Loss of hope becoming loss of much more.


JosephP
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alter your circumstances, but it just isn't enough. So you need to find a different direction- a different motivation- something different to strive for.

That would be nice, but I don't have anything else. There is nothing else I want to do on my own. It is the very act of aloneness that makes any action undesirable.

, the best thing you can do is draw near to God.

I'll consider that when He and I are on speaking terms again. It's hard to feel anything now other than a desire to turn away. I'm not going to pretend a devotion I don't feel.

There's nothing wrong with being single.

That's the only thing you've said that hints at you being young. I'm 57 years old and I can assure you with absolute certainty, there is very much wrong with being single.

With all the focus on "the family" at church, it can be hard to not feel like an oddball as a single person. However, you still have a family and are part of a family. There's your parents, your siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. And then there's your "ward family". Help with Boy Scouts. Do your home teaching. Do temple work for your ancestors. Go on splits with the missionaries.

Actually I have a brother and sister 1100 miles away and another brother 2400 miles away. I e not seen any of them in years, I have no family. The wad family is great for three hours a week, but you can't build a life or a social life around that. I do splits with the missionaries whenever they ask, about 2-3 times a month. I assure you, that doesn't make for a full life. Every night I am alone, every weekend and holiday I am alone. I want my own family, not being the odd guest at someone else's thanksgiving dinner.

You shouldn't put your life on hold just because you are single. Go. Do. Act. Live. Keep yourself busy, and live in a way that you can feel satisified with yourself and your accomplishments, even if marraige might never work it's way into your life. You can keep trying and trying and trying, but there is only so much you can control. Just letting go and living your life to it's fullest without putting so much pressure on yourself to find a partner can be absolutely freeing. Don't stop looking- but don't make it the end-all and be-all of your happiness. Do your part in bettering yourself and getting engaged in the Lord's work, and let the Lord guide your life so that marraige will come in His time if it be His will for your life.

As I said before, I'm already 57 years old. I want a wife I can have a life with, if I wait any longer I'll be looking for a roommate for my nursing home instead.

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I will have to ponder that some more...my relationships dont work that way.

As I said, I hold that as a truth, not offering it as universal wisdom.

Don't worry, I understand irrational feelings, I have plenty myself.

How do you deal with your anger about other things and with other people? I do not have an agenda here, the question is sincere. Anger is a difficult emotion for me to allow myself to feel and express, so I am genuinely interested in how other people deal with it. But also I am remembering that the best help I have received is from my therapist who never tells me what to do, but asks me questions that help me find my own answers. So I thought asking an open question, no agenda, "how have you dealt with anger in the past." Might bring something to your mind that would be useful. I have no idea what that might be.

Pretty much the same way I'm handling this. If I can't come to an agreement or compromise we both agree with, I turn away. In my personal life I usual just defer to my spouses desire, since few things in a marriage have real relevance worth arguing about

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That would be nice, but I don't have anything else. There is nothing else I want to do on my own. It is the very act of aloneness that makes any action undesirable.

Personally, I really think this is what you need to work on. You may be 57, but you still have life to live, and there should be things you are interested in that can give your life purpose. There are ways to go out and about and find things to do that will get you socializing with others so you won't be completely alone.

Feeling like you have no purpose, nothing productive to occupy your time, will cause you to feel dissatisfied with everything else about your life. The fact that you are single is just something for you to target to blame for your dissatisfaction, and part of that is because we are culturally taught that marraige will provide the fulfillment and happiness we are looking for. That just isn't the case though. Certainly marraige can add to a fulfilling life, but even married people face problems where they feel their life just hasn't gone the direction they've planned. That's why people go through mid-life crises.

You will never feel satisfied with yourself and your life if you don't give yourself a purpose. If there's something more you want to learn- go back to college. If you have a special interest- join a group or club. If your work is unfulfilling- find a way to improve your workplace or make a career change. Work on your talents and the traits that make you you. Life isn't over, just because you're 57.

I'll consider that when He and I are on speaking terms again. It's hard to feel anything now other than a desire to turn away. I'm not going to pretend a devotion I don't feel.

That's perfectly understandable. And as others have suggested, since you seem to want to get back on speaking terms with Him, even though you are currently angry, perhaps you could try praying for a softened heart? Or you could ask for a priesthood blessing?

That's the only thing you've said that hints at you being young. I'm 57 years old and I can assure you with absolute certainty, there is very much wrong with being single.

I disagree, and I think our age difference isn't the only reason we don't see this the same way. I came out of an extremely destructive marraige and had a hard time coming to terms with the fact that being single is okay. It is certainly better than being married to someone abusive. If I cannot find a man that will be a positive influence on me and build me up and encourage me to strive for improvement, then I'm better off without a partner.

I think there are many people who have this belief that getting married will fix their ailes, because their partner will be this "perfect fit" who complements them by being strong where they are weak and making them "complete". But it is not a spouse that makes someone complete- it is the atonement. You can be and feel complete without a spouse. And I think that the most successful marraiges are those where two complete individuals come together to enrich one another's lives, instead of two incomplete individuals expecting their partner to make them whole.

I know that is what I thought when I first got married, and because of that incorrect belief I focused on doing everything I could to make my partner whole while expecting that he would help make me feel whole. But it just doesn't work that way. Even in a healthy marraige. Control over your happiness, sense of fulfillment, and satisfaction is something that comes from the inside, not the outside.

Actually I have a brother and sister 1100 miles away and another brother 2400 miles away. I e not seen any of them in years, I have no family. The wad family is great for three hours a week, but you can't build a life or a social life around that. I do splits with the missionaries whenever they ask, about 2-3 times a month. I assure you, that doesn't make for a full life. Every night I am alone, every weekend and holiday I am alone. I want my own family, not being the odd guest at someone else's thanksgiving dinner.

Find things you can get out and do so you aren't alone all the time. Whether that's at church or elsewhere. Volunteer somewhere. Find a cause you can get involved in that will help you feel like you are accomplishing something.

As I said before, I'm already 57 years old. I want a wife I can have a life with, if I wait any longer I'll be looking for a roommate for my nursing home instead.

This makes it sound like you've been waiting to live until you find a wife. At 57, doesn't that seem like such a waste? You have no way of knowing how much more time you're going to have. You need to live now. Wife or not.

I understand your desire to have someone to share your life with, but dwelling on that too much when so much of the result is out of your control will drive you crazy with longing and loathing. Take care of what you can control, let go of the rest, and live now.

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I understand your desire to have someone to share your life with, but dwelling on that too much when so much of the result is out of your control will drive you crazy with longing and loathing. Take care of what you can control, let go of the rest, and live now.

Thanks for your very deeply expressed response. I know I should not be debating my sadness and lack of faith, I just need to suffer through it. No one can convince someone who is sad and lonely to just shake it off and be healthy again.

My lack of devotion to the gospel is the most painful. I'm just going through the motions without any conviction or sincerity. My answers aren't going to discovered through debating.

Thanks to everyone who offered advice and support.

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Thanks for your very deeply expressed response. I know I should not be debating my sadness and lack of faith, I just need to suffer through it. No one can convince someone who is sad and lonely to just shake it off and be healthy again.

My lack of devotion to the gospel is the most painful. I'm just going through the motions without any conviction or sincerity. My answers aren't going to discovered through debating.

Thanks to everyone who offered advice and support.

There's nothing wrong with bringing your feelings to a board like this. It gives you a chance to write it out and come to a better understanding for why you feel the way you do. It may not be possible to reason feelings away, but it is at least possible to understand those feelings through the application of reason and logic. We can then reach conclusions on ways to work through those feelings, even if the feelings themselves remain.

Things like anger and depression are irrational. I know when I start feeling angry or depressed about anything to do with my life, I become most frustrated with the fact that those feelings are so irrational because I'm a more logic based person than a feelings based person. But knowing my feelings are irrational doesn't make them go away. They eventually fade on their own as I focus on things other than my pain, but then they resurface later when I find myself struggling again.

Talking with others is a great outlet, not only to help those feelings work their way through, but to realize we are not alone in the way we feel. While you may not find answers here, you can find an outlet. And in time, as you focus on productive endeavors, your irrational feelings will fade and you can look back on this moment as a period of growth.

Or- you can feed those feelings and let them fester, so that you become so bitter and angry with God and the world that there is no more progress out of your irrational state. I've known people that choose to do this to themselves, and they are absolutely miserable. Nothing anyone does to try and help them works, because they've become stuck in their gloomy mindset and lost all hope for anything brighter. I don't think you're the type to do this to yourself, and I hope you don't. There is absolutely nothing wrong with feeling periods of depression or anger- as long as it remains only a period and isn't something we dwell on indefinitely.

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Guest LiterateParakeet

Joseph, I am sorry for your pain, and your anger. It is understandable that you feel this way.

These feelings will not last forever, it does get better.

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Joseph, I am sorry for your pain, and your anger. It is understandable that you feel this way.

These feelings will not last forever, it does get better.

Yes they do, but I am seldom the same on the other side of it. It's the feeling that I don't even want to believe anymore that I worry is permanent. My desire for a celestial marriage was the defining goal of my life. Now I find the very idea of a temple marriage FOR ME to be "insert irreverent negative feeling here"

I simply cannot imagine ever trusting that much again, to hope for such an ideal at the risk of soul crushing disappointment. My thoughts now are to turn outside the church for a new relationship, one devoid of eternal hope and promise.

As I recently expressed to my bishop.

Right now the gospel seems irrelevant. I do not doubt it's truth, just fail to see how it applies to me. Trying to apply it now in my life would be the equivalent of trying to convince a homelessness person of the truthfulness of the stock market, and suggesting he apply its principles to relieve his poverty. The ideals of the gospel seem equally as remote, a system designed for those with far more resources than I have. I have no hope or faith left to invest, the belief in the gospel's reality is just one more thing I feel that is good in the world, that I personally have no part in.

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As I recently expressed to my bishop.

Right now the gospel seems irrelevant. I do not doubt it's truth, just fail to see how it applies to me. Trying to apply it now in my life would be the equivalent of trying to convince a homelessness person of the truthfulness of the stock market, and suggesting he apply its principles to relieve his poverty. The ideals of the gospel seem equally as remote, a system designed for those with far more resources than I have. I have no hope or faith left to invest, the belief in the gospel's reality is just one more thing I feel that is good in the world, that I personally have no part in.

And what did your Bishop say?

He hasn't responded to my email sent Tuesday. He did stop by for two hours on Sunday night.

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Perhaps over time my rage will subside, but right now it doesn't feel like I would be submitting to the will of a loving Heavenly Father, but subjecting myself to the unstoppable injustice of an indifferent supreme being. Until I can loving submit, my anger leads me to angry defiance.

I'm going to suggest something that will sound strange, but give it a try; addiction recovery. Anger is addictive, even though, like the first few cigarettes or the first hangover, you think you can't get hooked on it because it feels so awful. Get in there and let them help you break the habit before it sets in too deeply.

I know what you're going through, and it's something I wouldn't wish on anyone. Just know that even though it sometimes feels like the Lord has turned his back on you, on closer inspection, you will always find that He's waiting for you to turn back to Him.

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I'm going to suggest something that will sound strange, but give it a try; addiction recovery. Anger is addictive, even though, like the first few cigarettes or the first hangover, you think you can't get hooked on it because it feels so awful. Get in there and let them help you break the habit before it sets in too deeply.

I know what you're going through, and it's something I wouldn't wish on anyone. Just know that even though it sometimes feels like the Lord has turned his back on you, on closer inspection, you will always find that He's waiting for you to turn back to Him.

Yes, I have been through addiction recovery and learned a lot from it. It's no small part of the reason why I'm able to say I don't blame God, I'm unwilling to accept his will. At this point the pain causes me to want to be self destructive and turning away from the church seems the childish, spiteful kind of behavior to indulge my rage in. I hope I get over it, right now I can't see past the rage.

What scares me the most is that coldly and logically I can see that I will never want to marry anyone else in the temple. If the personal revelation that I received, which was so real to me, isn't realized then any other women will have to play a distant second place to my sincere conviction that I'm marrying the wrong person. I simply don't want to do that to anyone, I will resent her and myself. No matter how much I reason it away, and make excuses for an alternate explanation of the revelation, I will always know that anyone else will not be what I believe is right. Just writing this has escalated my anger in the extreme.

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A revelation to you isn't removal of her agency. Getting affirmative spiritual confirmation about marrying her in the temple doesn't mean it wouldn't be just as right to marry someone else in the temple. I'm sure it feels like it, but she is not the one and only.

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A revelation to you isn't removal of her agency. Getting affirmative spiritual confirmation about marrying her in the temple doesn't mean it wouldn't be just as right to marry someone else in the temple. I'm sure it feels like it, but she is not the one and only.

Yes, I am very well aware of that, which is why I said I'm not blaming God, I'm unwilling to accept his will. I'm furious, and rebellious. I don't care what is fair and reasonable, I want to simply lash out. I can't imagine sitting through a church meeting, or feeling worthy to take the sacrament. It's taking all the willpower I have to just maintain saying a mumbled prayer lacking all conviction.

My feelings now are little more than wanting to spitefully walk out, childishly declaring "I'll show you!" My hope is shattered, I can't believe, or even desire to trust again, either in personal revelation, or in another women.

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I don't know if you are aware of this, but it took my husband and me 5 years to get sealed in the temple. It was very hard for me to wait for him, for most of that time he had no intention of going to the temple in order to get sealed to me. In fact, I don't talk about it much, but when he received the priesthood and made the appointment for his endowments he still did not plan on getting sealed...even though we had been married for 5 years. It is very hard to have the idea that someone does not want to get sealed to you, even though you have dedicated yourself to that goal.

Something that helped me significanlty when I did go to the temple and got my endowments, I found that instead of being concerned with getting the eternal companion that I want, I had to focus on being the eternal companion that somebody else would want. So instead of focusing on my own happiness, I focused on whether or not I was someone's reason to be happy.

Though you have felt that you should marry her in the temple, she may not believe the same thing. We still have to have free agency. Trust me, you would not want to be sealed to someone who only went through with it to make you happy. You would not want to be stuck in a one-way relationship.

Her realizing this before you get sealed instead of after and then causing a big mess to get out, this is a good thing. Find someone that wants to be sealed to you as much as you want to be sealed to them. They are out there, lovely, wonderful women out there who deserve a righteous preisthood holder, don't turn your nose up just yet.

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Do you have any sort of outlet for your anger? Something physical maybe, like running or biking or taking it out n a punching bag? Are you taking care of yourself physically (healthy food, enough water, plenty of sleep)?

I know that for me when I lost the guy I was going to marry, it was extremely painful and I was very angry and depressed. I stopped taking very good care of myself. I probably should have gone to some therapy and/or taken something for awhile, because I was in a bad spot for awhile. Personally for me, it was more about fear of never finding someone else who would love me than it was losing the guy. And for me, fear often pushes me to anger. I wasn't myself for a long time. I was jaded and angry and probably not too much fun to be around.

Just a little empathy and some stuff to think about. I think heartbreak is one of the hardest things we deal with in this life. Again, I'm sorry you're having to go through it.

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Find someone that wants to be sealed to you as much as you want to be sealed to them. They are out there, lovely, wonderful women out there who deserve a righteous preisthood holder, don't turn your nose up just yet.

Thanks for sharing your story, I'm sorry for what you went through. As far as looking for another woman to take to the temple. The thought seems totally dishonest. I know there would only be the feeling that this isn't what I had wanted.

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Do you have any sort of outlet for your anger? Something physical maybe, like running or biking or taking it out n a punching bag? Are you taking care of yourself physically (healthy food, enough water, plenty of sleep)?

I know that for me when I lost the guy I was going to marry, it was extremely painful and I was very angry and depressed. I stopped taking very good care of myself. I probably should have gone to some therapy and/or taken something for awhile, because I was in a bad spot for awhile. Personally for me, it was more about fear of never finding someone else who would love me than it was losing the guy. And for me, fear often pushes me to anger. I wasn't myself for a long time. I was jaded and angry and probably not too much fun to be around.

Just a little empathy and some stuff to think about. I think heartbreak is one of the hardest things we deal with in this life. Again, I'm sorry you're having to go through it.

Yeah, I appreciate the empathy. This ain't going away anytime soon. I was pretty much blindsided by the whole thing. I don't see any point worrying about the relationship any more, it's my withdrawing from the church that I want to be able to get past. But in reality I find the distance growing despite the intellectual understanding that my feelings are wrong. But since faith is all about feeling and beliefs, I'm having a hard time even thinking of making peace with God right now.

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I want to thank everyone. I cannot go into any detail, allow me to say after "wrestling with The Lord," I have had a "mighty change of heart."

10 Nevertheless Alma labored much in the spirit, wrestling with God in mighty prayer....

(Book of Mormon, Alma, Chapter 8)

2 And they all cried with one voice, saying: Yea, we believe all the words which thou hast spoken unto us; and also, we know of their surety and truth, because of the Spirit of the Lord Omnipotent, which has wrought a mighty change in us, or in our hearts, that we have no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually. (Book of Mormon, Mosiah, Chapter 5)

Thank you for allowing me to give voice to my rebellion and to work through it without judgement.

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This is a true story. The son of a good family friend had literately grown up with another girl since the second grade. They felt they were a perfect match for each other. They were engaged in there early 20s. One day, she suddenly broke it off. She stopped seeing him and never responded to his calls. The son was heart broken and cried as well as the mom. One day, he injured his eye and was sent to the hospital. He met a lovely single nurse and feel in love with her. He proposed and they were married less then a year latter.

So while she may have permanently broken off the temple sealing or marriage, there is some one else out there for you. It is just a matter of time to find that right woman to make you happy in your life.

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