MomOfFour
  A more self serving "explanation" he couldn't have written!  Never says anything about loving his wife, only praises her for fulfilling her duties as wife and mother.  Never apologizes for what he did to his wife and children, opting instead to displace the agency onto circumstances.  Also, it looks to me as if he thinks he and his wife will continue to be eternally married!  Even though he's leaving the LDS church.  I can imagine just how his stbx wife Lois feels about that! 

Also, the commenter who thinks that education and education will render closets obsolete has not had much experience with those who chose to live in a closet DESPITE knowing they'd be accepted if they came out.  

  "Lois has been a loyal wife, and extraordinary mother, who has had to endure an impossible part of this journey. I deeply regret the excruciating pain this has caused her. Hurting her was never my intent. While our marriage will end, my love for Lois and everyone in my family is eternal."
 
   This Ed Smart announcement really has me angry today.  My father, who sexually abused me and physically attacked my mother, whose violent outbursts made my home life hell, was Mormon.  I am well acquainted with the rights and privileges accorded to Mormon men, and the second class status of Mormon women.  I see that writ large in Ed Smart's letter. 
    What he says about his wife, especially, reduces her to her role in the family, and he takes it upon himself to pass judgment on her, without ever saying "I hurt her. I deceived her.  I chose to deceive her on a daily basis for many, many years."  It's as if by praising her as a wife and mother, he doesn't have to account for her as a human being, a woman who was denied the opportunity for real marital love.  His language makes it sound as if no one did anything and no one is really at fault--certainly not him!  He can't even say, "I didn't intend to hurt my wife, but I did. I have caused her excruciating pain." He subsumes his actions and his agency in "The excruciating pain this has caused her": this?  This what? He says his wife "has had to endure an impossible part of this journey," and although he regrets "the excruciating pain this has caused her," "hurting her was never my intent," as if he was not the person who mapped out the journey she had to take, and because there was no "intent" to hurt her it's not on him.
     When you read the letter, you can see how how far into the letter it takes before he ever gets to his wife, as if she's an afterthought!  His entitlement is so great he even implies he will remain married to her for all eternity (which Mormons whose marriages have been "sealed" in the Temple believe to be true).  My heart goes out to her, because in addition to the years and intimacy that were denied her, she has to also endure the pain that his disclosure has dealt to her religious life--has that eternal marriage been taken from her?  or will she continue to be sealed for all eternity to a man who has failed to love her and honor his marriage vows?  
    Ed Smart's letter exhibits all the characteristics of a warped character and a personality warped by living a closeted life. He's a coward who now stands up and pretends to be brave and honest, even a hero striking a blow for other gay Mormons, while continuing to evade responsibility for the many daily actions he took knowing he was using his wife for a beard.
   
   And I'm furious as a result at my ex, who continues to live a secret life in his closet, while deceiving everyone about who he is, lying every time he steps from the house, lying, too, by allowing me to bear the brunt of his decisions both in our marriage and after, and who, if he did speak honestly, would be applauded as courageous and sinned against.  

  
 

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (August 16, 2019 6:17 pm)

I am incredibly angry about Ed Smart's announcement today.

First, before I get all furious at him, I do want to acknowledge his tireless public service toward victims of --WAIT!  I am catching myself here--he has been a tireless advocate for victims of sexual assault, and for missing children--so shouldn't he be all the more aware and responsible for how he himself has held someone hostage?  How he himself has sexually assaulted someone (speaking here of the negative space, withholding kind of assault)? 

OutOfHisCloset:
Thank you thank you for your great textual analysis of Ed's public letter--where he will not take any responsibility for the great harm he has caused his wife.  Where she is just a subtext to his story.  "Too bad that harm happened.  Boy that is too bad.  Lois sure was a good wife.  I don't like it when harm happens.  Glad it wasn't me there." 

In his letter, Ed gives his religion a LOT more attention than he gives to Lois.  Another sign of how little he thinks of her in all of this.  He focuses on the love of Jesus.  He says Jesus will make everything right with Lois.  OK.  I hope that for Lois too!  But nowhere does he say HE will do all he can to make things right for her.  Let's hope her attorneys make that happen.

"Hurting her was never my intent"-- that phrase especially irked me.  Like, it was never your intent because you were so SELF FOCUSED Ed?  This phrase gets to me at the heart of the issue:  the closeted gay spouse is so incredibly selfish, that they don't even think about their spouse!  They never even consider the immense harm they are doing to another person--and that person is the very person they are supposed to be the most committed and connected to of all!

Mormon here, and there are words in the Mormon temple marriage ceremony (now at least) that talk about the husband vowing "love unfeigned."  This ceremony is taught to be the ultimate covenant between man, woman, and God.  Breaking these covenants is not to be taken lightly.  Here Ed is: not taking these covenants seriously at all, and then using a warped version of them to justify taking away the life of his wife.  Exactly like my husband.  Grrrrrrrrrr. 

He is using the church to justify his own behavior.  That's why he spends so much time showing he is a victim of the church.  Am not saying the church does not have problems--am just saying he is using it to self justify.

Not only does Ed use his religion to self-justify, he also uses the "challenge with this religion" as a fog that he knows will work to cover up what has really happened.  An additional layer of blame-shifting. In Salt Lake City, there is a lot of emphasis on the problems with the dominant religion,  There is also a lot of emphasis on supporting Mormons who come out as LGB.  I actually do think it is good for younger people to see how it is important to be who you are.  But Ed is 65. And more importantly, Ed is very very very experienced working with the press.  National press.  He knows just how to work it.  He knows that the dominant religion is an easy way to say "Hey!  Look over here!  Don't look at the man behind the curtain!" 

Sure: religion and culture impose a lot of fear on people to own their sexuality.  But Mormons emphasize the value of each soul more than they emphasize sex. They (we) emphasize "free agency" as one of the main reasons for life at all!  It is pretty much the basic, foundational story of all the "whys."  Ed absolutely could not have avoided hearing this again and again and again.  If he went on a Mormon mission, he has taught it to other people again and again and again.  When his children were baptized into the Mormon church, the idea of the value of each soul, and the eternal nature of each soul, and free agency would have been emphasized.  Ed--knowing this as a basic tenant of his religion--has exercised his free agency for his whole life, and not cared one bit about the free agency of his wife.  He wraps his sense of "morality" so tightly around "hiding my sexuality," instead of the foundational value of another person--and his actual commitments before God.  And then blames this on the teachings of his religion.

Sorry everyone if I'm too focused on my own religion here, but I am super angry.

I don't think any of us imagine that this marriage was entirely warm and loving, by the way.  We all know what it is like.  Subtle rejection, etc.  This is probably 40-45 years of hurt.

I totally agree with Whirligig that he was probably forced into publicly admitting things.  I noticed in one article that Lois filed for divorce July 5.  That is a full 5 weeks ago or more.  This suggests to me that she has known some things for quite some time.  You don't generally file for divorce the very next day--especially, I suspect, the Smarts, who are well known to be quite wealthy, so there are going to be a lot of assets for her to have documented before filing. And Lois is also at retirement age--she will be wanting to do it right.  And I imagine their public name--and her religious commitments--would also motivate Lois to be careful and slow her down in filing.  I suspect she is tired of all the same things we are tired of, including "if you were just a better person, THEN I would love you" (note how he mentions what a "good wife and mother" she was--he is compensating here for his criticisms of her throughout the marriage, I bet.  And, as OOHC says, he is defining her by what he thought of her as--the wife appliance, nothing more. 

I am also really really angry about how in all these coming-out stories, the gay man says how "it was so bad, that I even considered taking my own life."  OK.  I don't doubt the pain.  But why destroy TWO lives?  And, this is a classic case of "pity me because I am a victim, and that means it is OK for me to do whatever harm I choose to do.  AND, I am now going to take all your compassion and twist it to get you to excuse me from having to myself show even basic compassion to other people."

Whirligig,
     I, too, know many fine and upstanding Mormon men, starting with those in my own family.  

    You and I might disagree on the question of whether the complementarity of the roles of men and women is in itself inherently, fundamentally, unequal (I would argue that assigning to woman a primary role as wife and mother on the basis of her reproductive biology is inherently sexist), but it's certainly abundantly clear that even when religion does not sanction unequal treatment of men and women, that unequal and even mistreatment of women is often justified by individuals and enshrined in cultural attitudes by appeals to religion.  Thus in my Mormon family, for example, women are not allowed to publicly contradict the opinions of their husbands or fathers, whatever those women think privately, because it is considered a man's right to be the head of his household, a privilege granted to him by virtue of his maleness, and taught, supported, and institutionalized in practice by the Church. I remember that my grandmother got around this injunction to silence by saying, whenever she disagreed with my grandfather, "Well, I know what I think."  More vividly, I remember a visit by my father to my then-husband's and my house, in which my then-husband and I debated a question (we were not having an argument in the sense of a domestic dispute) over the dinner table, and later my father said to me, "It's great that "Pete" (not my then-husband's real name) lets you have your own opinions."  The unspoken second half of that sentence was "but don't push it." 

   I don't say these things to attack the LDS church.

   I say them because I'm trying to sort out why I acted as I did after my ex's trans drop, because I don't want to act in so self-destructive a way again in the future.  Despite a reputation in my public life, in my academic career, as a strong advocate for the faculty, someone unafraid to confront the adiministration when there was unfairness, and relied on by other faculty to serve this need, in my private life I now see to my shame how I deferred to my then-husband in ways I didn't recognize.  I made my needs small, I didn't question some things or insist on practices I should have, I felt it was important to keep my then-husband happy, because I knew there were ways he was unhappy and unsatisfied, and I blamed myself for it.  I made excuses for him and his actions but not for myself and mine. There are, of course, many sources implicated in the decisions I made, and only one of them is what I learned about my role and purpose from religious teachings and the way they were interpreted and put into practice in my family. 
    

Last edited by OutofHisCloset (August 17, 2019 7:05 am)