& while visiting the relatives recently this little ditty (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) was prominently displayed on their Fridgidaire for ALL to see...

http://proclamationpictures.blogspot.com/2011/10/freebie-if-this-isnt-your-castle-then.html

Upon further reflection I thought how truly & especially sad I felt for my little adolescent nieces (& nephews) having that ingrained in their psyches daily as perhaps the ONLY interpretation of what may ultimately lead to a "Happy Marriage" sometime later in their lives.

& perhaps what is even more truly sad & ironic is as the years go by I actually know MORE Temple Married Mormon friends, associates & even family & extended family members who across a wide age demographic are splits-ville divorced than the entirety of my "Gentile" friends et al.

& pray tell just HOW in the world do you explain that to little Suzie (& Johnnie) as they open the Frigidaire a thousand times a day???

So I guess after all is said & Dunn you can simply file this astute observation by moi under the category of, "Things that make you go hmmm!"

So what's wrong with THIS picture???

Enquiring minds wanna know!!!

Or so it seems to moi...

There were two weddings of demi-celebrities this past weekend.

One was of two evangelicals. The woman was a virgin and *quite* vocal about her decision to wait for marriage, even including numerous (and to my mind, vulgar) references about that on her wedding day.

The other was of a couple who had been dating for three years, were probably living together, and already had a beautiful baby together.

Two lovely weddings, two happy couples. And it dawned on me that the outcome was about the same. Both couples were in love, were married, and were looking forward to their lives together with their spouses. One couple already produced a baby, and the other likely will soon.

So, why all of the hue and cry over purity culture? Don't people (ideally) end up at the same destination anyway?

To me, this type of conditioning does nothing but give the impression that adult life is lollypops and fairy tales.

I see this idealism all the time, and it always implodes at some point. For some, its the spouse, others its the kids, and others it is health or finances.

When my wife had cancer, I spent a good portion of two years maintaining a household and kids by myself, while at the same time meeting job expectations, and being known at the cancer hospital on a first name basis with all the staff.

At the end of it, I had a group of women of around 15 or so give me a standing ovation, as my wife had finally achieved remission. The reason they did this is because I had stood alongside my wife the entire time, and they were all TBM's with me being the exception. Except for one, their husbands had all divorced them because "they could not handle their wife's cancer diagnosis".

Thats what idealism does, versus cold hard reality.

Oh, mam, I can't help but wonder if a TBM male would default to thinking that his cancer victim wife wouldn't have been afflicted if she were worthy...

You're an honorable man, SIG.

Are you my frog?

If this isn't your lily pad, then I'm not your frog!

Right you are, Lily.

Every woman should have her own pad.

it should be a maxi-pad so she's ready no matter what.

Not quite what I had in mind, but I guess it works!

So, a princess kisses a frog and the frog turns into a prince.

Then the prince gets sick and has a frog in his throat.

Now what!! Long tongue??

Nope.

The princess kisses the frog, which turns into a prince, who promptly falls off the lily pad and drowns.

The newly bereft princess mourns for three days and then goes off in search of a new (smoking) hot frog.

It's sort of an amphibian version of the Sisyphus myth,

Yeah, I got married on the lily pad the first time around. It was so bad I jumped of the lily pad myself!

It's funny how the men in this story are cardboard characters, acted upon as opposed to acting. That centrality of women suggests to me that the tales were passed from mother to daughter rather than transmitted through men who were presumably at the local pub boasting of the dragons they'd slayed.

Excellent point oh wise mom.

I desperately wanted to be able to take my bride to the temple as the ultimate romantic gesture. The church made damn sure that I knew I was not worthy. So I found other castles that welcomed me.

marriage worked out. My life has been so far from all lollipops and fairy tales.

And I remind myself when I'm feeling sorry for myself about my cousin who I've talked about before. She died at age 37 on October 16th. My husband was cheating and talking about leaving.
She was 3 days older than me. We were raised in little Brigham City in a tightknit not so LDS extended family, so I knew her really well. She had six kids. Her MIL found a widow to line her son up with while my cousin was still alive. He was meeting this other woman at the temple and doing sessions. Then one month after my cousin died, they got married. My cousin and her husband were active LDS.

I can't feel sorry for myself for very long. I got to raise my kids and still be around for them now at age 65. So much for fairy tales. (P.S. My daughter did the same thing, but she got a really good guy. I approve 100% or more.)

https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Question:_Is_the_rate_of_antidepressant_use_in_Utah_much_higher_among_Mormons_than_the_general_population%3F

. . . belief being: "nothing to see here"

"If we are to blame the Church for Utah's antidepressant use, then we must also credit the Church for Utah's over-all happiness."

Or credit Utah doctors with finding effective happy pills.