I’ve been a lurker on this board for about a year now. I’m not sure how I even found it, I think I was playing around on Google one slow day at work  Anyway, I’ve enjoyed reading the posts and finding out more information about the LDS “religion”. And I decided I would like to tell my story…
I am not Mormon, never been Mormon, never going to be Mormon, and finding this website just reaffirmed my convictions! But… (There is always a but!) I was born and raised in Utah, SURROUNDED by card carrying, BOM thumping holier than thou Mormons! I even married one! (But I’ll get to that later) Being a non-Mormon in a Mormon school, community, STATE is not easy. I’ve dealt with their crap my whole life! I’ve had boys tell me that they liked me but couldn’t date me because I was not Mormon. I remember, my best friend, who was baptized by her parents but not practicing, would get accosted by the YW ALL THE TIME they invited her places all the time, called came by her house, of course, going to a small school everyone knew her and I were inseparable, but I was never invited, these girls never spoke to me, and even though my best friend and I were like peas and carrots, she was acceptable, because there was a possibility of drawing her back to the fold but I never was, which was just fine with me because even at 16 I could see this was not something I wanted to be a part of! My thoughts were always, if you want to believe that and wear funny underwear, more power to you! I was pretty much left alone as far as trying to get me to convert but I was bothered by certain things. My Junior year of high school I dated a Mormon boy, funny enough, his parents didn’t have a problem with me, but his friends were totally against us dating, so when they were around we had to hide it! I never had sex with this boy, but we did lots of other stuff, until I found out that he repented to his bishop, who also happened to be our school counselor in a high school with 300 student’s tops, so the bishop definitely knew who I was!!! I was PISSED because I knew he had to tell him details, like as in when, where, who and how!!! This was my fucking high school counselor! A VERY embarrassing situation to say the least. Anyway, luckily I grew up on a military installation (my hometown is not a typical military base because there were more civilians than military and just about everyone I went to school had been there just as long as me, not kidding, my whole graduating class I started kindergarten with!) and I was not accosted by missionaries all the time because being a military installation, even an unorthodox one, it was still a secure location and strange people were not permitted to wander around the base wily nilly! I need to remember to thank my parents for raising me there just for that one thing!
So I graduated from high school and a year later I met my husband. He had moved out of his mom’s house to go live with his dad. My husband’s story is very typical of most of the stories that I’ve read here. He was raised in the church, can probably trace his family tree all the way to the beginning of Mormonism. But his mom was not an over the top Mormon, she didn’t force hubby and his brother in scouts, or any of that other stuff, she thought the visiting home teachers were stupid and she hated that calling but they were expected to go to church go on a mission, so on and so forth. My hubby had no desire to go on a mission at all. He told me that when he got his mission call he sat on the roof of his mom’s house with a rope around his neck for hours trying to work up the nerve to jump. Well he didn’t jump; he caved into pressure and family expectation and went on his mission to Honduras. It was a horrible experience for him; he was stuck with a companion who didn’t speak a word of English. The family he lived with fed them only tomato sandwiches, hubby HATES tomato’s so he took them off and ate bread and butter the WHOLE time he was there! He showered in suicide showers or bathed in rain buckets when the shower was broken. His 3rd month into his mission he got horribly sick, he got some kind of parasite, not to mention his lack of food for 3 months. He’d had enough! He went to his mission president after a month of this horrible sickness and asked to be released, this was followed by phone calls from his family telling him that he needed to stay, blah, blah, blah…he finally was able to come home. Of course he was not received home with open arms. His mother barely spoke to him unless it was to tell him what a quitter he was; she wouldn’t sit next to him in church and didn’t let him come to the family reunion. All of this was enough to make hubby move out and live with his dad, and we met. Oh boy did THAT make his mom happy! The day we told her we were getting married she started THROWING dishes in the sink…happy camper she was not!
So hubby moved in with his dad, who is a jackmo, we dated and he refused to go to church. He still wore his garment though and let me tell ya, it was really creepy, to me anyway, making out with a guy knowing he was wearing those things! They meant nothing to me but I knew what they meant to Mormons and it just seemed very weird. So even though I’m not Mormon, we married young, he was 19 and I was 18 about to turn 19 and we had only known each other for about 6 months, though we did live together first! I’m convinced that hubby only asked me to marry him because he felt guilty because we had sex before marriage. He’s still very much influenced by his church even though he wasn’t practicing at the time.
I am happy to say that MIL learned to tolerate me at first but I’m pretty sure she likes me now after 14 years! Though I only won favorite DIL by default because she absolutely HATES my hubby’s brother’s wife, who, by the way, is all things Mormon! (I’ll get to this!)
SO hubby and I coast along happily for the first six years, no kids, though we did try! He wasn’t going to church and family pretty much left us alone…THEN, my BIL was getting married, in the Temple of course, so hubby decided to go back to church so he could get his temple recommend back so he could see his brother get married, about this time is when I found out he had been paying tithing for the past 6 years…I never even knew. Kinda pissed me off because the first 2 years or so of our marriage were very lean for us and we were living off hamburger helper. So we travel to Florida, where BIL was getting hitched in the Orlando temple. I had to wait outside…that was fun, as I was the ONLY one who couldn’t go in to be part of the happy day! Now I could care less about BIL and SIL or their happy day, to be honest I’ve never been a big fan of BIL because while he was on his mission he sent hubby a letter telling him that he needed to go back to church and convert me because I was sending him to hell! It was all MY fault that hubby wasn’t going to church, no one in that stupid family ever gave a thought to the way hubby was treated when he came home from his mission, they just blamed me! Then when BIL law got home from his mission he proceeded to tell me how I was not really baptized (I was baptized Catholic)! That pissed me off too!
Now hubby and I had the philosophy about a baby that if it happened great if not no worries so we never bothered with any kind of birth control but after 6 years of marriage and no baby we were a little concerned. I’m happy to say that none of the family, in my hearing, ever said that we couldn’t get pregnant because we didn’t have enough faith in the spirit or whatever, if they had oh boy! So we started doing tests to find out why we couldn’t get pregnant, come to find out that hubby had screwy sperm so I was told my best shot at getting preggo was artificial insemination. Next thing I know BIL and SIL announce ONE MONTH after they were married that she was expecting! They were still in school for crying out loud!!! They had NO money NO insurance, lived in an apartment at BYU! They had NOTHING and they were pregnant, turns out they PLANNED their wedding around when she was ovulating! So here I am a solid marriage both of us had a good job, great insurance we owned a home and THEY were having a baby. I can’t express to you how much this PISSED ME OFF!!! I tried so hard to be happy for them but I just couldn’t do it. My MIL even thought they were idiots! Of course it didn’t take MIL long to realized that SIL was a psycho hose beast, a horrible person, despite being the paragon of Mormon virtue! The whole family pretty much hates SIL, she’s a bitch, she is the kind of Mormon that everyone hates because she thinks she is better than everyone, especially everyone in her husband’s family, they are all just middle class nobody’s while her family had MONEY. She’s a horrible mother, she gets absolutely NO enjoyment from her children, or her life for that matter. She treats her children and her marriage like they are just things she did that she can cross off her list of things to accomplish in life…go to BYU check, marry a RM check, have a kid right away, check, have more kids, check. I’m convinced and so is everyone else in the family, that BIL and SIL only married because they were both desperate, SIL had been at BUY for 6 years with no prospects and BIL had been home from his mission for a year maybe even two and no prospects. In fact BIL went on a date with her, told MIL he was not impressed and a month later they were engaged! She’s not the first one he asked to marry him; she was just the first one to say yes. I truly believe that they both though, “eh...you’ll do.” And got married. You can tell they don’t like each other, very sad…but I admit, there is a small part of me that cackles in delight because they are both such unlikable people that I think they deserve what they get…mean I know, but I’m ok with that!
So we managed to finally get pregnant only 5 months later, yay! And hubby and I coast along, got a baby life is great! Then BAM out of the blue, hubby comes home and tells me, he wants to be Mormon, get married in the temple, and do all those Mormon things…I’m flabbergasted! Where the hell did THIS come from? I’ve never hid my views from him, he’s know pretty much from day 1 that being Mormon was never going to happen for me and he was fine with that, I told him I didn’t care if he went, just don’t ever throw your church in my face or try to force it on me and for 7 years that worked great for us! See something you need to know about hubby, I love him dearly but he lets people influence him WAY too much. If BIL gives him a hard time about church suddenly he MUST go, same thing with MIL. Not to mention if hubby ever gets caught doing something he KNOWS he’s not supposed to do (that is another story in itself and this board is not the right venue for that piece of dirty laundry) he pulls the Mormon card, not really sure why but it’s what he does. So I tell hubby, I’m sorry you feel that way but I can’t force myself to believe in that or follow that path no matter how much I love you, I can’t do that, not even for you. Well things got rocky for a while; we’re talking divorce blah, blah, blah. Somehow we work it all out, even with other issues non church related going on in our lives. Another 5 years go by, just had another baby, hubby is running for city council so of course he starts going back to church cuz the only way you’re going to get elected in small town Utah is if you are a card carrying member of the LDS cult, and hubby can sometimes be smart and believe me, he’s a politician right down to the tips of his toes, and no that was NOT a compliment, I find out he’s doing naughty things again, much more naughty things, I confront him and here it is again…I want to be Mormon, temple marriage, blah, blah, blah, but this time I’m told that he’s ashamed of me because I don’t go to church, it embarrasses him that he had to sit there alone, people are always asking about me making him feel bad because I’m not there. I don’t cook enough clean enough insert whatever, enough for him! Fights abound, divorce is tossed out again, this time I’m serious, he’s kicked out fuck him I AM DONE! Then he comes home, I’m sorry, I love you, I want to make this work…I screwed up blah, blah, blah…I’m a dumbass, I take him back, what can I say, despite his faults, and they are legion, I love him and I want to make our marriage work, so I tell him, here are my conditions, if you ever do this to me again, I will take all proof I have of your naughtiness (I’m sure by this time you have figured out what his naughtiness was…yes I’m an idiot!) and take it ALL to your bishop, I will paper the whole damn town with it, I told him, if you are going to ruin my life I will ruin yours, no I won’t go after him financially, cuz I’m not wired that way, but by GOD I will get your ass excommunicated if it’s the LAST thing I do so mind your P’s and Q’s, I also told him if he EVER tries to shove his stupid church in my face again I will KILL him. I said you may think I’m unworthy but as it stands right now, according to your precious “religion” you’re not worthy enough to enter the temple!
It’s been hard the last two years, A LOT of trust issues, and every time he throws on a suite and goes to church I get a knot in my stomach, the last two years he hasn’t gone much, but we just built a new house, which means a new ward, the one his mother goes to, new neighbors I think he wants to impress, and election time, and he wanted to bless our newest daughter so he’s started going again…uggg!
Well being in a new house and a new ward, we get LOTS of visitors, neighbors coming by with plates of cookies, which is fine by me if they could just manage to leave out the church references or the bishop said crap! Family home teachers coming over, missionaries, you name it we’ve got it! Before hubby started going back they discuss out business at church, our whole neighborhood knew that our new house flooded two days after we moved in, cuz the bishop told them! Very annoying. A month ago, my hubby blessed our daughter, I told him that he could bless our children, but after all the shit he’s put me through I’ve forbidden him to baptizes them, so I go to church with him, luckily baby started fussing right after she was blessed so I got to hang out in the hall the rest of the time, though I could still hear the boring speakers!!! I can’t tell you how happy I was to find out they no longer require blessing to be done during the fast and testament days! I think that’s what it’s called…there is NOTHING more annoying than hearing over and over and over and over…I know this church is true, I know Joseph Smith is the true profit…one time when I went to church with hubby there was a woman, and I swear she practiced this…who started to cry, then she waived her hands in front of her face, you know, how beauty queens do when they win and they are trying to keep from crying, and sobbed so much! It was all I could do to keep from laughing hysterically! Sorry, started to ramble there for a minute, anyway, after church was over, bishop comes out and talks to me, and starts questioning my son, who is 7, about when his birthday is…as if I don’t know what he’s trying to do! Last week hubby was asked to speak at church, well the Friday before, we are having dinner at a restaurant and the bish happens to be there, so he comes to our table to ask if hubby is prepared for his talk, then bish tells me that he was going to ask me to do the talk!!! HELLO? You’ve seen me at church ONE time EVER and you want me to do a talk??? So I tell him, ahh, that will NEVER happen…he gets all huffy and says well it’s a good thing I didn’t ask then walks away. I ask hubby, do they know I’m not Mormon? He says yes they know. Then why the HELL would bish even contemplate asking ME to do a talk? I should have told him, dude you don’t want to hear what I have to say.
So, there is my story, sorry it’s so long but it felt REALLY good to get it all out. I know it’s not nearly as bad as some of the things others here have gone through, but I can tell you the pressure is on now that my son is nearing 8 and I am adamant that he NOT be baptized. One of my biggest fears is that my children will get involved in the church and start telling me I am evil and going to hell and heaven forbid, get married in the temple!

You've been in a very difficult situation being in a mixed (believer/nonbeliever) marriage, but I like your spirit. It sounds like you've been holding your own.

You can tell your husband that you don't want your children to be baptised until they are eighteen. However, if the kids keep going to church every Sunday, they WILL be thoroughly indoctrinated. My suggestion would be to either keep them out every other week to do fun activities, or to tell your husband that you will be sharing with them the truth about the church as you see fit. Figure out how you want to handle this, because if you don't, you'll definitely be raising little TBMs and you'll be sitting outside their temple weddings one day.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/2011 08:16PM by summer.

Thank you Summer, I'm happy to be here! Actually my kids don't really go to church, occationally my son will go with grandam and my girls are to little to sit through church so grandma doesn't invite them yet. Hubby doesn't really push for baptizing right now, he doesn't say much about any of it...church is one of those topics we don't discuss, I make comments every now and then and he just ignores me. His family however, is starting to get aggresive about it. Every time we are at MIL's house for dinner MIL tries to get my son to say the blessing, he'll say no and she says, are you sure, uncle overbearing mormon can tell you what to say, and I don't understand why my hubby doesn't get pissed at this, it's kind of disrespectful to my husband. On the 4th of July my BIL and his family were visiting, I want home for a while and hubby went to the fire station to prepair for fireworks, (he's on the fire dept.) and I let my son stay at grandma's to play with his cousins, when we got home that night my son tells me how they did family home evening and uncle overbearing mormon decided to do a lesson on baptism, it doesn't even occur to him that he is way out of line, if anyone should be talking to my son about this stuff it would be his FATHER. I guess they don't think my husband is doing things right. Then I just found out today that my nephew, who is turning 8 on Saturday has been filling my sons head with crap about how wonderful it is to be baptized. Uggg!!! And I feel like I can't say anything to them because it just causes friction, and I'm the bad guy. They are all so sure that they are right that it never crosses their minds that they are doing anything wrong!

my dad is a great guy but he's a people pleaser and he for the longest time when we (my sibling & I were little) had a hard time standing up to his parents, specifically his mom. my parents are LDS converts so nevermos all around. His mom HATED my mother for the longest time and would put my mother down when we were around, deliberately go against my parents wishes when they were babysitting, tell us how horribly my parents were raising us, my mom would buy us clothes to wear and then my grandmother would take us out & buy us all new "better" clothes. basically using grandkids as pawns in dumbass mind games.

basically one day my mother had a come to jesus with my dad & told him it was either her OR his mother. he chose my mom & grew a pair. they are very happily married to this day. next my mother & my father went to visit my dad's parents (sitter for us kids.) my mother told my grandmother in no uncertain terms, with her hubby backing her up all way, that "you will stop this SHIT (she went on to describe the shit more specifically) or you will never see your grandchildren again.

if my Mom was talking to you right now (and she's a TBM but she's got a mind & mouth of her own) she would tell you to tell your fam to knock off this shit or you & hubby will take chillins and go be happy someplace else.

Hold true to your beliefs and don't cave. My daughter married a jackmo. He was a bad boy for 5 yrs. before they met. Then they got serious and all of a sudden his mom got him all interested in the church again. Also his younger brother was the same way....Well, my daughter did not convert the first 3 yrs. but then she did....and I think it was due to them having financial hardship (they went thru a bankrupcy)and I can just hear his family putting pressure on her- well, this wouldn't be happening if you went to our church and became a member...blah, blah, blah. I am sick to this day about it- almost 4 yrs. They have a 2 yr. old son and he is beginning to get all the brainwashing I am sure. Has your 7 yr. old gone to primary a lot? Does he talk about what he learns there.

I am so sorry about his turning on you to get temple married-and this is after such horrible treatment when he returned from beginning his mission. Poor guy by the way. Mormons are so brainwashed and so pressured. And I agree with summer about being firm about your 7 yr. old child - if he attends the LDS church half time you will be spending quality time with him the other Sundays of the month. Your views on joining any church are just as important as your hubby's and his family's views. It is good to tell your son that since you do not believe as your hubby, the children in your family will make their own decision at 18. Be strong and tell your BIL to stay out of your family's business. He seems to be a real pest. I would have none of it.

To be honest I have no idea what my son does when he goes to church with grandma, I think he goes with her to RS meetings because he's a little shy and didn't want to go to primary alone. I shouldn't complain too much because they are not nearly as bad as some people and at this time hubby is not pushing for more. I can say that it wouldn't suprise me id hubby baptizes my son behind my back, but then again maybe he won't cuz he knows that my son can't keep his mouth shut and he'd tell me all about it. As of right now my son does not want to be baptized, he's scared to be completely dunked, which works for me, but anything dad thinks is cool, he thinks it's cool. He's at the age where he is easily influenced. My son told the baby sitter yesterday that it made him mad that they wouldn't share the bread with me when we went to church so hubby could bless my daughter! That made me laugh! As for BIL, I only have to deal with him about once a month but I am thinking that next time they come to visit my son does not stay there alone with them. Am I worng in thinking that BIL is way out of line for taking it upon himself to teach my son these things? Especially when he knows my views on the subject?
Luckily, I've managed to hold firm to my non-mormon status...I think they all hoped that I would convert but after 14 years I think they have all given up the hope but it's not stopping them from moving in on my children!

...of kids who are raised in the LDS church being turned (by the church) against their non-member parents. That's why I think it's important that your views get equal time, and that your kids get equal time *away* from church. Your views are just as important as your husband's. Don't let anyone tell you differently!

If you aren't pissed, mad, angry at how this whole thing is going down, you should be.

If you have to protect yourself and your children from this invasion without your husbands help or support, so be it.

Your sanity, the emotional / mental health of your kids is dependent on what you choose to do. I suggest you set some boundaries now and be virelent in enforcing them. I assume you do not have a blessing on the food at your home. Stop letting MIL guilt, badger, manipulate your son (and other children) and no more allowing yourself or your husband to be disrespected.

It is imperative that you stand up for yourself NOW and make it stick. JMHO

+1 and 2 and 3!

I get the feeling that you have a problem with the BIL and SIL. Nyuck, Nyuck.

First mistake was being nice and letting the boy get blessed. That made him a member of record. The world that you live in is against you when it comes to whether your child will be mormon or not. IMO you should give your husband an ultimatum. No baptism for the child. Child only goes every other week. No one coerces the child or us as parents to get him baptized or to participate in anything to do with the church in any form any time. Hubby respects your wishes or he loves the church more than you.

I believe from what I’ve read that hubby has forgotten the effing nightmare the church put him through and now thinks it’s all going to be good for his child. This is what indoctrination does. He thinks its all good no matter how bad the nightmare.

Dominikki, you are living in the middle of a mind screw, one of the biggest in America. Maybe its time to make a move. Move out of Dodge and get the hell away from family or you will slowly watch the mind screw take over your son as your fears today become reality tomorrow. The day your son chastises you and treat you as a “lesser” mom with self righteous mormon dogma will be the day you regret not taking some very serious action now. If you won’t fight for the mind and religious rights of your son who will?

I fought for the mind of my son and won. It’s still hard. Son and I aren’t budging.

I’d take a woman like you any day and your hubby has no balls. If you kick him there at least he will have a pair till the swelling goes down!