If you're not aware of my situation, here's a little backround.
My boyfriend that I was head over heels for left on his mission almost two months ago. I've been going through hell trying to deal with this, wondering if it would ever work when he came back. I've gotten some awesome advice on this board and I cannot thank you all enough.
We write as though we're still together even though we've technically broken up. That was making it more difficult for me to move on. Every time I was out with another guy or talking to another guy, he was all I could think about.

This letter I sent basically said (I posted it on this board a couple of weeks ago) that I can't respect your religion because even though I've tried very hard to see, I cannot believe in it. I can respect it from afar, but I don't want second-hand LDS church in my life. He told me he'd be okay with me never converting. And I told him I felt I'd never be good enough for him.

He asked me to wait for him and I said no. Then he asked for just a few months to see if we can handle writing back and forth like a couple. I was confused and that's what brings me to this part of his letter...

I got an email from him today in response to my letter. And basically it has thrown me. I honestly was never expecting a response like this.

"So. Heres the new thing. Will you wait...a few months? Because I'm pretty sure. Thats. How long I'll be here. I'm having this battle i--i better stop and let that sink in-- I plan on being home pretty soon. I will be home in the next few months. I am having this battle within myself. But, its over what I really beleive. Which leads to the have I ever considered not going? Yes, but not deeply enough or considerately enough to figure it/myself all out. It was just...going to happen. So. Here I am. never really sat down and went 'do i beleive this stuff enough to preach it? am i willing to give it all up for 2 years?' I've discovered that I love (most of) it enough to preach it, and that 2 years isn't that long. but. do i believe it?...
So, my dad emailed me this morning to let me know that the Bishop told him that ward members have privately been conserned about me having enough money to be out here. And have already donated enough money to pay for 12 months of my mission. We pay month by month, so if I don't use it, they will send it to Douglas, where 2 missionaries from there could use it. And my sister payed for the first 3 months. I love people.I love the church. It is my culture, and I would expect you to be able to respect where I came from in life, no matter where it leads me. I think thats fair. I think you're wrong about some of the stuff you wrote. Like, you looked too deep & too pessemisticly at it. But, yeah, you made alot of good, intelligent, important points.
So. I love it here, but, I need to come home. Because I'm not legit enough to be here, I don't have legit enough of a conversion, and if i did, i would feel guilty about how i b.s.ed getting here pretty much. I need to come home and figure me out. I'm going to do that. You can count on it. BUT I LOVE THESE PEOPLE! I get to stay in this area at least another month and a half. Till like mid-feb. So, that could be it. Or anytime shortly there after. April would be the next transfer. So I would be done by then. I just. I feel like there is something I need to do here, more to do and learn. Its a good way to figure myself out, too. But. Its also a very biased way. And I don't have time for me. i have time for all the folks in Charlotte. And thats it. So...be looking forward to my letter. Im working through it all."

That was just some of his letter. I KNEW deep down that he was way too smart of a guy. So he's coming home in a couple of months, and hopefully I can be supportive in his transition while still assuring him that this was the right decision for him. I plan on (eventually) showing him some of the sites you all have given me. I will update you all soon on how it's going.

Any advice on other things I should be doing before/when he comes home?

And I truly cannot thank you enough. I have had little to no support on the issue from my family, and as for my friends, they've been great, but none of them have had first hand experience in dealing with this religion.
So I thank you all again. I truly appreciate it.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/20/2010 11:47AM by rockfish.

Take a wait and see attitude to see if he really comes home. Talk is cheap, and he will get pressured to stay! If he sticks to his guns and comes home, the way he will be treated by TBMs will probably help push him farther "down the path". Be suportive of him, as no one else will.

So he is seriously questioning and that is a good thing, however he is torn apart it seems. You cannot get involved with this man long term until you see where he finally winds up.

Will he break free and trust himself or will he forever think that what others think is more important that than his own personal integrity.

Lordy what a mess you could wind up in! Protect yourself! Wait! For heavens sakes wait till he works it all out. Look at the pressures for him to “serve”. Ward members are concerned, sister helping pay for him, parents are concerned, Bishop is concerned, he lets down lots of folks if he comes home early. Even then he could wind up a hardline TBM.

Nothing is sure now. Nothing.

I'm not sure what his letter is saying. Does he not feel knowledgeable enough to preach, or is he having a crisis of faith? He says he has no time to figure himself out, but loves the mission.. his letter seems contradictory on several things.

I agree with the general attitude. Wait and see where he ends up before committing to anything long-term. It's very obvious you love this guy, and he probably loves you too. I hope for your sake he comes home with a new attitude and really sits down and thoughtfully looks at everything you've been trying to show him so you two can finally understand each other better.

I am in no way trying to be a downer, but my money is on he stays. I don't know him in any manner, but i'd be shocked if he could resist the pressure. As someone who left early from his mission, this is what he's going to get battered with:

-Family pressure to stay

-The guilt that "all of these people have sacrificed their own
money for you".

-"You will always regret it".

-Anticipating the HEAVY scrutiny back home, especially if he loves the culture so much.

-The "Satan is deceiving you" brainwashing is powerful.

- "Give it a few more months, then it'll start to make sense".

Some of this stuff almost made me go back on my mission, but luckily my mission pres was the most gigantic a**hole I'd ever met so I never ended up doing it. My best advice is to get him to sites like this discreetly and let him study. Send him a few JoD articles in your next letter, unless you think this may fuel the typical LDS persecution complex.

I agree that you should wait and see. Give it some time but when he does get home you need to have a very hard and deep discussion with him. Set it out in no uncertain terms that you will have nothing to do with the church and do not want your spouse to either.

I've seen plenty of examples where an inactive member all of a sudden gets all caught up in it again. And the unbelieving spouse is screwed and not in a nice way.

I agree with the others that much can happen in the next few months. He will receive enormous pressure to stay on his mission.

Also look at how he says that he appreciates you studying it out, but then he goes on to say that you didn't really do it right. He still hopes that you will change your mind.

You may both be truly in love, but sometimes love is not enough to get you through some serious problems like this one.

If he comes home early, his family will be embarrassed in front of their friends neighbors. They will be disappointed in him. And who do you think they will blame for this horror that has befallen their family? YOU! You will ALWAYS be the Jezebel that led their loved one off the path of righteousness, the homewrekcer who screwed up their eternal family. Are you prepared to live with that every time you see them?

I can tell by this and your previous posts that you are determined to see this through to the bitter end. We each have to do what we have to do. I just hope it comes out a lot better than it looks to me right now.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/20/2010 02:49PM by duffy.

If you want to know what I think, then here goes.

What you have there is a disgruntled, homesick missionary who wants to come home and part of his decision making process includes thinking with his penis. You need to think long and hard about what you are going to do if he DOES come home.

Just sayin'...

Ron

Shame on you Ron! You can't put the words "penis", "long" and "hard" in the same post!

When he talks about "loving these people" and "I don't have a legit enough of a conversion." It sounds not just like cult immersion, but mission cult immersion. That is deeper indoctrination to me. I mean come on! "These people"?????? Sounds like he is in Africa or some other exotic local, not just a few states over in North Carolina. Also him being willing to stay through Christmas and into the next transfer so as not to inconvenience the mission.

My point is; he may not be as out or as ready to leave as he says. They tell missionaries that they don't need to "be totally converted" to preach the gospel. If he shares his concerns with leadership I can see most of his concerns being refuted. "You are not special, everybody has these feelings when on their mission." OR "Satan is trying to influence you. You must put off the natural man and get satan out."

We can all still hope that he has started to see.

Some of you are more interested in his chink in the armor and how she can chisel at it to get him out of the morg. IMHO you should be more concerned with how this effects her, not him. She needs to back away from him. Sure, it'd be nice if he left the church, but the "ask" here is what she should do, not what he should do. She should back away from the table and y'all should stop pressuring her to work on his doubt.

I agree. He sounds really confused. Not at all sure what he's going to do. He WILL receive huge amounts of pressure from everyone around him, and if he's on the fence, he will probably cave to that pressure.

If he wanted to come home, he would come home. Now. Not wait until the next transfer. That's an excuse to buy him more time.

Maybe he will come home. But who knows what will happen then.

My advice isn't worth 2 cents, but I'd say to tell him you support him in his decision to come home (as you have seen way more information than he has access to) and will be there as a friend to him when he gets home, but you will not consider any kind of romantic relationship with him until he has completely figured things out. That you will continue dating others - not put your life on hold while he figures himself out. If things come together in the end, then so be it. But I would not commit to being together (and losing other opportunities) for him to spend months/years going back and forth and then just ending up chosing the church anyway. You have to protect yourself. There are MANY fish in the sea.

You'll know he's serious when:

-He can explain the HONEST history of the LDS Church to you

-You see his Greg Dodge letter (acknowledging his resignation)

-He has a plan in place to be financially independent

In the mean time, you are RISKING YOUR FUTURE holding out hope that he will come around. The family / mission / ward / pressure to stay in is tremendous.

I actually have a date on Wednesday, and I plan on keeping it.
So I appreciate all of your advice.
I'm going to write him and tell him something along the lines of... I want what's best for him, I'll always be there to support him. I don't think when/if he comes back we should jump into a relationship until he's figured out what he wants and what he's going to do. He needs time to be independent and learn how to live with just him and be okay with himself.

Your decision sounds like a good one. This part of his email especially troubled me:

So. I love it here, but, I need to come home. Because I'm not legit enough to be here, I don't have legit enough of a conversion, and if i did, i would feel guilty about how i b.s.ed getting here pretty much.

To me, it sounds like he doesn't have a high conversion rate, and he feels like it's probably because of all the things he did and did not confess before his mission (if I recall, you and he were engaging in some sort of sexual activity). He probably feels like those things are why the spirit isn't with him enough, isn't helping him get into the "hearts" of these people he loves so much. If he leaves, he will resent you and feel like your activity before he left is what caused him to be an unworthy missionary, and lead to his departure (if he really leaves). That is going to be a problem if he leaves. It's probably better that he work these things out on his own, knowing he's coming home as a single guy, than try to reestablish a relationship before he comes to terms with everything.

He sounds conflicted, but with my experience both as a missionary and knowing missionaries, most have this feeling to some degree. It sounds like the MAIN problem he has is that he just doesn't know enough about the church and it's teachings. And a ton of missionaries feel this way. Probably around 90% of missionaries I knew had never read the Old/New Testament or even the D&C. He probably just feels this way because people who actually know about the Bible will stomp all over him in actual discussions related to the Gospel. I've always thought it a shame that a church that's supposedly focused on Jesus doesn't teach about him all that much.

I'd suggest just cooling down about him and taking a break, but that probably won't happen. And as everyone else said, if he does come back early, wait before making any long term plans with him.

Also it's kind of annoying he thinks you're wrong because you looked too "deep" into things. I guess it's ok to use some quotes of the prophets, but not the ones about aliens on the sun, killing your adulterous wife, or "better dead than unchaste".

Its not his fault, really. Even if he does come home early - and I don't think he will - he will be devoting massive amounts of energy trying to figure himself out. That leaves very little energy devoted to you.

Run. Run like hell.

and they know exactly how to work him. Don't be misled by the confusion--he is torn but like the poster said, you can see plainly that he is spouting their indoctrination. They've told him to give it a couple of months and he is following them.

Now, regarding you-- this young man is not mature enough to make and keep a commitment (to you, the church, anyone or anything). He is being pressured at a time when he is vulnerable -they know what they are doing.

He is actually swayed by receiving money from the ward members (Well, if they love me that much, I should honor that and stay), most importantly, he negates every declarative sentence with its opposite, which is an Mormon apologist strategy "that's been answered by our experts who know the details of the argument."

Reframing the argument from whether or not this church is telling the truth to whether or not he is converted enough (ie WORTHY) is not the question that should interest you.

You should be ignoring your lovin' feelings and asking the hard questions, like:

Would I consider raising my children, say, as a Jehovah's Witness? Even knowing that church lies (FACT) and that the kids will be sitting in the hall while other kids enjoy Christmas parties and birthday parties, and they will be taught a pack of lies.

Would I raise them as Christian Scientists and help them raise money for the sessions that will "clear" them from alien occupation of their bodies?

How about Islaam? Want to help your girls learn to wear a burqa properly?

It's so much easier to see when you frame it around a different crazy religion. THIS RELIGION HARMS PEOPLE AND IT WILL HARM YOUR CHILDREN.

You would not willingly expose your children to AIDS, or even Down's Syndrome if you had any possibility of preventing it in advance. Why take the chance of raising them in a cult which will suck away their individual potential and personality? You might have girls who would be raised to believe their highest aspiration is to marry a returned missionary, like Daddy.

And then your son makes the decision to eliminate you from family gatherings because you're a bad influence on their Mormon children (because you are a happy, funny, loving apostate instead of being dark, glum, and under the control of Satan like the church teaches).

And there's my Christmas rant...ignore it if you like and good luck!

Anagrammy

He says that he loves the church and it's his culture. He thinks you're wrong about some of the things that you wrote, because you looked at it too deeply and pessimistically. He couldn't be plainer.

You've heard it said before...the main purpose of a mission is to solidify the belief of the missionary. He's homesick, he's (forgive me) horny, he's making an adjustment to his mission. *He really doesn't want to lose you.* But he loves his church, and he will continue to find a way to make his mission work. And there will be no shortage of people (as evidenced by your post) who will help him to make it work.

If I were you, I'd negotiate hard. I'd tell him, "I will never convert to Mormonism nor marry in your church. I will never, ever consent to having my children raised in this religion. If you love the church, as much as we love each other, I may not be the right person for you and vice-versa. You need to figure out if you can live with these terms, and until you do, I will be dating other men." Don't equivocate. He needs to know the choice he is facing.

For lack of a better analogy, being in love is like being addicted. You are addicted to your beloved. You get a physical and emotional high from any sort of contact with your beloved. But consider that some addictions are healthy (i.e, exercise,) some are unhealthy (dangerous drugs,) and some are a mix. It's hard to step back from being in love to rationally analyzing your boyfriend as a potential mate. Just because you are in love with him does not mean that he's the best match for you (that he would make you the happiest in the long run.) It is true, true, true that there are many fish in the sea.

Put some demands/conditions on your boyfriend to see if he's a keeper.

I think that he's trying to manipulate you because he knows you still care for him a lot. He says it plainly - he loves the church. It is his culture. He loves those people. That means he is STAYING in the church. He believes it. He's annoyed at you and thinks it's unfair that you criticize it.

These are huge warning flags.

Based on what he said in his letter, he's trying to lead you on. He knows you're old-reliable, therefore he doesn't have to worry about how he treats you because you're going to allow yourself to be strung along. According to you, you've broken up - he is an ex. There IS no "writing like a couple." He clearly thinks you still are a couple. I think you may still think that way, too.

I think you need to move on with your life. I think you need to focus on other guys and your schooling. Until then, drop contact because I think you're still way too attached to this guy, and I think regardless of where he is in his faith, he doesn't respect you and your beliefs - he just wants you to respect his.

Yeah, I think you should just stop writing to him for a while and see what he does.

His thoughts aren't coherent at all. This bit did stand out to me though.

"Because I'm not legit enough to be here, I don't have legit enough of a conversion, and if i did, i would feel guilty about how i b.s.ed getting here pretty much."

He doesn't really "believe" the doctrines of TSCC because he's going along to get along. You've made him aware of this pattern and now he wants to find peace within the Church. To experience a 'legit conversion.' I'm afraid you probably won't get him to look at any information regarding the true nature of TSCC. He's most likely looking for his peace in the church and taking you along for the ride. Stick with your plan to date around, find someone else and detach. As cold as this may sound, it isn't your responsibility to bring him out of the cult--that burden lies on him. You've planted the seeds of doubt and should he actually nourish them, well, you'll know what to do.

Best of luck.