Hey everyone, I'm hurting and looking for real advice from people who’ve been through this.
I’m a lifelong member of the LDS Church: served a mission, married in the temple, graduated from BYU, the whole thing. My wife served a mission, and both our fathers were either bishops or counselors in the bishopric and all of both of our brothers and sisters have served or are serving missions. Over the past year, I’ve been digging deeper into church history and doctrine, especially around polygamy and early church events, and I’ve become disturbed to the point where I just don’t feel like I can say I believe JS was a prophet anymore.
My wife is still fully believing and active. She’s a great person, a great mom and I genuinely want to protect our marriage and family more than anything. We have young kids, and that raises a lot of the hard questions I’m struggling with right now.
This last week was tough as I broke the news to my wife, my parents and her parents. It wasn't s huge surprise to my wife as I have discussed church history items that troubled me for years with her. My wife was so understanding and told me she was going to "keep doing me" and will always be in the church. No issue with that at all and I'll be there for at least sacrament with her every week which she is on board with. Telling both sets of parents though was tough as they were kind of blind-sided by the news. Sadly, I got a cold response from my mom of "well I'm sorry you feel that way" (not super close with my mom anyway but it still stung) and a "you need to get on your knees and pray like you've never prayed before" (that hurt because I've been doing that for 4 years now) from my father-in-law.
Here are some of the main things weighing on me:
- I don’t feel right continuing to fully participate in the church in the same way (tithing, garments, etc.)
- I don’t feel comfortable continuing to participate blessings, baptisms and anything involving the Priesthood that JS said he restored.
- I don’t want to create confusion or hurt for my wife, but I also can't look my little boys in the eyes and say I believe JS was a prophet with all the polygamy and controversial church history.
- I’m worried how to navigate raising my boys with the questions they will undoubtably have about church history and I'm not sure I could honestly say I want them to go on missions.
- I am saddened about the judgment I will receive not going into the temple for sealings, endowments, etc.
- I'm not looking forward to my father/father-in-law doing baby blessings, baptizing and passing down the priesthood to my boys and I fear that somehow that will hurt my boys' view of me as their dad
- I still value a lot of the good (family, morals, structure) aspects of the LDS faith, but I don’t feel aligned with the truth claims anymore.
What I do know:
I love my wife and want to stay married. I want a peaceful, stable home for our kids. I’m not trying to tear anything down... I’m just trying to be honest about where I’m at.
For those of you in mixed-faith marriages (especially LDS-related):
- What actually helped your marriage survive and even thrive?
- What mistakes should I avoid early on?
- How did you handle things like church participation and kids’ involvement?
- How do you balance honesty with not overwhelming or hurting your spouse?
- How did you handle the pain of not being able to participate in the baby blessing, baptisms, etc.? How did you handle the feelings of being judged?
I have OT issues as well, but I do like how Jesus tells people to live in the NT and if I can teach anything to my kids, it would be just the simple things he taught, and nothing more to avoid confusion.
I’m open to hard truths here. I know this won't be easy, and I’m not expecting a perfect solution. I just want to approach this in a way that gives my marriage the best chance possible so we can have a happy family and raise our boys into good men.
Thanks in advance.