Posted by:
Alpiner
(
)
Date: August 01, 2014 09:44PM
My wife handled the initial word of my exit from the church reasonably well, though her initial response was that she wasn't interested in changing her mind. Based on my limited sample size of exactly 1 couple, I'd make the recommendations below. Both my wife and I are fully out now, but your mileage may vary.
1) Give her time to process. If a family member dies in a car crash, the make and model of the vehicles involved is not generally important immediately. She just took a major trauma -- she needs time.
2) Make it clear that it is important for her to understand why YOU left, not that it is important to understand WHY you left. I'm trying to figure out a good way to write this out, but it boils down to this: You have to have her have a greater emotional investment in understanding you than she does in the church. Therefore, it is not you trying to teach her facts; it is, instead, her desire to understand you that must be at the forefront. If you cannot accomplish this, all the facts in the world won't matter.
3) Make emotional appeals. Not melodramatic "If you love me you'll do X" sort of appeals, but appeals that indicate why you, emotionally, cannot stay in the church. I told my wife I couldn't imagine trying to explain to a future 14-year-old daughter of mine that she was to be wed to a man nearly 3 times her age, nor could I justify such an act. Could she?
4) Use opportunities. If she wants to pay tithing, have a conversation about it. Why is she paying? Where is the money going?
5) Don't act superior. Religion is an emotional choice, not a rational one. People that are religious are not any dumber -- it's generally a mechanism of acculturation. The non-Mormon culture may be foreign to her.
6) Give her something meaningful to replace it with. Go see a movie or go to lunch or go shopping or something. When I left, I put all the money I would have paid in tithing into a deconversion budget. That bought books my wife expressed interest in reading regarding church history, sleeveless dresses, new underwear, whatever.
7) Separate good things Mormons have done from their doctrine. I know lots of decent Mormons. People that've loaned me a tool, helped me out, etc. That doesn't make their religion 'true' though.
8) Don't go nuts on your own departure. Don't start drinking, smoking, watching porn, or anything else that would validate in her mind the idea of the sinning apostate. Buy a bottle of bubbly and wait to drink it until you're both out.
In business terms, reduce the friction of your wife's exit.
I'll iterate again: Evidence is irrelevant in emotional decision-making. You want to help her break an emotional bond forged and strengthened every day since she was born. She was instructed from a young age that a temple marriage is everything. Many exemplars in her life (parents, siblings) are happy in the church. You'll have to help her realize, emotionally, that the church is not the only road to happiness, though others may find it to be so.