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!
