I've waited through 5 years of promises for someone I love to grow a pair and resign. he's 45 and claims to hate tscc. I'm beginning to see this as an issue of character and mommy obsession. he attends my church and claims to love it but I'm starting to not understand how long someone can avoid reality. thank god I'm no longer interested in marriage but I feel thrown away by someone I've considered my best friend. while his clinging to something I consider to be bogus is really none of my business I am seen as a bad person because I choose to not associate further with a hypocrite. any opinions?

Some people don't care at all whether or not they officially resign from the Church. They see it as only recognizing Church authority by doing things the Church's way.

Whether we resign or not doesn't mean anything really. It meant something to me personally, which is why I resigned. But if I hadn't, I'd still consider myself to be an ex-Mormon.

My mother is an ex-Catholic and she still doesn't quite understand why I had to go through 5 1/2 months of working to get my name taken off the rolls. She said, "I just walked away. Why can't you just walk away?"

My first question would be to ask why it's so important to you that this person officially resign, if they don't care whether or not they do. They've already left. They're already attending another church with you.

Why is it so important to you?

How does it make them a hypocrite?

greyfort, I'm in the middle of some painful skin cancer surgery and so not thinking at my best. So even after reading this several times your point just hit home. I think very much that this is what my friend is doing. By resigning he might feel that he is still submitting to the imaginary rules of the cult. It came to mind what a late friend of mine who served nine years in federal prison had told me. This friend had said that prison ministries are all bad because they still serve the machine. might not connect with y'all but it hit home hard with me just now. thank you!

You saw clearly and made a decision based on that. Be proud of the fact that unlike others you took action instead of being apathetic and remaining in a relationship that would never be fulfilling in the long run. Now you have a wide open future.

Have a glass of good wine and revel in the possbilities!

thanks greyfort. I enjoy your posts! it matters to me because I am a deeply religious person and feel very strongly that if a person is in a faith tradition s/he has a responsibility to practice that faith to the fullest. even mormonism. he is now disappointing me and also his family. thus the hypocrisy. frankly I now feel he is playing both ends against the middle. he has also promised for 5 years so now I am also seeing him as a liar. and dark...yes having delicious coffee&chicory right now but will be switching to wine while I cook dinner!

Hopefully, you can start to heal and eventually move your life in a positive and productive way.

Congratulations on cutting off this bad influence. At least any hopes you have from now on will be more workable.

I'm sure there are other issues as well and so it's good to move on. I just wondered why it was so important that he officially resign, when it's really not an important thing.

In any case, I have watched several of my friends wait a long time for guys who made promises that they never kept. Those guys always seem to be a waste of time. All of the cases I know about personally ended up in divorce.

Don't keep hanging around anyone who considers you a bad person for whatever reasons, or drags his feet to marry you.
A relationship either goes forward or it retrogresses.

At any rate, your religious differences seem too great to overcome, not to mention the emotional issues.
Move on.

Thanks! he doesn't consider me a bad person but his family despises me. the only family member who is real with me is his older sister who is old enough to remember the family's conversion and seems to not be as controlled by the cult though she is very active

thanks. you all are helping a lot! yes there are other issues involved mostly from mormonism. this person still wraps up and hides bits of food after growing up in a house with too many kids. there is also a very controlling mother who I feel very strongly deliberately raised my friend to be unmarriageble. some mothers seem to think their own matriarchy will be challenged if the eldest son has a family of his own. his mother was also raised in an alcoholic family and converted to moism as a substitute addiction, running off my friend's birth father in the process, yet the alcoholic manipulative behavior continues. finally, my still barely friend is a highly creative person who won't/can't fit into a box. he was fine until I pointed out it was ok to be himself.

And were you ever Mormon? Because if you were and you had a pious Mormon mommy or daddy, you might be more willing to give the guy a break.

I'm not saying you don't understand, because you haven't given much information, and I don't want to defend the guy either. I lack appreciation for a certain type and degree of this behavior myself. If he's concealing or not moving ahead in your relationship out of fear of his mom's reaction, because you're not Mormon, that's one thing. Pretending to be more mormony for his mom's benefit would also irritate me. But if it's just about resigning, eh, so what. And if it's about refusing to dive headlong into your church, that's you creating a problem.

Disclosure: I'm an atheist. Been out of the Mormon church 33 years, but didn't resign until about 3 years ago. I didn't know I could until I came to RfM in 2006. But I didn't care enough to hassle with it--why should I have to? They dipped me in water at age 8 or 9, all that did was get me wet, haven't bothered me in 30 years, blah blah blah.

Then they made it easier with email, and I went for it. It felt surprisingly good and I'm glad I did it, but I still don't feel strongly about it.

I haven't told my mom, either. I don't care if she finds out and would certainly tell her if she asked me. I don't volunteer the information because, even though she knows I'm an atheist and I disapprove of her church, and even though I don't think she really believes it herself, she gets defensive about it. It's just a conversation I'd rather not have.

My mom is not very pious, does not pester me to go back to church, and would not self-destruct if she found out I'd resigned. I'm lucky that way. Some Mormon parents are nightmares, and that's where I start to sympathize with your boyfriend if this is mostly about his failure to resign.

thanks munchy! enjoy your posts as well. actually walked to the library to have a keyboard bigger than my phone. now I have to put the temple video up on youtube so I can switch to it as the mishies walk by! :) No I'm not nor will ever be mormon. I knew enough about it from under the banner of heaven and really the biggest mistake I made was not running far and fast when I heard the phrase "raised mormon" and no I don't need him to dive headlong into my church. I'm actually episcopalian (which might be a difficult conversion) but attend a methodist church right now which is amazing. If I moved to another city I might or might not attend another methodist church. athiesm is not an issue with me at all since we are all on our own journey. In fact if I was an athiest this would be easy. My biggest concern is 45 freaking years old and can't make up his mind or act on it. This is really more of a friendship as he was a great help to me when my husband died and I've actually told him repeatedly that he needs to go back to LDS if he's not going to get out. The major personality conflict is I'm not a fencesitter and he just wants to keep drifting along which leaves me out in the cold with his family unless I convert and he still wants to pull the 'family' card when he wants them to take him out to dinner or extract something, anything, from them. Most importantly, his family did absolutely nothing to instill any sort of real character or integrity in him beyond shutting up and following rules made up by other people and his childhood experiences have colored his personality to survival mode. Sadly, his family can't stand him ever since he wouldn't go on a mission and he is still groveling for the scraps of their love. As if it couldn't be any more complicated there may be some Aspbergers and communication issues. Me? I'm almost 50 and wouldn't be 20 again even with a million dollars with which to do it. I have no youthful fantasies about whatever love is and after taking care of a severely disabled husband for 9 years and then waiting 6 years for him to die in a nursing home I understand that life is brief and to be enjoyed. What do I see in this person? A bright vivacious loving person with many skills and talents. But I am no longer codependent enough to want for people what they do not want for themselves. Thanks again.

Thank you so much for this. not to offend the non believers at all but I live Pascal's Wager daily. never occurred to me to apply it to mormonism since I see it as a crock

He's 45? Yeah, I'd definitely move along.

thanks to you as well. Of course it hurts and y'all have been listening to me whine for a while over this and this has been a rough road that has distracted me from grieving for my husband, which may have been my purpose from the beginning. I'm fascinated by comparative religion and would love to keep hanging around here. The bitterness wears on me some time but the intelligence is stimulating.

"starting to not understand how long someone can avoid reality."

A positive way of seeing that statement is that you are starting to see how long someone can avoid reality by not acting with the courage of his convictions.

Is that someone you really want to spend your life with? You have decided no to that one.

Now it seems you are asking yourself: is that someone you want to continue to spend time with at all? Your subject line seems to state the truth you are internalizing.

Best wishes in your journey. Integrity wins.

It sounds like he's still figuring himself out, and thus not ready to enter a partnership.

When you get involved with someone like that, you get to be his mom instead of his partner.

I thought about this a lot. I haven't resigned yet. I probably won't in the near future. My goal is to become so famous that they excommunicate me.

That isn't realistic, I know. :) Mostly I just can't be bothered, I'm too busy most of the time to go through the process or resigning.

However, if my nevermo fiance asked me to resign I probably would. She wouldn't ask, she doesn't really care, but the point is that I wouldn't put that above her. Why is this so important to him?

I suspect that SLDrone is correct in suggesting Pascal's Wager.

I don't see fence-sitting with regard to religion as being a matter of integrity.

It all comes down to a matter of being comfortable with (spiritual) ambiguity. You are not, he is. This is not a moral failing on his part. It is a legitimate and principled way to approach spirituality and relgion that is practiced by a large number of mainstream Christians. You have probably heard this referred to as being a "cafeteria Christian."

Basically it is a refusal to have authorities do your thinking for you. You consider alternate points of view and piece things together in a way that works for you.

It works for your boyfriend (for whatever reason) to maintain membership with the LDS church. Many times, as numerous people have shared on this board, it helps to smooth things over with the family.

Ambiguity can apply to other issues as well such as political beliefs. For instance at present I am a member of a political party that does *not* best represent my beliefs. Why? Because I tend to split my ticket anyway and I find the primary elections more interesting for this particular party. You or others might find this morally questionable, but for right now my affiliation suits me. I am comfortable with ambiguity in certain circumstances.

Becoming comfortable with ambiguity can feel like falling off of a cliff at first. Surely there is a one true way of believing! Well, maybe not. It is something that you can get comfortable with over time, if you feel so inclined.

I think it is a shame that you would reject a man for what to my mind is a very minor issue. But if strong conviction about religious beliefs is that important to you, it might be for the best that you split.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2013 02:57PM by summer.