Crisis of Faith - Dear John Letters

[The Folk Prophet]

27 minutes ago, Lostboy289 said:

Well everyone here seems to be a pretty big advocate for the former. Or at the very least see it as an acceptable consequence of gaining that which you desire.

You're twisting this by using the term "desire" here, as if "desire" in and of itself was the only thing at stake. I very much doubt that, and find it intellectually dishonest to not address the potential reality that it may have been "right". Rephrased it reads: "see it as an acceptable consequence of gaining that which is right." Read that way, yes. It is an acceptable consequence of gaining that which is right.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Lostboy289 said:

I had to change jobs and bases since I went to mental health to vent and they decided due to the stress that I wasn't a good fit anymore for a flying job. Also my elderly dad's health has gone seriously downhill seeing his son suffer.

That is a whole lot of blame unfairly placed on the wrong shoulders.

I've been through the post-breakup depression. Turns out I'm really prone to episode-based depression. That doesn't mean the guy ruined my life.

If your dad's health declined because a girl spurned you, there were underlying issues to begin with.

 

Dude, you are absolutely determined to be as miserable as possible for as long as you can. Let. It. Go. Stop holding other people responsible for your happiness and your Dad's health and the testimonies and well-being of everyone around you. You are responsible for your happiness. If a girl is willing to cheat and/or take off, you're lucky you learned that about her before the covenant was made. Count it as a bullet dodged and let it go. You're going to have a very hard time making happiness carrying that huge chip on your shoulder. Learn this earlier than I did: you CAN be happy in any circumstance, and the Lord will take care of you when someone's agency affects your happiness temporarily. No blame, no shame, just move on and choose happiness.

Edited April 19, 2017 by Eowyn

[The Folk Prophet]

18 minutes ago, Lostboy289 said:

You didn't?

[The Folk Prophet]

5 minutes ago, Vort said:

MG hurt your feelings. He is worse than Hitler.

Well that goes without saying.

[Lostboy289]

4 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

You're twisting this by using the term "desire" here, as if "desire" in and of itself was the only thing at stake. I very much doubt that, and find it intellectually dishonest to not address the potential reality that it may have been "right". Rephrased it reads: "see it as an acceptable consequence of gaining that which is right." Read that way, yes. It is an acceptable consequence of gaining that which is right.

What makes it right exactly?

Eternal marriage is right. But this isn't a marriage. This is just one of a million possibilities available. And because an insistence on this specific possibility, you dragged your friend down into a pitt of suffering. Which is wrong.

Which even if it does lead to a right (in this case a marriage), is no different from saying "the ends justify the means". 

 

Edited April 19, 2017 by Lostboy289

[The Folk Prophet]

Just now, Lostboy289 said:

What makes it right exactly?

Too little info to say. But you, also, have too little info to say. Which puts you exactly where we all are when dealing with others who we perceive have wronged us. Forgive and move on. Because we cannot read other's minds and hearts. You are judging others based on things you cannot possibly know. To what end? Your own misery? As stated by @Eowyn. Let. It. Go.

 

[Guest]

Has the cold ever bothered you, @The Folk Prophet?

[The Folk Prophet]

1 minute ago, Eowyn said:

Has the cold ever bothered you, @The Folk Prophet?

As a total side note: I believe I mentioned in some thread somewhere that Moana is my very favorite Disney message movie ever. Well...Frozen is my very least favorite. And the worst of the worst: This song.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, The Folk Prophet said:

As a total side note: I believe I mentioned in some thread somewhere that Moana is my very favorite Disney message movie ever. Well...Frozen is my very least favorite. And the worst of the worst: This song.

Agreed on all counts! 

[Backroads]

34 minutes ago, Lostboy289 said:

Couldn't she have found happiness with her original boyfriend if his friend hadn't lured her away?

Or less ideally but still prefferable unrelated fourth party who isn't the guy or his friend?

What makes the fourth guy less ideal for Girl?

[Lostboy289]

7 minutes ago, Backroads said:

What makes the fourth guy less ideal for Girl?

Its not the guy thats less ideal, just less of an idealistic way for this to all work out. 

Edited April 19, 2017 by Lostboy289

[Backroads]

6 minutes ago, Lostboy289 said:

Its not the guy thats less ideal, just less of an idealistic way for this to all work out. 

For who? Whose feelings matter more? Your scenario made it sound like the only person's feelings that mattered were the dumped, that Girl should stay with him to keep him happy.

[Latter-Day Marriage]

3 hours ago, Lostboy289 said:

Jesus told us to Love God and Love one Another, and to keep those commandments above all others. If we can't even put aside our own desires to show compassion towards our brothers, then why the hell are we even here? We edify ourselves through our love and sacrifice for others, not in attaining that which we covet, regardless of how righteous those ends may be.

Christ offended people too, there were times he was downright rude.  You are not responsible for anybody's emotional state except your own.  If some guy has his girlfriend dump him, he is responsible for his reaction, not her, not the guy she left him for.  Try being a parent, you'll wind up upsetting your kids many times if you even halfway decent at parenting.  You talk of love but love is not a one way street where everybody makes your wishes the center of their universe.  If you really love somebody and they are happier with somebody else, you will want them to be with that somebody else even if it causes pain for you.  If you love somebody you won't try to limit their choices and control them, you'll give them freedom to make their own choices.

Your reasoning is based on a false idea of possession and obligation in a bf/gf relationship, and  another false idea that doing something that causes somebody else to feel hurt is inherently immoral.  Love is a blood sport, it's law of the jungle. It is a competition and you have to fight and win somebody's heart away from every other competitor.  Even after you are married you have to fight to keep the marriage strong and if you don't you'll lose your wife in one way or another.  Dislike that all you want, but that is what it is.

[Backroads]

Gator not using me in a Disney video is precisely why I ended our engagement at that Jazz game.

[The Folk Prophet]

3 minutes ago, Latter-Day Marriage said:

Christ offended people too, there were times he was downright rude.  You are not responsible for anybody's emotional state except your own.  If some guy has his girlfriend dump him, he is responsible for his reaction, not her, not the guy she left him for.  Try being a parent, you'll wind up upsetting your kids many times if you even halfway decent at parenting.  You talk of love but love is not a one way street where everybody makes your wishes the center of their universe.  If you really love somebody and they are happier with somebody else, you will want them to be with that somebody else even if it causes pain for you.  If you love somebody you won't try to limit their choices and control them, you'll give them freedom to make their own choices.

It's an overall good thought. But I don't agree with all of this. If my wife decided she was happier with someone else I wouldn't want them to be with that somebody because I love her. I'd want her to do what is right. Truly loving someone is caring that they do what is right. Not that they do what ever they think makes them happy. And I'm not sure what loving parent wouldn't try and limit their children's choices to some degree and exert some control over them. Which, of course, doesn't exactly apply in the current scenario, but as a broad principle, I don't think it's entirely true.

As it relates to the OP sob story, well the problem really comes down to the fact that it's a very one-sided, hurt-feelings view of what is right.

[Guest MormonGator]

1 hour ago, Vort said:

MG hurt your feelings. He is worse than Hitler.

Well I did star in The Producers during my Broadway days, and it is springtime...so...

[Backroads]

46 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

Well I did star in The Producers during my Broadway days, and it is springtime...so...

So it's winter for Poland and France?

[Guest MormonGator]

27 minutes ago, Backroads said:

So it's winter for Poland and France?

We're marching to a faster pace....

[NightSG]

3 hours ago, Backroads said:

Even if they received spiritual prompting to date?

And don't presume to know what they felt or what answer they received.

Then you shouldn't either.  How many people are (or were) sure that they received a spiritual prompting to marry and be sealed to an abuser/adulterer/whatever, and then equally sure they received a prompting to divorce the same person?

I stand by my earlier assertion that fairly often the Spirit is saying "well, it's not quite the dumbest idea you've ever had" and we take it as Divine affirmation that it's the One And Only True Way That Things Can Be.

[yjacket]

3 hours ago, The Folk Prophet said:

Snowflake millennials often think the greatest sin is hurting someone else's feelings.

Truth.

[yjacket]

LB, 

I would simply chalk it up to the girl being immature.  Should she be upfront and forthright-yes.  Should she break off any steady relationship prior to dating another, yes.  Did she make a bad decision in getting engaged and in breaking it off quickly, yes. Do I like it, no. Am I glad I'm not in the dating game today, absolutely. I personally found most of the "dating game" silly and immature myself.

But I chalk most if not all of it up to the fickleness and immaturity of youth and it has been happening for centuries.  There are some great poems and plays expressing some of the same feelings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Expectations and the movie come to mind-and also note the upbringing of those who are fickle in love.

I think it is more prevalent today simply because of our modern day culture. If you are looking for anyone to blame; blame the fact that less is expected of children these days, they are in general more coddled, have more hand-holding and less responsibility than any generation. They are less likely to be self-sufficient and less likely to be fully formed adults at the age of adulthood. So by the time they reach a marrying age, instead of actually being adults they are children trying to act like adults-and they might fail miserably.

Before castigating others for doing this, look into yourself.  How responsible are you?  Would you make a good husband? If you are extremely responsible than thank your lucky stars you did not marry someone so fickle.  Because I guarantee after the honeymoon is over and the real work of a marriage begins-you would be unequally yolked and would have some major, major problems.

As far as the Church solving the problem or Church culture, how exactly do you propose the Church solve the root problem, which is lack of maturity and responsibility?  No amount of talks over the pulpit is going to address this issue. Gaining maturity and responsibility comes from personal action and being given assignments and then being held responsible for fulfilling them; it comes from allowing people to fail and make mistakes-not from talks addressing this issue. To solve the problem begins, long, long before dating/marrying age.

My guess is that in the hereafter, that young lady will probably approach you and say STTE "I'm really sorry I hurt you, I was young immature and it wasn't right, please forgive me". 

Let it go man and find a mature girl who you can enjoy life with and grow old together.

[Guest MormonGator]

11 minutes ago, yjacket said:

Gaining maturity and responsibility comes from personal action and being given assignments and then being held responsible for fulfilling them; it comes from allowing people to fail and make mistakes

Oh how true. Bob Dylan said it best "How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?" 

[yjacket]

2 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

Oh how true. Bob Dylan said it best "How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?" 

We have largely forgotten as a society that failure is the best teacher, the best giver of wisdom, the best refiners fire. Because after you "fail" a few times, you come to realize that there really isn't any such thing as failure.  It just becomes one deviation, one sidetrack on the road to success.  Success is a windy, curvy road-but the only time you ever truly fail is when you simply give up and quit.

And if you never learn that lesson early in life with no frustrations with everything being handed on a platter-then when life knocks the socks off you and you go down one major deviation you really do end up being a failure b/c you simply quit.

[Guest MormonGator]

8 minutes ago, yjacket said:

We have largely forgotten as a society that failure is the best teacher, the best giver of wisdom, the best refiners fire. Because after you "fail" a few times, you come to realize that there really isn't any such thing as failure.  It just becomes one deviation, one sidetrack on the road to success.  Success is a windy, curvy road-but the only time you ever truly fail is when you simply give up and quit.

And if you never learn that lesson early in life with no frustrations with everything being handed on a platter-then when life knocks the socks off you and you go down one major deviation you really do end up being a failure b/c you simply quit.

Oh I agree totally. 100%. Word for word. In business, my personal life-for sure I've learned more from my failures than I ever have from my successes. 

[The Folk Prophet]

I feel like this thread needed this: