Can't use too many IRL descriptions - but I have a hereditary illness that invariably results in death. With good care, which I have, I can probably make it for another year and a half, maybe 2.

I resigned from the Mo-Cult many years ago and don't really have any religious convictions.

My husband is still a believer, but not active. I know it is upsetting to him that we may not be together in the afterlife. (I love him dearly and if there is an afterlife, I'll find him. If there isn't, then there's nothing to lose, is there?)

I could probably fake being struck with a case of re-belief. I know that you have to be interviewed by one of the Big Boys in SLC, but heck - I've lied my way past bishops and stake presidents without a twitch, and the boys in SLC don't scare me as I don't hold them in any awe at all.

If I can fake it for long enough, maybe we could be sealed in the temple - and this would bring my husband unspeakable joy. I love him very much and would love to give him this gift.

However, I have serious reservations about Mo-hopping for the remainder of my life. My energy levels are already seriously diminished, and you know they badger you half to death (pun intended) with callings and meetings and other BS.

And while we live comfortably on our retirement checks, (comfortably, not lavishly), tithing would make more of a debt than I would like to see.

I think I already know the answer to this one; I just want to see what your take on it is. I know I can trust you guys; I've been hanging around here for years and I value your opinions.

Do what YOU got to do. But if you do... Don't pay them any tithing. Take advantage of THEM!

While your heart is in the right place, I think this time needs to be all about YOU. Do what gives you comfort, joy, and peace. It sounds like the Mormon church isn't it.

If you did do this and get the TR and such, would your DH feel obligated to pay tithing from then on? Are you also saying that you will fake belief the rest of your life? Wow, that is tough one.

So sorry to hear that you are going through such an ordeal. You need to do what is the best for you, no matter what. Take care.

So tell him not to worry, and you want to enjoy the time you have left with him instead of jumping through the Mormon hoops with what energy you have left. That's what I would do anyway.

Someone will re-baptize you after you're gone, to be sure, and your husband can then marry you in the temple by proxy if it's that important to him. I'm so sorry you're dealing with this. Good thoughts to you.

I would say to have a heart to heart with your husband, then take it from there. Have each/either of you gone through the temple? If not (and if your husband is open to it), I would suggest watching the endowment session that is online. That is what got me out. Funny that what was supposed to be the epitome of being Mormon made my skin crawl.

My very best thoughts to you and your family.

lapsed Wrote:
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> Someone will re-baptize you after you're gone, to
> be sure, and your husband can then marry you in
> the temple by proxy if it's that important to him.
> I'm so sorry you're dealing with this. Good
> thoughts to you.

+1

You could tell your husband to have your name submitted for baptism and eventually submitted to the temple to be sealed to him. You could even have it written in your will, if it would help your husband feel better about it. Whether it's true or not, if there is an afterlife, you'll be together. Let him have the peace of knowing that.

I have some jack Mormons relatives that upon finding out they had terminal cancer became reactivated again. I think it was because upon preparing for death deep down they hoped it was all true. They had Mormon funerals and were buried in their temple clothes. Only you know the answer to this question and what is the best path for you. I'd like to think that if I was faced with terminal illness I would be able to hold to my strong convictions that Mormon is indeed false and destructive. People may remember you with integrity if you don't falter in your believes. Good luck and thanks for sharing!

to get a temple recommend you have to attend 'all your meetings'

that is a heck of a way to use of your time (if you don't like it and it makes you tired or you feel ill) UNLESS you LIKE it

TIME- going to church takes TIME. is this the way you want to spend your time?

are you trying to create a lifestyle for your spouse after you are gone or enhance your spouse's support network? possibly you & your spouse could attend 4th of July this year, go to their parade, and begin going to their luncheons or ward dinners. They'll notice you.

you don't have to join the church for that. Then your spouse will have a more engaged mormon life if that is what they want.

Plus you can ask your spouse to "get your work done" when you're gone, if that would make them feel better to submit your name.

But time is all you have left, its not the money (ten percent) its the say you have and the way you spend your time- which is your choice. I have done the sacrificing, I dont' think you should have to sacrifice right now- your life style. It'd be a heck of a thing for someone to ask a coffee drinker or an ice tea drinker to stop that comfort- which you should indulge in right up to the end.
but if its social support or enhanced support for your spouse you are seeking, and they do not WANT to remain inactive- they say they do not PREFER being inactive- encourage them to enjoy a few events.

Big question: why is your spouse inactive- whatever they believe or think, what is their preferred life? desired way to spend time? Was it not is it not making breakfast hanging out on the weekend morning they are not out or about? Will they want to add hustle bustle pace to their time with you or will this enhance your lives together now?

First, I'm so sorry you are ill. That is tough on everyone.Lost my husband in Jan. It's a rough road.

Second, you could do the re-do on membership in the LDS Church & considering your health, do it on your terms as no one is going to ask you to do what you are unable to do.

That being said, I think you need to talk this over with your husband and make sure it is something you both want to do.

If he is inactive, but a true believer, that all may change if you decide to rejoin.

Lots to think about and discuss.

My best wishes to you.

Even though we all know it's silliness, the reassurance that you will be with him for eternity would be comforting to your husband, I'm sure.

Just focus on yourself and your needs for the next little while. You seem to be handling things well already. I'm sorry to hear one of our "own" is dying. There just seems to be too much of that going around on RfM.

Don't hide out forever. When the time is right, please let us know so we can support you. (And, ultimately grieve your loss in the appropriate way).

Love,
Shannon ;o)

I am sorry you have to endure this. My feeling is that you talk with your husband about his and your beliefs in the afterlife. I am one who cannot believe a loving God would keep people who love one another separate because of legitimate choices of conscience, yours being to not be LDS and your husbands to be LDS.

My concern about your rejoining and marrying in the temple is it may lock-in your husband to continuing in the church in order to remain with you in eternity even if he finds does not or cannot live to the church's standards. I also wonder if you have to pretend to the church about your change of heart, then do you have to pretend to your husband, also. Can you do that, what if he suspects you are only pretending and goes along? Will the temple ceremony mean the same thing? Or will he be left with doubt?

I don't know the answers, but I do think talking with him about how much you love him and your feelings about your dying and leaving him would be very important.

Sorry for your illness. Take the money you would spend on tithing and do or go somewhere with your husband that will be memorable and you can take pictures (can't do that in the temple). Many people believe you will be with your love ones when you die, and charge a lot less than the mormon church.

I only ask, because as a person who works with CF people, the description fits?

Best wishes to you in all you do.

Regarding afterlife, I've heard someone who lost his wife say this:
I've always believed in afterlife. I used to but no longer fear that she and I will be apart after this life. Our lives are too lovingly inter-connected and integrated that nothing can separate us. Like St. Paul said, the greatest of all is....LOVE.

His words made me feel.....touched by the divine.

Love..unconditional and unfeigned..is the greatest power....greater than dogmas and rituals.

Nice.

Forgive me for being so rude, I am sorry this is happening to you.

being as he is Inactive, although a believer, some flavor, some hint of something logical as well as wonderful which he feels through you or brings to you loving you enough that you want to do something that would mean the world to him- the spouse loves you something about you, about exmo you. you. Something you do, some way you move, something you say, something you did, something you said, some way along the way. not a dream of you not an illusory never have been not something that isn't true isn't you in the room- but you.

After you have talked with him, is it possible to eptimize or emphasize- find those things you love in life & your spouse has loved well loved, about life these long years, enough to shake your head and grin when you think of her or him. Yes. emphasize those- dance moves if only on tv, places to talk about a little while, places to see, pictures and photographs to reminice

I think its nice to emphasize what is real to you as well as your spouse.

But what Robert Said- I trust him. He can figure how to start the conversation so you can go from there. I just wish you didn't need to cancel yourself your authenticity your soullife favorite food music style hoping to comfort your spouse for a while. Can't you, isn't there a way, for you to just be you and let him have a lds support network if he needs it and him be a tiny bit active if he feels he will die without it? Wait, if he felt he would die without being active, wouldn't he have been active before now? If he doesn't like being active or he likes breaking commandments will being active comfort or conflict him

during this really difficult time.

paintinginthewin Wrote:
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I just wish you didn't need to cancel
> yourself your authenticity your soullife favorite
> food music style hoping to comfort your spouse for
> a while. Can't you, isn't there a way, for you to
> just be you and let him have a lds support network
> if he needs it

Well, there is the heart of it. You have a way of getting at the important things, paintinginthewin.

he can get your temple sealing renewed and rebaptize you send your work through, but what you can't do is say he never loved you he does & as your post showed your love isn't through.

;u lying may not work as well as it seems in the end sometimes we talk lots or tell truths. I think your spouse loves you not just a memory many many parts of you. You do not have to be a living memory instead.

love is So real it doesn't need a certificate to prove it- I know, sadly I forgot to mail in my marriage license we got at the temple. ITs not on record with the county we filed it in. does that make my love less authentic these long years later?

after you talk, go where you feel you need to, just know many many people would love to put on white jump suits and have lunch in the temple to redo putting you through. Does it really have to be something that you would do? instead of a last cruise? or drive to a beach? or sit listening to music at a jazz festival? or sit at a bench looking at rocks? or run your hands over tile or go to Catalina or or or really? he needs hours in church in tense meetings on hallways in your living room re enacting hierachacy begging approval in lds community visitors it will never feel the same again as being 20 or 25 heart pounding in the temple for the first time wondering and waiting to see the angels floating down the hallways ancestors giving personal counsel and looking around, puzzled, find out you are watching projection TV. You can't get that back.

You recognize there is no "right" answer here and you are seeing a wide range of opinions.

It all depends on where you are in your own recovery. When you are completely recovered, you are indifferent. Missionaries can come/go/stay, you don't care. Talking about Joseph Smith is of mild interest, but...isn't the game on?

We all hope to reach that level of detachment before we die.

You stated you would like to give this husband this gift. I can suggest a way to do it that is totally disrespectful of all Mormon baloney but will provide comfort for your hubby after your gone--which I believe is what you want.

If you enjoy lying to liars (like I do!) then you might enjoy making them run around in a circle like a dog trying to get his tail.

Meet with the bishop and tell him you have a terminal disease and your husband and you want to be sealed in the temple. You also need some financial aid, so you want to pick up an application for that.

He will hum and haw and say how sorry he is that you are dying, but the church can't possibly help. You say you are living on your social security and barely making it and the medication, wow, that is so expensive. Could he just help with your medication?

He will hem and how and say he has no permission to use church money for medication. He will have his clerk double check on that but he's pretty sure that medicine is excluded.

Ask him for a wheelchair, a potty chair, crutches, a hospital bed, you will all need these things as the end draws near, and you want to stay at home to die. Be soft spoken, but matter of fact.

By now he will be sweating bullets. Now you (if you are the type to ham it up) dab your eyes and say, "OK, OK, I see you cannot help me, but thank heaven at least we can have the comfort of knowing we will be together in eternity. What do we have to do to get our temple recommends while I am still able to walk and talk.

He will say blah, blah, pay your tithing. Now you say WHAAT? You cannot help me with pain medication and you want to take what little I have away? PLEASE, bishop, don't take away my pain relievers--(here again, I am dramatic, your personality might shrink from this) When the pain starts it creeps up from my feet >>>>> keep going until he begs you to stop.

Then you promise to try as hard as you can to take as little medication as you can possibly get by on. "Let's see, I could skip a day and maybe use a heating pad followed by an ice pack, sometimes that helps...that way I might be able to pay tithing. I promise you this, bishop, I WILL DO MY BEST!! I SWEAR IT! WE WANT TO BE TOGETHER IN HEAVEN--PLEASE LET US GO TO THE TEMPLE!

Then you go to the temple, get sealed, and never give these exploiters a dime. Go to meetings "when the pain allows" (which means) go when/if you feel like it.


Anagrammy
Drama Queen Extraordinaire

@Anagrammy, I like the way you think.


@Gotta Be Anon for this, if you decide to go through with this, send me an email and I'll send you a solution (that works) for the tithing part of this. That's the easy part. Faking it for the time you have left is the hard part.

I don't think it is hard for a terminally ill person to opt out of any obligations.

People who have been given a date often experience an incredible sense of freedom, almost a rebirth. They immediately begin living in the present and savoring sensory experiences to a degree never been done before. There is no time to waste on meeting people's expectations.

Do you recall Ragingphoenix's amazing post that when he postponed his suicide, he experienced this incredible sense of a free new life--he said, "Everything was possible for me. Everything."

This is how I want to live my last months/years of life and I hope I have the chance for this last burst of incredible joy. The OP can certainly do that, saying, "I would so love to be with you on Sunday, but it was not a good days. Some days are good, some not so much, you know." Of course they don't know and no one will press her for details about her deteriorating condition.

They have sucked on her purse nipple enough. She doesn't have to meet their expectations. They owe her husband the comfort they have to offer. No doubt he's been paying all his life for it.

Anagrammy

I think that the best way to deal with this will probably be to get re-baptized and proxy-sealed after death.

Since this is a familial illness, I have seen other family members die of it, and while hospice care can keep you reasonably comfortable, the last thing I would want is to have Mormons crawling all over me when I have far more important issues to deal with.

I can see (thanks to so many of you for clarifying things) that integrity and authenticity are especially important at this time, and participating in such a huge lie - and it WOULD be a lie - just wouldn't be worth it.

We have both been through the temple. (And just for the record, I think temple marriage ceremonies SUCK!)

@paintinginthewin: Thank you for your terrific insights! My husband went inactive when I resigned, because he did not want to create any division between us. He encouraged me to find a liberal Christian church that I would be comfortable with, and while I still don't have any significant religious convictions, I have returned to the church I grew up in. The local congregation is small, the minister is a great guy, and it just feels comfortable, like a favorite slipper. So we both attend, and that seems to work for both of us.

@shannon: I will definitely let RfM know when I'm circling the drain, and if I can't manage that, my husband already has a list of my various online "families," how to access them, and will notify them when the time comes. RfM is at the top of the list.

@robertb - Thanks for the great clarification. I don't think my husband would be comfortable with my suddenly having a "revelation" or whatever and re-joining the church. He knows me too well. He knows I think it is a crock. I might be able to fool the bishop, the stake president, and even whomever I would talk to in SLC, but there's no fooling God. And without even discussing it, I know that DH wouldn't want me to try.

@Anon Regular Lurker - The disease is not cystic fibrosis. I don't dare be more specific than that, because DH's HT knows about it and some other people from our former ward do too. I don't want to take the chance of being recognized. Fortunately, it's pretty rare - only something like 1-2% of the population is afflicted with it.

@anagrammy - I absolutely LOVE the idea of "lying to liars!"
But I don't think that's where I want to put my remaining time and energy.

We have been talking about taking a leisurely holiday, visiting places that are special to us, taking lots of pictures, and just enjoying our time together. My energy is limited, but I think I could handle something like this. It would be a car trip, and I could get in plenty of nap time while DH is driving.

Faking belief would be energy-sapping. Being surrounded by herds of Mormons would be worse still.

Our love is absolutely genuine. Faking belief in the effort to get a temple marriage would be like getting grubby fingerprints all over a beautiful painting. Thank you for helping me to see that. That's how I felt, but your insights brought it into much clearer focus. THANK YOU ALL!!!

This:

"Our love is absolutely genuine. Faking belief in the effort to get a temple marriage would be like getting grubby fingerprints all over a beautiful painting."

is poignant.


I wish for you many more days of togetherness.

I think that you've made a very good decision. You and your husband deserve uninterrupted time with one another. You don't need a bunch of strangers or near-strangers intruding on it.

Traveling while you still can seems like a wonderful idea. Many years ago I traveled in Europe with a group. The group included a family who were enjoying one last blowout while the terminally ill mother could still enjoy it. They took a cruise ship over to Europe and toured most of the continent. It was such a nice, loving time for all of them.

Good call. Speaking your truth with love is always best.

We will miss you, whoever you are, and I am trusting that you will give us your real handle before too long, so we can express our appreciation of your contributions here while you are still with us.

Hugs

Anagrammy

I think your husband would be happy enough just to hear that you love him and intend to spend eternity with him. Let him know that if he believes eternity with him requires him to perform a proxy baptism and sealing after you are gone, he is free to carry through on that because you want him to be happy. The only reason you aren't doing it yourself is because you don't believe anything or anyone could ever stand between your love for him. Enough said.

Gotta Be Anon for this Wrote:
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> (I love him dearly and if there is an afterlife, I'll find him. If there isn't, then there's nothing to lose, is there?)

-----------

Your heart sure is in the right place, but if you were your husband would you really want your beloved wife to live the last precious years of her life in a lie for your sake? Would you subject your husband to such a thing? Shouldn't your husband be allowed love you for who you are, regardless of any religious implication? You have a limited amount of time left to show him how to live with integrity, regardless of consequences. I'm afraid he isn't exposed to a lot of that in the Mormons circle.

Whatever you do decide to do, be sure that you won't find yourself in bed toward the end resenting that you've compromised your integrity for someone who won't appreciate it some way into the future.

I hope this illness won't make you suffer too much. Hang in there!

PS: As for the passage I quoted above, that is a false dichotomy (just like how Christians, say, think that they should accept a version of Christianity because there is either a Christian after life or nothing. They fail to appreciate that there are many different ideas of 'after life' or 'god'. There may be an after life that isn't anything like what the Mormons/Christians/Muslims/etc say it is, in which case, choosing the wrong after life idea may be even worse than not choosing to believe at all.

Edited: Sorry this was late. It wouldn't go thru earlier somehow.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/2013 02:52PM by smorg.