Posted by:
undoing
(
)
Date: May 23, 2017 08:52AM
So you are using each other. You're using her for acceptance and companionship, and she's using you to get through the temple. Stuff happens. And, you should be able to tell that she's using you, too, by the ultimatum. "Love" wants you just as you are; it does not want you to morph into something that you are not.
It's really not complicated, at all.
What is horribly complicated is your social anxiety.
Please allow me to take you with me, as I imagine your future with her. Twenty years of ultimatums, and you are numb, and all you want is some peace. But you love your son. But losing her would be losing your connections to everyone. Your son, someone like you, and like Chief - you don't want him to conform, even as she throws herself, screaming and crying, onto the kitchen floor.
You give your son an angry look. Why can't he just do what she wants? Doesn't he care what he's doing to his mother?!
But you are you, CD, and reality hits you like a ton of bricks, as you help your wife up off of the sparkling linoleum.
She is manipulating your son, just as she manipulated you, and she wants him to go on a mission, then to BYU. You love him, and he has told you that he cannot force himself to lie anymore, to say that he believes. He's so much like you, like Chief; he is your home, your heart.
You think that keeping this one girl is a tough choice? Try being an Abraham to you beloved son, her telling you that you must tie him to the pyre, so that you don't lose her connections. I don't know that you can imagine a fatherly bond, yet, and it can't be explained.
Your post makes it obvious that you know the right thing to do, and all of your prior posts pretty much says that you will cave to her now. I'm not judging you, CD, I'm really, sincerely not judging you. I'm loving you, and telling you "my" truth. I want you to survive, to live.
It's clear that you are going in with your eyes open, but please consider that you have this talk with her. No child of yours will be indoctrinated, forced to undo the damage, forced to choose between his family and his freedom of belief, as you have been.
It's a very uncomplicated line to draw. You can sacrifice yourself, but you will never sacrifice your child.
I'm not rich, CD, or I would find a way to get you out of the aquarium, and back into the ocean, where you belong. For now, in reality, all I can say is that losing this one connection may be one of the hardest things you've ever experienced, but you are a man capable of great love, and you deserve to be loved in freedom, and in the fullness of who you are.
Whatever you choose, we are here for you.