foreverafter

It is impossible for a man to be truly sealed eternally to more than one living woman at a time. For he can't be loving & faithful to the 1st if he is dating or married to the 2nd. Even though after divorce they may keep the sealing intact with the 1st wife, it doesn't mean he is really still sealed to her. They keep the sealing intact in case he was not justified in the divorce & she may want him back someday in this life or the next or until she may want to be sealed to someone else. But when he moves on to another woman he loses his rights & claim to the 1st wife. If a man dates or remarries it automatically breaks his rights & sealing to his 1st wife, cause he proves himself unfaithful to her, even though it hasn't been done on paper yet. To have any sealing effective one must be true & faithful to only that spouse, & dating, let alone remarriage would be being unfaithful to his 1st wife.

True Love is what makes marriage last forever & the sealing binding. Without True Love no marriage will be eternal. True Love has always been & still is very rare, especially in the 1800's while polygamy was being lived. Righteous men have True Love for their wife, the kind that never ends or gives up on her & he would rather die than cause pain to his wife in any way. He would put her wishes, needs, desires & happiness before his own in everything. And the righteous wife of such a man would do the same for him. Polygamy is & has been throughout history, one of the worst of adulterous abominations & the severest of spouse abuses for 6000 years, except in very rare cases where God authorized only truly righteous men to live it. Having more than one wife or a new or different wife, is a natural man desire that wicked men almost always come to want. A righteous man would be repulsed at the thought of having another wife or leaving his wife or hurting his wife by taking another one. Righteous men reluctantly do it only when God & their wife asks them to do so. Even when authorized, it is an Abrahamic sacrifice for the wife, & the man is commanded to hurt his wife by taking another wife, like Abraham was told to hurt & even kill, Issac, but the woman's pain & torture from plural marriage wasn't just for a moment, but usually for the rest of her life, even when her husband was righteous & lived it the least painful way he could & let her choose who & when the 2nd wife would be. For most women, polygamy is one of the most painful things a woman can go through in this life. Thus a righteous man would be so humble & submissive to a wife who went through so much for him. The pain from it all will be different in the next life though. The 1st wife always came 1st, before any other wife because she made the biggest sacrifice in sharing her husband, whereas the other wife could have waited to be a 1st wife to some other man. The men couldn't date or look around for another spouse any more than the wife could, like Abraham, he accepted who his 1st wife, like Sarah, chose for him, someone she felt most comfortable with & could get along with, if she deemed he was even worthy of another wife, for only the wife usually knows if her husband is truly righteous & has True Love for her & would rather die than be unfaithful to her in thought, heart or body or hurt her feelings in any way. No woman is ever asked to give her husband another wife if she doesn't feel if he is truly righteous & worthy & loves & treats her as he should. Only a righteous man could live plural marriage correctly & be able to heal with his love the hurt he was commanded to inflict on her. Plural marriage & the pain involved with it in the 1800's, accomplished a grand & vital purpose, that of waking up women, that probably could not be done in any other way, for even 6000 years of male domination didn't do it. The pain of Plural Marriage finally woke up women to their true power, rights & equal station in marriage & society, after wrongfully suffering, accepting or tolerating abuse by men for 6000 years. Only when women started expecting respect & faithfulness from their husbands & rejecting the idea that they were in anyway lesser than their husbands or had less power & rights in marriage or society, could God bring forth his Church & the Kingdom of Zion. As soon as women started waking up & were given an equal vote in society & were moving on to total equality, God took away painful plural marriage. If God had really wanted the principle to remain on the earth & if men were worthy of it, he could have found a way for it to keep going. Also, Plural Marriage is one of the promised blessings of Abraham in the eternities, for men & women who are truly righteous. In the eternities when men are able to honor women's full equality in all things, righteous women will also receive all these blessings & rights of Abraham as much as men have & will. "The Lord offers to his daughters every spiritual gift & blessing that can be obtained by his sons." Pres. Joseph Fielding Smith. CR Apr. 1970.

Since it seems that most marriage problems stem from some form of abuse by one or both spouses, I highly recommend the book, "Why Does He Do That?" by Lundy Bancroft. He is one of the leading authorities on Spouse Abuse & his books will help you identify & deal with any abuse in your marriage & help you protect yourself, your children & marriage from further abuse. Pres. Hinckley said more than once how glad he was that people were becoming more aware of this rampant problem & learning how to deal with it. It seems to be happening in more than half the homes of the Church. I believe most abusive people can change if their spouse will lovingly & patiently but firmly, expect respect & teach them how to love & serve them & unlearn the prideful beliefs they were taught earlier in life.

There is much more to a situation like this than just what you mention. So it can't be answered that cut & dried. Her ex though, if righteous & faithful, who she committed adultery against, would have certain rights & say to it all, if not in this life, the next for sure, no matter what they are eventually allowed to do.

Exactly, thank you.

If they are secretly unworthy or are secretly unjustified in a divorce, why are they allowed to remarry? Very few unworthy people feel or declare they are really unworthy.

It appears the same happens with getting a recommend, but on a lower level. When the Stake President hands you your recommend, do you assume 'he' has just given permission & 'made you worthy' for you to enter the temple? I believe we basically let ourselves in the temple, on our own accountability, unless there is some grave thing that the Church Leaders have been told about that would keep us out.

It is not my idea that unjustified divorce is Adultery, it is a Prophet of God's & Christ's. Did anyone read the quotes I put up, especially what Pres. JFSmith said? I am just going by what he said. From all that I have studied, all the other Presidents of the Church have agreed with him & said similar things about divorce. I have to side with them.

Let me rephrase. If someone is unworthy or unjustified in a divorce, why are they allowed to remarry?

Heavenly Father seems to allow us all to enter his sacred temples & perform ordinances on the basis of our own declarations of worthiness, even though he knows some may not be truthful. Church leaders have said that just because something is performed in the temple does not automatically make it eternal. One must have been worthy to enter the temple in the 1st place & stay worthy of those blessings afterwards. That unworthy people may enter the temple, does not usually seem to have an effect on those who are there worthily.

Yes, I will try to find it for you. But it may take me til later today, for I must get my house finished & ready to show to a prospective buyer today.

I did not postulate that. There may be other justifications for divorce than adultery. So if you agree that people can get into the temple unworthily, then why do you think they are allowed to be remarried, if they aren't worthy?

Ryan, I am so sorry to hear that you feel this way. But this sentiment is not new, for nearly the whole world believes this way. But, just for information sake, if a divorced husband were to remarry in the temple, the Church would not dissolve his sealing to his 1st wife. It is kept in tact, just in case, he was not justified or until the abandoned wife wants to remarry. This can appear like he is sealed to 2 living women, but that is not the case in reality, for he must remain faithful to the 1st to have her in the eternities & his dating & remarriage to the 2nd wife, automatically breaks his rights & claim to the 1st wife. If you really love your wife Ryan & still want her, I would suggest an in depth study of the teachings of the Presidents of the Church on divorce & true love & marriage & keeping our covenants. Their teachings are not hard to find. I would start with reading everything Pres. Joseph Fielding Smith said on the subject, he knew quite alot about it all. We can only come to truely understand that which we are willing to live.

So I gather that you don't believe that people can get into the temple unworthily & deceive their leaders.

When an Apostle's opinion differs from what the Presidents of the Church teach, we are told to go with what the Presidents teach to be sure of current doctrine. Apostles cannot declare new doctrine, only Presidents can do that.

From the ex-wife/husband because, as Christ said, they are still married & not really divorced in the eyes of God, which is really what matters. So if a man divorces his wife unjustifiably (& runs away from home) then his wife determines whether she still wants him or not in this life & in the next. Thus she decides if the marriage is still intact or if she wants to move on & find someone else & then she thus frees him for someone else to date.

I'm sorry you dissagree, but this is not false doctrine it is what Christ & his Prophets have declared & that is that divorce is Adultery, unless it is justified. "Whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery; and whoso shall marry her who is divorced committeth adultery." 3 Nephi 12:32 "The Savior is very emphatic in his answer to these Pharisees. If the law was true in the days of the Savior & his words are according to the law, then it seems to me that the law has not changed in the Dispensation of the Fulness of Times. It is only through sin & transgression of the law that a separation can come that would divide father & mother & leave the children stranded & perhaps to be received into some other family by adoption, because parents have lost their faith & have turned away from the covenants they solemnly made before God & angels. How members of the Church can do such a thing appears to me as a mystery. It can be explained, of course. They do it because they have lost the spirit of the gospel. That divorce comes to them because they are not keeping the commandments that the Lord gave to them, because they have permitted darkness to enter into their souls. I think I can say here safely & truthfully, that no judge in this world, in any court of the land, can annul a marriage for time & all eternity. He may sepatate the husband & wife by legal enactments so far as this world is concerned, but he cannot separate that husband & wife so far as the next world is concerned. When a man & his wife lost their faith & go to the courts & get a separation & then go out & marry according to the laws of the land, they are not culpable (guilty) before the law of the land, but they are before the kingdom of God & what the Savior says here in this revelation is absolutely true:..."Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, & shall marry another, committeth adultery, and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery." (Matt. 19:9) Pres. Joseph Fielding Smith, CR Apr. 1961, 50. "Only the parties to the marriage can determine this. They must bear the responsibilities for the train of consequences which inevitably follow if these covenants are not honored." Pres. Faurst, CR Apr. 1993. "A divorce can be justified only in the most rare of circumstances, because it often tears people's lives apart & shears family happiness." Pres. Benson, Pamphlet: "Father, Consider Your Ways". A recommend or clearance is not a guarantee things will be valid. People can & do decieve their way into the temple, because they have convinced themselves they are innocent & worthy even though they aren't. When we go to get a recommend for the temple or remarriage, "we" are declaring ourselves worthy not our leaders declaring us worthy. We declare to our leaders if we are justified or not. If we are not truthful & not justified, than any remarriage in the temple would not be valid, because we did not give the leaders the whole truth. Church leaders have said that in the next life there will be alot of changing pertaining to temple sealings, because people were not truthful here on earth. "It is not my decision, it is up to you to make the decisions. You have your free agency. If you are determined to get a divorce it is your responsibility & your suffering if you are not willing to make adjustments." Pres. Kimball, Miracle of Forgiveness, p.270. "Some folks have the mistaken notion that if somehow, by hook or crook, they can get into the House of the Lord & be married they are assured of Exaltation regardless of what they do." Pres. Harold B. Lee, BYU Speeches of the Year, Provo, Jan. 5,1954. "In the matter of divorce, they, by their unlawful additions & false interpretations, had condoned even the sin of adultery." Talmage, Jesus the Christ.

Being madly in love, with all those high flying feelings, is so easy & just a choice. The eternal principle for this is 'that we love who we serve'. If you will begin today to serve your husband's every need & wish, the best you can (& you will get better at it in time) & try to make him happy everyday with everything he wants, then you will fall so in love you won't be able to see straight. You will feel like your 1st married. It's the only way to live. Pres. Hinckley said we can achieve 'exultant ecstacy' in our marriages & this is the way. He made us this promise: "If you will make your 1st concern the comfort, well-being & happiness of your companion, sublimating any personal concern to that loftier goal, you will be happy & your marriage will go on through eternity." Now, you can't cause your husband to fall in love with you merely by you serving him, your service to him earns 'you' those feelings not him. But you can encourage him to fall more in love with you by serving you, by giving him opportunities to serve you by asking him to do little things (at 1st) for you. When he does it, then flood him with gratitude & love & he will be more likely to do more for you next time you ask. Do this again & again, as much as possible without getting him upset with too much asking & this will lead him right into falling madly in love with you. The more he serves your every wish, the more he will love you & visa versa. Falling in love (by serving them) is not only the best feeling in the world, it's the funnest thing we'll ever do. And within days or a couple weeks you will notice a huge difference if you do this alot every day. Make a love list for him or ask him to make one for you of the things that he would consider an ideal wife to be like or do. Then work on the list. Hopefully he will do the same for you & your list but don't have any expectations for it, just do it yourself for him & you will reap great rewards fast. Oh, & I second the recommendation to see the movie "Fireproof",asap. It's a great movie that shows the effectiveness of this principle!

I believe that if someone really does have a personal relationship with God, they will not only welcome remindings of the commandments but also seek valiantly to increase their knowledge & spirituality, by alot of study of the scriptures & the Prophets.

The reason I stress doing all you can to find out what really happened during the 1st marriage is because if you date someone who is not justified to be divorced than you commit adultery with the person. That's pretty huge & worth doing all the checking you can to make sure you don't incur that kind of sin. Having a good time on a date is not worth selling your soul & throwing away your Exaltation. Unjustified Divorce is one of the very worst of sins & since the Prophets say only 'rare' couples are justified to divorce, than that means that probably most divorces are not justified & alot of people are just out committing adultery when they date or remarry. As one seasoned Stake Partriarch said about a man who left his wife unjustifiably: "Even putting his name on one of those dating web sites, is Adultery." When a spouse runs away from home, it is like when a child does, people cannot just take in the person without asking questions to make sure the runaway was justified & really needs safety. If the real problem lies with the runaway, as it usually does, than anyone taking in the runaway without seeking answers & permission would be doing something very wrong. Abuse is a very serious thing & every divorce is caused by some form of abuse by one spouse or the other or both. Breaking marriage covenants in any way is Spouse Abuse. In every divorce someone does that unjustifiably & thus commits one of the blackest of sins. You do not want to marry an abusive person, so since divorce is a huge red flag that someone was abusive in that marriage, you must make sure it wasn't the person who wants to date you. Abusive people do not seem like it while dating. In fact, they usually seem more wonderful & loving than the average single person & easily fool most everyone. But even all this is secondary to making sure you don't commit Adultery with the person right off the bat, by just dating. Also, to just have an indepth talk with the divorced person, will not usually reveal the whole truth. If they were to blame & were abusive & broke their covenants in the marriage, they most likely will be in denial & blind about it & claim innocence & paint the other spouse as the abusive one. These people are very convincing & most everyone falls for their rationalizations that they are innocent & so you must check it all out to make sure. Even the person having a temple recommend does not ensure innocence or clearance to date or remarry, people can & do unfortunately, far too often, even deceive their leaders, as well as theirselves & others. Even the other spouse could lie to you too, so you really must have the Spirit to discern plus a real good knowledge of what abuse is, in all it's forms, (like Pres. Hinckley concurred we need), as well as understand the correct principles of marriage, to make sure you aren't deceived to commit sin with someone who claims innocence but isn't.

Star11, Just make sure he is really justified to be divorced, meaning he didn't abandon a faithful wife. Otherwise he is still married, if his ex still wants the marriage to be intact. If he wasn't justified, than any dating or remarriage he does would be adultery & you don't want to be a party to that. The Prophets say that divorce can be justified only in the most rare of circumstances. So before someone gets into a relationship with a divorced man or woman, it's absolutely vital to do some checking & calling of his ex or her family, friends, etc., in order to be safe & wise. To just believe him or what his friends & supporters say, will only give you one side of the story. Everyone who dates is under obligation to get the whole story as best as we can, & then we are accountable to have the Spirit to discern truth from error. If we are deceived by the person, it's our own fault & sin. In every divorce, one or the other or both, was abusive in some way. You must make sure this man was truely innocent in the divorce & justified to be dating.

Actually, one study said that in as much as 80% of divorces one spouse forces it on the other. So yes, it does happen, alot & those are usually the most destructive kind of divorces, especially when the abandoned spouse was a good & faithful spouse who was trying to make the marriage work. In such a case, if the abandoned spouse was faithful to their marriage covenants than the divorce is not valid with God & the couple is still really married & sealed (if the faithful spouse wants it to be & doesn't date) & the one who was unrighteous & left, is out living in adultery by dating or remarriage, cause they are still married to the 1st spouse, if they weren't justified to divorce. It's impossible to get out of a marriage to a faithful spouse who wants the marriage to remain intact. And yes, I agree, there are 'rare' times when one might be justified to seek a divorce, usually for legal protection 24/7 for themselves & their children. But a divorce for protection still does not break the marriage or their marriage covenants, unless he or she starts to date & looks for someone new. If the faithful spouse wants the marriage to continue, even after divorce, then they just must remain faithful & keep their covenants to the unrighteous spouse (& not date) but stay at a safe distance until the other spouse repents, in this life or the next. But taking the long lonely road for greater blessings is not easy to do & so many end the marriage & sealing to the unrighteous spouse by breaking their covenants by dating. And again I agree with you, if your spouse is abusive, you usually have no responsiblity for their abusive actions, unless their abusive actions are self-defense from your abuse. Abuse is an addiction to the perks that come from power & control.

I agree. Women can be & often are very abusive. It seems like men in general are getting better & less abusive & women are getting worse.

Yes Pam, his comments were not on the subject of divorce & he mean't that in a generalized way.