My Wife is a great Mom she has does an excellent job with our kids. When people tell us how great our kids are I point to her.She takes care of our place very well and she is always very empathetic to my wants and needs. She is a sweetheart. Howerver,she is a TBM and I am now pretty much an atheist after learning and researching the falseness, and want to get my family out of the church because it is all based on lies and false history. She treats me like I am sick most of the time or she patronizes when I try to show her info. She just is true blue believer and says people interpreted things wrong.
I have been thinking lately I want a divorce because of the new me and the old her are at odds always with each other and there is this settle but undermining way the church tries to lovebomb you. My wife is using that BS on me when ever I get really
down and out. I just feel like my whole life is going where the church wants it to no matter what I really think.
But why would anyone divorce like the perfect caring mom to their kids, who loves and cares for me?
I try to avoid her as much as I can, and I think our marriage is no longer real, its like I am on parole or something and she is the good person who chooses the right.
What can I do, I do not want to be around mormons anymore at all,I don't want to be a part of any group activates or etc,I want to gain all new friends who are non mormon and who are critical thinkers who have moved on.
I don't think I really romantically love my wife anymore because I just kinda view her as prude, She makes sex and love more like a chore or her duty to me. I have to be the one who has to initialize it everytime.Its so weird. Any advice on how to live more happily when you are stuck in this situation?

I can see two sides of this.

One would be that there are kids involved. You're not just breaking up a marriage, but a family. There's no reason why you can't sit her down and tell her that you expect to be respected and there's just no way that you're going to put up with being treated as 'less than' just because of your beliefs.

It sounds like the main problem with your marriage is the Church and that can be negotiated. You seem to still care about her and admire her as a good mom and a good person.

The other side would be that everyone deserves to have a partner that they can relate to and who respects them. It does happen that sometimes couples simply grow in different directions and very often that can result in the breakup of the relationship.

I'd say that you should sit down and talk to her. Whatever you decide, it is a serious decision, given that there are children involved. Consider everything and decide what will be best for the entire family and not just for yourself. You might even want to consider some counselling; maybe even marriage counselling.

Then whatever you decide, you will have come to that conclusion with a lot of thought, discussion and consideration for all of those who will be impacted by the decision.

How long have you been out? If it is years, then that is one thing but if it is relatively recent, please keep in mind it takes a while for the other party to get over years of indoctrination.

I have read many interesting postings here and on other sites about how one spouse gradually and cleverly worked to get the other spouse out and it wasn't by a full frontal assault.

I have been very impressed with the cleverness and patience the posters displayed.

As for the romantic love part, I think that waxes and wanes in any long term relationship. Your next relationship wouldn't be any different. Unfortunately many mormons don't know this because they didn't get to have a few other relationships before they got married.

If you had no kids, that would be one thing but you have kids so that is a different equation.

If you want your kids out, staying in the relationship is more likely to achieve that result as they compare the non LDS life you have and what they have to put up with in the cult. You go do fun things on Sunday while they get dragged to church. You get to tell them masturbation is normal and natural while the morg tells them they are vile and sinning. Whose advice do you think they will take?

If you leave, you will be branded as the weak and evil apostate and they will be inclined to believe it.

If your ex remarries, there will be two TBMs brainwashing your kids.

Don't do anything hasty; the winning prize in life usually goes to the person who can play the long game.

Xenomorph, I feel for you. You are very much in a difficult situation. I need a bit more information to give good advice like how long you have been married and your kids ages. Also how much do you really love your wife now and does she really love you?

I think, to me I really need to think about the kids and what would be best for them. Is it really important to get them out of the church influence? That may be very difficult if your wife continues to want to stay with the church and will not change. Even if you get divorced she will have her rights as their mother and I am sure she wants to bring the kids up in the church. That is not all bad and may be okay for the kids until they reach an age they can make their own decisions which is their right.

You need to be happy and your wife needs to be happy as well. A heart to heart talk with her is in order to decide what course of action is best under the circumstances. Consider approaching your wife about doing that.

I am older but went through the kind of change you are relating here and my wife left me after a near 40 year good marriage and 6 kids when I decided I had to leave the church. That was a painful transition but we really did have little in common without the church and being empty nesters.

I would be interested in following what you do and offering my advice or help in anyway I can. If you choose to share more information I will try to follow. Hang in there and good luck.

Yea, I have three kids. I have not been "active" for like 4 years. I really think my wife does love me, but how much of that love is jaded by the paradigms that the church creates is what always keeps me guessing or doubting acts of kindness. What is her ulterior motive? I sat at home after work today while my entire family was at mutal. It's hard not to be bitter, I hate that the morg gets to suck them in with their social activities while their is a major sham that is underlying it all.

I guess if someone was looking from the outside they would say "hell what are you complaining about..." Your wife is a great homemaker and takes way better of the house and kids than you (meaning me) ever would and etc.

I feel like I'm just am not motivated to be a "family man" anymore because my vision of what that was suppose to be all about is bull. My dad was not around growing up until i was like 22, so I had it in my head that I was going to be some enigma that could prove to the world that the church can cure the fatherless and you could still be a good father, because of the support of HF and the church. I really believed it whole heartedly. The church was a reprieve and a ray of sunshine compared to the Jerry Springer dysfunction I was use too.

Its pretty difficult to talk myself through doing life for the intrinsic value of things instead of doing it because god was always there coaching me... or so I thought. You know like those pictures of Jesus with his arm around you helping you, its all bull. Praying and the spirit, it was all just deep psychological mind games I was wishing for.

Your change of faith of course upsets marital and family ecosystems that were in place.

Change is hard. For everyone.

And, over time, inevitable.

Do yourself, your wife and your children a favor: Seek out good competent professional help to help all of you deal with change.

+1

I don't know how I would have made it to where I am without a therapist.

Divorce has a much bigger impact than you may realize right now. It is up to you to decide though. I hope that you can somehow find some mutual respect between you and your wife.

These are always some things I think when I read a post like yours: My ex is gay. I would have stayed with him to the end, especially after going through what I have.

Your wife has no clue what is out there should you divorce. All Mormon women who are treating their husbands poorly over loss of belief should live as a single mother in Mormonism for a while. Even my widowed aunt (husband was a well loved leader) told me she has a new respect for singles in the church now that she has been relegated to the back bench with the other widows.

And, would you divorce your child over beliefs? My daughter is TBM OVER THE TOP. We had a huge argument in May just before she went to work for 5 months in Alaska. We didn't talk all summer. She had a horrible summer. When she called me a few weeks before she came home, it was as though she had given me back my life. My children are the reason I am still breathing. I learned that I CANNOT live without them and I will do ANYTHING for them. I don't give a shit anymore what she says or does Mormon-wise, I NEED her. I just got an e-mail from her yesterday telling me again how much she loves me. I see a difference in her towards me now. She needs me, too.

But we so easily toss aside our spouses, the other parent to our children. We don't so easily toss aside others.

Get into a non LDS marriage counselor. You'll be surprised that both of you need counseling. Best thing I ever did and likely saved my marriage.

I don't think you appreciate how good you have it. Sure your TBM DW believes in a bunch of weird bullshit. But but consider that more than 90% of everything you were taught in your life is bullshit. What does it matter if your bullshit is different from her bullshit if it's all bullshit anyway?

You're born onto a planet sized asylum of people projecting their egos through culture and rarely realizing what's real. Love is real. Love is the only thing that's real because all the rest is bullshit. Love is a gift you give yourself through giving it to others.

Everybody has baggage. You carry her baggage, she carries yours. Mormonism is just one more bag.

Well, put. I have in one way or another thought around those lines a lot. I just won't last much longer I think having to wake up everyday in the twilight zone that for all intents and purposes I have crated for myself because I trusted and believed. Yea its not all that bad, but there in lies the frustration of it all. Its so subtle its so quietly undermining. Its epic bullshit that so invisible to my loved ones.

I was in that situation, sort of. My wife was Mormon and wanted to stay active but wasn't TBM by any stretch. That being said, we got into a lot of arguments and fights at first when I told her I wasn't going to church anymore.

She eventually came around as I would share information with her here and there. She's a college grad and a convert (read, she wasn't BIC with years of conditioning) and she began to see lies and deceit and finally made her own decision to leave. But there are some people that are so brainwashed ignorant that no matter of reason or logic will sway them; I'm thinking here of my entire brainwashed family of parents, brothers and sisters. It's interesting, though not necessarily a correlation, that the vast majority of my brothers/sisters/in-laws and parents are not college educated. My wife and I are the only college educated ones that have left.

in my experience, if you have these 4 pillars in marriage, you can make it work:

love (the deep, abiding kind)
passion (tear clothes off kind)
commitment (you fancy no one else)
friendship (love being with her)

if any of the above are missing, consider counseling.

The grass isn't always greener on the other side. Don't make any rash decisions.

To echo what others have said,

1) Marriage counselor, ASAP.

2) Don't try to push everything you've learned down her throat. Like politics and ideology, facts don't matter to most people -- they care about how they feel. She may have warm, comforting feelings regarding the LDS church.

Instead, wait. Let her know that it is important to you that she understand where you're coming from when she is ready to. This should move her from a defensive posture to a more empathetic one, where she may be a lot more receptive to what you have to say.

3) Don't make any dramatic lifestyle changes yet. This simply validates the "Wanted to sin" reasoning a lot of folks use as to why others have left the church.

4) Leave the church out of arguments. Learn how to express frustration with what the outcomes are. Don't say "I'm sick of you spending 6 hours at church on Sunday while I manage the house" (even though it may be true); instead, say something like "I'm sorry we weren't able to have a nice meal together."

Others have referred to this as having a safe place to land. In other words, it's not enough to convince somebody else the church is bad; you have to give them an alternative. *Not*, necessarily, a religious one -- but instead show that life without the church is an improvement over life with it. Women tend to be more risk-averse than men; it's therefore incumbent on you to 'lower the risk', as it were, of her departing.

To date, it sounds like you've done the opposite. Prior to your departure, family life was harmonious; now, it's done. In her mind, it's formed a causative relationship.

Good luck. Some more details on when you left and where you're at may be useful as well.

Non mormon doesn't equal critical thinker. When I left Mormonism I expected non Mormons to be smarter, only to find out the majority of people on this planet are just as inclined to believe all kinds of nonsense. Critical thinkers are few and far between. If you want mental stimulation, I suggest reading good books and watching and listening to great thinkers. But for simply friendship and general enjoyment in life, don't dismiss what you may already have. My wife is still TBM. The church does put a strain on our marriage. However, I think expecting life to instantly improve by leaving a TBM family may largely be an illusion. I am not suggesting you stay. I am not suggesting you leave. Everybody's situation is different. Just sharing some thoughts.

My dear sweet sister is going through a similar situation. With her recent "faith" crisis and struggles with church doctrine, her DH now suddenly is having a crisis of faith in HER. He now talks about divorcing because she is struggling with her own beliefs. How damn hypocritical is THAT? Where is the unconditional love, tolerance, and compassion?

Seek counseling. Do not give up. Do not throw in the towel. By contemplating divorce, you are mirroring her intolerance and unconditional love. I imagine this is very painful for you. Hang in there and keep it together. Lead with love. Your family is worth fighting for!

That's exactly what the Church did to me when I was struggling with my testimony. They didn't ask, "How can we help you?" They didn't ask me what the problem was. They didn't offer anything at all. They simply announced that I was no longer good enough to work for them.

I would do everything in your power to save this marriage. Marital counseling is a must. Hopefully your wife will go with you, but go by yourself if not. Mutual respect will be key. She is not allowed to disparage your beliefs or to be condescending, but neither are you allowed to do that with her beliefs. SusieQ#1 has written on this board a number of times about how to make it work with a believing spouse:

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,503271

See also:

http://packham.n4m.org/spouse.htm

The kids would be far better off with you around. Honestly, it doesn't take that much for you to have a profound influence on them. My dad taught me to question religious authority with one sentence muttered under his breath during a mass (in response to something the priest had said.) I listened intently and learned a lot just from that one sentence. Years later, I see that as the initial catalyst that eventually led me to a freedom of belief.

You can stay married and cultivate non-Mormon friends. Find a nice nevermo couple or two and invite them over to dinner. Or find a golfing, fishing, or hiking buddy.

You may be bored with sex with your wife, but do remember that she has a highly demanding, energy-sapping job managing children at home. And the grass isn't always greener on the other side. A divorced male friend of mine found that out the hard way.

Good luck to you, and let us know how things go.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/01/2014 12:38PM by summer.

I am going through the same thing, xenomorph, if it's any consolation. For a while I thought my marriage would make it but very recently DW and I have seriously considered divorce. It's clear she can't trust me as an exmo and I feel I have no connection to her or hope of getting emotional support. I feel trapped between two paths of misery and it f'n sucks. We are incompatible but have children, so I feel selfish if I put my needs first by moving on. On the other hand, how many years can I continue on in emotional isolation. In the last day DW seems to be reversing course and has suddenly expressed an interest in taking a hard look at the church and says she can now be more tolerant of my new thinking and behaviors. It feels manipulative. Another element of this is that her parents and mine are encouraging her to end the marriage. As are her siblings. I could go on and on with details here.

To deal with this I am for now trying to get set up with some cult recovery counseling, hoping to help me figure out what I even want out of life now. And we will likely do some marital counseling with the initial goal of deciding whether to try to work things out or call it quits. While searching for a marriage counselor I stumbled on this paper that I thought was insightful because it speaks of how the attitude of the therapist has a large impact on the outcome of the therapy. Best of luck! http://www.drbilldoherty.org/pdf/howtherapists.pdf

I highly recommend this book before you do anything.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002JPGQ34?btkr=1

I am in your same position and I have been for over a year. I will say however that after the shock and awe of your shelf falling clears, you are left with much more logical thought. Divorce due to religious beliefs is sometimes a good thing, but it is not something that should be done in haste.

In my opinion anyway.

What I am sensing from your post is that your wife does not respect you and you have not been able to make her respect you and that has left you feeling that just getting away from her would be best. I am guessing that you have not been firm in asserting your self-respect in her presence. Somehow you let her roll over you time and again. This has probably been going on for years, probably since you were first dating.Yes, you could leave the marriage but I think you would be happier if you girded your loins and insisted on her respect (ordinary person-to-person respect, not that wife-to-husband deferential crap.) This is not a matter of raising your voice or being confrontational. You can say to her very directly that you do not feel respected and that is not acceptable to you. If she becomes condescending, call her out on it. You want to reroute the tracks in her behavior railroad system so it is not so easy for her to think of you and treat you as she is accustomed to doing (and as you have taught her to do) so far. As for your own associations and activities, you can seek out like minded, non-religious, people to spend time with like any other adult married or single. Your wife might not be able to tolerate a real change in you. I mean that she may be too fragile to evolve for herself any other way of being. You may still want to separate from her. But first stand your ground with her as a grown man. You will need to be able to do that in any new life or relationship anyway. And your children also have to see you as self-assertive and self respecting person, otherwise they just may feel about you about as your wife does.

Many, many people on this board have been through the same thing as you. As for me, I would still be married had my TBM ex wife loved me more than her cult. I would never have left her over her religion, but eventually she left me. The fact of the matter is that it seems to be the case that TBM women (in particular) have an extremely strong emotional bond to LD$ Corp, and that tends to out weigh any other bond. I would guess that unless you and her can reconcile, truly, your religious differences, it's only a matter of time before she wants out. Best of luck to you.

You know, I have three perspectives to offer for whatever they are worth to your ponderings:

1) I am female and used to be in a very unhappy marriage. And I DID choose to stay for 8 more years for the sake of the children. It was REALLY hard the last few years. Looking back, if I was going to stay like that, I wish I had gotten more involved in activities outside of the marriage than I did. It would have made those last few years of the 8 years more tolerable...

2) I DID find the grass was greener once I left the marriage. Sure, there was some REALLY hard times, especially since my ex-husband ROYALLY lied about me to my nearly grown kids. But I found greener grass fairly quickly.

3) I have recently divorced my entire LDS inlaw family. I'm not LDS. But I was very immersed in my husband's LDS family. And I finally just couldn't stand all the passive aggressiveness; the constant undercurrent that I'm just not good enough because I'm not Mormon; the "love bombing" by certain family members as if that overrides their extreme apathy and conflict avoidance in the face of abuse I've had to endure by others in the family; the sick secrecy. No, it's not been easy to divorce them all--I've had to get over my grief of so many wasted years trying to make the relationship work with them. But it's getting better all the time. So some "divorces" are good things!

All of these things that have been said are basically good. But right away you want to make sure that you are respected for being her husband and their dad. Respect doesn't come from a religion or a job etc. It comes from being there through think and thin and caring about your family which I can tell you do very much.

You have been around to raise the children and helped you wife raise them and that deserves respect. So, I think counseling etc. are mandatory for you but first demand the respect you deserve.
You are not a dead beat dad. JS and BY were dead beat dads. How much fun would your wife have (and the children) if you were a dead beat dad? She need to be appreciated and she needs to appreciate your role. Many men leave their kids and don't give a damn at all. Perhaps when you go to counseling, you should point this out. You wife has been there for the kids AND YOU HAVE TOO.

Establish that respect than go get counseling [wife and you together] on some appts and [all together on some appts] as long as they are age appropriate for the children. You didn't say how old they are.

Part of your wifes identity as a mother and wife is tied into how the people in the CULT thinks she is doing in these roles. What people at church think about how good or bad of a mother she is doesn't matter. What matters is what the children think about her as a mother since she is THEIR mother.
Same thing with the church's view of how good or bad of a husband you are or wife she is. You are not a husband to the church, you are a husband to your wife so her opinion is the one that counts. And she is not the wife to the church but to you so your opinions are important here for her to hear. I don't think this has to be the end, Try sincere counseling fir with the attitude that it will help.

Have a discussion about how you would feel each other's roles in your family would look if suddenly there was no CULT, you just had to relate to one another without CULT interference.

Please keep up posted.