Posted by:
Alice
(
)
Date: October 18, 2012 05:45PM
Yes! What an eye-opener! So many seemingly perfect marriages are not even mediocre marriages. I became a confidant when I was still TBM. Because I was a single divorced working woman, I was on the "fringes", yet because I was the organist, I was still in the middle of things.
I always advised strongly against divorce, and used my own hard times as an example. One woman told me her bishopric husband was doing illegal things in his business, and that she could not support his dishonesty--that was a tough one! I gave her no advice at all, except to commiserate on how awful it is to not love your husband....
Twice, I was accused of having an affair. One was early in my marriage, when a friend in my ward came to my house to talk to me about her husband's flirty ways towards me. I laughed, and said I never took him seriously, that her husband flirted with all the women equally, and that I had an uncle who was the same way. I also told her that if she really knew me, if she was really a friend, she would know that I would NEVER commit adultery, even in my heart. I was not her friend after that. It turned out he was having multiple affairs with other women, and they got divorced. The second time, I was accused by the bishop's wife. I told her that I frankly did not like her husband, the Bishop, and that I could never be attracted to someone like that, in the first place. (He did confide in me that he was "enduring to the end" in his marriage. I answered that it was inappropriate to talk about his marriage.) I told the witch that I was proud of my morals, and just because I was divorced, that didn't mean I was immoral. I was a good example for my children! She and her daughter gossiped about me, anyway. Her husband advanced to the Seventies.
I was flabbergasted at how many affairs the men in my SLC ward were having! I was in the Single Adult leadership, and single women would come crying to me, about the married men who were after them: a married dentist a High Priest in our ward (he was eventually found out), the dirty-old-man attorney who lived behind us, who chased my friend around his desk at his office, the First Counselor in the Stake Presidency, who was a charismatic doctor (who was later caught in bed with our neighbor's 20-year-old daughter) and many more stories.
T.M.I!
Could this church possibly be "God's Work"?
After I left, my few remaining Mormon friends often complain to me about Prop 8, the Mall, and other irritations. They do not like Packer. One Mormon friend told me that if Packer becomes President, that she will quit the church. Her husband and one of her children are already out.