Hello to my secret friends here on the board. All of you. Bear with me, this may get long, but I need to get it out. I've been a long time lurker, I think almost 10 years now, but not much of a poster. I have come back here from time to time when I needed to see the words of others with similar backgrounds, when I needed to be consoled, or to know that I am not completely crazy; or worse, completely alone. I credit you folks for keeping me alive in the darkest of times.
I have been personally free from TSCC for 22 years, but dealing with my TBM family has always been keenly difficult, at best.

The last 9 months have been a literal nightmare for my family. My estranged older brother passed away after a 5 year battle with cancer, on Halloween. He was 43. We hadn't talked in 17 years, mostly because he openly destroyed my life(at the time) and successfully widened the gap between me and the rest of our family. I hadn't been allowed to be around for holidays, vacations, birthdays, or been able to do anything with my family for over 20 years because of his hatred, threats, and physical violence towards me, the apostate. All to protect his own growing family from my "bad influence".
I had to navigate my 20's alone, and without my parents' or families' support, which indeed made my life turn out vastly different from that of my siblings. This is besides the point, and oh so condensed, but I need to give at least some background.

I had to go to the funeral to support my parents, who were of course, completely devastated. He was my mother's favourite. It was one of the longest, most difficult and surreal days of my life. It was my first time inside an LDS church since I was a teenager. The front hallway was lined with a giant photo collage, including family portraits from which I had been painstakingly edited out of. There were 100's of people there. I had to look at his body, and then listen to a long shuffle of people talk about what an amazing, kind, and inspirational person he was before blatantly turning the conversation to the church.
I felt nothing. That was not the person I knew as my abusive brother. After the service, at the graveside, people were openly avoiding me, and I even overheard women talking malicious sh*t about me as I dropped a rose into the pit alongside my grieving older sister and brother.

39 days later, my mother passed away. I was on a plane the next day to UT to help my father with whatever I could(since my brother would not be there to stop me this time). We had a small viewing for immediate family. My uncle, my mother's only sibling came, and my father immediately started viciously berating him right in front of the casket, about needing to go back to church, as it was "her dying wish that he go back to the temple". I watched in absolute horror and disgust.
My mother had not wanted a funeral, but my sister protested and got the RS to sponsor a luncheon at their ward church after a short graveside service. Strangers and extended family were very kind to me this round, though I was forced into being in a family portrait next to my mother's casket. I was the only one with tears streaming down my face. I spent the rest of the week helping around the house, going through my mother's things, and trying to be close to my father again. He made it clear that keeping up appearances with his church friends was more important, but I was still happy to finally have my family back after all this time without fear.

I went home, the year turned, and then corona came. I am in the entertainment industry, so my career came to a crashing halt. I had been talking to my father and sister several times a week, which I was enjoying. My sister had always been a stranger to me so catching up with her and being involved in family decisions again felt good. She also lives in the same neighborhood as our father, so she was keeping an eye on him for the both of us. Towards the end of March, one of my cousins suddenly passed away, and I had been appointed to make some phone calls. I called my father to tell him the news. He didn't seem to care much and seemed distracted. He kept using the term "we" so in thinking he was losing it, I asked him who the h*ll is we?? He got really nervous and defensive and said there was someone there "he had met at the temple and she was teaching him how to do long form genealogy records". I hung up a little confused and called my sister, whom was able to figure out later with some digging that this woman was actually living at the house with our dad and that he claimed she was a "displaced caretaker" who had no home, car, or phone, and she was helping him out. My dad is 70 years old, very robust, and not of the helpless variety, so of course we were skeptical.
Over the next month he became increasingly aggravating on the phone, which was always on speaker, and I could hear lady peanuts gallery in the background telling him what to say. Then my sister calls me on April 25th completely hysterical, wouldn't tell me what was going on, but insisted I call our dad, because "he's so f***ing stupid". That was the first time I had ever heard my TBM sister swear, so I knew it was serious. That of course made me nervous and not want to call him, so I was able to weasel the truth out of her a day later.

Our father had eloped this stranger in complete secret, only 4 months after becoming a widow, in the middle of a pandemic, and had openly deceived us about it. I was gobsmacked, and the three of us remaining children are, to say the least, absolutely not done mourning, heartbroken and angry. He wasn't willing to tell us the truth, and I still haven't heard it directly from his mouth.

On Mother's Day, which was already hard considering the circumstances, my favourite Aunt (my father's eldest sister) passed away. We were told in a brief, cold text msg from daddy dearest that there would be no funeral. We didn't even know that she had passed yet. He also sent us a random terrible group text msg a month later on my mother's birthday, saying something like, "Thanks for shunning us, I feel like I'm back in my first ward, hope you're all happy. We don't know why you're mad at us, you never told us. You should feel HAPPY for your mom".
This of course infuriated all of us and none of us have talked to him since said second hand revelation about the marriage.

I guess I'm telling all of you this because I know you'll get it. I think I finally had a real nervous breakdown and being locked up doesn't help the trudging descent into depression. I feel like I cannot catch my breath. I feel that having my father back for a few months after so much tragedy, only to have him ripped away again in what feels like pure ignorance has reopened so many old wounds for me. I am so tired of TSCC's grip, its' destruction of families, its' blase views on death, it's touristy-photo-snapping funerals... I am allowed to experience grief, am I not? I am merely human. Am I wrong to be angry at my father for this? and yet also extremely worried? I know it's his life, he's a grown a** man, although completely naive, and I think he has made a terrible decision based solely on his religious beliefs that people are nothing unless they are married. I know this, as his daughter whom has been made to feel worthless because I am not.

Wow. What a series of crazy events. The church makes everything even more crazy.

I guess your dad, being elderly, figures he doesn't have time to waste. Maybe that explains the hasty decision. We had a grandfather who would immediately run to the temple and find some old lady to marry each time his wife died (3 times).

I don't think you are wrong to feel the way you feel. It was nice of you to indulge them all through all of those family deaths. I know you had your hopes up but they all have too much invested in their religion to realize how bizarre they are. All I can say is be the bigger person and be kind to them, but don't expect them to remotely understand your feelings.

Agree. With so much water under the bridge (over troubled waters) how can your father and siblings be much more than almost strangers? I'm glad you had some good experiences lately but they could have not taken your brother's lead. They could have acted like adults.

To be fair, I was a definitely a daddy's girl growing up, until I left the church of course and then *gasp* went to evil art school. I was emancipated at 16, living with a catholic aunt and going to a very good magnet school in Sin City just to get out of the LDS village in NV where I was raised. This is when I started having problems with my late brother, whom was long out of the house and working as a police officer, and chose to make a mission out of making my life miserable, because I had blue hair, er something.

My eldest brother and I have always been close though. He is out of the grip of the church too, about 10 years now. I've always had him at least, to confide in. He was with me experiencing this whole thing over the years, but he had also had the benefit of having been married and have had kids, so he never got cut out. Now he's divorced, so he's the devil, like me. We've both been blacksheeped in our family, though we never stopped talking to our parents completely. Just made sure we moved far enough away from them, and kept the brief phone conversations free of politics and religion, the latter impossible.

Everyone was incredibly intimidated or scared of my late brother. He was bipolar, violent, angry, scary, and yet also in a position of power. He always got his way, and was very manipulative. I wanted out of the church, he wanted me away from "his family".

Wowsers! I grew up in Las Vegas, back when there was just one Stake. I left on my mission, from the old Las Vegas 2nd Ward, in 1965.

Who gave you your PB? I ask because I dated a Bunker and a Stewart, and there were patriarchs in both families; I never got around to dating a Leavitt. Those were the three mormon power families at that time, in Vegas.

Would I have known your dad (or your mother), despite him being 5 years younger than me? Best way: did he graduate from Rancho, Vegas or Western? Then I was at the Y from '67 to '70 ...

This is the closest I've come in my many years of apostasy of finding a haphazard Vegas connection. I don't really have any interest in actually working to find one, if that makes any sense. But I remain curious as to, 'what the hell happened to everybody!'

Ha!
My dad grew up in Las Vegas, his family was in the area for several generations- straight gunslinger stock. I have some infamous ancestors.

I think he graduated from Western HS, but spent his freshman year at Rancho?? Then he went to The U where he met my mother and converted to the church.

I grew up in Panaca NV, 2.5 hrs NE of LV. The man who gave me my PB was the stake pres there, I believe the name was Holt.
I ended up graduating from old Las Vegas High, just rebranded as the LVA.

Huh! So he grew up heathen in Vegas. Man, I bet that was interesting! Certainly a lot more interesting than growing up mormon.

It has to be a fascinating story regarding falling, and converting for, a TBM.

Which fraternity did he pledge at the U?

I have no idea about the frat thing.

The "true version" of the story of my father's conversion I have only heard from his nevermo siblings. My mother "stole him from the family and brainwashed him."
My father's telling of it (de)evolves and gets more pious and goes back further as he gets older. He has some delusions now that his GG grandparents and there after were actually mormons so that he can proudly claim he was BIC. That is completely untrue and just one of his many pathological lies that he believes. He was only able to convert his youngest brother, but that didn't last very long, and apparently he didn't speak to his older brother for two years because he wouldn't join the church. This was back in the 70's. Their mother infamously stated on her deathbed, "Don't let those bas**rds baptize my corpse."

OH, how I needed that laugh, laperla.

Grandma was full of great one liners. Her other death bed zinger was "Yeah. I'll quit smoking....when there's six feet of earth on top of me and I can't lift my cigarette to my lips."

That's what's so great about being a human being: Just when you think you've seen it all, BAM!!!

Oh my, so this really is a thing? Finding single women at the temple?

I think I was right to be truly horrified by that. My TBM sis thought it was outlandish because "you don't just have time to sit around and talk and play grab a** at the temple".

I feel for you. Try to look after yourself as best you can.

I read your post, and I feel you too. I wish I could tell you that it gets easier, but it doesn't. The way you can adapt and choose to accept yourself will though, with much searching and self-care.

I found that it comes in waves. Exile, forced conversations, semi-acceptance, complacency, negotiating, exile, and again and again et cetera et cetera, until you either break completely free, or stop caring. Both of which involve the same set of tools.

Finding yourself will come at great cost, but know that you are worth it. I can't imagine what it is like having children in this situation, since I left as a teen and chose not to have children, but I feel they will come around later. It wasn't until around age 30 that I had finally learned how to tiptoe around my parents without compromising my health. I know they will never change, nor respect my decisions; we are different people with different beliefs, and that doesn't stop me from being myself anymore.

I hope you can find some solace. I have some recommended reading that helped me though the pain if you wish to seek wisdom of a different color.

This lockdown/shut-in business adds another ten pounds to the heavy load any one is carrying. Your brother and the rest of the family already had you loaded with plenty of weight and just as you got a reprieve, good ole Dad loaded it all back on you Mormon-style with his need to be seen as the best Mormon ever. He needs you to be a certain way as proof that he is the best Mormon. Has nothing to do with caring for you.

I hate seeing someone suffer so heavily at the expense of someone else's Mormon facade that they must keep erected at all costs. So you left the church and they feel they must show "tough love." Funny how Mormons always attach the word love to so many of their ugly actions. Court of Love comes to mind where they strip you to the quick and humiliate you----because they love you.

My parents, particularly my mother, always stressed that Mormon family honor was of highest importance with the implication that we should sacrifice ourselves to that.

I come from a ridiculously Mormon family as well. I got to the point where I just didn't even want to be part of the family anymore. Finally built a relationship with one sister that is gold and I can be myself with. Worth a lot, that.

Be good to yourself. Nothing wrong with distancing yourself from your father. Glad your sister is there for you if she really is. Build on that. Many don't even get one sibling let alone a whole family to accept them and love them---tenderly rather than toughly this time.



Don't know what to say except I get it. You don't owe your Dad anything. If you want to do something do. But not because you feel like you owe him. Duty love isn't love anymore than tough love is.

Your Dad needs to learn the meaning of the word, reciprocity although I would say it is way too late for that. Getting married without telling you and that nasty email. Ewwww.

Many Mormons act like preferred children to their God - spoiled and all about showing themselves to be blessed instead of trying to bless others.

I'm not going to name names, but the woman I love has a sister who never formally left the church but was as jack mormon as a mormon can get.

A few years back we went to a family party and the sister showed up with her new temple husband... His wife had recently died and he simply did not want to be alone; didn't know HOW to be alone! And somehow (we never got any details) she was able to get him to decide he wanted to latch onto her. (In these situations, the woman ALWAYS gets the man to think it's his idea.)

And then he got the temple marriage reversed/set aside/anulled/whatever. Again, we don't know the details.


The purpose of my story is to simply confirm that your dad was of the type who could not stand being alone. There's nothing wrong with finding love again, but it's obvious that your dad's inability to be 'alone' made him easy prey for your newly beloved Step-Mom. hahahaha! Step-mom! The last thing in the world she wants is for you kids to be around your dad and maybe talk some sense into him.

If you want to know pretty much all there is to know about your step-mom, my email addy is public: send me her name and approximate age and I'll run her for you.

Also, can you get me tickets to a Seinfeld taping?

Dude. Step-mom?! I'm 36 and I shudder at the thought. My brother is 47 and my sister is 45. My mom was hard enough to deal with, she was mentally ill and we had a very tempestuous relationship. I'm also now what I call a "step-step" mom myself to two adults that decided they hated me well before they even met me. So I think I've tasted both sides of the coin.

You are most definitely right to say he didn't know how to be alone. I think he was with my mom for 48 years. I ended up doing a lot of laundry that week of the funeral because it was apparent he had never touched a washing machine in his life.

I already did a bit of intelligence work(I do some hiring at work sometimes, so I end up running frequent background checks) and what I found scared us even more. She has an alias/AKA and has been married 5 or 6 times, as well as a criminal record. Just hope she's not not a black widow.

Also, probably no on the Seinfeld, sorry!... I'm a master scenic artist/special EFX prop technician and muralist. I work primarily in operatic theatre and large scale events these days. Moving to the east coast killed my film career.

"Video Killed the Radio Star"

I may have read something you didn't really write, but it gave me the excuse to pimp this much-beloved video...

Be happy! No one will do it for you!


ETA the gd link, cuz I'm an idiot...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUgF49Rtg7Q&list=RDIUgF49Rtg7Q&start_radio=1



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/17/2020 05:35PM by elderolddog.

I'm sorry for all of your losses as well as for the roller coaster ride that his been your family life.

I'm going to echo what Elderolddog said about some men not doing well without a companion/wife. At this point there is nothing to be done about it, so I would just be kind to both of them. Being kind does not mean being a push over -- given her record, you would be crazy to give her any significant level of trust.

My grandfather did the same thing. Only six months and he was married in the temple again. I only knew my step-grandmother on that side, since it was before I was born. She was a wonderful grandmother, but it took years before my father and uncle actually accepted her.

Sadly, when we leave the church, family members are the first to want us to feel worthless. So glad to read at the bottom of your post, that you know that you aren't worthless.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/18/2020 08:49PM by kathleen.

remarried in the temple 1 month after my cousin died. My cousin was 3 days older than I am, so she was my good friend.

He had dated the woman for months by meeting her at the temple and doing a session together. (I found this out later from my aunt.) They believe my cousin died earlier than she would have because of this. She had lung cancer (never smoker). She was 37 with 6 kids ages 16 to 3.

So "fast forward" to I'm 63 now, so she's been gone how many years? He has the exact same kind of cancer as my cousin had and he is dying. There was never any temple divorce. The other woman's husband had died and they were temple married. The kids DID NOT like the step-mother. Several of them lived with other families. Everyone has made peace with their father, not sure about the step-mother.

Men definitely have a much harder time being alone. I have a boyfriend, but because we are both older, we choose not to live together. We tried it. I'd prefer to have my own place.

DRAMA Update for anyone who's interested in train wrecks:

My father finally reached out to me by email last week, it was a form of what I have come to call a "christian apology".

"I'm sorry none of you are taking my calls. I'm sorry that your sister called you and told you I was married" etc, without acknowledging any real issues or apologizing for his own behavior.

I took almost a week to write him a letter back, with input from my siblings. It was a very controlled and heartfelt letter expressing our/my feelings and concerns. It expressed how profoundly we had been hurt by his actions. I also asked him to consider taking responsibility for his own actions and talk to us about them, so we can move on from the pain the last three months have brought us.

He never responded to me, but he sent my tbm sister this text that night:

"Received an email epistle from one of your siblings; glad the three of you have grown closer together. FYI there were no violations of either of our temple covenants. We need to go forward and recognize we are all children of god. L*** and I are happy together and we are moving forward to build a christ-centered home with no outside influence. Hope everyone else will do the same."


WTF?? AN EPISTLE??? There was no hint of religion or preaching in my response. All I can say is that I am totally speechless. Professing my heart to him meant nothing. I guess I should've expected a self-righteous, smug pious a** BS response, but the delusional severity of that actually blew me away.
I AM FINALLY DISOWNED, & my tbm sister too!!! Freedom!!! I'm going to go punch some walls and get my face tattooed to celebrate! *sarcasm*

"we are moving forward to build a christ-centered home with no outside influence"

Wow! No recognition of his own sins. He's cutting you off because you tell him of his sins and he's embarrassed.

>>It expressed how profoundly we had been hurt by his actions.

His actions about not telling you about his marriage? Or in getting married at all?

I can understand your hurt at not being told about a marriage. But are you putting your own mourning for your mom on him? As much as you disapprove of his new marriage, the wise course of action at this point would be to wish them both the best. They are married and there is nothing you can do about that. Some men need a wife, and it doesn't mean that they didn't love their first wives. Yeah, it's possible that he made a very foolish choice, but that's his choice to make. You don't have to be her BFF. I wouldn't let that alone divide you, unless there are other issues.

No, more about how he hurt us by not telling us and going the extra length to deceive us during a time of great mourning.

I def won't worry about the BFF part.....



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/02/2020 04:17PM by g0rgone.

If it were me, I would talk to him about that and then let it go -- something like, "Dad! You didn't tell us that you remarried. Please don't keep us out of the loop again on something so important. If you are happy, we're happy."

My guess is that he kept you out of the loop because he had a pretty good notion of how you would react.

I've noticed that most TBM's can not handle ANY response from those they deem unworthy to notice. Your Fathers response is classically narcissistic to downplay any accountability or his image being called into question.

His message"Received an email epistle from one of your siblings;

Did your Father not mention YOUR NAME? Horrific.

His message: "glad the three of you have grown closer together. FYI there were no violations of either of our temple covenants.

TRANSLATION: We did not have sex or do anything improper. (Despite that it was improper by church INC standards for an unmarried man and woman to live together prior to marriage?)

His message: We need to go forward and recognize we are all children of god. L*** and I are happy together and we are moving forward to build a christ-centered home with no outside influence. Hope everyone else will do the same."

TRANSLATION: I am going to do what I am going to do and you all can suck it. I will not have anyone I disagree with ruin my disillusionment.

Keep in mind that all illusions fail eventually.

RMM

Thank you for your kind and wise words, RMM.
You are completely correct, the word horrific does comes to mind when thinking about all of these grievances. Yes, he did not have the decency to use my name, and I decided that I could officially call him a narcissist after this response. My sister said she had felt that this was indeed his problem for the last 10 years. It totally makes sense looking back at all the dysfunction throughout my life, and also explains why I personally end up in relationships with narcissists.

The fact that he stood behind the violent abuse at the hand of my brother all those years, telling me that I "needed to be the bigger person and just forgive him", to the fact that he actively derailed my career when I had a direct in after leaving college years ago.... So many issues that he caused, because of his self-righteousness, and the fact he finds it appalling that I have always been a strong, independent woman.

I'm going to keep walking that path with my head held high.

I am so sorry that you had to go thru these experiences. As I read about your brother's funeral I thought that your family should have been ashamed for how they treated you. While it has been common in other religious cultures to shun the outcast, one would hope in a more modern society that someone would look at you at that funeral and bare minimum see that you were condoning yourself with dignity and respect to people who did not deserve it.

Dysfunctional families know how to fuel the ugliest fires, especially when they are on display to the world parading their self-righteousness. You may have been one of the only true grievers at your Mother's funeral. Instead, the others present needed to play the "holier than thou game".

RE the new caretaker/step Mother. Wow. Just wow. Not the first time I have heard a Mormon man easily jump into the next relationship.

While it would be easy to blame Church Inc for taking your Father away from you...this sounds more like a dysfunctional relationship at best. Your Dad has been engrained in "magical thinking" and I have seen some Widowers do some pretty stupid things. His response to feeling shunned by the family/no lack of support for his new marriage strikes me as narcissistic. Unless he was manipulated by this woman or has some dementia..remember his past behaviors. HE made this choice.

You are fully permitted to grieve however you may need to move on with your life. You can be angry at your Father, but are you being realistic expecting something from him that he has NOT provided in the past and may not capable of? There is a saying I read the other day. "Do not ask why there are clowns in your life. Ask yourself why you keep going back to the circus".

Grieving is a response to what we actually lost and to what we wish was different.

YOU determine your worth. Your Dad does not. As must as those of us from homes with conditional love WANT to feel them embrace us and want us in their lives....they can not. We do not have any control on how others love us.

We DO have control over how we love others and how we allow them to treat us. Go to YOUR circle of support. Seek grievance counseling (many are online and social distancing via Zoom/Skype).

Most of all be kind to yourself.

RMM

What a tough ordeal you’ve been through. I am so sorry for your losses, both in terms of your relatives and virus related stuff. It all sounds like a nightmare.

I can’t add any wisdom, but wanted to offer some good vibes and virtual support.

Black Sheep by John Anderson: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7pJL7TRM00Y

The first thing I realized about apostasy when my shelf collapsed was that it wasn’t me, it was them. I wasn’t the problem, it was them all along.

Sorry about your dad, I hope he’s happy.