Posted by:
rogertheshrubber
(
)
Date: May 30, 2011 09:51AM
As some of you know, I am currently dealing with an ex-wife who, because of my apostasy, wants to "severly limit" my visitation with my three-year old son when I move to Utah during the next few weeks. I mention this only for context, and do not wish to get into the legalities.
For the past 20 months, I have tried to gently persuade my ex to work with me on reasonable terms. I have capitulated on almost everythng she wanted up to this point, and she has only become more hard-line. Perhaps, more importantly, since moving to Utah, she has become less and less capable of self-actualization, and completely unwilling to change anything about herself, or question her own behavior.
I believe this has something to do with the LDS life narrative she has been taught: eternal progress toward perfection. In that paradigm, she feels compelled to believe that she is closer to God, and closer to becoming a goddess today, than she was seven years ago, when we were first married. She feels a compulsion to look over the years of her life, and see herself becoming more and more perfect. Otherwise, how will she ever make it to the Celestial Kingdom?
She cannot allow herself to even consider that she might have some fault in the divorce, and I do not make this a topic of conversation (I tried to do it tactfully once, and she went berzerk). Worse yet, she cannot allow herself to consider that someone less "spiritual" than her (i.e. an apostate), has any right to be near our son. She formed an opinon on this several months ago, and seems to feel that any compromise would mean admitting she was "wrong."
I believe this inability to examine her feelings and actions makes her more miserable. It is an enormous burden in a "latter-day saint's" life to feel required to show "progress" all the time. She really has to believe that she is a "good" person at all times, and I think it prevents her from letting herself feel human.
Combine an inability to self-examine with the teaching that all of her feelings are actually God speaking to her through the Holy Spirit, and you wind up with a person who is very hard to work with. How can such a person be wrong about anything without their entire life falling to pieces?
This pattern is not exclusive to Mormons, either. So many people lack the ability to challenge their own mental patterns. Often, such people will behave as if everyone who disagrees with them is somehow "evil," and they will play the role of victim. They spend an excess of time and energy trying to prove they are "right," and fighting to keep "bad" influences away, accomplishing little else.
A person without the power of self actualization thus becomes a burden on themselves and on the world in which they live.
When I left the Mormon church, I quickly found that I could recognize my shortcomings and work toward bettering myself, without living in shame that I was not living up to "God's expectations." It actually makes working on myself a lot easier to do. To say that I am "wrong," about something, or to admit to myself that I am a flawed human being actually makes me more at peace than if I felt required to dig in my heels and fight everytime someone questioned whether or not I was "right." I don't even have to believe I am "better" today than I was seven years ago. I am just different. Hopefully wiser, but not on some path where every day must be more perfect than the last.
And I am happy with myself.
I lament the fact that I have to file legal forms to force my ex to deal fairly with me and my son. It is especially regrettable that winning better visitation in this way will not help my ex better herself at all. It will just play into the idea that she is a victim, losing battles to an evil force. She will feel like a failure, instead of seeing a change in the situation as something that could be better for everyone.
Or, perhaps not. That is probably too much assuming. I will hope that living near me again, and seeing how kind I can be toward my son AND her, even in the face of her unreasonable behavior, will help her break through the life narrative and start working on herself. Only she can make that happen, though. And I believe LDS indoctrination will make it very tough.