A few of you here know me and my DW, so it is with some trepidation that I post. But I am so excited for her.

So those that are still connected with my DW, please do not say anything until she comes to terms with what she is thinking....what I think she is thinking.

With that said, my DW's shelf has finally broken, or at least suffered catastrophic (i hope) fractures.

She has always gone through phases where she is super-mormon, and blase-blase mormon. She is in a super-mormon phase because of Nelson's geriatric ramblings about shit that has not been relevant since the early 90's to mormon culture.

She is listening to the BOM, reading talks, etc. However, when I woke up this morning she was reading "Do we trust Him: Hard is Good" a talk from last year.

Over the weekend my daughter had the chance to tell DW for the first time part of the reason she left the church to become a jesus-jumper.

There was someone who we both knew very well in the bishopric who started asking wildly inappropriate questions of my daughter during interviews starting at 11. She never told us. While DW seemed to take it in stride, it rocked her. One of our common fights has been that because it has never been her experience that interviews are inappropriate, that it is just overblown nonsense.

Then my youngest son told her he just lies and gives them whatever answer they want to sexual questions, not that they do not ask them, but he straight up lies.

This conversation started because my sister called to ask about her 11 year old's son genital pain and see if we had any idea what they should do about it. Her husband did not want to take him to the hospital because he was afraid the doctor would tell him to masturbate, which is an unpardonable sin for them(sigh). This made DW laugh because she has never had a problem with "shower babies" because it is normal behavior.

At some level, she knows all of her children do not believe. None of them are going on missions and only two of them still go to church, which they do because it means so much to her.

She has been very sad, and left church early on Sunday and hid our room.

There are other indicators as well.

This brings up the sad part. When she has questions, I cannot be her sounding board, in fact, she does not want me to even know, because of the way I left, and the secrets I kept then.

She knows I want her out of the church, and she thinks my reasons for that are selfish, which they were for a long time. Now I just want her to be free. Free from the double-bind, and the mind-fuck that is the modern mormon church.

In fact, my biggest regret in life is that I did not take her on my journey out with me because the lack of communication that ensued led to life altering repercussions.

So three cheers to Nelson. Maybe the best thing happening to the shit show that is mormonism.

And wish her luck!

I do believe it is so much harder for some without a doubt. I like this line that Wally wrote in response to my short story.

"It's the only community they've ever known. It's the only way of life they've ever known. All of their life accomplishments, joys, sorrows and memories are inextricably intertwined with their "faith," i.e. their emotional connection to the organization."

As we all know, the Mormon life goes very deep. I wish you both all the luck in the world. They say luck is when preparation meets with opportunity so maybe your wife's stars are lining up. She's lucky she has you and your restraint there waiting for her.

Done & Done Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> She's
> lucky she has you and your restraint there waiting
> for her.

My wife likes I believe having me - an inveterate sinner as a partner in her crimes - like going out to eat on Sunday as we did yesterday. I paid.

She can only free herself

Just a word of caution:

Dont confuse her sadness as an indication that her shelf is or has broken, catastrophic or otherwise

Sadness and grief are not the same as doubt. They aren't the same thing

Thanks Angela. I know they are not. And I know she can only free herself.

But there is more going on than I am willing to discuss even mostly anon that makes me believe the cracks are there.

And I am cautiously optimistic. I have been down this road before.

I just want her to see without the burlap sack. It is bright and beautiful.

Question: what's a "jesus jumper?"

Being uncertain as to what that meant, I googled it...only to find lots of clothing. Really, really, weird clothing.

Lol,

An colloquial expression used (mainly by me) to describe evangelical christians.

Ah, thanks.
Hopefully as in "Jumping for Joy for Jesus," and not "Jumping off a Cliff for Jesus."

Either works depending on the person :).

But jesus-jumpers fall into two main extremes.

The nice strangers that come up to you to make conversation, and then jump to talking about jesus.

the actual charismatic church I went to once where people were jumping and flailing about. It was quite a show.

Everyone else is just a jesus-hopper? But I like alliteration.

I do too :)

Good luck with your wife. I have high hopes she'll find her way out. And that she then jumps for you!

Never understood the whole shelf breaking thing. Like the shelf you stood on breaks?

Hi Adam. I’m sure there are others here who could explain this better, but I’ll give it a whiz.

Throughout ones experience in Mormonism we are taught things or hear things that don’t quite add up with other things we know to be factual. This weird feeling we get from this is called cognitive dissonance, or cog-dis for short. When our need to believe ( that the Church is “true”)is stronger than the conflicting facts causing our cog-dis, we put those inconvenient facts “up on a shelf somewhere”. You know, out of sight, out of mind sorta thing. Well, if you do this enough times, sooner or later that shelf breaks under the weight of all those facts and they fall on you like a ton of intellectual bricks. Then it becomes impossible to deny them all . That’s what it means to have your shelf break.

Perfect explanation!

Have you talked to your wife about the essays at all? If she is open to looking at anything, I believe that is a great place to start as they are on their own site. When they first came out this one resonated with a lot of women.

Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo
https://www.lds.org/topics/plural-marriage-in-kirtland-and-nauvoo?lang=eng

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Joseph_Smith%27s_wives
Sealed to wife, Emma, 28 May 1843

I am sorry your daughter went through the interview process.

My precious niece nearly killed herself because of these interviews.

Fortunately her parents got her help and turned their back on the church.

It was too bad it took something nearly happening to their daughter before their shelves evaporated.

I wish you and your family the best.

Does anybody need any bail money?

Interviews of children regarding 'chastity':

Mormonism at its Worst.

Yea-right?