I'm a nevermo that married into a Mormon family. Although my husband hasn't attended church in years, the rest of the family is active.

I found out a few years ago that I wasn't able to have children (my husband has 3 grown kids from a previous TBM marriage).
And I've noticed how difficult it is to feel a part of his family because they are very focused on kids and I tend to get left out because I don't have any.

If it feels this way for me as a nevermo, I can only imagine how rough it must be for women who are members of the church and can't have kids.

Any thoughts that you don't mind sharing?

I have a friend in my ward who has been trying for kids for ten years. Very faithful, amazing young woman. It is pure torture for her. I caught her walking home from a family centered SM just bawling and went to her home to comfort her. Another time we were at an RS activity and each table was sharing current happenings in their lives. Most people were talking about new pregnancies or grandchildren. She was chosen as spokesperson for our table but deferred to me because she knew that I knew it would be too much for her. It absolutely breaks my heart.

Okay, think about how you feel at annual family events, like Christmas, where the children are generally the focus of things.

Now multiply that by at least 10. That's what it's like to be a mormon who cannot have kids. (Or who doesn't want them.)

I think it varies. I never had any problems being childless and infertile and wanting children and attending church. But then I've never been too concerned about what others think or did, either. And I have a career. And I knew I was going to have trouble having children before I married. I did(do) hate mother's day celebrations.

I am aware that for some women it is excruciating to sit in a sacrament or RS meeting while they are working through this issue.

People handle this differently depending on what their past experiences and expectations are, and to some extent how safe and valued they feel in their congregation. (And this is true in any congregation that values family, not just Mormon ones. Infertility is a really tough challenge.)

Mormon Hell.

What he said.

My wife and I struggled to have children while living in mormon central. Took years, and the whole time had bishops and other members asking "so, when are you gonna get started?" It was rude, and I got tired of explaining such personal things to the whole community.

After we finally got one and started the process all over again, those same people often came back and said things like, "isn't it about time to have another?" "Maybe you should adopt while you're trying."

The depression that it sent my wife and I into was excruciating. We were always second class citizens in an environment where, particularly the women, were basically ranked by how many children they had.

We never did get a second, but I'm incredibly grateful for the one we have. Now that we're out, my wife has found a great career that she excels in and feels fulfilled with.

Good for you. I'm the son of a mother and father who had 10 and adopted 2 more and my father molested those 2.

My parents never tire of the accolades and kudos for their number of kids even though the molestations is a clue to people that they sucked as parents.

My TBM brother and his TBM wife tried to steal (literally!) my children when they were babies because they were infertile.

That was what it was like for them.

My father called a family conference in SLC during that time with my brothers to tell this one brother to back off me and leave both me and my children alone.

He still doesn't get what he did. It's like there's a hole in place of a conscience where he's concerned.

He and his wife went on to have four children. Each suffers from ADHD. Serves em right.

He made up lies to try and crucify me to the LDS church where I was living at the time, to get them to side with him. So he basically committed character assassination, and I was left to pick up the pieces.

After their second daughter was born, I remember them telling me how my sister-in-law left her baby in the bathroom sink with the hot water running, to go answer the phone. The older daughter was left in the bathtub, alone, at the same time (she was all of 2 yrs old.) By time SiL returned from her phone call, the baby had third degree burns on her body from the hot water that was still running. It had scalded her!

This was the same SiL who accused me of child abuse/neglect when my toddler son colored on their walls, behind the bedroom door while we were visiting them in Reston, VA unbeknownst to me. Talk about warped perceptions! A big difference between leaving a baby in a sink with scalding hot water to go answer a phone, talk, then return to find her baby with 3d degree burns from the waist down. To a mom whose toddler sneaks away to color on a wall behind a door. That just seemed crazy to me then, and it still does after all these years.

TBM brother's character assassination happened shortly before the bottom fell out for me on Mormonism. I look back now, and probably should feel thankful because I may have still been a practicing Mormon, if not for that. I still had good friends in the branch where I was living when I left there. But we parted paths.

Before I had my children it hurt me to be a practicing Mormon, and childless at the same time. I yearned for children.

Living LDS certainly played into that, because you're surrounded by children, and live it 24/7. We're indoctrinated from birth on that's the most important calling we'll ever have is to be mothers. I actually still believe that. Just not the Mormonism that drilled it into my brain.

Amyjo said,
"He and his wife went on to have four children. Each suffers from ADHD. Serves em right."

Children with ADHD are not a punishment even if their parents are awful people. Yes, they are a challenge, but not a punishment.

I hope you didn't mean it that way

Abigail Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Amyjo said,
> "He and his wife went on to have four children.
> Each suffers from ADHD. Serves em right."
>
> Children with ADHD are not a punishment even if
> their parents are awful people. Yes, they are a
> challenge, but not a punishment.
>
> I hope you didn't mean it that way

_________________________

No, I hear ya. I didn't mean it as a punishment for the children. I meant the parents aren't the best parents to have children.

Their children are doing alright. One went A-wall from mormonism but stays close to her family, across the country. Another is going to college at BYU. Their next oldest is on a mission. And the baby is still at home in his senior year of high school.

My brother is still a jerk though. He's done some pretty horrid things over the years, besides trying to take my kids from me before he and his wife had their own family.

He and his wife are equally yoked, I will say that for him.

She's said over the years that she is a cultural Mormon. I've met some like that. They don't really believe in the religion, but she couldn't live on the "outside," so she stays. My brother, on the other hand, is a religious zealot, bordering on fanatical.

I am certain most mormons would have the decency to not overly question childless couples about their status and rather discuss it behind their backs.

Undoubtedly this would also be spiced up with rumors of same sex attraction and porn addiction.

Mormons are always known for their great social skills.

My Mormon parents were very blessed to have damaged seven children. Their spiritual growth rivaled cancer. Too bad we all have problems.

Ditto. Seven. Neither of my parents had any business raising children. They should have married the church.

Ex-Sister Sinful Shoulders Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> They should have
> married the church.

Mine did. And it told them to multiple.

Multiply and replenish.
Magnify your calling.
Quicken your step.
Hasten the work...

Hold to The Rod - and shake vigorously but don't let anything spill on the ground...

People used to ask us all the time when we were going to "start a family."

We used to answer - "We started a family when we got married." Usually shut them up.

We adopted a baby five years later. She's our one and only. Got asked if we were ever going to have more - having no idea how hard it was to adopt the one we had and our fertility struggles. We just answered "NO - she's all we need."

My parents couldn't have kids so they adopted my brother and I (we got real lucky). I never asked them about how they were treated in the church (mom was not a member then but attended faithfully with dad) but I know some of my Mormon cousins thought of us boys as second class and not genuine members of the Burr family. Mom's nevermo family(Presbyterians/Catholics/Baptists/United Church of Canada) always treated us like we were supposed to be there.
My wife and I couldn't have kids either so adopted our son and daughter. Our daughter is FASD/ADHD/bi-polar and at least one Mormon I know spoke of her as damaged goods and when we bought her a home, wondered why she wouldn't live with us forever like it was a curse we had to endure. Fucking cult.

Ron Burr

The church stole my oldest child through the LDS adoption program.

They seal the records, and erase the birth family. I wasn't told that when he was born. I understood it was a closed adoption,, but only learned years later they literally make the birth family disappear.

When I found my biological son on his 30th birthday, he didn't even have a medical history for his bio family. And then his adoptive mother flipped out that I'd found him, and demanded he cease all contact with me, so we still haven't met to this day.

His adopted family are cruel and unkind. I wondered if it was personal, until I met someone online who used to live where he grew up in a tiny LDS town in Idaho. She nor her family are Mormon. She told me that Mormon town was cruel to her and her family when they lived there, so they moved as soon as they could to a more stable environment for their kids.

My adopted son is a returned missionary, now ex-Mo, with a drinking and drug problem from what his adopted grandmother shared with me, before her daughter-in-law forbade her to talk to me. I just wanted to meet my birth son! Not take him away from his adoptive family.

LDS corporation has stolen so much from me. I can't reclaim my past or lost youth. But I sure as hell won't fade into the night quietly either.

My birth son's fucked up more than if I'd raised him as a single mother.

The two I raised turned out much better than he did, without the cult interference - although LDS.corp did try to interfere with us after I left; and I shan't forgive them for coming between me and my adult daughter either.

I well remember a Mother's day in the 1950's when I was a teen. The young girls were passing out small flowers in pots to all the mothers. One woman, who was married, suddenly jumped up and ran from the chapel sobbing loudly. I was told that she had wanted a child for years and wasn't able to have one.

I really felt sorry for her. The pressure to have kids had really affected her. Back then, women were expected to have several children as "Mothers in Zion". It must have been hard on those who were unable to conceive.

Yeah, that's right.

During those same Mother's Day meetings where I grew up in Idaho the deacons and sometimes young women would hand the little potted flowers out to all women, whether mothers or not.

That way they weren't intentionally leaving anyone out, to avoid hurting non-mothers feelings.

They would say things like all women are potentially mothers, so we should all be on the receiving end on Mother's Day.

It was always saod that I cannot have kids because of early upcoming inoperable myoma. And I already lost one when I was in a late pregnancy. So it was a horrible topic for me anyway.
And multipled is moronism it was a pure hell for me.
Mothers Day I always ended up bawling and hating myself for not being right, not being enough,not fulfilling the big plan. It left me with severe depressions. When I turned older close to my 30's I heard things like in your age I already had 4 kids. You need to hurry, when you want to start a family. Soon you will be too old to have children.
You only need to pray for it - and if it doesn't happen now you'll have them in your afterlife.... what a comfort.
And then you have a bishop, who knows your background story and really thinks he is doing you a big favor calling you for the nursery... This was the icing to my depression cake. But since I was a TBM and accepted this call... until I literally found myself one sunday after church on the traintracks waiting for a train to take my life.
I always had a great desire for having kids - that all were factors that makes it impossible for me to deal with it properly.

However - I learned to accept that I probably ner will have kids on my own and to a cept me as a woman although I cannot fulfill the plan.... It was a hard way.
And then sometimes miracles really happen. In about four weeks I will give birth to a daughter. Without any medical treatment, without any mormon pressure. And everything is good with me and the pregnancy....

I had two children from a previous marriage, so when I married my current wife, I told her 1 more kid was it. I know my limitations. Anyway, she still gets crap from people around us about "having another" because she only has 1 bio kid of her own and to so many Mormons that is just a crime. I cant even fathom the amount of sh1t people who have no kids must get.

I know one particular couple who had problems having children. They managed one, but couldn't get any more after that. They kept it a secret from most people (for obvious reasons, other TBMs can be nasty when it comes to things like this). I found out about it accidentally, and I felt very bad for them since it was clear that they were trying absolutely everything to get another child (including paying a LOT of money). They ended up divorcing.

They were nice people too, which made it worse, the church's culture inflicted so much unnecessary pain on them. Yes, they were TBMs, but I was once a TBM too and having to put up with horrible things inflicted on me by church culture too, so I have sympathy for them. I'm sure they'll leave the church eventually, it just takes some people longer than others.

If the church's culture could just be a bit more tolerant and accepting to people who have lower fertility, or are fully infertile, then perhaps that couple wouldn't have divorced. Maybe the child they did have wouldn't have had to grow up with separated parents.

In my old stake, there were several families where all of the children were adopted. There were also a lot of families that had at least 1 or 2 adopted kids. Within the stake, no one criticized these families, criticized the parents, or treated the kids differently.

However, there is a belief within the cult that adoption is a last resort, not a first decision option.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/07/2015 07:38PM by Tristan.

I have not been to a Mormon church for over 20 years. I am female and come from a very TBM family. I married in my thirties and we eventually had two kids. This was after some struggles to conceive which included surgeries and lots of Doctors visit which =$. We are both private and did not discuss this too much with family members although they did know that we wanted to start a family and was having troubles.

Now fast forward.... Youngest bother and wife (married right after mission and in their 20's) wanting to start a family. I am told "it's not fair that you have kids, because you are not living the right way and I am." This happened twice. At the time I said nothing and just smiled because it is my brothers wife. My parent ended paying upward of thirty thousand for them to start a family. My parents also believe this theory that if you are married in the temple, pay your fire insurance, and stay home (wait for it..... I work part time) then you should be blessed with children. This whole thing put a wedge in the family that will never be repaired. Found out the extent that my parents have done for my other brother kids because in their words "they are living the right way". Apparently this phase had been around for a while and was part of my mothers latest (and last) campaign.

I do not believe in the Mormon church and never cared much about what they did. Now I have this anti Mormon thing going on. I have now not spoken to any family members in 3 year and my kids have not had any contact with their grandparents. I have read a lot lately on this board trying to figure this whole lack of relationship. It has helped, so thank you! My parent believe we will not be in their CK so why have a relationship here on earth. It is sad that they belong to a church that teaches this!

Just a side note... I have a great spouse who is involved with his boys. My boys do very well in school and have good manners. We are a close family. We spend our Sundays skiing or some other outdoor actives as a family. And yes... WE ARE HAPPY PEOPLE.

Happiness is the best revenge. It is probably tearing your youngest brother's wife inside that your little family is doing so well. You treated her politely when she was so nasty to you. Oh well, she has to live with her own nasty nature.

Your parents sound toxic.