How to define the glow? Here's how I see it.

My older sister, who once wrote here at RfM and introduced me to the works of the Tanners, just got married at the Mormon temple in St. George, Utah. She lives in the Sacramento region, which has its own temple. Why marry in St. George? It just happens to be the town my parents moved to with their two adult daughters. My father bought three large houses there, one for him and my mother, and the other two for his two faithful Mormon daughters. He financed businesses for their husbands, spending who knows how many tens of thousands. His non-Mormon offspring received no "blessings." We were spurned, my older sister included.

After the death of her third husband, my older sister moved to Woodland, CA to be near her daughter and grandson. But something went wrong. Something like three marriages going wrong, I expect. My older sister couldn't get along with her in-law family, as had happened with all her marriages. Though retired, she moved away from her own daughter and grandson. This caused some hard feelings, I'm sure. What to do? It occurred to her that she could appease her aging cult parents. All she had to do was proclaim me and my brother apostate scoundrels and lasso up a husband. But it had to be a Mormon husband, though he be an old loser from the anus of Pennsylvania she found online. Whatever he was, he was fodder for Mom and Dad's attention.

A whirlwind romance ensued, carefully scripted to display respect for Church Dad, who has a pile of money. My older sister married in the temple, and local Mormon family showed up. They dined in high style at the Olive Garden restaurant, and wished the blushing bride and her back country groom all the best. How beamish with righteous pride was my sister. How accepted by cultists and blessed with fresh opportunity! That's the Mormon glow, right there.

My sibs and I used to joke that our “glow” came from radiation, which I’m thinking might be better.

So all sister had to do was give up her integrity to get the glow (and be in line for some cash).

In a word, yes.

Dad wanted a Mormon and he got one. Win win. Nice work if you can get it.

They went to Olive Garden instead of Chuckarama?!? Living the high life indeed!

They go to Chuckarama for Thanksgiving. Olive Garden is for formal events. Good thing Daddy Warbucks is rich. Taco Bell just won't do :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/19/2018 08:03PM by donbagley.

I thought the glow came from all the Scandinavian stock that got bamboozled into the church 150 years ago, and they just happen to have really nice skin.

novelist Jonathan Kellerman described as "Swedish pink." That one made me giggle out loud.

Amazing. How many marriages? How long can she keep this act up?

Not much mystique in that there temple.

She's just a 63-year-old Mormon girl who loves and sustains her assigned leaders. Now, on the auspicious occasion of her fourth attempt at marriage, she finally got Mommy and Daddy's attention.

Will Daddy leave her some cash? Will Mommy answer her desperate phone calls? Stay tuned for disgusting details.

She's only 50 however. While still estranged from the Mormon Church she has moved back to Utah "into the fold". She's husband hunting. We are just waiting for her to meet a TBM guy and she will be back "in" in an instant.

this need to be married. Of course, I wanted to be married. It was MY DREAM. No longer. I actually learned no to make that mistake again.

My therapist and I were just discussing this yesterday, Even though the idea is marriage, he said most couples this age (I'll be 61 soon), he called it MLS, married living separate. But I know so many women who have married over and over and over again. What torture!!!

My boyfriend's 3 sisters have been married 7 times between them.

I have a cousin who has been married 6 or 7 times. He got married in the temple for the first time in his 60s. I think they get us through the temple at a young age so we can buy into it. I can't imagine what he thought the first time through. This marriage seems to have stuck as he has to be late 70s I think!! Oh my. He is my oldest cousin.

That must really bite, Don. But OTOH, your sister is paying a high price for her favored child status.

She won't get what she thinks she'll get.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/19/2018 07:51PM by donbagley.

Your birth family just keeps "giving" like no other, Don.


Like Billie said though, "God bless the child who's got his own."

Amen to that.

My 4 sisters have had 9 husbands between them.

Practice makes perfect? Only a few more to go then . . .

wow, she has gone through so many husbands. trying to please the aging cult parents. I just love your descriptions. but everything just reeks DYSFUNCTIONAL. i'm sorry you happen to be related to them. just know you are not like them. you seen so normal and kind. I have much dysfunction in my tbm family also. you do not suffer alone.

Oh frabjous day! Correct usage of the word "beamish" on RfM!

Thanks Don ;-)

You know I'm a fan of Jabberwocky. The word 'chortled' is also in my vocabulary.

I don't know how old pop's is but he has got to be getting up there in age. I predict that when he goes, and sister gets her inheritance, her marriage will also end, (knowing that she probably won't get a dime, especially if the two younger sisters are as greedy as their dad.) JMHO

at the Olive Garden restaurant."

Only in Utah could eating there be defined that way.

Mystique ? More like mistake.

It may seem like eternity by the time this chapter ends.

You're telling me, brother.

Don, somewhere in a dimension far, far away is a version of yourself who is a loyal lapdog of mormondom, who has a marital resume of some length, a brood of six malformed spawn, and is in the good graces of Daddy Morbucks. However, that Don, let's call him Don666, couldn't parse a 3-word sentence from Dick and Jane.

Wanna trade places with Don666?

:)

You know I wouldn't. By the way, excellent point.

I know.

Did you say this TBM sister of yours is she who introduced you to the works of the Tanners?

TBM may mean: To Benefit Monetarily.

That seems to be how it works in my misbegotten family of birth.

"Mormon Mystique" - found in the DSM under "Psychopathia Mormonensis"