I post under -uklurker - , you may have read posts before by me.
But this is about my wife.
Can you please help with interpretation of this card she received ?
My wife is struggling to understand why, and more specifically, if it is directly related to her leaving the cult.
I have explained to her why, and given her my opinion – but she is still coming to terms with leaving.
I suggested posting it here for her to hear other peoples opinions.
This is her first “post” here, even though I am doing the typing, So be gentle !!
Firstly, background.
My wife left the MORG 8 weeks ago.
She had her first “unannounced” visit 2 weeks ago from the relief society president, and now this card arrives from her mother.
It has made her angry, frustrated and probably a bit confused.
1) The incident discussed in the card took place 30 years ago. 2) The retribution for the incident was a hard slipper spanking. 3) of the many children, my wife is the last to leave.
Obviously I can be thick too. All those years and years ago when you and <your sister> were at junior school I did NOT realise it was <your sister> winding you up, and then you two upsetting me ! Until I heard <child 1> and <child 2> doing the same thing – it was a real EYE OPENER. I then realised it was <your sister> who was the real culprit to things – cos as she said the same as you . I DIDNT DO IT !!
I did NOT know which of you to believe ! So reacted ! . So sorry that I did not understand at the time . I certainly do now. I am sorry it took so long.
Also I would like to say I do MISS seeing you at church – it gave me comfort and I felt supported when you came out. I do (believe it or not) understand why you've chosen not to come to church – I feel really FED up as well sometimes. Keep well ! Be happy ! Mum ******************************** All the punctuation, capitals etc are as written.
Also, my MIL stood up in fast and testimony , blubbed eyes out, etc. The bishop said he was going to phone my wife, but that has not happened yet.
My wife has read this, and is happy for it to be posted,
Wow...I honestly don't really know what to make of the letter.
It is totally random!
It also sounds like despite MIL stating she had her eyes opened from that childhood incident, MIL is also assuming things all over again by saying she knows why your wife stopped going to church.
She's been wracking her brain trying to figure out if something she did (even if it was thirty years ago) caused your wife to leave the church. Other than that, I think she's taking it rather well.
I don't know anybody involved so it's hard to know what they might mean. But when I read it, I thought it sounded like an apology. Perhaps your MIL wants a good relationship with your wife and feels like she has to clear out some old cobwebs that might be in the way.
She understands why your wife left? So maybe MIL has considered leaving herself? It didn't sound like the usual chide to return to church. It sounded almost like the MIL doesn't like going alone.
Maybe your wife can (if she wants the relationship) reach out to her mom and suggest other things they could do together. Maybe MIL wants help getting out too but doesn't feel strong enough. I don't know. It just sounded to me more like MIL wants a friend.
maybe she wants an authentic, real, relationship & is trying to clear blocks to it. . . she may be trying to see what she did to block the adult friendship she would like to have with her now adult daughter, which explains why she apologized for a wrong instance in her parenting.
then when she said she Missed her (sitting beside her at church) perhaps it is the segue way or path to -- where will we be sitting together next? What else can we afford the time and money to do? And now the daughter can say yes let's just be friends again- let's find something else to do, I want to _______________________________ (make a suggestion)
like: sit at the park, sit at the beach, run errands with you, talk while you do laundry, watch the kids sporting event-
That is how I would respond to it... just so she knows, now she's cleared things up that may be blocking a real friendship (or is trying to become more honest & real and deserving of it) give a specific detail fact or plan about where and when she will fit in.
I think that's what she is asking for or trying to do, albeit indirectly.
Many thanks for the responses.perhaps a bit more info.
Hi duffy,many thanks for your honesty. Its a compliacted family situation.
"I thought it sounded like an apology"
Yes, i said the same to my wife - but they dont have a good relationship.
She was abused, along with the other siblings, when a stepfather came onto the scene.The abuse took place as physical, mental and some sexual (not my wife) but the sexual was her sister mentioned here.
My wife has always struggles having a relationship with her mum. It has never been good.
She is most angry about this becaues she is protective of her sister ans she feels angry that she is now getting the blame for this 30 year old incident.
Additoinally, this same sister, came out as a lesbian and left the morg. My MIL has never really recovered.
"She understands why your wife left? So maybe MIL has considered leaving herself? "
My MIL will NEVER leave the morg. She loves the attention, and fast and testimony crying !!
"it didn't sound like the usual chide to return to church. It sounded almost like the MIL doesn't like going alone."
Yup, i agree. I interprited it to be a way to engage my wife in conversation to sort out her attendance.
My wife will be reading this later, and i am sure your comments will be supportive to her.
charles, buddhist punk,you said - "This is typical Mormon mindset and Mormon-speak" And this was exactly what i told my wife.
My explanation was my MIL was trying to find a way to engage my wife in conversation and make my wife feel she had the upper hand in some weird - morg - warped way.
To me it looks like MIL is suddenly "realizing" that the lesbian sister is the culprit who has influenced the others to leave church or become inactive. So she excuses your wife and tries to be understanding, assuming that your wife's inactivity is not based on any serious opinions.
Sounds to me like mum is attempting rapprochement with your wife by demonizing her sister . . . hoping to convince her that they are on the same team and thereby, she hopes, convince her to come back to church.
This is typical Mormon mindset and Mormon-speak. Referring to something that happened in the past which she thinks is the cause of her kids leaving. And she's using this as a release or excuse (in her mind) for her "failure" to keep her children in church.
Also, it's double speak again, pretending she wants out of the church (in missionary lingo back in the day this was called BRT, Building Relationships of Trust [too late for that now] where the missionary or member attempts to empathize with another with a "I understand how you feel". Ugh, I hate myself for using that many years ago) so that your DW will perk up and listen to her. THEN she might convince your wife to come back. Mormons have really nasty relationship habits.
My impression is that MIL is trying a new way of getting your wife back into the flock - some interesting mixture of veiled guilt ("I miss u in church on Sundays") and apologizing for something hurtful that she did/omitted to do a long time ago without actually apologizing (she appears to be trying to blame all the old nastiness onto that one sister somehow). Maybe on some level she thinks that "apologizing" will induce your wife to come back into the flock?
Maybe your MIL is just trying to tell your wife that by coming back to church she will love her more than her siblings? - At one point she seems to be implying that.
It sounds like your wife had a very toxic childhood and is struggling with that as well as with trying to untangle herself from TSCC. Tough situation!
Bloody Mormon way of thinking where everything is so conditional - especially love. Pardon my French here...
Yes, to me it also sounded like mom is telling yr wife that she understands that it was sister who was the instigator of the mischief in the house, and so it is sister who led all of them out of the church. That it would please mom if she went back to church- and there wouldn't be any blame because mom knows it was sister who coerced her to leave.
My sister told me a story like this also. In my family there are 2 sets of kids- 3 older ones and 3 younger ones. According to my sister, my parents blamed me as the oldest of the 'older group' for all the mischief in the family. Later they realized it was the youngest in this 'older group' who was the instigator.
So when the youngest 3 were kids, they then, using what they learned about who was instigating stuff, automatically blamed the youngest of that group for all the mischief. Later it turned out that they figured out it wasn't even her.
My mom is also very abusive- verbally and physically. It seems that instead of getting to know the kids well and loving them, my parents just tried to figure out patterns and assumed that the patterns just repeat themselves with the next kids.
Only 2 in my family have a good relationship with my mom- her 2 favorites.
"I do (believe it or not) understand why you've chosen not to come to church – I feel really FED up as well sometimes."-
Sounds like mom thinks that wife was 'offended' because even momn gets fed up with ?? crap, or stupid doctrine etc. but SHE keeps going anyway, and she wishes your wife would return too, and there would be no blaming or recrimination this time. ESp. as it was probably sister who talked your wife into leaving- probably by feeding her all the anti-gay stuff she had to hear and it all offended your wife so she left.
MIL writes like my mom talks. She assumes that because she knows what is going on in her own head, that everyone else does too. So the letter made sense to her, even tho you two are trying to figure it out.
Maybe the best thing to do is just shut the door on the past and let it go. It's over and done with. She can design her own life as she chooses.
She may never have a good relationship with her mother. Not everyone does.
Apparently, there were big problems in the past and the mother is trying to apologize, she understands that she made mistakes. I'd just take it at that, and not bother about answering the letter or trying to figure out exactly what she means, or rehashing the past. I'm a big believer in closing the door on the past and living in the here and now and finding joy and peace in today.
It may just be a weird random thing that mothers go through as they age. My mother was never Mormon, but she's 83 and she's been saying strange random things like that to me lately as well.
I think she blames herself for me being fat. She sat down and gave me permission not to kill myself. Huh? I just sort of went, "Um, okay."
As hard as it is to read, bits of it come across as a cry for love to me. She is not sure what to say, and too many years as a mormon have left her unprepared for such a situation.
She is clearly hurting, and I would take the opportunity to establish a new relationship with it clear that the church has nothing to do with it. She sounds like she is beating herself up for not being a better mother, not necessarily a better mormon mother and it could be a great chance to get to know the real her.
She slips every now and then back into a "on the fence" position and doesn't quite know if the "church is true" or not.
It is very hard, and she is not ready for this rubbish.
Her mother joined when she was a small child so she never questioned any of it. Now, after 35 years in the morg, she is changing.
We stood in the garden today and looked at a rainbow. Not a very significant thing, except she looked at it with me as a scientificly understood process. And not a sign that the end of days is not happening next year...
It sounds like one of the stunts my mom pulled when I left the church. She told my sister she wished she had gotten me into counselling at 12 when my grandmother died. My grandmother practically raised me while my mom worked. Then suddenly, at age 9, grandma disappeared into a nursing home (stroke) and I only saw my "mom" once a week on Sundays - although I got to hear my mom stressing out about the treatment her mom got and worry people weren't being nice to my grandma. Then grandma suddenly died. Mom is right - it probably would have helped to get me help dealing with it but she was profoundly wrong, and pretty insulting, to say that this had something to do with me leaving the church. Rather, it may have been one of the reasons we got baptized into a cult - being caught at a vulnerable time. The fact I was strong enough and smart enough to get out shows I was healed, not damaged.
The same goes for your wife. If she had problems with her sister, your MIL wants to believe that is what made her weak enough to give up on the church. She probably thinks an apology for that will allow your wife to heal and have the "strength" to return. She has it all backwards. Being strong enough to think for yourself and use your common sense and reasoning will allow you to leave the church. Let her apologize because it sounds like your wife deserves and apology. But ignore the rest because that kind of mindset is just one of the things Mormons and Mormonism have exactly backward.
MIL’s e-mail begins, "Obviously I can be thick TOO.” ‘Too’? in addition to whom?
MIL recounts how IT TOOK HER YEARS TO REALIZE THE TRUTH about a childhood situation. And MIL “is sorry that it took so long."
The analogy is that in MIL’s view, *DW* IS NOW THE ONE BEING "THICK” in not coming to church any more. Like DW, MIL also gets “fed up” with church sometimes, but MIL would never think of going inactive because of this! So she hopes DW will once again quickly recognize that the LDS church is The One True Church and return to full activity, rather than DW’s taking years to realize the truth as had MIL in the analogous situation!
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/18/2011 05:37PM by WiserWomanNow.
The note sends a mixed message, perhaps on some level intentionally so. So in a way, all of the pervious explanations are correct.
But I don't think the specifics of the note are the most important thing here.
The important thing is what does your wife want to do about the note.
1. One option would be to ask mom to clarify the message. 2. Would be to ignore it.
Option one would require both mother and daughter to engage with each other in a real way. But in view of the family history, this might not be a safe option for your wife.
The other option, ignoring it, would do nothing to move the relationship forward, but from the sounds of it, their relationship might be one that is not worth the effort.