A truly big mess


orfamilyman
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I could really use some help here...

 

I moved to Utah when I was 14 and had never even heard of a Mormon. I was a very active boy scout however, and in Salt Lake if you wanted to go to scouts it was at the Mormon church. So I went and eventually got talked into getting baptized.

 

I never really ever cared for the church and led a very weird life. I started dating my first wife when I was 14 and got married to her when I was 17. I moved out of my parents house and 14 almost 15 and lived with her until we got married. She was 11 years older than I was.

 

She was Mormon growing up and while we were married for 14 years we tried re-entering the church several times. There were a lot of reasons it never really worked out for me/us. A few years ago I really started to realize that I was not in love with my wife. I started to feel angry at her because I never had a normal childhood or young adult life.

 

I owned a restaurant and bar in Oregon after moving back and met someone else who happened to be my wife's best friend at the time. We started talking and realized we had so much in common. We were both in relationships that were very un-healthy and toxic. We both divorced our spouses and then started dating after being friends. This woman is truly the woman of my dreams. She is the most amazing mother of her two daughters from her previous marriage and we married almost a year ago and have a beautiful baby boy.

 

This is where it gets interesting. After realizing I was going to have this baby boy things changed a lot. I have been far from the church for a while now. I have owned a bar been a heavy drinker done lots of things wrong. My wife was also a heavy drinker when we met and then stopped when she got pregnant and has decided she does not want to do that anymore. She wants to have a drink occasionally just not all the time. I have been drinking way to much and it has really affected things at times.

 

I have talked to my wife in ways that make me feel like the biggest low life ever. I want to change so badly and I have come to realize what I really want is to re-enter the church and have friends that love their kids and family as much as we do. I want to have friends who want to get together and do things that do not revolve around liquor. I want friends who will be there for us anytime we need them the same as we would be for them.

 

The problem is she is not so hip to the idea of going to the Mormon church. She has not been a church person really ever. She was forced to go to the Catholic church growing up but was also molested by the family members forcing her to go. We have attended the Lutheran church as a family and they all liked it. I did not mind it and the people were nice but it is not the same. I need to feel that sense of community.

 

How do I convince her to give it a chance? How do I explain what the church really can offer our family. I need a document that tells the story of a family the converted and the difference it has made in their family, their marriage, and their lives.

 

Please help!

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Actions speak louder then words, if you are happy and it shows that can often do more for people then words ever could.

I myself generally like Mormons, and they actually got me to be social far quicker then I had felt I should have.

 

(And I, myself, would have welcomed anything besides the terrible adolesance/young adult life I had... I mean it's still pretty lousy, what is a "normal" young man's adult life? Mine certainly wasn't it and I had no outside sources "effecting things" would have prevented all that rejection too)

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Look... It's no wonder your wife has an issue with the LDS Church:

Her only real experience/exposure to "us" is in finding out that her Mormon one time best friend was actually a child abusing sexual predator!

- Bad enough in its own right to make someone leery.

- Super triggery, because of her own history of childhood sexual abuse in a religious context

- The child in question was her HUSBAND ... So there's going to be some territoriality

(aka fury at someone hunting and harming someone that is hers)

- She's a mom, so more territoriality in wanting to protect her own from the same fate

- She's the mom of a boy, so the issue will be even closer to heart

AND

- Many of the same reasons you want to come back (focus on marriage and family) will be seen through a lens "With this focus my husband became the target of a sexual predator & was married at 17". So the GOOD may come out looking sick and wrong to her.

Unless your wife is EXTRAORDINARILLY easily influenced...

No single story (and possibly no one else's story, period)!is going to convince her to give it a shot.

There are waaaaaaaay too many things at gut level, and trauma survivor level, for anything less than it being her OWN story.

Catch 22, right?

Maybe.

I would suggest you DONT try to convince her.

INSTEAD, side with her.

Give her all the power to WALK the moment she's uncomfortable.

No delaying tactics, no requests to stay, no you staying alone, no manipulation of any kind.

Simply hand her the reins in this matter, and let her take the lead.

Show her that you will support her, protect her, and respect her.

Now... Ideally... Set this up ahead of time with a couple of "goes"

So that you can leave after 20 minutes the first Sunday, but come back the next Sunday. And the Sunday after.

Let her get comfortable.

Give her room & support to heal... Instead of trying to force her.

ALSO... If you want to make things easier on her,,, arrange babysitting.

She won't want to leave her kids for 2 hours with strangers while she's thinking of sexual predators.

It's just a bad idea.

After you've gone a few times, THEN start thinking of bringing the kids.

If you try & rush her,though, or try and force the issue...Oy. Unlikely to get a positive result.

Because,given both your histories... Her fears have validity.

They're based in fact.

Replacing old facts with new experiences takes time.

There's no shortcut.

Q

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