Posted by:
benjimanluther
(
)
Date: February 16, 2011 01:20PM
Thanks for the update. I've been following your story with great interest. A few thoughts:
First of all, I'm very impressed with your boyfriend. I wish I had been smart enough at his age to see through the BS. It's a difficult process for him now, but the personal cost will be a lot lower than if he had stayed in for another 10 years before figuring things out. Kudos to you for sticking by him.
Regarding anger: Losing your religion is a lot like losing a loved one, including very similar stages of grief. Anger happens at different times for different people. One of my brothers left the church about 5 years ago and just barely hit his anger stage. I got extremely angry right after I figured out the lie and stayed angry for 2 full years. At the time, I assumed my brother had either not had as bad of an experience as I did, or had already worked through his anger and made peace with it.
I've mostly made peace with my situation. My brother, on the other hand, told me that he is now in his angry stage, like I was a couple of years ago. It just took him a little longer to get there than it did me.
Be prepared for some instability as your boyfriend reaches his anger stage. It can be an extremely intense experience for the one going through it, and I'm not sure anyone who hasn't experienced it can fully understand. Consider getting him to see a therapist to help him work through the issues that come up.
Regarding school: Depending on what your boyfriend wants to study, a community college may be a good place to start. I know a lot of people, including me, who started at inexpensive 2-year schools and moved on to more prestigious schools for bachelor's and graduate programs.
If his parents are unwilling to assist with school, he might want to look into emancipation. I don't know much about that- maybe someone who does can comment and explain, but I'm under the impression that he may be able to gain legal status such that he can apply for federal financial aid without listing his parents' income.
When considering 4-year programs, he should apply multiple places, and use the best financial aid package he is offered to try to negotiate a better deal at other schools. I did this with my graduate program and got all my tuition paid for through scholarships, while many of my colleagues who didn't play the game only got half tuition or nothing at all.
My parents didn't pay for my schooling either, because most of their money that could have been used for that purpose got thrown down the rat hole (by which I mean tithing). They did pay for a lot of my mission, but I had to bootstrap myself through school. After my mission, I spent about two years working low paying dead-end jobs- including construction, security and pizza delivery- to save money for school. I made some dumb decisions that cost me money and slowed me down, but I eventually got there. By the time I got back into school, I was old enough to qualify for Pell grants without listing my parent's income, and my grades were good enough to qualify for academic scholarships. Between that and working 10-20 hours/week and full time during the summer, I finished my bachelor's degree with no debt.
When the time came to pick a graduate program, I applied and interviewed at 6 different schools, and used the best financial aid offer I received to negotiate a better financial aid package at the school I really wanted to attend. I ended up getting all my tuition for my master's degree covered by scholarship, leaving only living costs, fees and books to worry about. I spent about $2,000 traveling to do this, but saved about $60,000 by not having to pay my own tuition. Probably the single best investment I ever made.
Regarding living costs: This isn't for everyone, but there are people who live out of their cars, showering at the gym and doing laundry at coin-op establishments. It's amazing how cheaply a person can live when you remove rent from the equation. Here's a site with information on that:
http://www.vandwellers.org/ I've never done this, but if I hadn't already been married when I started grad school I would have seriously considered it. I tell people this is my ultimate back-up plan- no matter what else happens in my life, as long as I have a car, I have a place to sleep. :)
Lastly, knowledge is power. When I stopped believing in the church, there were still some seemingly faith-promoting things that I didn't have an explanation for. Since then, I've done a lot of research to find out the rest of the story, and discovered that there are rational explanations for everything the church claims as faith-promoting. You should both learn about critical thinking, learn about cult mind-control, and study the historical issues. The things you both learn during that process will help you root out any lingering seeds of cult programming that might otherwise suck him back in later.
Good luck to both of you.