out her fiancé had previously been convicted of molestation/rape. She tried to break off the engagement. The Bishop chastised her for being so judgmental and told her the fiancé had repented and was forgiven at baptism. His advice was to have faith and go through with it. Her parents said she should be happy that someone wanted to marry her at her age.

She felt sick about it but went through with it anyway. They got married in the temple, had a child and her husband was arrested again for the same crime, different victim. Now she's a single mom.

Oh yeah, the bishop had a dream about a certain Sweet Spirit that my brother should marry. Happened twice IIRC.

Luckily he had a brain and waited for the real deal.

I heard of this a long time ago. No idea bishops still do this. It's insanely manipulative.

My bishop didn't want my BIL to marry my sister because her (our) parents were part-member inactive. He didn't think she would be a valiant Mormon and would always put her parents above the church.

It also might have had something to do with the fact that BIL had previously broken an engagement to the 1st counselor's daughter!

Bishop once called me to repentance for not dating his son. During an interview, he asked why I wasn't dating church members. I said that none had asked. He then referred to his son who had asked several times and I had turned down the same number of times because ewww..

That was the fifth step in my de-conversion...Bishops aren't inspired.

I've known of several Bishop who have told my friends to divorce their husbands and they did.

Yep. Happened to me too. The bishop told an ex-boyfriend that I was filling out papers to serve a mission and he better propose or it would be too late. He must have told the guy he was inspired or something. The poor guy hounded me until I practically had to slap him. He finally gave up but still tells people to this day how I broke his heart. This is really silly because we had never been that serious. We had a couple of dates, he sat by me at church a few times and then we went our separate ways. If the bishop had stayed out of it or at least asked me first if I even liked the guy things would have gone a lot better.

We were both TBM's back then.

Because potential DH had gotten himself involved in what turned out to be a disastrous relationship before we met, the bishop basically wanted to put potential DH on a dating diet and keep him from seeing anyone at all until he demonstrated that he had better judgment. (We were both in our 40's at this time.)

From the time we met, it was evident that we were right for each other. Everything just clicked. And yet, we thought we had to pretend that we were not seeing each other. Like a couple of guilty adolescents, we felt we had to sneak around and not get caught.

Having both been married before, it's not like we were innocent virgins. We wanted to Do The Deed, but we were good Mormons and didn't, though events were becoming quite perilous in that department.

We finally admitted to the bishop that we had been seeing each other for a number of months, got along fabulously, and even our children wanted us to get married.

The bishop didn't. He glared at us when we dared to sit next to each other at church. He called potential DH into his office and raked him over the coals, reminding him that he had been expressly forbidden to "see" anybody.

He also called me into his office and tried to make me feel guilty. I didn't. I told him, "I spent years in a wretched marriage with an abusive man. Now I've found someone who is kind, decent, and who loves me as much as I love him. I'm not going ANYWHERE."

So the bishop then decided that we had to date for at least a YEAR before he would consider "letting" us get married. I still can't believe that we, as middle-aged adults, felt that he had the authority to put such a demand on us, but at that time, we did. At least, we could now date openly and not have to sneak around.

We wanted to get married before the year was up. The bishop called me into his office and reminded me that he had mandated a year. I told him, "Actually, we've been seeing each other for 14 months. You just didn't know about it. We don't want to wait any more. Unless you want to have a chastity issue to deal with, you need to back off and let us marry NOW."

The bishop demanded to know if we had actually had sex. I told him we hadn't (which was true) but that it was only a matter of time, and the time was rapidly drawing to a close. His face looked like a thundercloud, but he said we could get married. He tried to glare me down but generations of stiff-backed Calvinists were in my bloodline and I would not break eye contact.

He actually married us himself - a tacky little affair in the Relief Society Room, with the reception in the gym, as per standard non-temple procedure.

I still have trouble believing that we allowed him to dictate to us like that. But we must have done something right - we are coming up on our 22nd anniversary, and are still very much in love. Even though we never made it to the temple. . .

My still tbm sister didn't get married until she was in her 30's. Every single man that moved into the ward where she lived was shoved at her. She got so frustrated with it that she actually told her bishop about the most recent "catch" that she could be either happy or married. And until she could be both she chose to be happy.

Bishop told my co-worker who is gay to marry his now wife. You can probably guess how well that is going.

Yes. In answer to your question. He had been home from his mission too long. Too long being more than a year. I hardly knew him, wasn't in love with him, but was obedient. Awful. Another Bishop four years later wanted me to divorce him, but didn't think he should tell me that. Did all but tell me. I did divorce him. That was the best decision I made. Btw, I did tell him I didn't love him. I was honest about it. I did get some great kids out of it.