Temple Divorce


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Would the church give a temple divorce because of one spouse no longer wants to be married because of personality difference? We have 2 kids and we had 7 years of bad marriage. We both repented and we want to turn our life's to the lord. But my spouse is thinking about getting divorced because we do not have "anything" in common. She mentioned to me that she does not know if she wants to be "happy with me for all eternity." Would the church give a temple divorce just based on this? Would my wife be able to remarry in the temple? How long is the process?

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Someone will be along to clarify or correct if I'm missing something, but there isn't such a thing as a temple divorce technically speaking. There are sealing cancellations and sealing clearances. The first is given after the civil divorce when a woman wishes to be sealed to someone else, the latter is given after the civil divorce when the man wishes to be sealed to someone else and it doesn't cancel the previous sealing, but if you've gotten divorced then you aren't living the portion of the covenant between husband and wife so it's void. The portion of the covenant between the individual and God is still valid however and thus why it isn't automatically canceled as canceling it voids that portion as well, it's a baby and bathwater situation*.

As to times and actual processes I'm afraid I can't help any except suggest talking with a Bishop or Stake President about the guidelines in place. There are individuals on this board with personal experience though, so they may be along later to chime in on that portion of it.

*The sealing of spouses is a sort of triangle, with God, Husband, and Wife at each corner. The connection between spouses can be broken while the blessings of the connection between the individuals and God remains in force.

Edited by Dravin
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I'm sure they'd allow it if both spouses would agree that there isn't anything to salvage. Why would the Lord or the Church want you to stay in a marriage if you don't get along? We are suppose to be happy here and go through trials. I'm going thru one of those trials right now and me and my spouse are in a situation sort of like yours. What do you do when your spouse doesn't repent of past transgressions and has cut themselves off from the temple blessings?

I wish you both luck and I hope love can help mend the past, that's what I'm hoping for in my case. I would get a civil divorce first and if then she finds someone who wants to marry her in the temple then get the temple cancellation.

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I'm sure they'd allow it if both spouses would agree that there isn't anything to salvage. Why would the Lord or the Church want you to stay in a marriage if you don't get along? We are suppose to be happy here and go through trials. I'm going thru one of those trials right now and me and my spouse are in a situation sort of like yours. What do you do when your spouse doesn't repent of past transgressions and has cut themselves off from the temple blessings?

I wish you both luck and I hope love can help mend the past, that's what I'm hoping for in my case. I would get a civil divorce first and if then she finds someone who wants to marry her in the temple then get the temple cancellation.

Right now I want to salvage my marriage, and my wife does not really know if she wants to salvage the marriage. She lost the focus of what a temple marriage means. She is completely blinded of the eternal prospective. She no longer believes in temple marriage and she does not know what she wants. I just want to see how long this will go for before she makes a decision.

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I feel your pain brother. It's been a very rough road for me and my spouse dealing with what's happened and what will happen in the future. I think it would be easier for me to chat thru pm than on here about my problem. I'll shoot you a pm so we can talk more, don't want too many folks knowing my situation.

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Ok, so if my wife wants to get a temple cancellation, would the church give it on the basis of personality differences?

I'm not entirely sure, but I suspect so, as at the time she would be getting a sealing cancellation she would be have been divorced and be seeking sealing to another man. At that point it's fairly clear that the relationship is over. I'm getting the sense that you think the First Presidency will not/might not grant a sealing cancellation unless its something like adultery or abuse, I've heard of people for whom their situation wasn't adultery or abuse receiving cancellations or clearances. Ultimately though, to my understanding, each situation is handled on a case by case business, and the focus is (I suspect) less on the causes and state of those involved at the time and more on who the person is at the time they are requesting cancellation or clearance.

Edit: It should be noted that this is all inference from other discussions and people describing the process. I do not have personal knowledge of the criteria the First Presidency use for their decision.

Edited by Dravin
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Remember a sealing is not a guarantee... It is a conditional blessing based on being faithful to the Lord and to the Marriage. Sounds as if the later might already be broken if she is doubting it like you say. Still repentance and rebuilding it is always possible. That is the spiritual side of this

The other side is from a church ordinance view... a cancellation or clearance is not really granted until one of the two is ready to marry someone else in the temple. So even if a civil divorce where to happen a cancellation or clearance will not automatically follow

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My understanding is that a clearance/cancelation is not granted lightly. I think a clearance would be issued individually, not to the (ex)couple as a unit. In other words if your wife leaves through little to no fault of your own, you are more likely to be able to remarry in the temple later than she is due to your faithfulness to the temple covenants. I think this is similar to if one partner violates the covenant via adultery. The other will probably have relatively little problem getting the clearance to marry again when the opportunity comes. If you can show that you are not the primary reason for the end of the marriage, you will have a much easier time getting approved (through clearance or cancellation) to be sealed to someone else in the future.

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I am working my tail off so that I can save my marriage. I been fasting every week and praying every day. The GOOD NEW is that we pray as a couple everyday morning and night and we fast as a couple every Sunday. We are reading the BOM together and we do FHE every Monday. We are a great couple, is just that my wife does not love me and is afraid that she will never love me. We are seeing therapy so that she can know what she wants in life. That is the thing, she does not know if she wants to be or not. This is the worst part of all of this.

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I am working my tail off so that I can save my marriage. I been fasting every week and praying every day. The GOOD NEW is that we pray as a couple everyday morning and night and we fast as a couple every Sunday. We are reading the BOM together and we do FHE every Monday. We are a great couple, is just that my wife does not love me and is afraid that she will never love me. We are seeing therapy so that she can know what she wants in life. That is the thing, she does not know if she wants to be or not. This is the worst part of all of this.

When she prays at night, she prays to make the "right decision". I just feel hurt when she prays for that. In my opinion the decision was made when we got married. In my eyes, the "right decision" should be work like you never worked before to save your marriage. I guess she is waiting for Moroni to show her what the right decision will be. But I am having that my wife has faith to read the BOM and she says she is praying to love me again. I just hope this ends soon so that we can get our life back in order.

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  • 11 months later...

You can't force someone to love you. We all make mistakes and we can in the spouse we choose sometimes. I've done it. I've divorced and am now awaiting sealing cancellation as I remarried immediately. I made a mistake but thank goodness the lord forgives our humanness when we do. Marriage should bring us joy.

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When she prays at night, she prays to make the "right decision". I just feel hurt when she prays for that. In my opinion the decision was made when we got married. In my eyes, the "right decision" should be work like you never worked before to save your marriage. I guess she is waiting for Moroni to show her what the right decision will be. But I am having that my wife has faith to read the BOM and she says she is praying to love me again. I just hope this ends soon so that we can get our life back in order.

I can relate, unfortunately or fortunately (at least I wasn't married long enough to have kids) my now ex-wife wanted to check out of the marriage after only a month or two when (among other things) reality hit that marriage requires work, doing things you might find difficult on occasion and forgiving each other. I remember a few times she had some similar sort of prayers of wanting to know what she should do. I found it hurt a lot as well even more so because she ultimately decided that she in fact didn't really love me, tried to blame me for everything that went wrong and moved out to live with her bff. I'm pretty sure that isn't the answer that God gave her or the action he wanted her to take. Like you said...what should be done was decided when you choose to get married, and expectting a miraculous sign of some sort to tell you to fix your marriage is immature and bush league.

So I hope your wife comes around, it is a miserable situation to be in, especially if you are putting forth all your effort to having a good marriage only to hear stuff like she isn't sure she wants to be a part of it. But I guess we all go through times when we can have doubt hopefully that is all it is and she makes the right decision.

Best wishes and sympathies.

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As it was stated, she has to be engaged (or married) to another man. Also, both of them must have current temple recommends before she can even request the paperwork for a cancellation.

So the real question is how long it will take her to find that guy.

Edited by garryw
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  • 2 weeks later...

There is no such thing as a Temple Divorce!

Temples are about joining people together, not splitting them up

Having said that you can get a cancellation of sealing. Not sure if the First Presidency will grant one for this reason, unless there is a whole lot more to the story than just 'having nothing in common'. Why'd you get married in the first place if you have nothing in common?

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Why would the Lord or the Church want you to stay in a marriage if you don't get along?

1. Because innocent children are counting on you to learn to get along. Kids with divorced parents are at increased odds of divorcing, being in poverty, going to prison, etc.

2. Because you made eternal covenants of an eternal nature, and basically agreed to get along. And if 'not getting along' is the only problem, people can mature and change.

3. Because dissolving a marriage usually increases the amount of not-getting-along two people experience, as opposed to decreasing it.

Am I the only one here thinking this?

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