What is it about the Morg that they have been able to strip from people their sense of social graces and reasonability?

I've had a belly full of idiots who haven't the sense to know it isn't OK to ring the doorbell on a Sunday evening unannounced. Yep, tonight was another. I knew it was coming. Surely a conf talk got someone wound up and their head spinning. One of the RS presidency has taken it upon herself to reactivate my sweet wife. I've told the HP GL I want to be left alone and surprisingly, he seems to get it.

Not this gal. She's been relentless for a few years now. Cookies, the monthly message left in the door, Christmas gifts, etc. Last weekend (hmmm end of the month) they knocked. We don't even answer any more. Then she texted my wife and asked if we wanted to go to dinner...their treat. Really? I suggested a text back saying it was OK to count her VT for the month and to f off. Of course, my SW is way too sensitive to resort to rude words.

What is astonishing is that they don't get it, even after so many messages and queues to be left alone. The only thing I can wrap my mind around is that perhaps they feel their divine calling to reactivate absolves them of normally accepted social graces. In the backs of their feeble minds, they imagine an apostate (me) blubbering at the pulpit and thanking them sticking it out and doing what it took to help bring me back to the fold.

I did notice, during a recent visit with my parents and brother, that the zealot TBMs really can't function outside the Morg framework. We don't see each other very often. Honestly, probably has more to do with the fact we have very little in common than with the distance that separates us. It was pathetically awkward what little they are able to talk about if the subject isn't the church. Over and over the conversation circled back to some church news or happening. I'd change the subject..back it would come, ending up in another goofy diatribe about some wonderful church doctrine or happening.

And during their one day visit, they just had to go to a session at the temple near our home.

After they left, I'll admit to being a bit dumbfounded to see, with fresh eyes, how utterly pathetic and sad it all is. And how the Morg has managed to be the gift that keeps on giving. Bad enough to be the family's lost soul "project", but worse yet their glassy-eyed devotion to the cult keeps them from allowing us to be loving family members with differing ideas.

Similar situations out there? Sadly, I'm guessing so.

Oh I know the feeling all to well. I had a similar experience recently. I kept on trying to talk about the exciting things happening in my life and the topic kept coming back to Mormonism. I can see it in my mothers eyes. When I got home from my mission she was beefing. When I would sit next to her in church she would beem...but now, I get a strained smile. My parents still invite my wife and I to do things, but their smiles have been 50% of what they were when I was inside TSCC. I'm grateful that my family situation is as good as it is because I know a lot of others on here have it worse....but it still sucks that they don't seem to love me as much anymore.

The old no trespassing sign and have them arrested

I didn't have the VT bothering me anymore when I told them that I was leaving. They did say that they would still come by if I liked, and I told them,"No, thank you," and they respected that. Now, there were others like my bishop and my mom, who went behind my back and didn't remove my name from the records as I had asked. They thought I was too young at 19 to know the decision I was making. Even though at 8, I was apparently old enough to know what I was doing when I joined the church?
Then there were the missionaries that came by and insisted that my landlord tell them where I lived(our apartment was underneath them). This was several years after I had left, moved and changed my last name when I married. Guessing that my mom gave them my updated info. My landlords were great, though, and knew I didn't want them to contact me.

The awkwardness comes at family reunions because their lives revolve around the Mormon church, so that's all they can talk about, but it's getting a little better.

KrisR Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Now, there were others like my bishop and my mom,
> who went behind my back and didn't remove my name
> from the records as I had asked. They thought I
> was too young at 19 to know the decision I was
> making. Even though at 8, I was apparently old
> enough to know what I was doing when I joined the
> church?

Omigosh ... your mom made your Bishop stop your resignation paperwork? Holy Smoke! There's another story here that deserves its own thread.

;o)

I think that the Bishop suggested to my mom that he not go forward, and my mom agreed. I was 19 years old, for crying out loud!

My sister comes up with any excuse she can to bring up TSCC. She thinks she's being sly be she's not. I know exactly what she is doing.

To the OP, your wife might think about blocking the numbers of the church people that bother her. That's one wonderful thing about cell phones. I wish I could do that with my land line.

Especially these days, with the elections coming up, we are getting INNUMERABLE calls from all over the country - many are political robo-calls. If we don't recognize the area code, we don't answer. If it is in our area, but not a familiar number, we don't answer. They can leave a message on our machine.

A robo-call left after our answering machine gives its mechanical "Hello. No one is available to take your call..." always makes me giggle. Dueling robos, anyone? What a waste.

Did they ever understand social graces? Because IMHO, they never did.

That's true, TBM's aren't generally taught social graces. In some cases, the lack of social graces is so severe that even TBM's are offended by some behaviors.

Thank you Tristan - that's what I was going to say. Mormons aren't taught basic good manners and social skills, other than maybe a token YM/YW activity like a Etiquette Dinner. Their basic supposition that their way of life is superior to all others means they don't have to learn how to relate to worldly people in a worldly way - those people should be fixed to relate to MORMONS in a MORMON way. Bad manners, bad traditions, bad social mores are passed down in a closed society like Mormonism from parent to child for generations. They don't know what they don't know. It's like a bull (or rather a bullsh*t) in a china shop, clueless that they are breaking rules like dishes, giving offence or, more often, looking like jerks and making Mormonism look like an inconsiderate hillbilly religion (no offense to hillbillies.) If anyone points it out to them, then their critics are bad people for being offended by well-meaning Mormons and the taking responsibility for the bad behavior is deflected by a slight of hand - blaming the victim for not taking the victimization. Or, there is always the old standby of blaming the criticism on "anti-Mormon" lies.

So you pair bad upbringing with a blindness about their own faults, a feeling of superiority that makes them immune to social standards and a blame the messenger approach to criticism and you have the answer to your question. And the reason why people say the only real anti-Mormons are the members themselves.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/06/2014 02:23AM by CA girl.

Well spoken, CA Girl. They aren't likely to realize a problem and fix it whilst in the throes of a major persecution complex.