Misshalfway

Well, your husband sounds angry. It'd be interesting to find out what that anger is about. Do you have any idea what his issues are? Is he hurting you in any way? Or is the anger just producing disconnection and conflict? It's also interesting that you "know" that he's sorry now but that you know it will fade in a few months. What if you said that you aren't sure he can have you back and that you'll need him to do some counseling before you can decide. If he's sorry, even temporarily, you could try to use that as leverage to see if you can get some help.

I have a favorite quote: "Nothing prepares you for marriage, except marriage."

I don't know. I'm of the opinion, like others, that Bruce R gave us some wonderful stuff to chew on. He made us think! I honor him for his contributions and for the depth of his faith. He was bold. He took risks. And sometimes....he shot beyond the mark. And I honor his humility because when he became aware, he stepped back. I don't, however, feel a need to exalt him or marry myself to what he said. I've got my favorite prophets too. Frankly, there are times when I hear people sing Bruce R's praises and it sounds a little too close to worship. Kinda like my kid worships his favorite golfer. And when folks dis his golfing idol, you'll hear some defense. Much the way people defend cute Bruce. I understand it and respect that people feel the way they do. But it feels too out of balance for me. When I read that quote about Jesus Christ, I can see why people are upset about it. But I don't worry about any of it much. It just invites me to go work on my relationship with God and see for myself. With God correcting my path, I don't need Bruce R telling me if I'm right or not. The spirit is doing pretty good on his own. I've only been on the planet 40 yrs. And I'm still figuring it all out. What Bruce R taught me was a beautiful example of how he tried to figure it all out.

I just went to a SSA conference and there they had a panel of 5 couples where one partner had struggled with SSA. They talked very openly and honestly about their feelings, struggles, and decisions to either get married or stay married. I was particularly struck by the women and their decisions to stay with their gay husbands. It was a very enlightening, hope filled conversation. I learned again how the Lord works amazingly and creatively on behalf of the individual. When we obey, He makes a way!

I'm assuming you are referring to me. It's a point well taken...even if you did use a little hyperbole to make it . I think what I mean to share is that when I think about upholding the proclamation and how that looks on the ground for me in my life, I have sister concerns arrise. And one of them is the problem of older children being placed in stable home environments. I know it's not as bad as other countries, but in my work I see really awful cases. So, I tend to think about that a lot. I suppose those remarks are better saved for another discussion.

This is the answer that calms most of the concerns in my mind. I can support the Proclamation and I can support my kid. At that point, if my kid gets upset I could deal with that without any backlash of guilt either way.

Which leads to the most wisdom of all. None of us really knows until we are faced with the hard decision. This is where the gospel saves. Because above all of our dogma is revelation. God guides us individually. And sometimes he leads us to cut off Laban's head.

I can't know what your wife will do. I only know that I've had lots of experiences with these scenarios and that often it works out better than the addict predicts. There is more that goes into the decision to leave than the content of the confession. In lots of cases, women understand. They want to support and they are willing to support recovery efforts IF they see that he is contrite and honest. In 90% of the cases I've seen, it's not the sex that hurts so much. It's the lying and deception. Trust me. The very decision to keep this from her will be the thing that sends her packing. What happened at the massage parlor won't even matter at that point. I don't think you are looking for the easy way out. What I think is that you don't have the skills yet to help both you and your wife work through this. Very few people do. That is why I often recommend good therapy in addition to working together with a bishop. You ask..."is telling my wife part of the confession?" No. It's part of making restitution. She is the party you wronged, yes?

Madness, huh? Pretty strong word. I've got a friend. She's older, single, and drop dead beautiful in all ways (men are idiots ) but she, with prayerful support, decided to adopt a 16 yr old teen who was struggling in the foster system. It was the best union that ever happened! She saved that girl. Doesn't sound like madness to me. Madness was the family she came from. Madness was the broken foster system that damaged her more. I also have a friend who is single and gay who had a child while married to her first husband. What would your logic have us do? Extricate the child from the "madness"??? While we value the celestial and advocate for it all ways we can, we don't live there yet. And, even in the perfect mormon church, it can often look a little messy. Messy isn't always madness. It's often just doing the best we can.

Hm. There's lots of black and white thinking being applied to a very complicated issue. Which is fine.....it's just that most of which aren't answering the original question. Do you give a letter to your gay kid or not? If you do....does it violate the proclamation. BTW... for anyone whose really reading me. I haven't actually taken a position either way. Just sharing perspectives....

So...you have struggled with pornography. You have committed to stop. You have achieved a year of sobriety. You get massages regularly. But on this one day...at this new shop....something happens that you didn't intend. Now you hate yourself.....because that's the only thing you know to do. And you are disgusted because you can't figure out how you let it happen again. Well, at least you're not ready to look at that yet. So, you start looking for the fastest escape. And you conclude that the safest thing is not to ever tell anyone. You justify in your mind that telling would inflict undo suffering on your wife and children. You start to weigh out the merits of confession. You know telling the bishop would bring peace, but after all of it you are paralyzed by fear because you can't bear to face the shame you'll feel when you see your sweethearts face. You reach out to the anonymous people of the world for help because your sufferings are too exquisit. Sweetie.... you sound like you are living in a nightmare. There is only one way out of this..... You'll find it on the path of truth and light. Tell. Just tell. Liberate yourself from all the lies, contradictions, and weakness. Each courageous step will bring you back to God and back to peace....and most importantly back to yourself.

So, I think what I'm hearing people say is that if a gay child asks his/her orthodox LDS parents to write a letter to court, that the parents should not write that letter. And the reason is that standing up for God's definitions of family life outweighs the desires of the gay prospective parent and/or the needs of the child waiting to be adopted. So, it's better in the long run to take every measure to support the proclamation even if it means a rift in the relationship with the gay child, or postponing/preventing parenthood to children who need good homes. Yes? Let's say I have two adult children who happen to be single and who each want to adopt a child. The one, a 42 yr old hetero female asks for a letter. The younger 40 yr old gay female asks for a letter. Does the parent say yes to the one and no to the other, because one is hetero and one is not? Or maybe the parent should say no to both because neither obey the proclamation.....gay and unmarried both disqualify. If my close atheist friends who live down the block ask me for a letter, do I deny them because God wouldn't want a child living in a home that wouldn't teach them the gospel? One thing I know for sure. A child who grows up with attachment (even if it is an insecure attachment) fairs better in life and has a better chance of absorbing the gospel whenever it's presented, than a child who grows up with no attachment. Depriving a child of attachment is like depriving them of air. The damage lasts a lifetime and interferes with everything.

If my gay child adopts a child of his/her own, the little person becomes my grandchild. If the issue over whether or not I write a recommendation becomes a wedge between us, how can that be good for the child? the one that is coming whether I like it or not?

If we get any more specific, I think my eyeballs will pop out of my head.

I do have one other thought..... How is welfare "abuse" that different than the rich business tycoons who use all the loop holes of the financial laws/policies/codes to avoid paying taxes? If the government would run things like the welfare program and tithing, we wouldn't be having this conversation. :)

I completely agree with this. But I do empathize because its hard not to want church to be a safe place or respite from the yuck of the world. When YM's is the same as or worse than the Jr. high, it's really hard to want to be there. We humans are social beings. The need to belong and the need to leave when we don't, is as primal as finding food when we are hungry.

Well...unless you are from India.

I think the welfare system has to take some responsibility for creating some of the abuses. It pretty much punishes you if you start to get on your feet. I think people learn to stay "needy."

I think there is an argument to be made about the government becoming an "enabler" of drug/alcohol addiction. But I don't think this "tactic" is going to do anything to solve the problem.

To go back to the car analogy..... Let's tell the truth about buying cars. We don't buy them out of pure vulcan logic. At the end of all the processing, we buy them because of how they make us feel. It's amazing how people's identities are wrapped up in the car they drive. My point is that we do this when we pick our spouses too! So we call big talk all day about how brilliantly "selective" we are, but the truth is.....we marry based on our emotions. :)

Why think for myself when I can get someone else to do it for free?

Well, this is an interesting and complicated question. I'm not sure what I would do without the benefit of prayer and circumstances to guide me, but here are some of my thoughts. I'm reminded of the admonition to honor our parents. I know that I've been given many examples over the years of children who "honored" their non-believing parents in one way or another. I guess I'm wondering about how that looks like with our children as the messy-ness of life plays out. When I think about the issues and realities surrounding adoption, I've argued in my head that while I believe all children deserve mothering and fathering in an intact, nurturing family unit, very few children actually get that. When a child has the choice of having no family, or a potentially harmful foster experience, I have considered the possibility that maybe they could be better off with gay parents. At the very least, they'd have someone to attach to who is invested in their happiness and care. The truth is that many of these "available" hetero parents aren't interested in adopting older children. As I look at the way bishops help people. They deal with the basic temporal needs first. Then they start working on the spiritual. In thinking about better case scenarios for these older orphaned or abandoned children, I would consider "out of the box" ideas.

Looks like I need to clarify a bit. There was a flaw in the analogy. Only two options: Junkers or new. IMO, there are problems with both. When I shop for a car, I try to buy a GOOD one that meets my needs and worth the price. I'm not saying don't be smart about the spouse you pick. I'm just saying that looking for the flawless is impossible. Like the man who kept marrying the younger barbie wives who fulfilled all his fantasies and discovering that he'd maxed his dopamine threshold and couldn't have erections anymore. On the avoidance front......I hear and agree with your point. Avoidance isn't all bad. If you are at war, avoiding the bullet is a good thing. But look at my carefully chosen wording. "From a mental health standpoint, avoidance is the least evolved way to cope with life." Whether it's the woman who needs heroin, to avoid reality or the husband who is avoiding the conflict with his wife, or the church lady who avoids telling the truth so everyone will think she's a saint, or the bishop who avoids the less active in the hall....it's all the least effective way of dealing with what is really going on in our lives. Point #1: It is impossible to screen for all hardship and imperfection. Point #2: Those who try will not only be disappointed, but will usually create more suffering by trying to avoid suffering.

I bought new once. I'll never do it again. New, like perfection, is overrated. I also, from a mental health standpoint, wanted to say that avoidance is the least evolved form of coping with life.

Yeah. I think your right. We select, we encourage prayer, and for the most part, I think people do the best they can in choosing a mate. Or...maybe people in general don't. What's that saying..."Fools rush in." But we can't prevent life from happening. And a lot of what happens IS hard and would be for anyone. A person can screen out all sorts of issues in a spouse. Doesn't mean you won't experience issues with a child or a child's spouse. I guess I think that what matters is how we handle things when life sends curve balls. Part of growing up is learning how to deal with life. Maybe that is what you mean when you said that we play the hand we're dealt. I've shared this before, but I "screened" my husband in all the ways I knew at the time. And the Lord nudged me a lot and confirmed my decision to marry him in very clear ways. I thought that meant I'd be "safe" from all the plagues of other marriages, and safe in ways that only mattered to me. I was so profoundly wrong. My marriage was difficult and damaging and painful....and one of the greatest blessings of my life at the very same time. What I understand now is that God allows us, in his wisdom, to have experiences with various kinds of "hard". We need the hard. Otherwise we'd be spiritual whimps. He does it to refine us and to give us knowledge that can't come any other way but experientially. I think that when we try so hard to protect ourselves we can sometimes screen out the very things that could be our greatest blessings. How is Jesus able to succor his children? Because of his sufferings! And I know now that I can do hard things. "Big and scary" stuff doesn't phase me like it used to. Like the fires we've had lately near my home. The day we evacuated, so many were scared and panicking. I was calm. A burned down house just didn't seem like the worst thing to me. God and I had a few sweet gratitude moments together that day.