Explaining the Importance of Marriage and Family

The last two Sundays, I substitute taught the 12-13 year old Sunday School class. These are the same children I taught a couple of years ago. Perhaps because the universe (or God) has a sense of humor, this time around I taught preparing to receive temple ordinances, and how to explain the importance of marriage and family to others.

The temple has been very rough for me since my divorce. It used to be the only place I felt at home, but having lost some of the covenants I made is especially painful when I attend the temple. Maybe it's ironic, having a divorced woman—and one who chose to file, no less—teach preparation for the temple and the importance of marriage and family. After all, from the outside, it could easily be said that I did not honor my covenants in the temple, and that I obviously don't value marriage or family all that much, since I gave them up. In many ways, it was a little humiliating to stand before these twelve- and thirteen-year-old boys and girls, as yet largely untouched by the pain of sacrifice and loss, and try to teach them something for which I'm a very shaky example.

Damaged Goods

Elizabeth Smart recently commented on the evil of teaching people that their worth is tied up in their sexual inexperience. I agree wholeheartedly with her. Of course, "teh interwebs" has glommed onto her words and twisted them to attack the Church. Which is all really quite boring to me, same story different details. Except for one thing.

I have been a victim, too.

I have written before why I stayed in my marriage. When I was married, I felt like the least wind could shatter me. I was constantly worried about what I said and did. I would hang up with friends and family as soon as my husband was due home because I wanted him to feel my love and attention. I would do activities only after they had been suggested by my spouse, because I wanted to be available for him. I endured two years of torture because I wanted him to be satisfied and pleased. I watched our money drain out like water through a sieve, and felt guilty that I wasted money if I bought something for the house. I went to counseling in hopes that I could be fixed so that the "communication issues" in my marriage could be resolved. But nothing I did made him feel loved. No changes I made helped me communicate with him. Things only got worse the more I tried. Eventually, the marriage deteriorated. I ended it only at the strong promptings and counsel of the Lord, and to protect my ex-husband and my children.

The news can give people a wrong idea about domestic violence. Only the most egregious and horrifying stories hit the news. But once someone has been injured or killed, the entirety of the work of abuse has already been wrought. Abuse isn't first about being hurt. If it was, anyone would get out. But abuse is first about duty, love, obligation, about feeling like if only you worked a little harder, did a little better, things would change. It is an emotional landscape which is carefully terraformed by the abuser. And it works best on loving people who try to be selfless.

For this reason, I keep chewing over the discussion surrounding Elizabeth's comments. You see, I believe that I'm damaged goods, too. It's not something that counseling can help me with. Because it isn't in my mind or reason. It's in my heart and experience. They are a lot harder to convince. Especially after I've tried to convince myself time and time again, only to fail.

Chicken Politics

"For the terrible one is brought to nought, and the scorner is consumed, and all that watch for iniquity are cut off: that make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, and turn aside the just for a thing of nought.

"Therefore thus saith the Lord, who redeemed Abraham, concerning the house of Jacob, Jacob shall not now be ashamed, neither shall his face now wax pale. But when he seeth his children, the work of mine hands, in the midst of him, they shall sanctify my name, and sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall fear the God of Israel.

"They also that erred in spirit shall come to understanding, and they that murmured shall learn doctrine."

—Isaiah 29:20-24

I don't like politics. And this recent embarrassment surrounding Chick-fil-A demonstrates exactly why.

In case someone reading this doesn't know, my understanding is that basically the CEO of Chick-fil-A, Dan Cathy, was interviewed by Baptist Press, and "came out" in support of preserving one-man-and-one-woman marriage law. Those who support changing the law to include same-sex couples decided to boycott Chick-fil-A. So, those who side with keeping the law as-is decided to turn out en masse to buy chicken sandwiches.

Whereupon, people supporting same-sex marriage have decided to criticize the event, and pull out the usual name-calling of bigotry, hatred, callousness, etc.

And I think that both sides should be embarrassed.

Rights vs. Responsibilities

This is an amazing post on entitlement that deserves some discussion.

He addresses it in a business sense, but in what sense could it be applied to our relationship with the Lord? With our families?

Young Women's Values—Choice & Accountability

One of the most essential doctrines of the LDS Church is that of agency. We believe that we chose to come here to earth, and that we have full ability to choose whether or not and to what extent we will follow God. I used to think that the choice part of the equation was good, and the accountability not so much.

A prevailing opinion seems to be developing that we, as humans, deserve choice without accountability. I believe that this is one of Satan's most powerful mockeries of the eternal principle. Being able to choose and taking responsibility for the effects of our choices—good and bad—are two sides of the same coin. You can't lose one without losing the other. This has been a painful lesson for me, as I have had to learn to stop taking responsibility for things I did not choose, at the same time that I learned to take responsibility for the things that were my choice. However, as I've come to understand agency better, I have also come to see that taking responsibility is just as liberating as choosing.

It took an indescribable amount of soul-searching to come to the decision to divorce. And a great deal of pain came to me and to others for that decision. Yet, as I exercised my ability to choose, I also came to accept the responsibility for the effects of that choice. If I had not realized that the good effects of my choice far outweighed the bad, it would have been impossible to make. Yet, I sacrificed others' good opinions of me, my good opinion of myself, my personal comfort and feelings of safety, and in some measure, my daughters' comfort and safety, so that I could protect myself and my children in the long run. And, unexpectedly, my good opinion of myself as a daughter of God has returned tenfold. My children are happier and I am far happier than would have been possible had I not trusted the promptings of the Spirit to make that hard choice.

And I know that I am right in the sight of God, and that is priceless.

When we use our own judgment and the input of others to make our own decisions, and when we own the effects (foreseen and unforeseen) of those choices, we become a little more like God.

This also applies to conference talks and other things that are sometimes taught in the Church. LDS doctrine makes it very clear, for example, that divorce is not the ideal. Yet, because of the power and love of God, I was able to hear the Spirit and know when it was time to make the exception in my life. Though it was painful, it was empowering. And it has helped me believe even more strongly in the doctrines of the Church. I believe in eternal marriage and marital fidelity even more than I did before, and now I believe with a full heart and clearer vision of what marriage should be.

As we come to accept the doctrine of agency, and learn to choose wisely and take responsibility for the choices we make, we progress even closer to God and to understanding His doctrines.

Conditional Love

A discussion over on FMH really got me thinking about some of the choices I've made in the last decade, as well as how relationships and love work. They began talking about unconditional love in conjunction with some discussion on marriage and divorce. Some thoughts came to me which I felt were worth reproducing here.

Everyone’s love is conditional in one sense or other. True unconditional love in the sense that most people mean it—that I can do anything I want and not suffer loss of intimacy—CANNOT exist. That’s one thing I learned from my experiences in my marriage. I stayed with my ex-husband through some pretty scary times over the years because I believed in unconditional love like that.

But true unconditional love does not exist without boundaries or limitations. Conditions on love are different than boundaries. To set a condition on love means, “I will only love you if you do this.” That was something I experienced up close and personal in my marriage. Unconditional love really looks like, “I will always love you, but I’ll not be close to you if you engage in behavior that is destructive.”

I still love my ex, in the sense that I want what is best for him. I would love it if he would repent, become a good father and maybe even a good husband some day to someone else. But to the extent of my power, I will not let him hurt me or the children any more.

So I love him unconditionally, but I will not stay close to him unconditionally.

I think most of us have a pretty twisted sense of what real love is. I imagine this is what makes it hard to understand a God who wouldn’t just forgive all and let us all come back to live with Him no matter what we do. We conflate love and intimacy. I imagine that God will always love us, but we cannot be close to Him if we engage in destructive behaviors.

Identifying Abuse

The first and hardest step for me in healing from abuse has been to understand and admit that I was in an abusive relationship. If you are in an abusive relationship, or have a loved one who you wish to help, the first thing you must realize is that it is very difficult for a victim to realize the truth. If a victim admits they have been abused, they must accept that they have been used by the person they have loved the best, spent the most time and energy on. That is no easy thing. (For ease of discussion, I am going to use "he" for the abuser and "she" for the victim for now. In a future post, I will discuss tendencies between genders in abuse.)

There are many excuses a victim makes for an abuser. Two of the most common are 1) but he never hit me*, and 2) everyone does that, so it's not really abuse. Both excuses downplay the impact of the abuse. The first operates under the very common and unfortunate attitude that abuse is physical violence. In actuality, physical violence is only the more easily demonstrated portion of abuse. Look at it this way. If a husband tripped and fell against his wife, breaking her arm, it would be merely an accident. If, however, a husband wanted a wife to make him dinner and pushes her against a wall, breaking her arm, it would be abuse. The difference is not the injury. The difference is the emotional environment around the injury. The injury itself is incidental.

The second excuse I have heard (everyone does that) is used when a victim has been convinced that the behavior is normal. Sometimes it is because the victim was abused as a child. Rarely it is because the victim herself is an abuser. Often, it is because the victim does not want to be seen as different from everyone around her. Some abusers use the fear of being unloved to isolate their victims by convincing them that they deserve the abuse or that it is normal.

In an LDS framework, abuse has a particular outlet. The LDS Church is structured under the order of the Priesthood. When the priesthood is misunderstood as a tool of authority, it becomes the method of abuse. The scriptures call this "unrighteous dominion". Spouses are taught to honor each other, to look first within themselves to make changes in the marriage, and that marriage is a sacred and holy covenant which should not be broken. All of these things are true and good most of the time. However, without a complete understanding of the Priesthood and the covenant of marriage, these attitudes can utterly trap a victim.

To use an analogy which was used on me, imagine you are at a baseball game, and a man trips and spills beer all over you. You tell him not to worry, that it was an accident, and you forgive him. Nine people out of ten will look at you and think "Oh, what a nice person." The last will see potential prey. There are two parts to an abusive relationship: the abuser and the victim.

When I was presented with that, I thought to myself "but I want to be a nice person! I don't want to turn my back on Christian values of kindness and forgiveness, simply because there are those out there who will take advantage of me." Victims tend to see the world with a paradigm of mutuality. They want relationships to be mutually beneficial. Abusers tend to see the world with a paradigm of control. They want to be in control of their environment as much as possible, and are willing to go to lengths they would otherwise be horrified by to obtain it. A victim does not need to abandon divine compassion. It needs to be tempered, however, with divine judgment. We spend so much time avoiding judging others, we sometimes forget to judge situations. Relationships need to be examined with guidance from the Holy Spirit to make certain that they are divinely balanced. If the bad in a relationship cannot be pruned away to leave room for the good, sometimes the entire relationship must be "hewn down", however painful the process is. Otherwise, it will take over the entire life of the vineyard. Once a victim has done her best (and that can only be determined by the victim and the Lord), and the abusive relationship is destroying the rest of her life, it is time for the final harvest.

One last thing I would like to mention. Couples counseling is strongly not recommended for couples in abusive relationships. Couples counseling only sets a new playground for abuse. Unless a counselor is trained and experienced with abuse, the abuse can go on during counseling. The best way for a third party to measure abuse is not in the actions of the abuser, but in the reactions of the victim. When a person becomes familiar with the patterns of abuse and otherwise seemingly irrational reactions of a victim, it is easy to spot the difference between true abuse and "mere" marital disharmony.

For more information, please read this. It is a wonderfully balanced discussion on abuse in an LDS framework.

*If you have a loved one in an emotionally abusive relationship, I strongly recommend "But He Never Hit Me" by Dr. Jill Murray. I believe that book literally and figuratively saved my life.

The Maverick of the (Sanity) Ward

A very interesting conversation over at BCC hits close to home for me. They are asking members to be a little kinder to those who do not agree with them, a little more thoughtful of the "outliers". While I completely agree that a little more kindness, a little larger place would be nice, I feel I have something to say from the bottom of the pile, so to speak.

I am currently absolutely furious about a situation in my ward as it concerns my family. I won't say I'm rationally furious, as it does not come from rational thought but from a wellspring of pent up frustration and loneliness. Most of my fury is focused around a man who happens to be the current leader of the ward. In complete honesty, I can say that I admire him. He is a good, plainspoken man. He has a very homey way about him completely free of guile and manipulation. As a person, I like him very much. Unfortunately, I don't think he understands much about me or my life. This isn't for lack of trying to communicate on either side of the issue, but it is there, all the same. Hence, the frustration.

In other words, I am the recipient of some very biased attitudes. Much of it is my fault for being who I am, much is just the fallout from the situation.

But I want to say that, while I would appreciate (and HAVE appreciated) little acts of kindness from members in my ward, I can recognize how much I have grown from the struggle. Because the people around me are imperfect, I can get a little more perfect. If everyone around me was perfectly kind and accepting of whatever I did, I would have no reason to change, no reason to examine myself and my actions. I have been able to weigh my lifestyle, my pride and comfort against my faith, and decide what is truly important to me.

Therefore, I recognize my fury as pointless and temporary, and can appreciate the chance to learn and grow, even if I don't like it, and even if it breaks my heart.

After all, it is a broken heart which God asks of me.

Faith is a Choice

I came across an interesting post the other day. Although it may sound "smug" and "uncharitable" as one commenter says, the meaning behind the post is quite true. Far too often, we try to lay the responsibility for our behavior at some other feet, whether it be nature or nurture, the actions of others, the stances of the Gospel, or raw circumstance. When we attempt to label a "cause" of our loss of faith, we rob ourselves of one of our most precious attributes: our agency.

Agency is about more than choice, it is also about responsibility. We cannot have one without the other. It is true that genetics or environment may include a host of factors we cannot control that influence our personalities and decisions, but there is always a core of something more. That is what makes us children of God. That something is the kernel of divinity within each of us.

Yes, in the end everything we do is a choice, even faith. It may not be an easy choice. It may ask us to fly for a time in the face of contradicting evidence. We may have to temporarily suspend our logic in favor of our intuition. That is why it's called a leap of faith.

While those who have decided to abandon their faith may point derisively at the naivety of those of us who, in the end, choose to believe, any who have walked for a time in the darkness and found the incredible joy and light on the other side know. You cannot find that knowledge without first acting on faith. It is not a scientific knowledge, or one that would be admissible in a court, but it is a valid knowledge, and one that brings more enlightenment than imaginable.

That is not to say that, once gained, such knowledge will never again be tested. Once a child of God has gone through a short span of darkness, another time of testing will always come up again. Each time, reliance on the Lord is deepened, faith is expanded, and pride increasingly morphs into humility. The "faith club" is not one of superiority nor one of exclusivity. All are invited, and all within are motivated by love and the Spirit to share.

The other side of doubt is beautiful. It takes faith to get there. Faith is a gift of the Spirit, but it must be desired and worked for to be received. Rather than spend all your time chasing your tail, trying to find the cause of a loss of faith, look for reasons to just believe.