My non-TBM but still a member daughter had a personal conversation with a friend after attending her bridal shower.

The bride-to-be commented that they were getting married in the temple only to make the parents on both sides happy. After that, they will live life how they want to. They don't intend to wear garments or live by the other uptight rules of the church.They will drink, party, and have fun how ever they like.

I can't help but think that there are many young LDS couples that are doing the same thing. A couple visits to the internet pretty much collapses any church claims. But kids still want their families love.

I can understand that.

that we have to tell the youth the truth about the church. The older generation, the ones who have been on missions and are settled down now with a couple of kids, are much harder because it's part of who they are and they come from a different place - pre-internet, pre-laptop etc. But I look at the kids, the teens and think "you could totally convince them of the truth. They are so well-informed and aren't willing to crucify themselves for a fable."

This is like your daughter's friend...only playing along to keep the peace. The bride-to-be's future kids will be out completely. The LDS church will always have it's fanatics but the thinking people will want their lives to be their own.

Maybe...it worked on me. My ward has gone to extreme lengths to stretch the rules a bit. The bishop and others have a "do your best,that is enough for god" mantra. They've dropped the majority of the guilt in favor of a cuddle approach. Not sure whether I should be glad or disgusted. Anything to keep a tithe payer I suppose.

on all that Hokum and teach it to their children is well on their way to breaking the cycle of Mormon addiction in the family

This is a little different but my friend told me that while he was at BYU they had a real problem with students eloping in Vegas so they could have sex and then getting a divorce or annulment.
Sounds like a lot of people my generation and younger are doing things in their own way.

Yup. Nothing much has changed in forty or more years!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/2010 02:31PM by Susan I/S.

that contains actual vows of love, honoring, and cherishing each other, instead of the morg. Maybe they aren't quite grown up enough to take on the commitment of marriage is they are still trying to please their parents as much as this indicates.

It's really sad if someone is getting married in the temple just to please their parents or to squelch all the rumors about them not being "worthy." Face it, temple weddings are horrid and ugly and demeaning. Couples just endure that part of it and then mostly put it out of their mind so they can get on with the real celebration and fun part--the pictures outside the temple, the luncheons the reception, the sex.

In the meantime they missed having something truly memorable to remember their vows by. Hell, they missed out on making any meaningful vows to each other. They missed having some of their closest family and friends get to be witnesses to these vows. Even if they're the TBMest of TBMs, usually there are younger siblings or unendowed friends who can't be there.

Every wedding I attend now (and no matter how small, EVERY single one is hundreds of times more beautiful than a temple wedding), but they all make me sad, they all remind me not only of what I missed out on as far as the wedding, but what I missed out on as far as a real marriage to someone I'd known a long time and knew I was compatible with in exchange for rushing into it with the first person who would have me just so I could have god-ordained sex.

Stupid effin cult!

i think one of the problems with the whole hog, "you can't have sex unless you're married" thing is that is dumbs down marriage into just sex! dont misunderstand my point, sex/physical intimacy is a very large very important part of a marriage but that's not all there is. when you have these young adults who are taught over & over that sex is the carrot for marriage then what do you expect, sure they will get married, have a wild naughty weekend, then get it annulled and think nothing of it.

a LDS friend of mine who graduated from the Y in 1961 said she got proposals all the time to go to vegas & screw because in one young person's words, "well that's why you get married right?"

I never thought of it in those terms before but it's exactly right and why so many young people have no trouble rushing into marriage to someone who they've only known a month. Because marriage is just Mormonism and sex, right? You find someone who fits the basic Mormon requirements and that you are willing to sleep with -or are dying to sleep with - and that makes you perfectly suited to marriage. It's no more complicated than that. Except a few years down the road when you are married to a stranger, who you have nothing in common with but the church, and feel all empty inside. But even then it's OK because the church will fill up all those empty spaces, tying you even closer to it.

Hope the sarcasm in this post is obvious.

i understand you great CA girl. something that's bothered my my whole life: when i was 12 there was this great couple in our ward, beautiful crazy-in-love couple with 6 grown kids. the wife had a brain tumor & passed away 8 months later, the hubby was crushed. 6 months later he remarried this hag, I mean it, I had run-ins with the woman several times she was a nagging mean harpy who had a sour face & never anything nice to say to anyone. she never smiled at him (that me or any of my pals saw, even my parents commented they didnt seem right for each other) anyhow, they married in a RS room ceremony, the entire ward (which was pretty small & closeknit) threw them a pretty nice wedding reception. many people talked before and after the wedding how important marriage was because it kept you from committing fornication! they got married because they were both hard up, that was the only reason! and it wasnt a secret! and all the adults around me (with the exception of my parents) seemed to have no problem with it!! it was stunning! haunted me for years... they are divorced now by the way, guess the sex wasnt worth her harpy nagging..

Here in the UK, mormons have a civil wedding (usually takes place in a mormon chapel), and a temple wedding. So the main wedding is usually the civil wedding, where they have all their friends over, and have a party, and then the temple wedding it just an added extra on the end, for most people.

Some mormons even provide alcohol at their weddings, for their non-mormon friends, but obviously, if they do so, they're not allowed to use the chapel for the wedding, but they don't have to. As far as the church is concerned, the temple wedding is the only important bit.

But I've always wondered, why don't they do this in the US? It works great in the UK, as non-mormons are allowed to come. I can see no feasible reason why it's the way it is in the US.

My understanding is that Mormons in the US are strongly pressured NOT to have civil ceremonies. The temple wedding is legally binding, and after that they have a "ring ceremony" where rings are exchanged and then a reception for all their friends/family, Mormon and non.

I don't think they are allowed to get married in a civil ceremony and then have their marriage sealed in a temple unless they were either A) already legally married when they joined the church, or B) deemed "unworthy" to have a temple marriage at the time of their wedding. But I could be wrong about this. My family left the church long before I was marriage-age, and my parents were married long before the missionaries came to our house.

That sounds about right.

In the UK, temple marriages aren't recognized by the Government, so they aren't legally binding, and the church still requires a temple marriage, so both have to be done.

If the US Governmet stopped recognizing LDS Temple marriages, then they'd probably have to do the same thing over there. I really hope this happens eventually, as it wouldn't do anything bad to mormonism, and would be better for them, as they can invite their non-mormon friends. Everybody would be happier.

I hope they don't get scared by satan saying "YOu vill be in MY POWER mwahahahaha" line in the temple movie. Or the part where you have to stand up if you don't want to take on the bullshit obligations. Those were the scariest parts for me when I was "in it". Hopefully they are further out of the mindF#@$@# or it might scare them back in. Cult.

as part of the religious culture has been going on for a long time. A good percentage of any Ward I attended had many temple marriages but only a few were "active" members.

I'm quite sure that it's very common in many other kinds of marriages. They are traditions that they won't break, whether they believe in them or not.

Perhaps the younger generation is just being more up front about it.

I think Mormons sometimes fantasize about escaping the cult, because they know they can't. It's not just the social pressure that keeps them in. It's the programmed fear and guilt that can reach out and snatch back even a decades-long "jack" Mormon. I wonder if what that girl was saying was just her wishing she could be free like your daughter, perhaps wanting to seem cooler.

Perhaps they should think twice about the temple ceremony. It is rote and impersonal. In 10 or 20 years they may look back and
wish they had something more personal and meaningful. I've been happily married for 25 years, but wish (with longing) that my wedding ceremony and vows reflected more of the real commitment my husband and I were making. You only get married once. (Hopefully)

I feel the same way about my crappy temple wedding. I really wish we'd had a beautiful, more personal wedding outside the temple. Hell, eloping to Vegas would have been
more meaningful. I hope we can have a vow renewal ceremony some day, even if it's just us, somewhere special. I hated the temple ceremony, even when I believed it was necessary. I want a real wedding some day.

As I was planning my own vow renewal today (it will be in another 4 years but it's never too early to start planning is it?) I was crushed with grief as I realized that if I hadn't of been brainwashed all my life my nevermo grandfather who means the world to me (only my husband can compare and they obviously fill very different roles) could have walked me down the aisle.
I sobbed for quite a while. I would love to have him there for my vow renewal but he will most likely have passed by then since we don't even know if he will make it to Christmas.
That is something I can never get back! It makes me so angry. And now I'm crying again just thinking of it.

I hope you have told your grandfather how important he is to you!

I have real issues with a church that is supposed to be all about family but doesn't miss a beat when it has the chance to get in BETWEEN family members if anybody dares to color outside the lines!

I eloped to avoid the temple and the guilt a year later still brought me there. The only thing about the entire situation that isn't a regret is that I got to have a beautiful wedding on the beach a year prior. I feel awful for these kids. A temple wedding is not the thing that every little girl dreams about.

The OP is a PRIME EXAMPLE of how tscc imposes guilt & intimidation upon its members...
That, and making it difficult, burdensome (sometimes long delays) to leave tscc
and they wonder why we call it a CULT!

Do these young couples know what the temple ceremony involves? Saying they just want to appease the parents, but do they realize there are no vows to each other and strange costuming required?