Posted by:
exminion
(
)
Date: October 08, 2019 03:42AM
Thank you for your great post, and thread, Lori C! I like the comments here.
What you say is true, and I was one of those young women groomed to accept abuse from men. My RM temple husband had all the qualifications one could ask for in a Mormon male, and he beat me almost every day (for no reason, so there was nothing I could do), and almost killed me a couple of times. I hung onto the sacred temple marriage, thinking I had no other choice in life, and I endured injuries for 14 months. I was suicidal, and pretty much destroyed, when I finally divorced him.
I was blamed for the divorce. Everyone said that I must have deserved the beatings. (My ex was a psychopath who had badly beaten his sister, assaulted several neighbors, and other horrible deeds, that everyone kept secret from me.
When I left that marriage, my other choice in life was rejection by my Mormon peers, and blame from the adults. I disobeyed, and left my husband. No decent Mormon man would ever want to marry me. My parents were ashamed. No one got me psychological help. I was on my own, yet I stayed in that abusive cult for several more years, and eventually married another Mormon male, who cheated on me from our honeymoon on.
I agree with everything you posters said about love and Mormonism! I'm a living, testifying victim of love scams. When I resigned, all of my loving Mormon ward friends disappeared from my life.
Where's the love?
I always tried to obey, never thinking of myself as independent or strong, in the least. I ended up working and supporting myself and my children, meeting all kinds of interesting people, traveling all over the world, helping others, solving problems, keeping people from cheating each other, having adventures with my children, learning with them, laughing with them. My non-Mormon life has been so rich and varied and joyful, that I can't imagine living a life like Mrs. Ballard's. Oh, I wanted to--I dreamed of living my RS president mother's life, who married young, married her first love, never had to be "out there" dating, was never abused, beaten, raped, or robbed. She never graduated from a university, never worked ONE DAY for a salary, never climbed a mountain, never remodeled a house, never worked for a REAL charity, never rode a horse, skied or water skied, never learned to ride a bike, never played on a sports team, never hiked in the wilderness, never won any awards, didn't love her children as much as I love mine, never had them turn out so well, never learned a foreign language, never played a musical instrument--and it goes on and on. She was wealthy, but in many ways, she was "deprived" of so many life experiences. She was "child-like" in her Mormon beliefs.