Leaving the Church-A Marriage Dealbreaker

[_SteelHead]

Stormy's thread, "The Cost of Leaving", really struck a chord with me. Why is leaving the Church such a dealbreaker in a marriage situation if all of the other issues which make the marriage worthwhile are still in place?

I am also curious about posters' observations about whether it is more typical for the husband to want out of the marriage if the wife is leaving the Church, or is it more typical for the wife to want out of thee marriage if the husband is leaving the Church?

What do you think the reasoning is behind these observations?

My wife is more a cultural Mormon than tbm. She says she married me and not the church and will stick with me. She is also a convert at 18 so she doesn't suffer from all of the indoctrination.

[_DarkHelmet]

6. Mormons are encouraged to marry straight after a mission and extremely young for women and one of the main criteria they are meant to make the decision based on is that the person has a testimony. Sometimes this is after an extremely short relationship of just a couple of months. So it is a huge part of their relationship to each other and if it disappears the relationship can disappear with it too.

good point. In some cases, the only thing a young Mormon couple have in common is their love for the gospel. "In fact, SWK said that is all a young couple needs to have in common for a marriage to last. When they no longer have that in common, the only thing holding their marriage together is the kids. That makes for a really tough situation.

[_bcspace]

Why is leaving the Church such a dealbreaker in a marriage situation if all of the other issues which make the marriage worthwhile are still in place?

The two biggest reasons imho are

1) Wanting to find someone to share eternity with.
2) Protect the kids from false teachings and influences of the unbeliever.

Valid reasons imho.

[_MsJack]

Stormy's thread, "The Cost of Leaving", really struck a chord with me. Why is leaving the Church such a dealbreaker in a marriage situation if all of the other issues which make the marriage worthwhile are still in place?

My guess based on my own experience: perfectly happy marriages that break up only because one partner loses faith in the LDS church are rare. Instead, couples use interfaith differences as an excuse to not have to work on marital problems that have nothing to do with faith. The stress fractures in the marriage were probably there long before the loss of faith.

I am also curious about posters' observations about whether it is more typical for the husband to want out of the marriage if the wife is leaving the Church, or is it more typical for the wife to want out of thee marriage if the husband is leaving the Church?

Personally, I've known far more cases of the husband losing faith while the wife remains a believer, and statistically, that makes sense. Higher numbers of men identify as atheist or agnostic, higher numbers of women are church-goers, and in American Christian denominations specifically (Mormonism included), the number of women in the pews is higher than the number of men. So the latter situation is more likely for that reason alone.

I also think that the church's discriminatory priesthood practices makes this situation harder on the believing LDS woman whose husband has left. If a believing LDS man's wife leaves the church, he still has the priesthood in his home---and while he may mourn the loss of her faith, secretly, he's probably grateful that his wife wears sexy underwear now. The believing LDS woman has to get used to a life of calling on home teachers and male relatives to baptize her children and give blessings, and has to accept that her home is now presided over by an apostate. She's still wearing underwear that turns the hottest body to frump every night while DH is wearing ordinary men's boxers and briefs. It's pretty natural for that to take a toll on the marriage.

[_Buffalo]

Why is leaving the Church such a dealbreaker in a marriage situation if all of the other issues which make the marriage worthwhile are still in place?

The two biggest reasons imho are

1) Wanting to find someone to share eternity with.
2) Protect the kids from false teachings and influences of the unbeliever.

Valid reasons imho.

Just one more reason the LDS church remains a major antagonist in the war against families.

[_MsJack]

The culture is also not big on Paul's teaching that having a mixed faith marriage is not a cause for divorce, at least not on the believer's side in 1 Cor 7. Those passages tend to get a hearty, "Meh, the Bible is true as far as it is translated correctly...."

The most common replies I've seen to 1 Cor. 7 from Mormons are:

(1) An "unbeliever" is not the same thing as an "apostate."
(2) D&C 74---which doesn't say anything about it being okay to divorce unbelievers, nor does it deny what 1 Cor. 7:14 says about one believing spouse making the entire family "holy" (whatever that means). But that won't stop some Mormons from using it to say interfaith marriages are altogether a bad thing. (Did a blog post on this years ago.)

[_DarkHelmet]

Why is leaving the Church such a dealbreaker in a marriage situation if all of the other issues which make the marriage worthwhile are still in place?

The two biggest reasons imho are

1) Wanting to find someone to share eternity with.
2) Protect the kids from false teachings and influences of the unbeliever.

Valid reasons imho.

One of the few times I agree with BC Space (other than the last sentence, obviously). You summed up my feelings very succinctly. Divorce is common when one member stops believing, because of the LDS doctrines. It is one of the bitter fruits of the church. Ironic considering how the church tries to sell itself as family friendly. Nothing is more important to a TBM than having an eternal family. Any relationship that threatens that needs to be cut off. The youth are encouraged to break off friendships with people who make them question their testimony. It is no different for adults, and that includes, ironically, family members.

[_Stormy Waters]

Why is leaving the Church such a dealbreaker in a marriage situation if all of the other issues which make the marriage worthwhile are still in place?

The two biggest reasons imho are

1) Wanting to find someone to share eternity with.
2) Protect the kids from false teachings and influences of the unbeliever.

Valid reasons imho.

Protect the children from "false teachings?" BS. Mormons know they need to control the flow of information. You of all people should appreciate what happens when Mormons lose control of the dialogue. You've seen what happens to Mormonism in a fair fight.

[_LDSToronto]

I have a hard time believing that the *only* issue in the marriage is the religious change.

I am inclined to believe that in many cases it is simply the straw that breaks the proverbial camel's back.

Yup.

Truth be told, I don't know anyone in real life who's marriage broke up solely because one spouse left the church. I've only every read about this type of breakup on the internet.

H.

[_Drifting]

I see Mormon wives and husbands putting up with all sorts of indescretions from their spouses and working through all sorts of different relationship problems whilst they retain the common goal of reaching the Celestial Kingdom.

Once that shared goal is gone, the other problems become deal breakers.