Unequally yoked and angry

[Mothernature]

How do you continue to love your spouse when they have turned your life upside down and when their beliefs put your kids at risk? I am so full of anger and can't seem to get past it. My husband is good with the kids and is trying to still be caring and loving to me but he repulses me now with his fundamental beliefs. I don't want to talk to him, I don't want to do activities with him, I don't want to be associated with him. All I can focus on are the negatives. Many of you seem to be understanding of your spouses, but how do you get to that point? How do you get past the anger?! How do you deal with the daily "praise Jesus" comments when the kids are around? How do you deal with the "stop eating. Did you say the blessing first?" Or the comments of "isn't God great" or the references to Bible stories when you know they are just stories but he is teaching the kids that they are more than that? I feel like I want to explode in anger.

[Mothernature]

Yoked not yolked but I'm not sure how to edit the post!

[Geezer]

If you can look at this problem from his perspective, he probably thinks you've lost your mind or the Devil has taken control of your body. He's pushing back. You both believe your children are at risk but for different reasons. Unfortunately this issue could destroy your marriage.

 

Fundamentalists are deeply, deeply, brainwashed. He is simply incapable of thinking logically or rationally. I watched a video yesterday by Alan Watts on YouTube. The title was "Why don't facts matter?"  The problem is cognitive dissonance & information bias. It is enormously difficult for humans to change their world view. 

 

Your husbands world view view is all about God & Jesus he is not able to think outside that box and he may never be able to. At the least you will need some professional counseling, but that doesn't always work. I've come to the conclusion that religious fundamentalism is a form of mental illness, and there may not be a cure for it. This unequally yoked business can be quite serious when your mate is a fundamentalist because compromise will be difficult & maybe impossible. 

 

 

[Tsathoggua9]

24 minutes ago, Geezer said:

If you can look at this problem from his perspective, he probably thinks you've lost your mind or the Devil has taken control of your body. He's pushing back. You both believe your children are at risk but for different reasons. Unfortunately this issue could destroy your marriage.

 

Fundamentalists are deeply, deeply, brainwashed. He is simply incapable of thinking logically or rationally. I watched a video yesterday by Alan Watts on YouTube. The title was "Why don't facts matter?"  The problem is cognitive dissonance & information bias. It is enormously difficult for humans to change their world view. 

 

Your husbands world view view is all about God & Jesus he is not able to think outside that box and he may never be able to. At the least you will need some professional counseling, but that doesn't always work. I've come to the conclusion that religious fundamentalism is a form of mental illness, and there may not be a cure for it. This unequally yoked business can be quite serious when your mate is a fundamentalist because compromise will be difficult & maybe impossible. 

 

 

 

 

"If you can look at this problem from his perspective, he probably thinks you've lost your mind or the Devil has taken control of your body."

 

Wow, that's a very good point! I think that I get that same vibe from some relatives at times, even though we mostly get along fine. For them, apostasy would really seem like a form of insanity.  (As in, "You would have ta be completely nuts ta leave 'The One True Church'. ")  Hit the nail right on the head, ya did!  

[MOHO]

I feel your pain, @Mothernature. I truly due.

 

Anger, frustration, and sadness. Oh, the sadness.

 

When I met Mrs. MOHO 21 years ago I had given up the quest for a "soulmate" but had found the closest thing anyone could hope for. Yes, she was an xtian at the time and I was kinda on the fence. Her church was very laid back (they ware JEANS to church! ) (Sidebar warning) The jeans thing does not sound like much but, for a lad who grew up in the Mormon shit where you had to always be in dress slacks, dress shirt, tie, and sometimes jacket, this Was a very big deal indeed!

 

Beyond Sundays there was no mention of church, god, Jesus, the Bible etc. I'm thinking "I can handle this!"

 

Fast forward to 12 years ago and we find ourselves in Douglas County Oregon with it's ultra conservative, small town (many aspects of which are cool) attitude, very minimal emphasis on education, and a church on every corner. Yes. The PERFECT storm for the incubation and proliferation of fundydom!

 

"What the hell does THIS have to do with this thread?"

I know. Hang on.

 

Almost immediately Mrs MOHO's adult son from a previous marriage decides he likes the place, moves here and finds a Calvary associated church the - SAME WEEK! Talk about priorities. And this is where the Great Mind Fuck, as I call it, begins in earnest.

 

First year goes almost without notice. Second year we (mostly she) begins making friends at the new church and step son finds his brother-by-another-mother there as well. At this point Mrs. MOHO buys a few jesus-freak CD's and quips "Doesn't listening to these just make you feel so warm and toasty inside?!"        "Not so much. "

 

As with some of you a few years of the indoctrination takes it's toll and I asked Jesus into my life. Only I'm never really on fire for this crap and, in the Summer of '14 verbalize what is already known. I'm pretty much an atheist. And things deteriorate on the home front. So much so that after a year of it,  I re-proclaim my faith and begin to try to self-indoctrinate. This has phenomenal success...for about 20 minutes. A year later I stated, again, that I am an atheist.

 

Mrs. MOHO, however, is going completely int he opposite direction! "Praise god" ends each and every FUCKING sentence. "I prayed for a parking place today and god provided. See, honey, god REALLY does LOVE us and this is absolute PROOOOOOOOOF!"

 

"Fuck that" "It's NOT proof of anything except that you are an indoctrinated psychotic who has legal control of half my stuff.

 

Now we have church on Sunday ( I go about 1/2 the time and am about to stop altogether), bable study on Wednesday night (I NEVER go),  downtown street ministering (hoping that the shitheads who make our community a living cesspool will come to church) , and associating ONLY with self-righteous, pious, incessant, indoctrinated, psychotic Jesus-freak  shitbags.

 

Sorry! I know all of us were once that.

 

So, my point is, over the past 12 years I have watched the most important person in my life get taken away from me by a fucked up cult interested only money. I have every god-dammed right to be angry - as do you, @Mothernature as do all the rest of the members of the Unequally Yoked Club.

 

Trying to accept it and live with it and play it down and endure the lonely nights without her (only person in my immediate family) and the few thousand $$ per year that I had earmarked for savings and having to be cautious of who is in the house so I don't have too much wine and start dropping S-bombs, has left me only more anger and frustration.

 

Religions are like viruses that, left untreated and uninoculated do NOT get better. Trust me!

 

[buffettphan]

17 hours ago, Mothernature said:

Yoked not yolked but I'm not sure how to edit the post!

 

 

Welcome Mothernature,   As a fellow member of the Unequally Yoked Club, I also feel your pain.   When DFH (DearFundyHubby) and I first met, we were both ex-catholics and agnostic-atheists.  After being married for a dozen years and 2 kids later, a co-worker of DFH managed to convert brainwash hubby into funnymentalism.   For me, dealing with it was almost identical to the 7 stages of grief.   I was in the anger stage for quite a while, but overall now, I just shake my head and laugh at the insantiy of his religious beliefs.  Other than his insane religion, he is a good man.

 

(I fixed the title for you.  You'll be able to edit once your status changes from New Member to Regular Member, which will happen after you make approximately 25 posts.)

[Mothernature]

14 hours ago, Burnedout said:

Take some time to take a deep breath.  That can take a few months, maybe a year or so and do some reading, some contemplating.  Allow yourself to mentally calm yourself.  You have been through a rough time.  IF and ONLY IF you cannot reconcile your life with him, then start contemplating and planning a way with tangible efforts to divorce, but if you do, take the situation with the children into consideration, it won't just affect you.  

Thanks. I've been thinking about it every night and reading all i can for about a year now and just want to be at peace with my life again. I can't contemplate divorce yet. Of course I will always do what's best for them! The kids are too young to understand and I couldn't bear the thought of not being with them (ie. Visits with their Dad). We were Catholic when we married and so I am using that to keep them out of the Pentecostal church that my husband would rather go to. I think it is the lesser of the two evils and can only imagine it would get worse if he took them to that church when I wasn't there. At least this way I have some control over what they are exposed to at church. I feel like there may be some hope to reconcile in the future I just feel too upset and angry to consider it now and am not sure how to get past that.

[Mothernature]

13 hours ago, Geezer said:

If you can look at this problem from his perspective, he probably thinks you've lost your mind or the Devil has taken control of your body. He's pushing back. You both believe your children are at risk but for different reasons. Unfortunately this issue could destroy your marriage.

 

Yes that is a good point! I have not come out as an ex-christian yet though. He knows that I do not agree with his beliefs and that I have become distant but I doubt that he thinks this could ever happen (leaving the fold). I feel like it has already ruined our marriage but of course b/c he has God everything is still perfect! (That's my sarcastic voice talking).

[Mothernature]

@MOHO Thanks for sharing your story. I'm very sorry for what you have gone through and are still enduring. Although not a pleasant situation, it's nice to know we are not alone. If I might ask though, how and why do you endure the relationship?

I had to laugh when you mentioned the clothes! My husband dresses like a preacher for church and I just shake my head. Others wear jeans and shorts but not him.

We too would go to church on weekends and that was about it until he claimed to have been hit by the holy spirit and wanted to be a radical follower of Jesus and that is when it all went down hill.

Anyway, I feel your anger and am glad I am not the only one. I hope we can get out of this stage though as it is not in my personality at all. I feel like my husband has completely changed who I am and that makes me even more upset! Arg.

 

[Mothernature]

6 hours ago, buffettphan said:

 

 

Welcome Mothernature,   As a fellow member of the Unequally Yoked Club, I also feel your pain.   When DFH (DearFundyHubby) and I first met, we were both ex-catholics and agnostic-atheists.  After being married for a dozen years and 2 kids later, a co-worker of DFH managed to convert brainwash hubby into funnymentalism.   For me, dealing with it was almost identical to the 7 stages of grief.   I was in the anger stage for quite a while, but overall now, I just shake my head and laugh at the insantiy of his religious beliefs.  Other than his insane religion, he is a good man.

 

(I fixed the title for you.  You'll be able to edit once your status changes from New Member to Regular Member, which will happen after you make approximately 25 posts.)

Thanks for the edit! Glad to hear you made it through and can now laugh about his views. How did you do it? Did your DFH Take the kids to church or were you able stop him? How did their beliefs turn out? When your DFH Would say things to the kids would you laugh or ignore it or something else?

I do feel like I've been grieving. I've been sad about losing my relationship, my peaceful calm nature and my marriage. I feel like I'm grieving for my kids b/c we cannot be the role models I had planned on being for them. I tried to fake it for awhile but now when I leave for work I hug and kiss my kids goodbye and say I love you to them, but I just say goodbye to my husband. This makes me so sad and then I get upset again b/c he has caused all this loss. It's like a vicious cycle. How long did it take you to be ok with your hubby?

[buffettphan]

12 hours ago, Mothernature said:

Thanks for the edit! Glad to hear you made it through and can now laugh about his views. How did you do it? Did your DFH Take the kids to church or were you able stop him? How did their beliefs turn out? When your DFH Would say things to the kids would you laugh or ignore it or something else?

I do feel like I've been grieving. I've been sad about losing my relationship, my peaceful calm nature and my marriage. I feel like I'm grieving for my kids b/c we cannot be the role models I had planned on being for them. I tried to fake it for awhile but now when I leave for work I hug and kiss my kids goodbye and say I love you to them, but I just say goodbye to my husband. This makes me so sad and then I get upset again b/c he has caused all this loss. It's like a vicious cycle. How long did it take you to be ok with your hubby?

 

 

MOST of the time I can laugh, but trust me, there are still days I'd like to "knock some sense into him" and wake him up.        If he deconverted, I would be ecstatically thankful.   But I have given up hope of that ever happening and that is what probably has given me the most peace and allowed me to move on.  I had to admit to myself that I lost my best friend.  I really don't know how long it took because it was such a gradual process.   How did I do it?  All this happened before the internet, so the library became my best friend.  I also wanted to be sure that I wasn't wrong in my unbelief, so I read the bible -- thoroughly and objectively.   I also went to church with him for a while.  During the first Easter service after his brainwashing, all the kids were asked to raise their hands if they got an Easter basket that morning.  Then the lecture began about how satanic and evil those baskets were...blah blah blah.  I'll leave out the gory details, but needless to say the kids were upset and I was livid.  I told DFH that the kids and I were never going back.  He didn't argue, so deep down I think he knew how eff'ed up that church was, but he kept going.   I think that was the point that my grief process started because I realized that his number one priority became what I now refer to as his "jesus shit."   For example, If  something "jesus-shit" related came up at the same time as one of our kid's games, DFH went to the "jesus-shit" event.  If our anniversary happened to be in conflict with a church event, he attended the church event.   DFH went through a stage that everything not-jesusy was evil.  So we stopped going to movies, concerts, etc.   Fun, in general, was evil.   So I learned how to find my own fun and joy.   While he has mellowed out some, his number one priority remains his "jesus shit" even though he says family is important.  (Just not important enough,  I guess.)   

 

My kids are are 38 and 40 now.  My oldest one is atheist.  He and his wife have similar beliefs and values.  Their kids are happy and well-adjusted.  My daughter and her husband unfortunately became born-againers several years ago and are now southern baptists, dragging their kids through it too.  Their kids, while overall happy, have a lot of hangups,  judgmental opinions, and negativity that are a direct result of their religion.  IMO.   The irony is that DFH really enjoys spending time with our son and his family.  He remarks how happy the grandkids are, what good parents our kids are.   He admits that spending time with our daughter and her family is not nearly as pleasant.  He sees that her kids are not as open and friendly as our other grandkids.  But he doesn't see (or admit) the religion connection.  It's just like when christians complain about the beliefs and practices of other religions, but don't see the same things in their own.   

 

Ex-C and the people here have been a huge help for me.  I've vented and raged on a number of occasions over the past ten years and doubted my own sanity from time to time.   This place is full of good, helpful, caring people.   So feel free to vent, rage, learn, laugh, and cry with us.  Glad you're here!