Litzy

Yellow Scarf (The Miraculous Journey of Prince Jen)

I'm having Quote issues today. In rely to Vort, I don't think we have business, in the legal sense, of worrying about people's oddities. If they act out on those, that is another, legal matter. If you aren't acting on your illegal desires, I don't care what you do. I'm not going to brainscan everyone.

No, no one is entitled to a job and housing. They are free to seek jobs and housing. They may even qualify for special assistance. But they don't get jobs and housing just for breathing.

Regarding villages, we need villages. Those are families in their own rights. Let's improve our villages instead of disregarding them. Satan is as much after communities as families.

I'll take Vort's question. I'll go with the idea that everyone has equal right to access food, clothing, shelter, etc. If you are wild about horses in an odd way, you should have still be able to seek out employment and shelter. However, that should not mean you are free from any laws protecting horses. Have your two-bedroom apartment and your desk job, but don't break the law. Yes, we should all have access to those items. We shouldn't break laws in place. They are mutually exclusive.

I'm so sorry to hear of your struggles and I'm glad things are getting better. My ex-husband left the Church years ago. One of our deals on the matter was that he refrained from preaching against the Church. Our children were given free choice on the matters of religion and spirituality (both are active LDS). Sadly, my ex eventually couldn't live with the fact his wife and kids were LDS as his ex-Mormon community had pretty much promised him we'd eventually follow him out. It's important your wife has no concrete expectations of your actions or, as has been said, regrets on her marriage and family. As for tithing, my ex and I both had careers, so I simply paid tithing on my income and left his out of it. He wasn't thrilled about that, but accepted it as my right. This, of course, was based on the set-up of our finances. I'm sure if you're both willing you can reach a compromise. (Speaking honestly, if the roles were switched, I wouldn't want my spouse using my income for tithing at his crazy organization of lies.)

My problem with the "it only takes once" mentality is that people pick and choose what they apply it to. We all do it and that is our prerogative. It only takes one lousy driver one time to kill or maim everyone in the car which is infinitely more likely to happen than an abduction, yet you never see parents keeping their kids out of cars. We tend to pick our favorite dangers and ignore others no matter the actual risk. On a tangent on the cars, I once saw a study that suggested an increase in kids getting killed by cars due to more parents driving their kids everywhere. If you're trying to save one child, don't kill five more in the process. That's called a step backwards. In this case at hand, the parents took time and diligence to teach the kids the route to and from the park. The kids were hardly out roaming wild in idiocy. When did it became so wicked to teach kids skills?

Carton, Sydney (A Tale of Two Cities)

What's the democratic response to those who haven't found jobs or been motivated, then?

I hear you. Imagine a society where the law regarding children was based solely on the parenting fad of the day. There's actual danger to children, and then there's the perception of danger to children based only on your own experience and beliefs. You have no idea of that family's experience. You don't know their children nearly as well as they know them. As for your comment on religion, there already is a grass-roots movement to make teaching religion to minors, even one's own children, illegal.

Just my opinion as a parent and educator, but in the vast amount of cases, if your ten-year-old can't navigate by himself your community in a one-mile radius, you have committed a parenting fail. I have high schoolers that can barely cross streets by themselves. With crime rates down significantly from the "good ol' days when kids played by themselves all day long", why not? No, the whole case is ridiculous. They were walking home a few blocks from the park. I don't know if I'd let a six-year-old make that walk, but I'm trusting the parents that the older child was with-it enough. CPS has much greater problems to go after.

When I joined the Church after high school, I ran into many of these very things and others. I had the advantage of not growing up in the Church with whatever expectations of history I would have. Honestly speaking, I found the idea of the stones charming. Researching these findings is good, but as others have said please stick to the truth of your testimony. These discoveries are just things and details. Who are we to put qualifications on truth? We can't say "I will accept Truth as long as the prophet has a red beard, enjoys checkers, and isn't allergic to dogs." (I know your discoveries aren't nearly so trite, but I do feel strongly it's about the same thing. "I will accept Truth as long as the history includes a 5 pilgrimages, neither 4 nor 6, and has a scripture precisely 738 pages long in Times New Roman font." And, possibly what you are looking for, "I will accept Truth as long as it is politically correct by the standards of 2015, not 1827, not 1989, and not subject to any change in politically correct standards for the next ten years." History is what it is. Are magic stones of revelation any crazier than Deity appearing to a boy?

Broken windows theory. If we can't even keep our socks straight, what will become of society?

Monolith from 2001: Space Odyssey

Yet people love the idea. Nothing finer than a theory. I looked into it back when and found any proper first-hand sources dismal.

Guano

Princess Peach (Mario Bros.)

Kimry Lewen (Wheel of Time)

I'm so sorry to hear this, my dear. Ask yourself how necessary it is for you to have your husband in the Church. Was this ever discussed as a deal-breaker for your marriage? If you can accept a mixed-faith marriage, you can make it work and hopefully make it work well. This being said, I am divorced because of inability to accept a mixed-faith. This is a big, big deal. Can you accept him as a non-member? Can he accept you as a member? Then, serve him. Focus on the parts of the marriage where you are in agreement.

I agree with this. My own family (parents, grandparents, siblings) belonged to a host of different faiths, so I was raised being able to handle that. I never felt inspired to push the Church back on my ex, just do my thing and be an example. Should we get back together, I would not expect him to rejoin the Church. But I do not want him expecting me to leave or show definite negativity. As it stands, I'm happy not being married to my husband. Yes, I miss being married, but it's not consuming, merely a recognition I enjoyed our marriage and was largely happy in it. I'm not desperately aching to return to the marriage. I finally received a more specific prompting. I feel we should refrain from official dates but to definitely focus on our friendship. Thank-you for letting me bounce my thoughts of you all.

Follow your impressions to return. I would walk away from any negative comments if you're uncomfortable. Plenty of kind people to sit with, and you will find them. And try to make yourself noticed.

My ex stayed involved in the kids' lives (again, they are all quite close) but in essence I do feel he just walked out on us. This does make it hard to trust another romantic relationship. I've been praying about it, and while I get no impression to altogether avoid romance, there's been yet no strong impression towards anything serious.

Bare with me, I may have had a little too much fun with the multi-quote function. I do. Ever since my conversion and baptism, I've felt quite comfortable with the Church. I work to keep my testimony up. I enjoy the social aspect. I feel my faith is strong. Heck, I like the Church. My ex admits his dream is we are family without the Church, though he says he is better prepared to accept our personal faith. I still worry his desire will again override everything else. Membership is very important. When the topic came up, I had issue with the fact my membership was such a problem to him in the marriage. I have his word, which seems fairly sincere, but as long as he admits to a hope I will one day leave, I worry. This is another worry of mine. I worry he just wants my companionship. One kid is in high school, another currently on a mission, but we still had those couple of years we were certainly communicating over our kids. And we do have a friendship. I agree. This was my husband of quite a few years. This is my kids' dad. This is one of my friends. He asked for the divorce, and this still stings a little. We went to therapy, but he would up stating he couldn't be married to a Mormon. After he left the Church, he was caught up in these ex-Mormon communities where he was more or less promised that eventually I would follow him out of the church if he were just patient. In my perspective, his hopes for his family weren't meshing with reality especially when our kids just kept going to church. I know I'm stating a lot of he-he-he here with all my husband did. Someone once advised me I may have kept our family too religiously neutral instead of giving my husband a little more support in his status as the odd man out. My ex agrees with this and says he did feel like an outsider. I still don't know what going through my ex's head at the time, but he was adamant he couldn't be with a Mormon. My thought is I couldn't understand why I had to leave the church to keep the marriage together and why it was so necessary for him. 1. The kids were in their teens at the time. They knew it was over religion and Mom and Dad being unable to find a working dynamic in the relationship. My kids are very close with their dad. My daughter was very weepy over the whole thing--she is on her mission right now and I don't know if she would support a remarriage or just keeping the status quo.

My ex-husband was raised in a partial-member home and I am a convert to the church. Some time into our marriage, my husband left the Church. This was hard on me, but my family is rather eclectic when it came to religion, so it wasn't that bad. I was happy in the marriage. 8 years later, my husband became odd and distant. Eventually he confessed he had waited 8 years for me to leave the church. He was frustrated and depressed because I had no sign of leaving and that our two children, whom we agreed to have free choice when it came to religion, also stayed active. We wound up divorcing two years ago because of this. Now, my husband regrets his behavior. I've largely moved on. My ex is a good man in many, many ways and I do love him. I was raised to highly value marriage and part of me thinks I should see him again. But I also can't deal with his nasty behavior toward the church of the expectation I should leave for his sake. Any thoughts? I'm trying to find a neutral voice here that doesn't know us.