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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?

liz3564 wrote: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 don't know if it is for many people at all. I think it possibly can be for some people, but I don't' know these people. I certainly don't know Stormy's ex spouse, or at least I assume I don't, so I can't comment on that.

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?

Beats me. In my experience most marriages end due to infidelity. My experience is really limited though--I'm only me and don't know a great deal of divorced people.

What do you think the reasoning is behind these observations?

I think it's possible that there are people who are just plain goofy and make poor decisions when facing unexpected circumstances. Also, I think most marriages carry tons of issues that extend beyond religion and when religious differences come unexpectedly it is possible that it is the last straw rather than the sole factor, even if it appears to the sole factor to one party.

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.

I think that a married couple in the LDS church is less likely to even consider separation an option. It is very far from their mind because they realize they have to stay together for billions of years. They don't even "go there", so to speak.

But I think the biggest issue is the problem of independence. While both TBM, a married couple rarely experiences any discord in philosophies. This is a very important issue! Now, consider what might take place when this same couple suddenly does not hold the same philosophies after being married for years. Shock waves are sent in all directions, to say the least!

Mormon couples (and any other couple sharing a strong religious background) are not equipped to handle this type of discord from the beginning.

It seems obvious to me. The church's biggest selling point is forever families. A woman and a man need to be sealed in the temple and remain temple worthy to attain exaltation. When one person screws that up for the other person, it's a deal breaker. But to make matters worse, the covenant breaker becomes a threat to other family members, especially the children. Think about it. You are married in the temple, you have 5 little kids. You are all going to be together forever. You and your spouse will be exalted to the highest level of the CK. But now your spouse is questioning the church. Without your spouse, the best you can hope for is to get to the CK, and you will never see your spouse again. And if your spouse influences the children, there is a possibility of some of them falling away, and you will never see them again. A person who leaves the church creates a cancerous situation for an LDS family. There are many ways a TBM can deal with it, but one possibility is to cut the cancer out before it spreads.

Liz,

I think for most people it's an Out. Marriage is a tough deal for many couples, and if you have a socially acceptable reason to end it then it's hard for the spouse to walk away from that opportunity.

If you're an apostate, then you're pretty much guaranteed to be framed at the Good Guy/Girl, and the apostate spouse framed in the role of Bad Guy/Girl.

- VRDRC

DarkHelmet wrote:It seems obvious to me. The church's biggest selling point is forever families. A woman and a man need to be sealed in the temple and remain temple worthy to attain exaltation. When one person screws that up for the other person, it's a deal breaker. But to make matters worse, the covenant breaker becomes a threat to other family members, especially the children. Think about it. You are married in the temple, you have 5 little kids. You are all going to be together forever. You and your spouse will be exalted to the highest level of the CK. But now your spouse is questioning the church. Without your spouse, the best you can hope for is to get to the CK, and you will never see your spouse again. And if your spouse influences the children, there is a possibility of some of them falling away, and you will never see them again. A person who leaves the church creates a cancerous situation for an LDS family. There are many ways a TBM can deal with it, but one possibility is to cut the cancer out before it spreads.

True. However, based on the current doctrine where polygamy is an eternal law, if the wife leaves the Church, the husband could still stay married to her, knowing that if he continues living righteously, he will simply get another wife in the next life. Maybe this is something that TBM husbands who wives leave the Church consider? In the case of the female, she might feel more of a need to "cut the husband loose" to make room for another eternal partner since she can only have one?

Maybe I am way off base here...just over-thinking...LOL

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liz3564 wrote: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?

I think what you may be seeing in a large number of cases is correlation, not causation. People tend to doubt their faith at crucial junctures in their lives: starting school, starting a new job, losing a job, mid-life crisis, moving to a new area, etc. Those situations are stressful enough and strain a marriage, but then if you throw in loss of faith, it makes a tense situation unbearable for lots of people. The natural human reaction is to feel your life is spinning out of control and to try and take control back. But I think the causation may be life events which make both divorce and loss of faith more likely, not necessarily one causing the other.

I think another group of people may never really have had a strong relationship to begin with. LDS culture encourages naïve and horny young adults to marry as quickly as possible. I think there may be quite a number of LDS marriages where the relationship is largely just two sexual partners whose main commonality is spending lots of time and energy on the same goal, namely the LDS church. But when that commonality goes, you are left with not much holding the marriage together and it will naturally end in divorce.

A final thought, LDS attitudes towards marriage are schizophrenic and vary wildly. Sure, LDS are big family people and are big on families can be together forever. That's a good thing. But LDS culture isn't all that big on Jesus' admonition to never divorce except in cases of adultery in Matt 19 or the even harsher teaching in Mark 10. 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...." Add to that the fact that LDS Bishops are going to vary wildly in how they handle a situation like this. Apart from no explicit counsel to divorce, LDS Bishops have a pretty wide latitude in how they handle these things. You can go pretty far in supporting divorce without ever counseling to divorce.

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