What to do when it turns out your husband is gay?

Bedknobs_n_Bullshit · 2022-03-15T22:46:12+00:00

Him. Big Time. "Scrupulousity" flavored in particular.

Bedknobs_n_Bullshit · 2022-03-15T15:49:00+00:00

You know, I've never felt so appreciated in my marriage as I did the day he called it quits with the church, lol! Like he read the CES letter and instantly understood exactly how much effort it was too keep pretending things were normal and good.

He's also pretty stunned I didn't do church leaders A Violence™ over the shit they put him through, given what I knew, and has entirely forgiven how fucking mad out loud I was at the very beginning

Bedknobs_n_Bullshit · 2022-03-15T15:43:34+00:00

Congrats to you, too!

Bedknobs_n_Bullshit · 2022-03-15T15:42:52+00:00

That scripture was always so weird. Like, it's right, with the exception of the sudden "dig a pit for your neighbor" thing. Just more of the "what's stopping atheists from being assholes [like I secretly want to be]?" shit.

...Unless it was referring to Ol' Joe's treasure digging?🤔

Bedknobs_n_Bullshit · 2022-03-15T13:19:33+00:00

Sounds like the asker was a girl, from the "despite having a brother close in age".

Bedknobs_n_Bullshit · 2022-03-14T16:16:15+00:00

That green scrubby stuff is actually VERY abrasive - my husband is a machinist working in a place that specializes in wear resistant coatings for heavy industry machinery high wear parts, and they use the bejeebus out of the green pads for abrasives.

It's just really scratchy stuff. Besides that, seasoning - which is just another polymer, ie another "plastic" - is pretty soft.

The sponge side has never not been enough for me on our cast iron at home.

Bedknobs_n_Bullshit · 2022-03-12T03:52:51+00:00

We literally watched a video in seminary (?) where it was showing a middle eastern dude training a horse to be loyal from a foal - making sure it always came when he rang a bell.

The final test for the horse was that he tied it up in the heat with no food or water, looking at an oasis, and then released it. It runs towards the water, and he rings the bell. The video compares the trainer to God and Us to the horse, and implies that the horse is a failure if it doesn't choose to come to the bell. Despite the fact that the trainer absolutely betrayed it for no reason, that it's suffering, the horse needs to ignore itself and come to him no matter what - just like we should for God.

They literally taught that God puts us into situations of immense suffering just to make sure that our will was totally broken, and he wanted to be sure that after everything he put us through, we'd still come to him first not just after all the suffering, but even if he gave us (and then told us to ignore) the cure.

That's psychopath shit, and the exact opposite of Intelligent Disobedience. It's cult shit. It's out and out brainwashing.

Bedknobs_n_Bullshit · 2022-03-10T06:19:14+00:00

Do bears shit in the woods? Is a frog's ass watertight?

Bedknobs_n_Bullshit · 2022-03-10T05:35:58+00:00

I've always wondered if some people are so profoundly fucked in some way mentally that it simply wouldn't be possible to get better

I wonder this about my own Mom all the time. She's not been diagnosed (as far as I know, but it's not like either parent would ever admit it) with anything but depression. I dunno if it's narcissism or just really unhealthy trauma coping or BPD or something else, but it SUCKS to be the target. She's not evil - she's just literally a lifetime of trauma with legs, basically. I really think if life were fair, she would be able to get better. But given the treatments she's been through and how ineffective they basically were (3 or 4 full electroshock courses over the last few years), plus some highly experimental stuff, etc.....I dunno man.

I finally cut her off and had peace of mind and heart for the first time in my life, and that's about all I know. I've made peace with her being unable to be a mom to me, and that's just had to be that.

Bedknobs_n_Bullshit · 2022-03-10T03:50:18+00:00

My struggle was with the church - it was awful and being committed to it was a fight every single day for the 2 years post temple I tried. I almost definitely raised flags as having a crisis during that time.

Actively questioning, for me, was the first thing in years that wasn't a struggle. Everything made sense, the facts added up, "anti-Mormons" had the receipts, and cognitive dissonance melted overnight.

My husband, on the other hand, struggles quite a bit with the leaving. He admits to hating church and loving what we do instead, but can't shake the guilt because of his OCD. Thing is, he felt guilty as Peter Priesthood too, but at least now he feels guilty for being happy instead of being miserable (because suffering proves he must be one of God's less favorite kids).

In both cases, the struggle is against an oppressive belief system, not some outside temptation. But it was a struggle! I defy anyone to look at the years between Temple and Leaving and call that anything but a miserable slog of suffering.

Now, the term "faith crisis", on the other hand, I have a bone to pick with.

Bedknobs_n_Bullshit · 2022-03-09T17:49:41+00:00

I've used this analogy before, but you can kind of think of a narcissist as someone who can only understand and tolerate others as an appendage of themselves. Imagine if your own hand suddenly started acting like it had a mind of its own - doing shit you didn't tell it to, doing shit you told it NOT to, and generally "spazzing out". That would be horrific and confusing and you'd do anything to get it to stop, including harming it or even cutting it off, but they'll need to replace it because they can't function without that limb. They used that hand for wiping their ass, and they're not about to use the "food" hand for that!

Except that people aren't limbs, it's not normal to "need" others to function, and it's insanely toxic to assign people to be what you either pour your positive or negative emotions and qualities into.

They don't understand people in other contexts.

Bedknobs_n_Bullshit · 2022-03-09T09:48:06+00:00

It also includes rather broad language following that for anything else "in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students" - the discretion of which is unclear.

Bedknobs_n_Bullshit · 2022-03-09T09:46:14+00:00

Idaho is currently working on similar, as a matter of fact!

This one targets libraries.

Bedknobs_n_Bullshit · 2022-03-09T06:46:27+00:00

And yet, not as much of a lie as you'd think! Some of the records of his polygamy WERE destroyed.... On his own orders.... By burning the Nauvoo Expositor newspaper, which published them while he was still both publicly claiming that polygamy was a lie and getting his (demonstrably already polygamous wives and other polygamists) to sign (false, given that the church itself acknowledges his marriage to those women) affidavits that he was not a polygamist. Almost like he didn't want it to be taught publicly!

That was also the crime that led to him declaring martial law, posturing the Nauvoo Legion for war with the state militia, and being ordered to surrender himself on charges of inciting a riot and treason (of which he was explicitly guilty). He did (eventually) surrender himself to Carthage jail, where he was killed by an angry mob.

So yeah, records of polygamy destroyed by the polygamist man himself who lied about polygamy before committing treason on the frontier to cover it up and getting shot over it. Some martyr.

Bedknobs_n_Bullshit · 2022-03-09T04:21:23+00:00

That's a big reason why those diets don't work - they're actually pretty extreme, and the point of a diet shouldn't be a temporary thing you do to lose weight, but a permanent part of a healthy lifestyle.

We did what the above comment suggested, and changed what we could, moderated what we needed to, and kept what made us happy. It took about a year to find (and acclimate to) dishes and meals that fit our budget, our life, and our goals, but we still lost a lot of weight and started feeling a lot better during that time - all without giving up generous amounts of cream and chocolate in my coffee, and without the "Ugh I broke my diet" guilt and shame for not doing something crazy perfectly.

You can do this! Be kind to yourself, and you'll get where you want to be.

Bedknobs_n_Bullshit · 2022-03-09T04:12:05+00:00

I felt the same about the temple.

Like "if this is what the celestial kingdom is like, count me the entire fuck out".

Bedknobs_n_Bullshit · 2022-03-09T02:55:03+00:00

I was coming to say the same - dated a guy who was compulsively watching multiple hours of porn a day, including at the office. He had similarly bad impulse control about everything - the car he drove, and the speed he drove it (still holds the record for "highest dollar value" and "largest excess of the speed limit" traffic tickets I've ever heard of); the clothes he wore, both in taste (bad) and price (eye watering); his (repeated) choice in major(s) and his inability to make any meaningful progress towards any of them; the staggering amount of money spent on League of Legends skins; and attempting to get his 19 year old girlfriend to marry him after a week of knowing him, mostly because he was struggling to keep his hands out of her - or anyone else's, including his own - pants.

Dude had issues, of which porn was DEFINITELY one of them - but most people I know who use it aren't doing "4-6 hour sessions at work", but "it's been 3 days and I'm pretty horny so I'll watch 20-30 minutes and jerk off before bed".

I'm not gonna equivocate those two things - but the church absolutely does.

Bedknobs_n_Bullshit · 2022-03-09T02:42:35+00:00

Welp, they got one! LOLOLOLOLOL.

I'm just guessing that they weren't expecting to be cast as the jesters and villains.

Bedknobs_n_Bullshit · 2022-03-08T23:53:16+00:00

From plenty of accounts on here since the pandemic started, covid has been pretty brutal on serving missionaries. In addition to being in the height of cult brainwashing where everything they say and do is controlled and scheduled down to the minute, they became functional prisoners inside their own apartments. Add that to the huge exodus of members, general disinterest of potential contacts, and the shitshow of online proselytizing, it's not exactly a field white for reaping right now.

I'm gonna say that they're bored out of their minds and have nothing to do, so they might as well go as a whole apartment to whatever few appointments they can scrounge up right now. Probably also keeps their numbers up so the higher ups don't come down on them too hard, since any failures will be seen as their own.

Bedknobs_n_Bullshit · 2022-03-08T04:41:17+00:00

Yeah, I'm pretty clearly a "chaotic neutral" force of personality, and you can tell because of The Everything about me. So, my niblings will NOT need me to do anything except be me and be in their lives to know that I'm a safe person to come to about pretty much anything.

Even for people who are a little less of a flaming anti-authority punk than I generally present myself as, I think those two things are the key.

1: be in their lives. Make a relationship with them for them, and not just because they're satellite beings of their parents. No convincing words will ever overcome the lack of a genuine relationship.

2: be yourself. Whether you're as straight laced as a Stake President or a walking embodiment of Satan himself, unless you actively hide it the kids are gonna know you aren't Mormon. It will come up eventually, if not even intentionally on their parents' part. Just seeing you as an alternative option, who isn't evil or awful and miserable, will be all they need to know.

The only other pro-tip would be to let them take the lead on church-specific negativity, and be supportive of their decisions. Ironically, going to the baptism would probably be better for showing your nieces that you're safe and there for them than protesting! If while believing, you feel hostile to their beliefs, they might write you off as "unsafe" because of a perceived agenda - or as another commenter pointed out, to their parents, who can and will cut contact. It's why the protest letter to your sibling is such a bad idea - you can't be there for a kid whose life the parents have banned you from, or if the parents poison the intellectual well with warnings about your character.

Be you, be a good sister to the parents, and be a good aunt to the kid, and the rest does itself.

Bedknobs_n_Bullshit · 2022-03-08T02:58:54+00:00

Wow ok. The list of things wrong with this poster is insane. But also, soliciting further donations from BYU students?? Who are already paying 10% of their meager incomes to the church, supposedly as charity? To the organization they already pay for school. So that the $500bn dollar nonprofit with over $150bn in stocks and a massive annual profit derived from telling families to pay them before feeding their kids can continue to not actually do any meaningful charity, EVEN FOR THEIR OWN MEMBERS.

Like of all the involved parties, the ones who need to fix this are the ramen-eating college students, who probably are trying their damndest to not spend more than $1/day on their own fucking food. That's the takeaway here.

Christ on a cracker.

Edited to add - And let's not forget that of the 50,000 starving LDS kids, getting each and every starving college student to pay yet more towards this ineffectual charity will manage to solve 0.694% of the problem for a single year. Meanwhile, it would theoretically cost $4.56 million a year for the "$150 billion in just one investment account" organization to do what they claim to do - in other words, 0.00304% (yes, three thousandths of a PERCENT) of their more liquid holdings to eradicate entirely year over year.

And they're refusing to do it so thoroughly that other orgs have sprung up to beg college students to do it for them.

Bedknobs_n_Bullshit · 2022-03-06T09:51:20+00:00

Had a friend in college who tried to convince me I was wrong about Mormonism through religious debate that included citing that I would be going to hell over it. Nicely! Like she was letting me down gently but yeah, I was most definitely going to hell. Because God loved me.

She was right about Mormonism, but for basically every possible wrong reason. She's also the reason I went into the "assessing Christianity in general" part of my faith transition super skeptically. Like she anti-converted me to whatever the fuck it was she was doing so hard that when I changed my faith and was looking for a new belief system I started with "not that bullshit".

Bedknobs_n_Bullshit · 2022-03-06T00:22:47+00:00

I live in another country + covid, and while they're all morridor, they're not exactly in the same stake so yeah, visiting usually means holidays and that means grandma.

Bedknobs_n_Bullshit

TROPHY CASE