Posted by:
kimball
(
)
Date: May 26, 2011 11:43AM
As expected, it was mostly a get-to-know-you type session. The LDS counselor never said anything to disrespect my beliefs, which was nice, but it's hard to get anywhere when the entire time was pretty much spent becoming familiar with our situation. Still, I'm not convinced that I'm not just wasting my hard-earned money.
For those who didn't follow my other post, and if I didn't explain it, our only problem is that we can't talk to each other about spiritual matters, which are important to us. We've always been able to talk to each other about anything and everything, so this is new and unnerving. She feels that whenever she opens up to me, or addresses my concerns, that I ignore or discredit her. She also feels like she's not scholarly enough to defend the church properly. So she clams up.
For me, I want to discuss anything and everything, analyze the evidence and come to our decisions about church topics together. I want to have open and rational discussions, but because the church is so important to her, anything negative about the church is an attack on her, and becomes emotional. So not wanting the discussion to become emotional, I clam up.
In addition, the only time I saw her without faith (which lasted less than two days) she went into a seriously disturbing emotional funk, and I'm not convinced that I want to ever risk going there again. This, combined with her explicit desire not to research anti-mormon topics, adds to me not being open about my feelings and reasons for them.
So we explained all of that. I can see how I can be more respectful toward her ideas, illogical and unethical as they may be in my eyes, but I would have to either not give my reverse opinion, or lie. Maybe I'll have to learn to bite my tongue and say "I disagree, but I love you." It still doesn't solve the problem of me not being able to express myself fully, which I can't see being done without a full analysis of all historical evidence, and I have a hard time seeing LDS Family Services encouraging that.
Anyway, one fun tidbit from the session. The moderator said something like "she doesn't want to be judged by your opinions, just like you probably don't want to be judge from the church's perspective." I thought about it for a few moments and said "no, I don't think I care about that." I seriously don't care if mormons tell me I'm going to hell. I know the doctrine, I was on that side once. I just want to have an open and honest discussion, and not let reason get clouded by emotion. I told the moderator that I've thus far found it impossible to have such conversations with mormons, and thus I'm not confident I'll be able to have such with my wife.
We'll see if my money goes down the toilet or not. If it doesn't work I'll probably find a non-mo counselor. At least the fact that I no longer pay tithing makes these trips possible (my wife would probably say "if you did pay tithing, they wouldn't be necessary").