continued....from closed thread,
So after I resigned, I still had a Molly MORmON wife who believed in the church and tried everything she could to get me to abandon my doubts.
Like I said to her, "If the situation were reversed and you came to me and said, 'Hey I've been trying for a long time to find answers to my serious questions about the racism, sexism, homophobia and abuse that's still alive and well in the church and I'm really having trouble justifying raising our kids to believe in these bogus myths. Do you think you can help me?' I would have said, 'Gladly. If there are answers, we'll study and find them together. I don't want to raise our kids to be racist, sexist, homophobes either and I sure as hell don't want them to be subject to the kind of abuse we're well aware of in the Mormon church.' But instead, you gave me an ultimatum and insisted that I keep my doubts to myself or you'd divorce me.
When I went to the Bishop to get answers, he threatened me with discipline if I didn't remain silent. That's not ok with me, especially when it comes to our kids! I'm going to teach our kids to say NO to authority figures who try to abuse their power and authority over them or teach them hateful myths that completely contradict the main commandment of Jesus Christ to love our fellow men and women as ourselves."
I think I kind of got through to her because I was her meal ticket and if she divorced me she'd be the one to leave our family and house, not me.
So I started looking at the things that I knew really bugged her about the church. One of the main things was the way girls and women were treated unfairly in the church. She never did like the fact that she'd have to share me with other Sister Wives in the next life. She also didn't want to give up the hope of being reunited with her late Father in the big CK in the sky.
So with that in mind I started reading In Sacred Loneliness and doing research on plural marriage. When I read the chapter about Joseph having his way with the teenage orphan Lawrence Sisters and about Henry and Zina Huntington Jacobs, how he really abused Emma by concocting various schemes to get her to accept his philandering, I compared all of that with what it said in D&C 132:61-65, which Joseph and Brigham violated in at least 5 different ways by abusing their power and authority to send their followers off on missions (Henry Jacobs served 8 missions for the church) while they stayed behind with their followers wives and teenage daughters and made babies with them, it all kind of fit together. I finally felt like I had something that would convince my Molly MORmON wife that we'd been fed a lie our whole lives. After I read the book cover to cover I said I had a book I wanted her to read. She asked me if it was 'anti-Mormon'? thankfully I was able to say, 'No, It was written by a Mormon Historian, who is still in good standing with the church. It's very well documented and half the book is footnotes and references to historical records. Nobody denies what's in it, not even the church. They just ignore it and pretend it never happened the way it really did."
So I showed her the spreadsheet in the front of the book showing how many of Joseph's wives were married to his followers and how many of them were teenagers as young as 14. She looked shocked as the news settled in. Then I showed the chapter on Henry and Zina Jacobs and talked about how Joseph and Brigham destroyed their marriage by stealing the love of Henry's life from him, and their kids. Then I showed her the chapter on the Lawrence Sisters, which is disgusting beyond belief, especially how Joseph coerced Emma into accepting the fact that she had to listen to him rape the teenage orphans they were entrusted with raising as their own daughters.
Then I went through D&C 132, especially the parts that condemn Joseph and Brigham's behavior as adultery 5 different ways in one verse alone. Then we looked at how Joseph treated Emma in D&C 132, which was really like spiritual blackmail, threatening her with destruction if she didn't accept his cheating on her with other men's wives and teenage daughters. That was the part that really pissed her off.
By the time I got through with that she just said, "That's it. I'm done."
And she was. She never read ISL or any other book on the subject of Mormonism. She was just totally over it. She figured if Joseph Smith was rapist who broke every law ever written governing marriage, including the one he got straight from God,then it was all bullshit. She became an atheist right away and figured all institutions of men were just there to fuck over women. She figured the church had stolen her youth from her and made her forego premarital sex for what? A rapist who's praises we'd been singing our whole lives?
That night we were driving around and she said, "Let's go to the mall. I need to pick up some sexy underwear at Victoria's Secret. I always hated these damned ugly garments! And stop by the liquor store. I need a drink!"
I laughed and said, "let the good times roll!"
She said, "I always hated the temple. Whenever they'd tell us to cover our faces and bow our heads and say, 'Yes', I'd keep my head up and say, "Fuck you!" instead. lol
So we were out, together, which felt good.
Our younger kids thought it was great. They kinda hated going to church, but still, most of their friends were Mormon and most of their activities were Mormon oriented. So we didn't force them to quit their LDS Boy Scout Troops.
After I resigned and sent in a no-contact letter to the Bishop, my son had a Scout Meeting at the church and we had to go because he was being given an award. The scout master was going on and on about how great Joseph Smith was and how we really all would do well to follow his example.
It took everything I had to not spout off with, "Really? YOu want us to cheat on our wives with our neighbor's wives and teenage daughters?" But I didn't. I just bit my tongue and figured that'd be the last time I went to one of those events. Right after that, my cousin who was my youngest son's Cub Scout Den Mother, called me up and said that she thought it'd be best for our son to find another cub scout troop because this one was Mormon and they would be working on their "Duty to God" awards, which involved reading the Book of Mormon and reporting on their favorite chapter and she just thought that'd cause a problem with me. I told her, "Oh that sounds awesome! I'll have my son do a report on how many times God turns whole races of people's skin black for sinning and white again when they repent, despite the fact Mormons supposedly believe men are responsible for their own sins, and not the sins of their Fathers."
She didn't care much for that comment and I figured I wouldn't fight it, since she was a brainwashed MORmON and I really didn't want her brainwashing my kid with bogus racist myths anyways.
But our oldest Son (14) was pissed at me for 'ripping the rug out from underneath him' after raising him in the church and then telling him it was a fraud.
He kept going with his Nazi TBM Grandma for awhile, but got tired of people pitying him and acting like his parents were dead, when we were alive and well. So he finally quit going, but still believed. He's still a believer and we have a bit of a strained relationship, due to our religious differences. Our other 3 kids are great however and doing just fine without the crutch in their lives.
Atheist wife started working out like a fiend, dropped 35lbs, got a boob job and started attracting young men. She was flattered and one thing led to another and she was making up for lost time. She started acting like a drunk sorority girl at a frat party, when she was a middle aged Mother of 4 and my wife. That was obviously an untenable situation for me and I filed for divorce and left her for the love of my life.
She got what she wanted, out of the church and out of control of men, particularly her husband, me. And I got to go have an amazing love affair with the love of my life.
I got to go live the life I really wanted, without the constraints of religion, unfettered by traditional norms.
We still see each other at weddings and holidays, she's got her act together, but still pretty self centered and superficial. But we're divorced now so I don't really care how she lives her life. What I do care about is the damage that the church does to families when one partner decides to follow the evidence to its logical conclusion.
That and the rape culture that's still victimized many, many people I know and love by protecting the pedophiles and blaming the victims. For them I speak up and will never be silenced.