"i Was A Good Mormon Wife ...until My Husband Stopped Believing In God"

[MrsRoper]

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/michael_moore/weak.html

 

Thanks, I am reading it today.

[Akheia]

Fascinating look at the collision that is occurring between modern concepts of marriage and ancient partriarchal ideals of it. I'd always thought something was *seriously* wrong with how Christian marriage works, but this essay really crystallized a lot of my uspoken thoughts on the subject.

[ToonForever]

How cool that she put her marriage ahead of her nonsense religion in the end. That's the same sort of journey my wife and I had. She deconverted 7-8 years before I did. I walked a similar path. With all that nonsense out of the way, my wife and I have a better marriage than we have ever had. Our 24th anniversary is coming up this month

[asanerman]

How cool that she put her marriage ahead of her nonsense religion in the end. That's the same sort of journey my wife and I had. She deconverted 7-8 years before I did. I walked a similar path. With all that nonsense out of the way, my wife and I have a better marriage than we have ever had. Our 24th anniversary is coming up this month

 

Happy 24th, TF!

[blackpudd1n]

That diagram sounds absolutely insane. I cannot even imagine who thought that was anything like accurate. If Christian marriages actually held together better than non-Christian ones, they might have a point. But we know otherwise. You know, now that I think of it, you could put ANYTHING in the middle of that sort of thing. Any hobby that both partners enjoy could bind them. People put kids there, God, political activism, WoW, food, sex, drugs, you name it, and as long as that thing is there binding them, all is well. But when that thing is moved around, or one partner loses a bit of interest in it, it can be hard to keep that bond there.

 

That is so true, Akheia. My parents don't have common interests- mum sews, and dad rides. And they've been married happily for 35-odd years.

 

I'm glad I've had them as an example the last few years, because my fiancee and I really don't have anything much in common as far as interests go. We don't like the same movies. I read, he doesn't. He's a gamer, I'm not. I like to write, he prefers to draw. I talk a lot, while he's more quiet. I'm more extroverted, he's more introverted.

 

As a result, things like going to the movies, hiring a DVD, even picking somewhere to eat at can be major dramas. I guess we're both kind of independent people, though, and that's why it works- having space suits us. I think we're more of a personality match than an interest match. We love anything lame- we laugh at lame jokes and bad puns, and anything excessively corny. We have very odd senses of humour.

[Akheia]

Exactly! If you don't have a common binding obsession, then you had better have converging or at least complementary personalities to hold things together. My own folks had that problem--they were both into fitness and biking and stuff, but when Mom got cancer and couldn't do all that anymore, I'm afraid Dad was exactly the kind of dickwidget who rapidly lost interest and found himself sugar babies to ease his loneliness. And no, my dad isn't John Edwards

 

I guess the problem for religious nuts is when they don't really have their own personalities and are really just this RELIGIOUS FUNDIE NUT overlay on top of their buried psyches. I genuinely believed that God picked our mates for us, and it was on us to adjust to that person as best we could, like Elfquest elves "Recognizing" each other. I believed that if those two people were meant to be together by God, then they'd learn to love each other, and you could literally "learn" to passionately love someone. It HAD to be possible, or else why would God put those people together? And too, I didn't believe that passionate love was even truly necessary to have a happy marriage. My church taught that this passion was an illusion, and "comfortable companionship" was the real key to a happy marriage.

 

Funny how I look back at that and I'm just floored by how misogynistic and cruel the entire mindset is toward women especially. Men weren't the ones being encouraged to think this way, only women. Women were the ones who had to fit themselves to their husbands, not the other way around, EVER! Grr!

 

So when the blinders are ripped off of one spouse, and suddenly there's a real person there and not just a RELIGIOUS FUNDIE NUT overlay, suddenly things get really complicated with regards to the blinded spouse. Suddenly that spouse is floundering, suddenly unable to connect the same way, to even perceive reality in the same way, and if they are to survive, there has to be a new connection forged. It makes me so happy and so hopeful to see the number of ex-Cer's spouses mentioned in our forum who are able to struggle past their overlay and toward a new, authentic way of connecting on a real human level with their mates. There is always hope.

[ToonForever]

How cool that she put her marriage ahead of her nonsense religion in the end. That's the same sort of journey my wife and I had. She deconverted 7-8 years before I did. I walked a similar path. With all that nonsense out of the way, my wife and I have a better marriage than we have ever had. Our 24th anniversary is coming up this month

 

Happy 24th, TF!

 

Thanks!

[atkegar]

What I find interesting about the "whoas" of the author of the item in the link of the OP, is that it was money first, time second, and "forbidden beverages" third. I wonder if that is how most folks think.

[Akheia]

And Victoria's Secret lingerie. Apparently that was a real eye-opener for her too.