billsmith

I could not agree more. I still feel like heaving when I think of the cash I have given the friends of scouting reps from our ward who never told me where the money was going. In fact - I was blown away by the salaries these guys get. What a racket. personally I think the Church could start its own program and save a lot of money.

has anyone else quit WOW since Cataclysm came out? I used to love that game but with the expansion came boredom and I said audios.

Lol

I love the fact that you can be totally anonymous on this site and therefore share stuff you otherwise could not. Funny how much easier it is to be honest this way So here is my experience. I proposed to my wife and she accepted. Then, 5 minutes later, she told me she had something to tell me - that she had an abortion. I was a bit taken aback, but I told her that everyone makes mistakes and that it didn't change how I felt about her. She wanted to be married in the temple so what was the problem? Well, slowly but surely I have discovered lots of other nifty tidbits. For example, she has had about 60 partners before I came along. She has had threesomes, done "swapping" with her ex boyfriends, etc etc. I decided that since she had put all that behind her that we could go forward though. I lost my virginity to her on our wedding night. Clear sailing right? Well kinda. What she carried with her into the marriage was a bit of a pornography problem. I still remember finding the hardcore tapes under the bed one day. One had a picture with about 9 men standing around one girl... ewwwww. She has overcome that issue for the most part. She has the occasional relapse but it isn't common. I really don't worry about that too much because I know she is trying to quit completely. All that said, I concur with the earlier post about the ramifications to her because of her rather unorthodox past. She deals with a tremendous amount of remorse for her past lifestyle and feels like she will never be truly accepted by her relief society sisters. (None of them know about her past but she feels like they are able to "just tell" anyway). She suffers from depression. I'm not sure if that is a result of her past, or whether her past was largely due to her depression. I won't, of course, discount the possibility that it is just me. Whatever the reason, my point is that people can have a very difficult time letting go of their past. I have to make it clear that she is a great gal in a lot of respects and that I wouldn't trade her for the world. Actually sometimes there are a few advantages. (My wife is an unbelievable sex partner for example. I know I don't have much to compare it to but I'm pretty sure that her talent and creativity in the bedroom would not be quite so pronounced if she had not had a bit of experience before she settled into the whole monogamy thing. I guess my point is that if people can move past that stuff then there is happiness to be had, but tell your brother that life ain't gonna be roses. I'm kinda happy but I have to admit I get pretty drained by her depression and sometimes feel like I haven't got a lot left. An inspired bishop gave me a Sunday calling so I don't slack on attending church. That three hours is such a vital recharge. thankfully she has been better for the last few months. I keep hoping that one day she will be a lot better. God knows I'm not anywhere close to perfect and I'm glad she puts up with all of my crapola. What gets me through is the fact that all this mortal stuff is temporary, and I know that she loves me. Who really cares how hard things get in this life. We will be on to the next one in the blink of an eye and a billion years from now all our drama here will seem pretty trivial. Personally I think we stress way too much about whether or not we will have the WJCE. (Ward and June Cleaver Experience). I know that every little Molly and Peter dream of growing up and marrying the ideal guy or gal and living the perfect lifestyle. Unfortunately I think that a lot of us wind up pretending to our neighbors that we are living that lifestyle and wondering why life isn't like the brochure we got in Young Mens / Womens.

A return missionary from my ward just gave his homecoming talk in church a few weeks ago and announced that he is gay. I remember thinking to myself - "now there is a brave kid. He must realize that a lot of people in the ward are going to react badly to that." Funny thing was, no one did. (Even the notorious gossipers). Since he made his announcement I have never heard a ward member say anything unkind to or about him. Quite to the contrary, everyone has treated him with a great amount of love and acceptance. I learned through that that church members as a whole have adjusted their sensibilities with regard to this issue in recent times. No longer is it okay for my Uncle to say "those f****s disgust me". he can't expect a laugh and appreciative nod for that kind of talk anymore. The Elders quorum will never discuss / acknowledge that reality one Sunday morning, but a new day is definitely here. The question I have is: What will happen as a result of this shift in attitude? Will members be on the ball enough to understand that the healthy shift is towards accepting / loving individuals regardless of their personal weaknesses? or will a significant number of members take the perilous step of accepting the lifestyle?

Thanks sensibility - I appreciate having learned a lot more about this from the woman's point of view. I would like to apologize to those of you that are going through this. I realize my way of dealing with things might not be that normal. I have no right to judge how another person deals with it. To be honest it is kinda weird having a wife with this issue. (yeah I actually did jump on this site for a reason). As I have read the other posts here I have come to realize that it is not at all the same thing. I'm the guy. I'm not in the same vulnerable position that a wife is in many times. Since I am the priesthood holder my family doesn't miss out on father's blessings, etc. If it was the husband then the family would miss out on those kinds of things. It doesn't really matter that he might have a lot of other good qualities. Thank you for helping me see that more clearly. Maybe some of my other posts were subconsciously laced with a bit of bravado because that is how I protect myself. I believe what I said but If my comments have been hurtful to anyone I'm sorry. I promise they were not meant in that spirit.

There is righteous anger / sorrow which is both justified and useful. There is also the kind of vengeful grudge that is destructive to all involved. Righteous sorrow is not selfish. It's not "look at what you did to me you evil b*st*rd!! Righteous sorrow is "Oh my sweet wife that I love - how could you have done this to yourself? I am sad because you are destroying your spirit." Huge difference there Righteous anger is what Christ did in the temple. He, I am sure, was not concerned for himself. He was sad for the poor choices of his brothers and sisters. When he knocked over the tables and drove the people out he was not in his heart saying: oh you horrible people - look at how badly you have hurt me! His anger was based on what those people were doing to themselves. He was grieving for them. I would humbly suggest that if I am looking at my wife's sin and dwelling on what that sin is doing to me then I am not being very Christlike. he commanded us to forgive each other. You can't forgive someone and hold on to your anger and resentment at the same time. So many times we fall into that terrible trap of self righteousness that we can't see ourselves or our spouses for who they really are. It is a trap that is difficult to get out of because our pride gets involved. I don't want to accept that I am just as imperfect as she is. Deep down inside I know I am not perfect but I don't want to accept that. because that would mean i wasn't any better than her. So I lie to myself. I tell myself that my wife is a monster. She is the most horrible of people. She has done something which is destroying my life. etc etc. By horriblizing my wife I can deceive myself. I can truly believe that I am perfect. Unfortunately for me - I am causing myself so much pain. It is a product of the great mental energy expenditure involved in continuously lying to myself about who my spouse is that is causing the pain in the first place. The thing is, I can stop the pain by admitting to myself that #1 I am not all good and #2 my spouse is not all bad. We are just two children of God trying to make it back to our Heavenly Father. If I can summon the humility to let go of the self deception and see my spouse as a human being and not a monster - I can let go of the pain. As a spouse I have to ask myself if my pain is due to her actions or mine. Are my feelings towards my wife selfless or selfish. If I am really hurting for her then I am justified. If I am hurting for me I'm not. I know that is an incredibly difficult thing to come to accept. It takes enormous amounts of humility. But I guarantee that by being honest with yourself the destructive hurt will go away.

More companies are now encouraging power napping during the day - 3% actually have "nap rooms".

Isn't it the legal rule that if you find money you have to give it to the police? They hold it for a certain amount of time in case someone comes looking for it. Then if it isn't claimed it is legally yours. I would do that because what if it belonged to another party and that party came looking for it. Then you would be sued for giving it to the old owner's kids. Sad - but that is the way the world is today. After it was pronounced legally yours - then you could safely give it away.

Thank goodness our salvation is between us and the Lord - not us and the Bible. I love the fact that Bishops have the ability to handle each situation differently and to encourage individual members to decide things for themselves. It is the same for Tithing and the Word of Wisdom. K here is a weird one to think about: You pay your mortgage on a home right? When you start out almost 90% of that payment is interest. By the time you pay off a 30 year mortgage you will have paid 3 times what your house was worth. So it could be argued that you are actually in the hole several thousand dollars which is money that should be deducted from your "Gross Pay".

I remember a situation that my father had as a bishop. Someone had received an expensive car for free from a game show or something - I don't really remember. The person only made 30k a year and the tithing on the car would have been about 5k. He wanted to know if he had to take out a loan or sell the car to pay his tithing. My father asked the man how much a car would have cost him if he went out and bought something he could afford. The man told him he would have bought a Corolla worth about 13k. My father told him to pay tithing on the 13k.

LOL so did I!! I actually played a DPS Warrior and a Druid for about 2 years and then Cataclysm came out and I just got really bored for some reason and quit.

This was one of the most scholarly and intelligent explanations I've ever read. Thanks!

Sensibility: Thanks for your comments. If you thought the whole facebook thing was completely serious then I apologize. Dare I suspect you use it? :-) jk I do find it interesting that we as men and women do experience things so differently. When boys bully people its usually through physical intimidation. When women do it it is through words. I love that episode of Seinfeld where Elaine says that her friends would just tease someone until they developed an eating disorder. My daughter was crushed at school last week when her circle of "friends" got together and said some unkind things about her while she was sick for a few days. Who is to say whether looking at a picture or writing a paragraph is worse. For me as a man/dad I think little girls can be really mean to each other just by speaking. I find it fascinating that someone can use language as that powerful a weapon. For a woman - used to being in the trenches with that her whole life - maybe she can take it better than a man so she sees less harm in it. I don't know. If my wife said on facebook that mine was the smallest she had ever had but that she didn't care because I was such a wonderful man...ouch. but I can take that two ways. I can say wow my wife really loves me and isn't it swell that she thinks I'm so great. or I can think: "wow, my wife is a crewel heartless wench." Do I decide to be mortified and resentful or do I feel good about the fact that everything else I do is positive? Its my choice how I let it effect me. I think one of the pervasive things I hear is that the most painful thing is the lying. So I'll take it as an example of how you can decide to see it differently. A man has told his wife that knowing she reads twilight and then falls asleep Imagining herself with Edward or Jacob or both bothers him. So the woman lies and says that she was reading second Nephi while he was alone on his business trip. Is she trying to hurt her husband or spare him hurt? Spare him hurt of course. So he can actually look at it in a positive way. His wife tried her best to keep him from knowing something that would hurt him. That means she loves me and cares about me. He knows that she likes to read about men with superhuman strength and an eternal adoration of her heart and soul. Heck Edward just drinks blood so he probably doesn't fart in bed either. He also knows that she will come back to reality in the morning. She knows he gets a huge rush by looking at women. She should also know that he doesn't really think he is going to get together with any of those women. In fact, I would say that men rarely take it as far as women do. for men they don't really even fantasize about being with those girls. they don't need that to accomplish the task at hand. Nature gave them this natural reaction to seeing the female form. Stimuli in = pleasure out. I would have to say that VERY few men stick around to see how the movie ends once they.. ahem...pop. Is it possible for a woman to see pornography as being much like her vibrator? Is it her fault that it does something for her that her man can't do? No. Is it his? No. Should she be using one while her husband isn't there? I have no desire to be a judge there. But should her man feel hurt inside because she does? I can see it hurting his pride if he lets it. But he doesn't have to, and I would think that most women have no desire to make their husbands feel inadequate because they use one. I think they would hope that he would understand that she still loves him - your awesome honey I love you and adore you and want to spend eternity with you...its just that...HOT D*MN...any way Mr. Rabbit could come along for the ride?

I can't tell you how much I appreciate your responses. Until someone bothers to explain why they are hurt it is just this ethereal concept that can't be easily addressed. I remember when I discovered that my mother had been seeing another man. My father knew about it but at the time us kids were too young to understand what was going on. When I was 13 our whole family was at my grandparent's house on vacation and I was camped out on the downstairs couch. For some unfathomable reason my mom found it necessary to call one of her good friends and discuss it all years after it happened. She thought I was asleep. It gutted me. I laid there with my heart pounding not knowing what to think. the next day I called her a cheater in front of my aunt and uncle. they all just looked at me funny but no one seemed to even know what I was talking about. I talked to my aunt later and told her why I said what I did. The next thing I knew I was whisked off to the car by my mother who told me that she was sorry I heard her conversation. She also told me that I should never talk about that again to anyone. Her desire to keep the whole thing hushed up was to her much more important than - oh I don't know - finding a way to help your son work through the trauma of what he was feeling. I get the feeling from your excellent comments above that the experience I had was somewhat similar to what some of you have gone through. Doesn't it suck being in a church community where you have to hide your sins from everyone for fear of being judged or ridiculed by your ward members? I gotta say I really feel you there.