Is she just trying to cause trouble?
Revenge?
Trying to re-connect?
Twist the knife in my back?

She acts like she was the one that was hurt because hubby broke it off suddenly when he decided he wanted me more than her.
I get sick of it. She is a grown woman. She knew he was married. Now, she knows it is over, she knows he chose me, yet, she still wants an apology??? GIVE ME A BREAK!!!

Ok, he was bored, he was feeling old, whatever……
He tried you on for size and decided he didn’t want you! He changed his mind. I wish he had never placed himself in the position to do so, but he did and in the end, he made a choice and since the choice wasn’t you, are you are going to bother us the rest of our lives?
He got caught up in the flattery of your flirts. He flirted and it never went farther than that.

YOU WON’T GET AN APOLOGY FROM HIM OR ME!!! GET OVER IT!!! You were just as guilty in all of it as he was. You were committing adultery in your heart! You were selfish and self-centered and went for a married man. You are a DESPERATE, low-life person!!!

You do not deserve the pity you are soliciting. You cheated on your own husband and now you tried to cheat with mine. You left your husband and children and moved in with a boyfriend. Your husband died and you moved back only to save your inheritance. Now, you play the poor innocent widow. It is all documented by the court records. You can’t fool me. You were not the dedicated, poor wife who lost her beloved husband! You are a whore! You are so selfish, you chose your boyfriend, not only over your dying husband, but over your own children!!! That is terrible. What kind of mother does that?  Not the kind of woman you led hubby to believe you were and not the kind of woman you want everyone to believe you are.

LEAVE US ALONE!!!   He is over you now, leave us alone!

FYI:

*60% married men cheat on their wives but do not want a divorce.
*78% of the men that do not cheat say they would if there was a guarantee they wouldn’t get caught.
*100% of married men that cheat tell their new girlfriends that they are unhappy in their marriage.
*99% of new girlfriends wouldn’t be new girlfriends if their married boyfriends said they had a great marriage and didn’t want a divorce.
*If a man is truly unhappy in marriage, he gets a divorce, not a girlfriend!
*100% men that cheat are liars. Being a cheater means you are not honest and in order to cheat, you have to lie.
*100% of single women know this unless they have lived in a cave all their lives, never watched TV, never watched a movie, read a book or talked to another human being in their life.—but they lie to themselves and pretend it isn’t so—because they are cheaters too.
*Women who cheat with the cheaters think that it is ok for their boyfriend to lie to the wives they have lived with and loved for many years but somehow are able to fool themselves into thinking the cheater will not lie to them.
He loved me for many, many years, yet, he still lied to me. He loved you for what? 10 seconds? Why did you think you were so special he would never lie to you? You both knew the risks of committing adultery in your hearts so, yes,  ‘shame on him’— but ‘SHAME ON YOU!’  God knows what YOU DID TOO!

The church is like some symbiotic relationship. We weave it into our brains as well as our hearts so that we think we can no longer live without it.

That is what makes it so hard to leave it.

The church has answers! I am not saying they are the right answers but they have fairly plausible answers to life’s toughest questions so it is appealing to our human souls.

Then the answers that are too hard, they have plausible excuses or catch-phrases to basically guilt you into to not asking those hard questions anymore… even to the point of threatening your eternal salvation if you think about something harder to explain than they have come up with.

“We don’t know that answer, or
God has chosen not to reveal that to us at this time,
(even though oursalvation hinges on that answer, he doesn’t want us to know), or
“Isn’t it wonderful to know that God is at the helm
and even though we don’t know that answer,
he does?”

Then, there is the whole…, criticism is the first step to apostasy. I guess they are right because when I criticized Joseph Smith for sleeping with married women, even though he preached the sanctity of eternal marriages, telling these women he was told by God that they should be HIS spiritual wives, but told them to stay married to their husbands, (what eternal marriages were their husbands to have?) and he excommunicated the men and women if the wife wouldn’t go along with it and she told her husband……   yes, I couldn’t reconcile that and look at me now. I am an apostate!

I criticized the local leaders when they tried to get my husband into their “club” and he told them he thought it was wrong. He said that being a leader meant holding yourself to an even higher standard and being the greater servant. It didn’t mean you had more privileges and that living the gospel no longer mattered. They systematically drove him out, started questioning him to members of the ward, criticize him, started piling on the callings to burn him out, called me into their offices on multiple occasions to”plant seeds of doubt” in my mind of his fidelity, his testimony, etc.

“Sister, we are worried about your hubby.
Do you know if there is anything amiss in his life?
Is it possible he might be having an affair?
Is it possible he might be attracted to men?
What do you think he has done to lead him down this path?”

First, I knew my hubby and flat out denied there could even the slightest possibility of anything like that. I didn’t see what they were doing at first. I actually believed they were concerned for his salvation. He wasn’t doing anything but trying to teach the gospel along with the principle of integrity to them and the ward.

I thought they cared about me and how I was feeling. I was feeling confused and left by the lord. I thought the lord had thrown me away and I hadn’t done anything to warrant such hard punishment. I’d go in thinking they would help me find answers but the entire interview ultimately turned into an interrogation about my hubby. (I felt even more abandoned).

Well, it is true, criticizing church leaders will lead to apostasy, that is why it is not tolerated in the church. It does not matter how heinous the crime a Bishop commits, molesting children, using his position to have affairs, or just setting yourself up to enjoy unrighteous privileges, it is a greater sin to say, “Hey, that isn’t right!” than the sin the Bishop (or any leader) is committing.

It is also a sin to ask for real truth as well. Do not “Google” Joseph smith and his “plural marriages” because you will find actual journal entries of women he seduced, –already married women, –pre-teen girls, etc.  You will find things that the church has taken great pains to hide from it’s members. They don’t have the ability to bully and brainwash the rest of the world but it’s members are strongly cautioned not to delve into information that would weaken their testimony…even if it is really true!  Every once in a while, something comes out in the media and the church scrambles to tell it’s members not to read it or listen because it will only plant seeds of doubt. Well, if it is true… why not just speak truth and let the people make up their own minds?

An institute class recently was studying the roots of the plural marriage issue in the church. One student researched farther. He found the truth about Joseph Smith’s actions regarding his “spiritual marriages” to women, regardless of their age and current marital status. He found info on how Joseph Smith told the School of Prophets how one man’s wife, in particular was very good in bed and he had a hard time staying away from her. One of the other men said he felt it was inappropriate to talk about such things in their meetings and he was excommunicated.

This institute student brought the info into class and the teacher couldn’t explain it so went to his leaders, was told to steer the students away from doing such research. The word spread higher and the whole class was called under condemnation was warned their memberships were in jeopardy… all for asking a few questions that went beyond what the church puts out in their manuals.

I am an apostate! I no longer believe it to be true. It may have some answers that can make you feel better about life’s journey, but the rest is oppressive and manipulative. It controls it’s members with fear, fear to leave but I have now found a better relationship with God, a relationship that is based on love and trust and faith, not fear. Finding  the strength,  finally overcoming the fear of distancing myself  and to walk away was the best thing I have ever done to bring me closer to God.

]]> http://78529x.wordpress.com/2011/06/23/thinking/feed/ 0 wearyart http://78529x.wordpress.com/2011/06/09/loss-of-innocence/ http://78529x.wordpress.com/2011/06/09/loss-of-innocence/#comments Thu, 09 Jun 2011 22:43:32 +0000 wearyart http://78529x.wordpress.com/?p=100 ]]> I’m struggling lately with having faith. I feel like I’ve lost my innocence in a way. I long for the days when I believed in God unquestionably, I believed in love, relationships…

That was shattered by the discovery that my hubby was having an emotional affair with another woman. It was a devastating road but I thought I had recovered only to find that he was still “window shopping” almost a year later. He was still saying he loved me and wanted to stay married to me, so I stayed and though he’s been the perfect citizen since, I find myself no longer able to give myself to him completely anymore. I just don’t trust him anymore. That is sad. I guess there is good reason not to trust him as he has proven he is just not trustworthy. It saddens me.

I miss that trust. I want it back but I don’t think it will ever be restored. Even if he proves himself perfectly trustworthy from this moment forward, I don’t think that trust in him or any other human being is possible for me.

I no longer believe anyone is reliable or has the capacity to put my interests above their own. I do that. I have done that for my parents, my children and I have done that for him. So, I think that is why this is such a devastating revelation for me. I miss the old me.

It seems lately though that I sense a negative undertone in the relationships around here. Hubby seems to be getting comfortable again with criticizing me, a lot. I can take criticism but he harps on things that I can’t seem to change, or I shouldn’t have to change. It is like he won’t be happy with me until I can read his mind. It is the same old things too since our marriage began. We’ve been married a long time, I’ve managed to get along doing things the best I can, no catastrophes, yet he still thinks I should do everything the way he would have done it and when he sees I didn’t, he gets mad and criticizes me.

There is more than one way to do many things and I’ve gotten along ok. So, since the world hasn’t come to an end, though he acts like it is just around the corner and it’s all my fault, I think there must be some passive-aggressive undertones here, meaning he is harboring deep resentment toward me and now that his ‘big mistake’ is long enough ago, it is all starting to rear it’s head again. I am torn here feeling like everything is headed back to where we started, where the seed for adultery was planted in the first place.

I have been evaluating what course of action I want to take. I just don’t think I can take going back to that again. I put up with it all these years because I loved him, because I was looking forward to eternal perfection and knew when perfected, he would be the only one I wanted to be with. I put up with it for the kids, because I looked for the good in him and tried to ignore the bad, because I tried to convince myself it was only a temporary glitch in the relationship…

Now, I see it isn’t temporary. It is there for real, it gradually got worse until he left me, albeit temporarily, for another woman and now it is coming back and I have to decide what I am going to do.

If I were younger, this would no longer be a decision for me. Been there! Done that! I would not stand for it. Being older is throwing a wrench in the works that makes me feel torn, trapped, hopeless and very sad.

If I had a job, if I could find a job- I’ve been looking but no one wants a worn out old woman like me. I don’t know what to do. I love him but I hate that he doesn’t love me. He  says he does but his actions are starting to suggest something else–again. If I had a job, I would tell him to go and find a way to be happy because he obviously isn’t with me.  I believe he would be gone a while but he would want me back eventually. I doubt I would take him back but I do think he would realize what a good wife I’ve been and how much and how unconditionally I have helped him, supported him and loved him.

I was very active and faithful at the time but I told her that was not true and we still had to use judgement. She argued with me and even tried to quote the same scriptures her teachers had given. I had to tell her about all the instances I had witnessed or knew someone that witnessed in my lifetime up to that point. She was still confused because “Her Seminary Teacher said it!” They are never wrong, right? I mentioned some of these point before but here are the details:

Speaking of Seminary teachers: What about the Seminary Teacher that was having sex with one of his students. He used his “celebrity status” to seduce her and lead her astray…

In one ward, the Bishop called a single mother with a very young daughter to clean the church.  I know the church has a property management company that does that but this poor mother apparently didn’t know or was so eager to strive for the Celestial Kingdom, so she came every week to clean. She asked what she should do with her daughter and the Bishop told her to bring her and have her sit in the chapel while she cleaned. Week after week, once the mother reached the other end of the building, the Bishop made his way into the chapel and molested the little girl. This went on for almost 2 years before the little girl started having terror fits about going to the church.

You can’t convince ME that mother was not led astray and you CAN”T tell me that little girl was not led astray and that she will not suffer the consequences of that her whole life.

Another ward: the Bishop and all his Boy Scout leaders seemed to go camping a lot. They were having orgies with the young boys. This went on for way too long and several of those boys ended up being gay.

You can’t tell me those boys were not led astray. Were the leaders led astray by their bishop who apparently told them it was ok?

One man was an adulterer. In the midst of his adulterous activities, he was called to be a bishop. He accepted, …callings are revelation, right? He continued his adultery. He got caught. When asked how he could do that, he answered, “I was already doing it when God called me to be a bishop. I thought that was a sign it was all right.”

I personally went in for my first temple recommend interview after marriage. (a year later)
My bishop asked me the usual questions then he asked if my hubby and I engaged in unusual sexual practices. I was so naive, I had to ask what he meant. He promptly and eagerly explained oral sex to me….then asked me again if I engaged in such a practice. Of course, if I don’t even know what it is, how could I be doing it??? I said “no” again. He asked me about 3 more times, making me very uncomfortable. He wouldn’t let it go and I couldn’t figure why he couldn’t seem to take no for an answer!!!

A few years later, I heard he was having sex with women in the ward. I am convinced he was feeling me out to see if I was game for his games. Luckily, I was naive.  I walked out of there thinking that any sex other than missionary style was grounds for not being worthy of going to the temple. I walked out of the next 5 temple recommend interviews wondering why I didn’t get asked about my marital sexual practices again. (That was about when I heard the news about this man)

CHURCH LEADERS CAN AND DO LEAD THE MEMBERS ASTRAY!!!

You must use your own judgement. Remember it was Satan’s plan to make us blind followers so we could be returned to our God without having to think for ourselves.

After writing the last post on this subject, there was an article in the Salt Lake Trib. I found it interesting. I can’t remember the proper way to not infringe on copyright so I will just post the link to the story. It is pretty good and it goes with what I am talking about. (better than the way I tend to go off on tangents and lose the point I am trying to make).

Click here for story on Infallible Church Leaders…

The first part of this “claim” is true.  The LDS people have endured horrendous persecutions, loss of property, rape, and murder because of their beliefs so this article of faith is supposed to be saying,

“We let you believe what you want, please allow us the same privilege.

But, unfortunately, at least here in Utah, the LDS people are the most intolerant people of anyone that doesn’t subscribe to the “culture”.

Our culture is ultra intolerant of any belief or anyone that does not live up to what “I” am doing. There is much too much elitism in the culture to allow this article of faith to be true. There is so much intolerance. Everyone runs around feeling like God loves ME so much, that is why I am so blessed. If only everyone could live their life like ME…

At the same time, there is a fear that we don’t measure up. It is hard to explain or understand how there can be such extreme, conflicting feelings. We feel like we are so blessed but at the same time, there is so much fear we won’t “make it” to the Celestial Kingdom. There is no doubt with most of us that God loves us, simply because we have the gospel and d we hear in church how we are the only ones in the world that are truly happy because we are the only ones that have the only true gospel. (It’s true, we believe the rest of the world is running around in a depressive fog waiting for us to bring them the word, even though Utah has the BIGGEST use of prescriptive anti-DEPRESSANT drug use in the world! As well as prescription drug abuse)

The church claims to be the ONLY true church and therefore, how much God must love ME because I am one of the few Mormons in the world. Yet, being blessed to be a part of the only true church brings a heavy burden. So, on one hand, we can feel so blessed and loved that God wanted ME, loved ME so much, he “led” me to his truth and then there is the pressure to run faster than you are able.

Intolerance: The state recently decided to close about 13 of it’s state run/state guarded/church-goer legislators restricted liquor stores.

They said they needed to trim 2.5 million out the budget.

5 of the closing stores earn the state on average, 1 million each. That is a 5 million dollar loss of state revenue so they can save 2.5 million.
(One report claims the stores earn the state 18.4 million dollars each year but it is not clear whether this is from the 5 largest stores set to close, or all 13).

A normal, non-mormon person would say, “that doesn’t make sense” but the “We claim the privilege” people saw their chance to eliminate a thorn in their side. They don’t drink, therefore they have always and continue to make it as hard as possible for anyone else to. Now, Utah County will have 2 stores. Not in either of the 2 biggest cities in the county.

Out of state visitors will think Utah County is a dry county. What tourist comes to Springville and Pleasant Grove????? What tourist is going to be able to find a liquor store?

Visitors already fear coming to Utah; they are already under the impression you can’t get a drink here. The state pours so much money into attracting tourism and commerce to this state, then they go and do something this stupid.

There is no logical reason for this decision, “lets cut off the states ability to earn OVER 5 – 18 million dollars so we can save ourselves 2.5.”

No logical reason except that Mormons are intolerant of other’s beliefs and practices. The whole world drinks but in Utah, by golly, you will see how great being dry can be, just like us, and then, you’ll get baptized!

Is the Atonement for the sinners or only for those that achieve perfection?

On one hand, they say you are not required to run faster than you are able, yet, at one time, I had 4 callings. I was the genealogy specialist, Homemaking leader, and Blazer teacher/leader at the time they called me in to ask me to be the nursery leader as well.

I asked how I could be the nursery leader and the Blazer teacher/leader at the same time since that would mean being in two places at once on Sunday??? They actually tried to convince me I could do it so I said yes and ended up  not doing either calling very well which caused me great stress and woes about the eternal consequences of my failure.  (I was also pregnant at the time.)

They say that having a family is the most important calling you can have, but they call young mothers to be in the YW organization which takes them away from their families at least one weeknight every week and occasionally other nights. Add girl’s camp for a whole week plus all the extra girl’s camp meetings, YW conferences, Youth Leadership mtgs, Youth Conference, etc.

Then the Relief Society decides to change nights with the other ward so the YW leaders can come to Enrichment mtgs because they are part of RS too and we don’t want to leave them out. That means a YW leader has YW on Tues night and Enrichment on Wed night, then camp mtg on Thurs. …and somehow, she needs to make sure her family knows she is there for them because, after all, her family is the most important calling she has…

When she feels worn out and discouraged because she can’t juggle all this perfectly, if she feels like she is being expected to run faster than she is able???    NO, she should be able to run fast enough, and therefore, she probably is not going to make it into the Celestial Kingdom unless she tries harder!!!

Where is the Atonement in all of this?

Just how perfect does the church say you need to be for the atonement to make up the difference?

Does the Atonement apply to all sin? or just a few sins? Do we only get to pick one sin that can apply so we are responsible to overcome the rest? Maybe 2 sins? 3?

I ask again: Is the Atonement for the sinners or only for those that achieve perfection?

“Revelation is communication from God to His children. This guidance comes through various channels according to the needs and circumstances of individuals, families, and the Church as a whole. When the Lord reveals His will to the Church, He speaks through His prophet. Prophets are the only people who can receive revelation for the Church, but they are not the only people who can receive revelation. According to our faithfulness, we can receive revelation to help us with our specific personal needs, responsibilities, and questions and to help us strengthen our testimony.”

Revelation example: God doesn’t want women to have more than 1 piercing so all you women that already had 2 in your ears prior to this revelation are sinners or the Book of Mormon which is the most accurately translated scripture, should no longer say the Lamanites are a dark and loathsome people…

However, when ever they are wrong somehow, Mountain Meadow Massacre, Mark Hoffman, Calling a man to be a bishop while he is in the middle of an adulterous affair, or when a bishop is molesting all the teen girls in the ward, or a ring of boy scout leaders are forcing all the boy scouts to give them blow jobs,

Somehow, the Prophet and Apostles don’t know about it. So God cares more about how many holes someone has in their ears or the wording in the scriptures than he does about people getting murdered, led astray or abused so their whole lives are destined to pain and affliction.

When someone does dare to ask about these contradictions, they are told, “They are just men and are not perfect because if they were perfect, they would be translated.”

So are they prophets? or just men?

I think this is a tool to manipulate it’s member;. use fear to manipulate and control.

Tell them that asking questions even when the obvious is staring you in the face is the
fastest way to lose all your eternal glory.

No one will dare contemplate the contradictions, let alone confront you on them, and you can continue to perpetuate the lies.

I knew that my current family wasn’t living the way I KNEW a Celestial family should and after years of crying myself to sleep about it and a little maturity later, I decided, that I had to accept that I couldn’t have them in eternity, Not that I didn’t WANT them, but that chances were, they were never going to change and therefore I was going to be in the Celestial Kingdom alone… then I was old enough to understand that I could make sure my NEW/OWN family was going to be there.

I had goals and a strategy that was not going to compromise. I could have married several times but I ended those relationships based upon my perception of that partner’s righteousness or ability to get us to the Celestial Kingdom as a unit. I found the man that I believed would get us there and did not regret or doubt that for 20 years.

Then, it all fell apart. He just stopped. He was not honest with me about what was going on with him so I wasn’t sure and held on to hope that he would “come back”.  If I had known in the beginning, I would have divorce him, I am sure of it. IT would not fit into my tight little box of what I wanted and that was still… to make it to the Celestial Kingdom.

Years of torture, prayer, fasting, scripture reading, temple going, prayer, crying, temple going, scripture reading, prayer, pleading…faith, hope, hopelessness, begging God…

I was able to see more as time went on how far from the church my husband had gotten. Then my own panic attacks about going to church. I was holding on but was starting to have physical reactions to the trying.

Now:

I don’t believe the church is true.
I don’t believe in any organized religion.
I believe in God but I no longer presume to know him or his nature.
I do not believe there are as many sins as I once thought.
I do believe that God knows we are all just doing our best.
I do believe that the worse sin is to hurt another by our actions whether intentional or not.

I believe the church is full of contradictions and they use both sides of an argument, whichever suits the situation.