Need some help/advice here. My 15 yo son is really fighting my TBM wife about going to seminary in the morning. He has stated to me that he has reached the conclusion that this church is not true and he came to this conclusion on his own without any guidance from his non-believing dad. He just knows that I don't believe and do not go to church, but I still support my wife and kids going.

If my wife continues to force something on him that he doesn't believe in, it will cause them to have a bad relationship later in life, just like when my wife was forcing the church on me during our marriage. We have since agreed that we believe differently, but still love one another. It just took a lot of arguing, time, and pain to get to that point. And, I don't want to see my wife and son go through the same thing.

Anyone have any suggestions as I am sure I am not the only one to have gone through this with their kid.

Relationships are all about negotiation, especially when there are big differences. She can’t have it all her way, but she can have some. Maybe she would settle for a more secular alternative activity because seminary is going to be a waste of time.

If I were forced to go to seminary against my will, I suppose I would go and slog through it. Same as what I actually did. As a social activity, you could do worse. There are positive messages mixed in with the culty stuff. Maybe with a good BS filter it wouldn’t be so bad. However, agreeing to seminary would lead his mother to more unrealistic expectations later on. She might be hoping for a mission and temple marriage, which aren’t going to happen.

1. Wife is TBM so she believes in the pre-existence and the two plans. The God & Jesus Plan was to give people a free choice and accept the consequences. The Satan plan was to compel everyone back to heaven, like it or not. Wife is trying to force Son into seminary against his will. Ask Wife which of the two plans she is implementing with Son.

There used to be a hymn about this, if you can dig it out -
"Know this, that ev'ry soul is free
To choose his life and what he'll be;
For this eternal truth is giv'n:
That God will force no man to heav'n."

2. Ask Wife what kind of relationship she wants with Son in 10-20 years. She's already turning him away from her. He resents the church, and is now associating it with force and coercion. He will absolutely remember the times when she tried to force him to a church he doesn't want to attend. The more resentment she causes him to feel, the less he will agree to be around her when he's no longer under her TBM thumb. She may think she's winning the battles, but by doing do she's going to lose the war, big time.

Agreed. You think she would have learned from our previous experience. The hypocrisy of her reasoning is comical as she says he is not able to know what is good for him at 15; however, he could decide at age 8 on whether he got baptized or go on a mission in 3 years. Also, she states that he has not given the church a fair enough chance and I replied hasn't 15 years been enough.

She also claims that if we let him quit on this, then he will quit on other things like music/band/debate. What she needs to realize is that he believes and enjoys doing those things.

I guess free will only exists when you turn 18.

Well, it’s her house and she’s the warden.

Quitting is not a negative. Cutting your losses and moving onto a better opportunity is a positive. You leave what isn't working in the dust otherwise we would all be talking to each other on phones that are black boxes on the wall with a handle to ring for the operator. Hmmmm. Not a bad idea. Maybe quitting IS a negatie. haha.

I think what you said in the opening of the thread is the best that you could say to your wife. I'm sure you already have though.

I would just be explaining to the son that this is the way marriages work and parenting works and there is much to be learned here for his own future. He is old enough to claim himself but cannot do so legally. No man's land. It doesn't last. But does happen from time to time for all of us--not just parents but jobs and social situations of all kinds. This could be good practice. Not much consolation to a 15 year old though.

I was forced to go to seminary when I was a teenager. I skipped out as often as possible.
I never read or memorized any of the lists of stuff they tried to force on me.

If i'd been a boy, hell would have froze over before I went on a mission.

I did get married in the temple. It lasted 20 months. No kids, thank you RH negative blood type.

I didn't force my own kids to go to seminary. Saved a mountain of teenage rebellion.

If you don't want rebellious teens, the trick is to choose your battles very carefully. If she wants to go to war and stay there for the rest of her life, this is a great starting block.

Just remind her of the mormon teaching about free agency. You’re not responsible for how she thinks and feels, and I imagine you don’t want to argue with her again. Just state simple truths and remain emotionally detached. State the obvious truth that no one can make another human being do anything, and that trying to do so ruins relationships. If she continues to have an issue, there’s nothing you can do, and it will be on her. She also can’t force him to go! What is she going to do - physically drag him there? Or wear him down by nagging? Both of these actions constitute abuse. Calmly pre-empt that possibility by pointing out that she cannot force or coerce another human to do anything.

Edit: You can also point out that by trying to do is likely to make him push back anyway. My mother was controlling with me at that age... What did I do? Well, I told her to go f*** herself. It all backfired on her.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/24/2019 02:32PM by LJ12.

How about he reads the CES Letter and then uses what he learns in it to begin to explain to mom why he doesn't believe, and doesn't want to waste precious time in seminary. Then he can challenge her to read the CES Letter (which I'm sure you did) and they can move forward an issue at at time.

Of course, if she 'read' it and thinks it's all a bunch of apostate hooey, then this won't work.

But the point is, he needs to get across the point that this is not just a capricious reaction based on a whim. There is a much more solid foundation for NOT believing in mormonism than there is in believing it. Mormons don't 'morm' because of intellectual attainment; they 'morm' because it makes them feel good, or accepted or even Special.

He could always discuss these issues of nonbelief with the seminary teacher... That might be fun!

He has plenty of material he has looked up on his own to learn the truth, just his mom will never consider reading the CES letter of anything with actual facts. She has already decided anything speaking against the church is anti-literature material. She would rather blindly follow than admit she has been deceived or heaven forbid WRONG all these years.

It is a tough position to be and hopefully their relationship isn't damaged too much.

What if he failed out of seminary? Is that possible?

I'm supposing that you're in Utah and that he attends during the school day, on release time. (I was in Las Vegas, attending early morning hell, I mean seminary.)

Here's a 2014 article on changes made that year in the Utah release time seminary program. It looks like if he is signed up, failure to attend can have consequences. And there is testing, even though passing the tests isn't a strict requirement, unlike the attendance.

https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=58421546&itype=CMSID

It sucks to be an apostate and still be subject to mormon discipline!

I'm not sure, but I think if he fails seminary he won't be allowed into BYU. Hmmm, that might be a very good thing.

There is nothing as scary to a Mormon than a wavering Mormon / ex-Mormon explaining the facts of why they doubt / have left.

Perhaps if your son were to study a little on the problems with the church, enough to articulate calmly to his mother why he doesn't believe, then maybe she'll back off to protect her own "bullet proof" testimony?

As long as she thinks he is just a quitter and wants to be lazy, then she'll keep pushing him. Knowledge can sometimes change the power dynamic when dealing with a TBM.

She is already biased on her thinking and I know will not consider anything he has to bring her.

It's ironic, because she encourages him to seek out both sides of an issue in debate class and competitions. Just don't try that on religion!

I understand that. Mormons do not want a direct approach with troubling topics.

Perhaps he can casually bring up troubling items over the dinner table. Bring up an item that was in seminary that week and discuss with the family the problems he sees with that particular issue. He also do it in a way that says he hasn't taken a firm conclusion, so he is looking for ideas and suggestions from his family.

Then if his mother objects, he can ask her why she wants him to attend seminary if she doesn't want him to think about the issues. Surely she doesn't want him to treat church differently to his learnings in other parts of his life?

This seems like something you could have some real fun with. A nice Mormony way to passive aggressively debate Mom. Each seminary lesson should raise uncomfortable issues. Turning seminary into an exercise in critical thinking while learning the church’s problems turns it into a productive enterprise.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/25/2019 05:06AM by babyloncansuckit.

OK, emotion-based, not fact-based. Sordid history and senseless doctrine won't make a dent. On the other hand, the very real prospect of having a son who wants nothing to do with her ought to scare the bejesus out of her.

She's already lost the War for Church. And now she's starting to lose the more important war, the War for the Future, where there shouldn't even be one!

Does she want to be in a place in 25 years when Son doesn't want to be with her? Where he won't trust her with his own non-mormon children because of his concern that his mother will try to indoctrinate them behind his back? Because that's where this is inevitably headed if she doesn't wise up.

I'm going to suggest that you and Son tag-team. Explain to Wife, calmly and matter-of-factly, what's at stake. Try to get her to understand that she is beginning to damage her relationship with Son. It's still early enough for any breach to be 100% fixable, but she has to back off. If she won't, Son's resentment will only build, and it's *extremely* hard for love to co-exist with resentment. She's putting church first, ahead of him; he won't forget, and eventually the damage will be beyond repair.

If Son can communicate this to her, not in an emotionally charged way, but rationally, reasonably and "this is how it will play out, period," with you nodding your head in agreement and support of Son, it may help her to understand that there are things she can't control, no matter how much she wants to.

And suppose he does "quit" band or music or debate? So what? Those are just ancillary activities; if he doesn't get what he wants from them, of course he can drop them. He'll find others that suit him better. People change (and sometimes grow). It's not like he's quitting school altogether.

I think in the long run this is all good news for your son, as it will make him see how the church is really a bad thing. My daughters grandparents tried a similar thing with my teenage daughter after we resigned and she did not like it at all. Up until then she was pretty laid back about the whole thing.
Problem was she then didn’t want to see them again. This is a difficult situation for you.
One thing that stopped people lecturing me was that I had an answer for why I didn’t believe the church was true.,in fact I probably had a hundred. If your son speaks up for himself, and your wife doesn’t want to hear such things then perhaps she will leave him alone?
Mormons have double standards all over the place. You’ve recognised this and that she won’t be reasoned with. But we do know mormons also hate to hear reasoned arguments that disagree with their views, so perhaps this will work.

Stupid me, I hadn't completely decided I was done with the church when my kids started high school. In Utah, it is release time, so they miss classes at school. I had my kids to to seminary so they could decide if they believed or not. In high school, my son just quit going to seminary. He'd usually come home. They kept calling my "husband" about him not attending and my husband kept telling them that we weren't going to force him to go.

Because it was release time and my son hated school, because of the credits he lost going to seminary, he ended up having to take extra classes to graduate.

How does she KNOW he goes to seminary? Even my older sister, who is still going to the lds church, but doesn't believe much of it, but she was very mormon in high school and she didn't go to seminary.

This is a losing battle for your wife.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/24/2019 03:16PM by cl2.

Probably won't help, but some of us seminary flunkies like me went on to serve a church mission (not that I am encouraging a non-believing person to serve one). My point is that it's not the end of the world if he doesn't attend morning seminary.

to take a stand or he'll end up on a mission when he doesn't want to or have to fight not to go.

Teach him a lesson

If you learned anything in or about LDShood.

'Church' didn't win with you

Why should it win with him, or her, Through Him?
Might you lose with him?
Since you won't take sides.

What are you hoping might happen?
And WHEN?

(Trying not to fritter too much time at work.)

I've heard of kids who kept asking pointed questions and got kicked out of seminary.

She can probably make him go, but she can't make him keep his mouth shut.

Very good point!
If he starts asking questions that "might" taint the TBM believers, they will have him out of there fast.

Mormons can't handle anyone who asks questions they don't want to give answers for. That's the fast train out of that hell hole.

The thought that keeps running through my mind is, "He's your kid too. Right?" Why is it all the wife's say.

You may have negotiated a deal back when in order to keep peace, but isn't it time to "quit" that deal and up-grade?

P.S. I was only asking for a friend--- as I personally can be very manipulative at times in order to avoid tackLing the tough stuff head on. Going the round-about way is always worth a try in my book. Just hope it all works out for you and your son. The wife is making her own bed to lie in. Keep your relationship strong with the kid.

I would not come to class, and I would not ask difficult questions constantly, and he would not mark me absent. Asking difficult questions worked for me.

It saddens me to see problems like this, that JS's fake cult had caused, in what would be a normal, happy, loving family.

I don't understand how you can support the Mormon cult, and enable its intrusion into your family. Why do you support your kids going to church, in the first place? Do you feel your children are more capable than YOU were, in handling the Mormon garbage? If you couldn't put up with it--why do you think your children can put up with it?

You seem to have lost the argument with your wife, because your children are still in the cult. Do you expect your 15-year-old son will have better luck with her than you did?

You need to be real, and understand what is going on, here. Mormons don't think much about integrity, or love, or authenticity, or stuff like that.

Your wife KNOWS that your son does not believe, yet she is trying to force him to FAKE IT, or lie his way out of the seminary class.

You know that your other children are likely to have the same problems with your wife and her church. Why don't you take a stand for the Truth?

I was in a marriage like that. I kept the peace by giving in. Teenagers rebelled like crazy. Control freaks have their own problems which you facilitate by “being nice”.

Maybe OP doesn’t realize how much damage the church causes to a developing mind, although he did say the boy doesn’t believe so the main catastrophe has been averted. Seminary is now more of a nuisance.

But yeah, forcing a non-believer to attend seminary is either hypocritical or stupid. Maybe he’ll learn that Mormons are both. If that’s what she wants to teach him, why not?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/25/2019 05:52AM by babyloncansuckit.

It's been proven by research that teens need a large amount of sleep in order to function well the next day. Early morning seminary would interfere with that. A lot of high schools are moving back their start times in order to fall into line with the research. You could make the argument that your son's grades could be at stake.

You might also consider using this as an opportunity to talk to your wife about your son's future. Perhaps ask her, if he continues in his non-belief, how will she feel if he chooses to not serve a mission, go to BYU, marry in the temple, or even resign from the church? At what point would she be willing to let him use his agency to decide?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/25/2019 06:41AM by summer.

Or, if she's like my parents, at what point will she forgive him for not being TBM?

My parents are in their mid 90's. I'm in my mid 60's. They have yet to forgive me for being a teenager. They don't know i'm no longer Mormon, but I suspect they haven't forgiven me for not being a Mormon for every single second of my life.

They got so mean and nasty that I cut contact with them after my kids were born. My kids are almost 40 and wouldn't know my parents if they saw them. My grandkids have zero clue they have living great grandparents.

Is this what your wife wants? This is what she'll get if she doesn't get a grip and look at life from a stance of love instead of hard core religion.

"I still support my wife and kids going." ... There you have it.

Sixteen year-old Ziller had concluded that the Book of Mormon, Joseph’s Myth and Mormonism was probably the biggest load of crapola ever.

With this new world-view, he no longer felt it necessary to attend early morning seminary before school.

After two glorious days in a row of sleeping in, Ziller’s parental units made it clear that they felt differently.

Unless Ziller drove himself and his little brother to seminary each morning, his automobile privileges would be revoked and he would have to take the bus to school.

The early morning hours of the next day found Ziller guiding the 1979 Chevy Monte Carlo through the dark suburban streets toward the home of the “cemetery” teacher.

Ziller glanced at the clock on the dash and thought of his non-Mormon girlfriend.

She would be getting up soon to get ready for school.

Her parents would already have left to commute to their jobs in the big city.

Soon she would be stretching and arching her tan taut body across the sheets of her double bed while the alarm teased her awake.

Her long blonde hair would be tossed into a picture perfect mess of bed-head.

Ziller parked under a street lamp outside the seminary teacher’s house.

The baby blue Monte Carlo’s chrome spoke wheels reflected in the home’s large plate glass living room window.

“Little Brother? Ziller has some stuff to do before school instead of going to seminary. You can find a ride to school from here, right?”

“Well, if it is all the same to you, Big Brother, would you mind dropping me off at my friend So-and-so’s house?”

Ziller put the car in gear and pulled back into the street.

He and Little Brother never attended another day of seminary and everyone was happy.


ziller

Would your son have release time seminary, or early morning?


I grew up in an area with early morning seminary, and I held a 30-hour per week job from age 15 on. I worked 3-9 PM five nights a week. I was EXHAUSTED. My mom refused to listen because of all the "blessings" I was getting from attending seminary. I made myself an appointment with my doctor, took the city bus to his office, and told him that I was working AND attending school (which started at 7 AM, so seminary started at 5:30 AM) and that I couldn't do it all anymore. I was depressed and exhausted. Luckily my doctor took me seriously. He called my mom and said his recommendation was to drop seminary, for my mental and physical health. He even put it in writing for me. I still have a copy somewhere because it meant so much to me. It was my first step out of the church.


It solved the problem of early morning seminary, but my mom worked something out with the instructor so I could do "home study." I still had to meet with the instructor once a week, but it was after school and she was a sweet lady who made me cookies and let me play with her dog. It was much less painful. I hear the church doesn't allow "home study" seminary anymore, but it was a compromise for me and my mom.


If your son has release time seminary, have him fill his seminary period with something noteworthy. It's hard to fault a kid for exchanging a useless class for, say, an advanced math class (or whatever subject your son excels in).


Good luck! This can get ugly, but I'm hopeful your son and your wife can preserve their relationship.