So, I survived working with my TBM DW in the camp kitchen at the youth winter retreat. We had a good talk afterwards and I have reestablished myself as a non-member with no obligations to TSCC. DW is welcome to take on any and all callings that she wants, but they are HER callings...not OURS.

When I asked whether I was a ward project, I was a little surprised that she didn't ask what I meant. Instead, she said, "No! Well, not anymore." She admitted that I was in our first ward (before the split), and that she had encouraged some of the other members, including the ward mission president and the bishopric, to include me in events and callings, and to be patient with me because I am a good man who will eventually come around.

She realized after an incident when I almost kicked an insultingly pushy missionary out of the house that the full-court press was only making me angry and more assertive in challenging anybody who approached me at church or home.

She assures me that she has now backed off and will no longer encourage members to seek me out...she just wants me to be friendly to anybody who just happens to strike up a conversation. She apologized for her part in making me feel that the church was trying to suck me in, and assures me that not everybody who talks to me is trying to do so, though she admitted that some are.

Back to camp. I listened in on the talk the bishop gave to the YM and YW, and it was a fascinating display of circular logic that was just soaked up by his audience. I looked around at a room full of nodding heads, teens and leaders alike, though there were a couple of teens who sat in their respective corners who looked a little uncomfortable.

My favorite part of the bishop's talk boiled down to this: god commands us to do good works, our good works affirm god's existence; therefore, TSCC is the only true church restored on earth. Huh? Talk about your false premises, non sequiturs, and unsupported conclusions.

Another gem was the Donner Party being an example of what happens when you take shortcuts around a proven path, and that the same will happen to anybody who strays from the mormon path.

Baldy Wrote:
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> Another gem was the Donner Party being an example
> of what happens when you take shortcuts around a
> proven path, and that the same will happen to
> anybody who strays from the mormon path.

This is an amazing example of distorted thinking (an example that is personal to me, because I grew up "visiting" Patsy Reed's very small doll every year...first at Sutter's Fort in Sacramento, and then at the Donner Site in the Sierra Nevadas, after the Donner Party memorial was built there).

I am happy you have come to a place of improved agreement with your wife about your non-involvement with Mormonism...and I hope your mutual agreements with each other get even better in the future.

I wish you the very best. :)

"Another gem was the Donner Party being an example of what happens when you take shortcuts around a proven path, and that the same will happen to anybody who strays from the mormon path."

FEAR at it's best ------ all courtesy of a 'loving' bishop and 'loving' god they worship!

I am sure the message was more for you.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2016 12:55PM by spiritist.

It very well might have been...or just an unconscious, generic statement that is reflexively said whenever TBMs compare their path with what the rest of the world does.

I've called DW a number of times on statements she makes without thinking that imply I am influenced by "The Adversary", in the evil thrall of "anti-mormon" literature, or basing my opinion of the church only on the opinion of disgruntled ex-mormons with an ax to grind. I ask her whether she really thinks I am evil or so weak-minded that I can't form my own opinions? "What do you mean?" she asks. When I would repeat what she just said, she's shocked and asks, "Did I really say that? I never meant that of you!"

Glad to hear you were able to establish your boundaries. And that she did not deny you were a project. She knew what she was getting when she married you right? I think she did very well for herself.

Oh yes, she knew exactly what she was getting; though she admits that, despite my telling her I wouldn't convert, she still had hoped I would once I learned the truth about TSCC. Ironic, huh?

She's still in touch with the missionaries who baptized her, and she was talking with one about me before we got married three years ago (her second marriage, my first). I think he had asked her if she had prayed about marrying a non-mormon. She said that she hadn't because she was afraid the answer would have been to NOT marry me, and that that was not the answer she wanted to hear.

Despite our occasional arguments about TSCC, she still tells me that I am a much better and supportive husband than her RM ex ever was.

Baldy Wrote:
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> she still tells me that I am a much better and
> supportive husband than her RM ex ever was.

Too bad that's not the important thing in Mormonism. Cults
always define loyalty to the organization to be the highest good.

BUT what about the Willie and Martin Handcart Company? If we are going to bring in the Donner Party?

So the Donner Party was off the mormon path, eh? I like that logic. Maybe you should ask DW if members of the Willie & Martin handcart companies were on the mormon path or not.

Damn Cl2 beat me to it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2016 04:25PM by onendagus.

Your wife will likely always hold out hope that you'll want to join someday. Just stay the course and don't give in to false expectations and manipulations.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2016 04:58PM by Cheryl.