Some of you folks have been around long enough to know my story. My husband was married to a very abusive woman who alienated his kids as they converted to Mormonism. My husband was an LDS convert when we met, but officially left the church about 13 years ago. He pretty much lost contact with his super Mormon daughters until 2017, when he and the younger one started talking on Skype.

The older one remains estranged and is stuck living with her mom at age 28, although we know she knows her mom is nuts. We've heard she's staying to help raise ex's youngest child, who is 12 years old and has autism. Supposedly older daughter also has autism, but wasn't diagnosed until she was an adult.

Well... on July 4th, the very same day as my husband's older daughter was born in 1991, my husband's younger daughter gave birth to a beautiful baby girl at just under 6 pounds. She joins her 21 month old brother. Yes, she'll be raised Mormon, but it looks like younger daughter has married into a very good family and is breaking the cycle of craziness perpetuated by her mother (married three times) and grandmother (married seven times, but not LDS).

This morning, my husband was writing a lovely card for his daughter and stuffing it with gift cards. A Bed, Bath & Beyond card for the house they'll eventually move into, a Cheesecake Factory card, and a card to go to the movies. It's nice to see him getting to act like a dad again.

I'm hoping sometime soon, he will be able to go out and see them. It will have been since 2004 since he last saw his children in person.

Congrats and what wonderful news!

This gives me hope and I revel in your "rebirth."

Knotty, I'm glad that things are continuing to go well between your husband and his youngest daughter. That is excellent news!

Are you still in Germany? How is your summer going?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/12/2019 10:20AM by summer.

Hi summer,

Yes, we are still in Germany. We moved to Wiesbaden in December. For the most part, things are pretty good. We just took a trip to Sweden to pick up a new Volvo, which we drove to Copenhagen, Rostock, and Leipzig. In Leipzig, we saw Mark Knopfler and then he and his band showed up in the bar while we were there...

All of this awesome stuff happened the week my husband's granddaughter was born!

Of course, we also just had a German lawyer send our former landlady a nasty letter because she illegally withheld most of our security deposit. We could be going to court soon, which isn't really great news... although, we have legal insurance, which is a blessing.

Who says your life goes to shit after you leave Mormonism? It hasn't been true in my husband's case!

You’re not exactly in dire straits. Congratulations on the new baby.

It sounds like you had a lovely trip up north, Knotty. I hope that you get your deposit back.

Meh... I care less about the money than holding our ex landlady accountable for blatantly ripping us off. I have a feeling this isn’t the first time she’s done this. Unfortunately, Americans affiliated with the military in Germany get taken advantage of. She was also a complete bitch to my husband and me. I can’t abide people who are mean to my husband. He’s one of the kindest people ever.

I suspect we’ll get some positive results. It’ll probably be a very unpleasant process. But if it makes her think twice before screwing the next people, that will satisfy me. The nicest thing is, we’re finally at a point at which we can do this on principle instead of financial necessity. She cares about money a whole lot more than we do.

That's awesome! It's got to be great for your husband!

Wonderful news!

IN ~


on good news thred ~


in b 4 ~ good news threds are good ~

That sounds wonderful. Congratulations to your husband, his kids--and you.

Any decrease in the craziness must be good news. Very happy for all concerned.

Grandmother married SEVEN times? Why does someone do that?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/12/2019 02:01PM by Soft Machine.

And why on earth does anyone sign up to be number 4,5,6,7....clearly there is an issue

Wonderful news, and no I did not mean to reply to myself, phone challenged



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/12/2019 07:35PM by sbg.

sbg Wrote:
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> And why on earth does anyone sign up to be number
> 4,5,6,7....clearly there is an issue

Well, you asked. And it does make a person wonder.

I have several associates that have "scored" those kinds of numbers in marriage and divorce. They are both believing MORmONS. Married to each other at time. They both claim to be highly supportive of the concept of marriage. I am not trying to be ridiculous, that is what they say, since how you asked.

Her first three marriages only lasted about 2 years each time. The next 3 (that we know about) only lasted about 2 months each. It is highly suspected that she has several more marriages than the 6 that she will acknowledge, as well as shacking up several times. Sometime after she had gone for at least 6 marriages and divorces, I dated her, off and on as she repeatedly broke up with me, and then I would patch things up, and then we would get back together for a while. She seemed to be addicted to the emotional roller coaster ride of breaking up and making up. FTR, I really REALLY like her, still do, which is more than I can say for my utterly disastrous and highly destructive mental case ex wife. The mentioned girl friend was tons of fun, and very lovable, to me, when we were on. The off times were hard to take.


I think that one of her reasons for breaking up with me was her attempting to emotionally batter me and her attempt to coerce me into proposing/ marrying her, in order to (supposedly) prevent more break ups and separation. However, going by her track record, I knew that marriage was really meaningless / powerless when it came to retaining her. In Fact, going by how she had operated with former marriage partners in the past, in my estimation marriage would really serve as the final count down to the complete termination of our relationship, which I hoped to avoid ....and which was coming anyway. I suspect that IF I had married her, with in two weeks she would disappear and then I would get served divorced papers. and at that point, I would forever be officially passe, just like all of her other exes.

The first time we broke up/ split up, it was after she stood me up. She had demanded a mid week date because she said she was not getting enough of me with only dating through the week end, Friday and Saturday nights and often on Sunday too, and the mid week phone call sessions EVERY night at her insistence and direction. I agreed to a mid week date, made arrangements for it / set the time and place, and then when that time for the date came, she stood me up for the date that she had demanded. (???????)

She insists that she wants to be married, that she is in favor of the concept, HOWEVER, she definitely does NOT stay married or in a relationship. I strongly think that she will end up living out her twilight years alone. I was her last relationship, that was 6 years ago. Interacting with her grandkids has taken over for having an adult relationship.
IF the separation gaps are not counted, I managed to have a relationship with her much longer that any of her other arrangements / partnerships.

I met and became good friends with one her exes, another 6 or 7 times person, when he asked me how things were going with her, and I told him. So, as we became friends, we were able to compare a lot of notes on her. FTR he is very TBM, and he says and I have no reason to doubt him, that she cheated on everyone of her six husbands which included him. She claims that everyone of her husband's cheated on her, which is likely pathological projection. ....She has mental and emotional problems, that she was getting professional treatment for when she was married to him, and which she intently with held specific details on from him, because she did not want him to know what was really going on with her.

He feels very badly about being married and divorced 7 times, so does she.

She was very TBM in belief, but NOT in practice. SHe has been exed 3 times, but still bitterly defends THE church which has terminally jettisoned her. Ironically, one of her stated objections to him was that he was TOO churchy / TOO rigid religiously/ TOO devout. Her objection to me was that I was against the church (????????).

She seems to have self loathing which ends up manifesting itself as her having to punish people (partners) for the sin/ mistake of liking her.

He has a friend, who I have met several times, who has been married at least 14 times.

When my friend feels bad about his 7 failed marriages, I tell him that he can count my utterly disastrous marriage as 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 blown marriages for me, IF he wants to, because that is how bad that it seems to me.

Relationships are tricky, and MORmONISM does NOT help that situation with its MORmON style demands and ideals, SO CONTRARY to what MORmONISM insists.

Well, I don't know either woman personally, but my husband does, and he's told me stories. Ex was adopted by what one could only describe as a very unstable, mean spirited woman. I'm a writer, and I could probably write a totally sordid book based on her story. I despise my husband's ex wife, but there's a part of me who feels pity for her, because she truly got screwed in the parent department.

Ex was adopted. She eventually found out many years into her life that her conception was the result of an affair. Her bio mom was married and had cheated on her husband. She got pregnant as a result, and bio mom's husband didn't want to raise another man's baby. So she felt "forced" to give her up for adoption.

Ex's adoptive mom adopted Ex with one of her earlier husbands, who was in the Merchant Marine. I guess she decided she was tired of him being gone all the time, so she got a divorce. Ex didn't actually know her adoptive dad until she was 7 years old. Supposedly, her adoptive dad was "better" than her stepdad was. My husband met both men, and he said stepdad was evil incarnate. On the other hand, adoptive dad supposedly once divorced a woman a week after marrying her because he didn't like the way she smelled. (I swear, this is the going story about these folks)

Meanwhile, Ex's stepfather was abusive, and after Ex's mom had a baby with him, he started sexually abusing Ex. Her mother reportedly allowed it, since she didn't have a biological connection to her. Ex's abusive past came to a head when she was trying to deliver my husband's daughters and would dissociate during the pain of labor, thinking she was being abused again.

When it came time to finish high school, Ex's mom sabotaged her kids. She supposedly got Ex's sister drunk before the SATs. Ex dropped out of high school and later got a GED. I think her three eldest kids did, too. She denied them the chance to have a normal high school experience and she sent my husband's younger daughter to college with no help whatsoever. In fact, Mormonism may be the one reason Ex is still with #3. We hear he's in bad health and she treats him with total contempt, same way she did with my husband and the husband before him.

For many years, I was very angry with my husband's daughters, but now that we have had contact with the younger one, that anger has mostly evaporated. I think she must have found some very good people in the church to help her when her dad couldn't. In a way, it kind of makes me laugh. Ex used Mormonism to drive a wedge between my husband and his kids. It's no longer useful to her now, but her daughter has stayed in it. The church has provided a refuge for her, just as the military provided one for my husband when he decided to get out of his first marriage.

Even my husband's jerky ex stepson, who tried to swindle him out of money, seems to have turned over a new leaf and turned into a decent person. My husband hasn't talked to him in about ten years, but it does sound like he's not the entitled asshole he was when he was 21.

I still don't like Mormonism, but I am grateful to the good people who helped my stepdaughter escape the cycle she was in. And I am very proud and impressed by her resilience and strength of character. Most of all, I love that Ex's decision to become LDS and use it to estrange my husband from his kids has blown up in Ex's face.

And yes, I agree that it's generally a terrible idea to marry someone who's been divorced multiple times. On the other hand, I'm sure glad I gave my husband a chance, despite the chaos and craziness of his first marriage and the aftermath of it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/13/2019 01:39AM by knotheadusc.

WOW! I am so happy to hear this :) I do hope you can go to visit soon!

Congratulations to everyone!

I hope it will soon be possible for your husband to be with his daughter, and his new granddaughter!

I am very happy for everyone, all around.

Congratulations on the newest arrival!

It sounds like things are finally starting to look up for your family, yourself, your husband, daughter and grandchildren.

Generational cycles can be broken, indeed.

:)