Why I Left the Mormon Church – Part 2

Why I Left the Mormon Church – Part 2 - My Wife’s Family Roots

“Why I left the Mormon Church” can be summed up in one simple, profound statement: 

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints literally broke my heart.

This is part 2 of “Why I Left the Mormon Church” — part 1 can be found here: http://mylifediscovered.com/2009/03/31/why-i-left-the-mormon-church-part-1/

In part 1, I provided a brief background of my deep family roots, the purpose of which is to help frame how invested I was in Mormonism, going back generations, and reinforced with new convert enthusiasm. Here, in part 2, I’ll discuss a little about my wife’s family background, and some of the similarities to my own, along with the beginnings of some of the threads that led me to some discoveries about myself.

This is a very difficult subject to approach, since I know that eventually some of my wife’s family may read what I write here. I’m sure some of them will take issue with some of what I write.

As I mentioned in my first post after leaving Mormonism, I choose to walk within the lines of anonymity as best as possible for now, since I don’t want to hurt my family by having to retread some of the experiences we’ve shared, or events that I know about in my wife’s family. I want to be as respectful as possible, and will try to avoid any highly sensitive areas in this post.

Having said that, the story of my journey out of Mormonism wouldn’t be complete without giving some of the background of my wife’s family, as I understand it and have experienced it during my marriage. This is part of the back-story, and shows how deeply entrenched both sides of my family are in Mormonism, and how difficult it was for me to even begin seeing how damaging Mormonism was for me, personally.

Like with my side of the family, my wife’s family is made up of genuinely good people, and as I discussed in part 1 of Why I Left the Mormon Church, it made it that much more difficult to see the problems of Mormonism, and that much more difficult to stand up and walk out of Mormonism for good.

To be as fair as possible up front, my wife comes from a strong, and in some ways traditional Mormon family, made up of good people, with many similarities to my family. They also have a long history in the church dating back many generations, with their own established base and legacy of traditions and well-known, respected Mormon scholars and leaders to cement their family’s investment into Mormonism. In fact, in some ways, her Mormon family heritage was even more strongly defined than my own, which says something right there. Her family has a few recent higher-profile Mormon luminaries (for lack of a better term). That made Mormonism even “more right” in the minds or at least words of some her family members.

Sure, they have their own normal personal challenges and relationship issues just like any other family. And there’s always the “black sheep” so to speak. But they generally try to do what’s right, by their individual points of view, and all of them are decent, talented, hard-working people, worthy of emulation in a lot of ways by many people, in or out of the Mormon church.

There’s a lot to like about my wife’s immediate family. They are generally pretty close to each other, and they can be fun to do a variety of things with. They value education and pursue their interests for the most part, so it’s easy to engage with them in their areas of interest. A couple of them like to talk mostly about themselves, which is fine if you have the self-confidence to just listen, but even those are decent, interesting folk and good representatives of the human race. They are also all generally good at what they do. Most of them are now vocal about their opinions as adults (although this wasn’t remotely the case when I met some of them as children), and are not afraid to share their opinions with almost anyone now. Some of them are genuinely patriotic, and clearly care very deeply about their country. In some ways, they are another example of what a good Mormon family can produce for society.

I have tried to appreciate and love all of them, although at times I’m sure I’ve had my own issues with some of them. It’s not relevant specifically with whom, but there have been times when my own view was clouded by my perception of some of their behavior, and I had to work on my own judgmentalism. I definitely have especially deep, loving feelings for some of them who I feel are superb humans to the core, Mormon or not Mormon was and is irrelevant to me. I wish for the best for all of them, even the ones who are so strictly and deeply enmeshed in Mormonism they have little chance of seeing anything but their own Mormon-enlightened path. No matter how unhealthy I consider that to be, I hope for their profound happiness and peace in life.

I’m sure they are all good people. Yes, they have their problems like anyone else, they are after all, only human, just like my family. If you had a fair chance to get to know the good things about them, and there are many, chances are you’d walk away with a generally positive view of them as basically smart, confident, decent, productive human beings. Good folk, good family, worthy of emulation by many Mormons, and yes, another Mormon success story in some ways, similar to my own family once again.

In fact, I’ll be very honest and admit that to a small degree, her good family name in the church was an attractive quality when I met my then-future wife. I knew she came from “a good, solid Mormon family” and that she knew what it was like to have a solid Mormon legacy to draw strength from so that we could potentially start our own solid little Mormon family unit if we got married. I thought it was a common base that would be a benefit to us, not a detriment at the time.

Mormonism is great, isn’t it? Case closed once again.

Not so fast.

On closer inspection, we can begin to analyze the complexities of relationships, where Mormon family history and big one-track personalities intersect with the bright, impressionable, open minds of childhood. The natural growth and development of unique personalities are sometimes derailed and strongly pushed onto paths that may not resonate for them. And sometimes good, talented people can learn to develop patterns to doubt themselves, and question the innate goodness they already have, with or without the Mormon church in their lives.

Through years of observation, I noticed that my wife’s family, while sincerely well-intentioned, was not very open-minded to things outside their world-view. No surprise there. The pattern persists today, in different forms. But I supposed that’s normal enough, in any religion or society, right?

What surprised me was the degree to which some of them were close-minded on certain issues. This close-mindedness manifested itself in black-and-white language, a clear pattern of judgmentalism, control issues, self-esteem issues, and other self-reinforcing patterns that for me were very unpleasant to witness at times. Over the years, this mellowed as each individual family member found their own voice and began to develop their own identities. 

My father-in-law, in particular, had surprisingly myopic views for someone so educated and intelligent. In the early years, but to a lesser degree in recent years, his brand of close-mindedness was more overt, and he tended to project one view so strongly, with such a strong voice, that it almost smothered other people around him at times. For strong, self-confident adults it was tolerable — fine at best, and annoying or mildly offensive at worst. For children, it was clearly unhealthy. It progressed from his outward confidence to self-righteous declaration sometimes, then ultimately bordered on (and occasionally crossed the border into) clear arrogance and a pompous, yet infantile behavior pattern that reminded me of a very socially inept teenager. Quite the paradox compared to the Jesus he genuinely loved. Couple this with the patriarchal paradigm of Mormonism and you can get some very interesting results.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I consider my father-in-law to be a good man. It took me many years to understand why that might be happening with him, and even more years to begin to gain the compassion to understand some of his life story and the roots that seem to have affected and reinforced his behavior. The same goes for my mother-in-law, and her profound life-story. She has a fascinating story and I’ve only begun to understand glimpses that help me grasp why there were certain patterns in my wife’s family.

And by extrapolation, I gained a picture of what issues were preeminent in my wife’s childhood which would later affect my marriage in ways I could have never imagined. I will try to gently, respectfully elaborate on that in a later post, and that is a complex, powerful topic that is relevant to my journey out of Mormonism.

Coming to know my wife as the wonderful person that she is, the way I do now, it is clear to me that while Mormonism in its broad, generic strokes, may have had some good impact on her family, there is another, unfortunate similarity with my family when you examine the details. Mormonism exacerbated some problems and reinforced a number of very negative issues, in some cases, quite profoundly. In her family’s case I can see a few tough challenges they’ve dealt with (and continue to deal with to a degree) – including the place and role of women in a marriage and in the family, self-esteem challenges, and basic control issues. There are others, just as there are others in my own family.

My own side of the family dealt with different issues, but no less profound. Again, this is not an indictment of any individual, and I want to reiterate that I love my family, including my wife’s family, and hope for the best in their lives.

Now, I know from observation and conversation that my wife’s family love each other, are proud of their father, love their mother, etc. I’ve seen the gradual mellowing over the years, as each of my wife’s siblings have gone out on their own, but the patterns re-emerge as echoes all too often.

The judgmentalism I had observed in my wife’s family was easy for me to see early on, and it made it very easy to miss my own judgmentalism! This powerful concept of judgmentalism is a common thread in Mormonism, and I discovered that it inhabits the culture so profoundly and subtly that some of the best and brightest Mormons just can’t see the tendrils of it deeply wrapped around their world-view.

In fact, this is one of the self-reinforcing quasi-paradoxes in Mormonism — that sometimes the brighter, the more valiant, indeed, even sometimes the more successful you are (professionally or within the church itself), the easier it seems sometimes to completely miss this judgmental prism that sometimes develops. Doctrinally, it’s not directly encouraged in many Mormon teachings (although that’s debatable, as I will address in a future post regarding common misinterpretations of the concept of “judging wisely”). But culturally, if you’ve been infected or programmed this way, in my view, it tends to self-perpetuate.

I was blind to the depth of my own judgmentalism, and it was easy to judge some of my wife’s family members, those that I considered master practitioners of judgmentalism themselves. Ironically, it would take me years just to make the discovery of how profoundly that unhealthy thinking process had penetrated my life and the lives of many Mormons I knew. It was oh so easy to be right all the time when you knew you had the truth.

Indeed, the very mantra of Mormon fast and testimony meetings, where so many people stand and share their testimonies of the church and begin with “I know this is true…”, just reinforces a thinking pattern that can lead to so many unfortunate and long-term side-effects. I could spend hours listing elements in Mormon culture and practice that reinforce this all-too-common issue.

Adding to all of that, just like with my family, was again the warranted assumption that my wife’s family was made up of good, decent people. It didn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t dawn on me to even remotely consider that Mormonism had affected my wife’s family… they were good people! Ergo, Mormonism was good! But like with my own family, I had enough lucid moments that I knew something was off with Mormonism. That so many of us, with our own bright minds and aspirations, couldn’t remotely comprehend the filter that covered our eyes, the “one way” many of us viewed the world.

And if we’re so right, then the other person has to be… wrong.

And not just wrong in the deed or wrong in the words coming out of their mouths, or wrong in their opinions, but sometimes even wrong inside. Oh, I’d never admit to this, I’d never even consciously think this… but now I can see where this thinking pattern could lead sometimes… As in, something is wrong with them…. and then, sadly, something is wrong with you.

As a lucidly aware recipient and dealer of judgmentalism, I now understand where it can take both parties. Therein lies one of the most insidious threads that can lead to some deep damage later on in life. A thinking pattern I can now fortunately recognize in myself and others, and I never want to return to it again. I still consciously wrestle with it sometimes — after all, it was wired into me, but I have made steady progress, and hope to extinguish the last remaining vestiges of it.

And I was oblivious to its real implications, and often blind to my own judgmentalism. Underneath I knew both my family and my wife’s family were good people, which made it so difficult to diagnose some of these issues, and how the whole paradigm of Mormonism on a philosophical level, seemingly contrary to its own stated teachings, actually served to magnify some of these issues.

This is a paradox about which many devout Mormons will certainly disagree with me. I was completely unaware of this for years myself, and would have heartily disagreed with this point of view not too long ago. How could it then surprise me that even the best-hearted, most intelligent Mormon could debate this point? I’m more than willing to admit that you may well be one of the many exceptions. You may be one of the ones who never, ever manifested judgmentalism. And I congratulate you. I never said this was universal, but I do see it as common, even among the best of heart and brightest of mind. This may simply not be your experience in Mormonism. And I can only say I genuinely wish you the best with your point of view. This is my point of view, this is part of what I experienced. Dare I invite you to continue with my story, and read more about why I now think the way I do? Please feel free to do so. 

And now this is the point where someone might actually say “Ahhhh, so that’s what’s wrong with him. The sin of pride. There! He admits to being judgmental, and even blind to his own judgmentalism. Therefore he couldn’t feel the spirit and therefore he lost his testimony.” Well, if that’s how you want to read what I’ve written, then may I humbly suggest the rest of my story is not for you. However, as a parting comment, I think that if you thought anything remotely like that, you’ve just proven what I’ve been trying to say in the last several paragraphs. 

So how did I begin to gain a bit more clarity about this? How did I come to challenge my own assumptions, and wrestle with my own absolute convictions? In the coming pages, I will begin the explanation of the events that caused me to ask some very tough questions, and the surprising answers I discovered.

Sincerely,
My Life Discovered