The Wheel Came Off

Wow. Just wow. The tire just got blown off about the whole disbelief thing.

I’ve been playing around with a new toy on the Internet called Facebook. It’s basically a social-networking tool that allows you to connect with friends and family. It has an amusing feature that allows you to set your status based on how you’re feeling or what you’re doing. I’ve found many old friends and have been so excited to catch up with them all and see how they are. It has almost been a game to get as many Facebook friends as possible. I even got my wife to sign up and use it and we are competing on friend count.

A couple days ago, I “friended” a girl I once dated. In retrospect, it was innocent enough, but I was asking for trouble.

I spent almost three years of my life pining for this girl. I spent more time pining over her than I spent actually dating her, ironically. We were together for a few months in my freshman year at CWU, then my emotional insecurities kicked in and she mostly walked away from me, though treating me as something of an intimate friend thereafter. I never got over her. When I left that summer to live with my dad in Idaho, I would often listen to music she liked and dream about a future with her in it. I even had a summer fling that didn’t fix it. I returned to Ellensburg that fall to say goodbye to my friends before leaving on my mission to Brazil. I spent the time mostly with her. As I was leaving to return to Idaho and from there to Utah and the Missionary Training Center, we said a long goodbye outside the truck I had borrowed from my dad for the trip. Finally as I was about to leave, she kissed me.

As I drove off to the future, I was elated and my heart was soaring. What did this ambiguous kiss mean? Officially, we were only “friends” at that point. I spent the next two years on my mission thinking about that and towards the end of my mission, I admit, I was fully intending to return home and find her waiting for me. The first call I made when I made it to my dad’s new home in Las Vegas was to her. During that call, I found that I had been “scooped”. A childhood friend of mine had dated and had a whirlwhind engagement to her. They would be married almost before I could see her again!

When I was later dating my future wife, she came into our relationship knowing my history with this girl and has always felt threatened by her down to this day.

Imagine my wife’s surprise to see this woman on my list of “friends”! She confronted me with it, and my immediate reaction is to backpedal and cover-up. I flubbed it badly and my wife assumed the worst. What had started as a pretty innocent moment of curiousity blossomed into full-fledged crisis. As we sat in bed last night, my wife expressed deep disappointment in my actions. She wondered what it all meant…then went on to question me about why there were white t-shirts and underwear that were not the temple garments in the laundry she folded yesterday.

She assumed an affair of some sort. I re-assured her that it was much more tame than that. She pressed me to tell her what it DID mean. I proceeded, little by little, to explain my disdain for the temple ceremonies and their origins. I knew my wall of defense was beginning to crumble and soon she would know the extent of my disaffection. It was scary, both to me AND her. She was beginning to see some of her rosy Mormon worldview façade cracking and was thinking of drastic measures to protect herself and the kids. I actually felt relieved to discuss my issues with a real live person instead of the internet forum, New Order Mormon, that I have been secretly participating in for months.

This morning, we talked again (after she inspected all my internet ramblings and my Facebook account). At first she was angry and accused me of dumping this on her. Then she became reconciled to what I have become and I can see a plan forming to “save” me. She agonized over not being able to talk to anyone about this, because I would be judged by family members and ward members alike. I really respect that she cares about that. When I headed to work, we shared a tender moment and reminded each other about our love. I can tell that she is broken-hearted and it kills me to have done this. This was why I kept it secret for so long. I hate to hurt.

I don’t know what I’ll do at this point. I think I’ve been given free reign to be myself and make my own decisions, but I don’t know how she’ll re-act if I do. I have to keep this marriage together because my family is the only thing I have left to care about in this world. Life would have no value to me without them.

Deliberate Decisions

Apparently, wearing a colored shirt with no tie to church, REALLY disturbed my wife. I sent a signal in more ways than one that church is not where I want to be right now.

After our talk that Sunday, I mentioned that I am not being lazy and
that my actions are the result of deliberate decisions on my part. I
brought up that home teaching was another of those decisions.
Amazingly, she mentioned that I should at least inform the Elders’ Quorum President that I did not intend to do home teaching. So the following week, I resigned from home teaching!

My wife has been thinking this all over for a few weeks, and in the process has told her mom and one of our closest friends (also Mormon) about my heresy. It bugs her that I don’t want to be a straight arrow, that I’m done with being told when and how high to jump by the Mormons. It kind of bugged me that she felt the need to tell everyone. (Secretly, I wish I could tell everyone how deep it goes.)

Finally yesterday, she mentioned in passing that she is coming to terms with the fact that the high expectations she had about her future husband are just not going to happen. I feel a sense of the acceptance I have been craving. I feel a freedom.

Hopefully, the guilt trips won’t come next. I’m hoping the opposite, that she will wonder enough about why I feel like this to listen to some facts about the Mormon church. I just don’t know how it will go over, so I am really afraid to be honest about things that I know…

Have I Changed?

She’s onto me! (At least I think she is.)

From out of the blue, my wife asked me yesterday while preparing for church, “Do you like church?” Whoa. In my mind, a whole conversation happens in the three seconds it takes me to answer. On the one hand, this is a “no duh” moment that she should have suspected a long time ago. Of course I don’t LIKE church, its boring, repetitive and based on the random musings and other deep thoughts of a necromancing, sack-of-shit pedophile! I’ve been dropping hints for YEARS with my dislike for pedantic authority figures, meaningless dress codes and bits of Mormon history that make up the web of folklore and mystical understanding of Mormon culture.

On the other hand, am I ready to blow this thing up? Do I want her to see me in a lesser light than she already does? Do I want to lose face with everyone I know? Do I want to see her walk out the door and take the kids and teach them that their father is an evil faithless monster? No, thank you.

So what do I answer? “Ummm, not really.” I suspected there was more behind the question anyway, and there was. This was a relationship question. She is wondering why things that matter (i.e. the whole Mormon spiritual checklist) don’t seem to matter to me. She is sensing a divide between us that I guess I didn’t know was showing so much. I’ve been keeping my own confidences lately with most of my thoughts on LDS-related items. She must be understanding that vibe, knowing there is more to what I know than what is being verbalized. I mention that I would rather find happiness in this life than spend my life going through a checklist. “Men are that they might have joy.”, I say.

Her hackles are WAY up! She explains/corrects that this life is a time to prepare to meet Heavenly Father. Then the kids need me, so we are interrupted. Later on after church, she brings up the subject again (prompted by the fact that I went to church in a non-white shirt and no tie (gasp)! Also, after the sacrament meeting, she also found me in the chapel reading a book, instead of in Sunday School.

She’s feeling depressed again. I guess I can understand why; she feels that I’m being lazy and not living up to the Mormon ideal. She has trotted that out a few times. I think it’s killing her inside. I don’t think in her mind that she can fathom me just simply deciding certain things are not worth my time and consciously not doing the checklist.

She says that I have changed from when she married me, but once at least admitting that people are allowed to change. That one bugs me, mainly because I have changed. When she met me, I was freshly out of Mormon indoctrination training (i.e. my mission) and gave no value to any thoughts I had that were contrary to the will of the church. I was a robot. Yes, indeed I have changed. Those former priorities have been evaluated and discarded in my mind. My wife can see that I have changed and it bugs her to no end. As independent as she is, she still wants the picture-perfect Mormon marriage. I just want to be accepted for who I am, not be held up to an impossible bar for constant measurement!

At one point this morning, she brought it up again. She listed off the behaviors that I think are bugging her. Namely, blowing off church meetings, not reading scriptures and not wearing garments! (I guess I’m not as sly as I thought if she’s noticed I’m not wearing them).

What hurts me the most is that she keeps saying she doesn’t “respect” me. She bases this on the fact that I swear (a lot). I guess I can understand that, it is a bad habit. It is hard to quit and not something I want to pass along to my kids. But to base your “respect” of a person on one quality of their character? Come on! I really have done enough in life that I should garner at least a little leeway and some iota of “respect”.

I wish I could be honest about what is keeping me from being a full-on head-in-the-sand Mormon. I can’t unlearn what I know. I am no longer impressed with the claims of the Mormon church. Yet, if I say a thing, I will be reviled and “respected” even less!

Needless to say, after all our talking and counseling to try to find a focus/common goal in our relationship, I think my wife left feeling just as perplexed about me as when she started asking my opinion of church!