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This podcast is really worth listening to. Although some is about Mormon church doctrine and how it encourages MOM**, much of the focus is the straight spouse experience. The Mormon doctrine could equate to pressures in the general population as well.
The woman interviewed is honest and has some great insights.
What is especially interesting to me about this podcast is, that because she entered marriage fully knowing her husband was gay, she does not have the sense of betrayal. This helps in many ways to give clarity about the other long term damages that can come in a MOM.
Really great.
**officially the Mormon church does not encourage MOM. However, if you want to get to Heaven, the doctrine pretty much means an LGB person would have to live celibate and live life thinking they are inherently “wrong.” Or they would have to enter a MOM and still live life thinking they were inherently wrong.
Last edited by OnMyOwnTwoFeet (September 10, 2019 8:26 am)
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I posted this late last night, and still this morning I remember these points below. For context: these comments are from a woman who knowingly married her gay husband, who was her friend growing up. Both of them trained as marriage/family therapists, so they communicated and genuinely cared for each other. The divorce was a joint decision after about 15 years and 4 children (3 children? Not sure).
1- the enormous toll it took on her sense of self, for her husband to not desire her. Even though she knew it was because he was gay. She just internalized feelings that she was just not of value as a person.
2-Driving home the lack of reciprocity: how much more difficult the divorce was for her than for her husband. He said, “I love you as much as ever! While she had to work to detach and “love him less.”
Now, he is going on happy to explore his new fun life, to celebrate being himself, while she is full of grief, loneliness, anger, severely diminished self esteem, and a faith crisis.
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"she does not have the sense of betrayal" ......even though her sense of self took a hit,
and she felt devalued
I just do not understand this!
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Thanks OMOTF for posting this. I’ve followed their journey for a while intermittently - if anyone wants to read it, they catalogue it here:
But yes, Ellexoh, that is a mind twist there. Perhaps she feels because she openly chose to marry a gay man who was honest, she has not been betrayed. But I would argue that she has been, but perhaps in a wider way by the religion that made this seem like a sensible option at a ‘eternal’ level which she mentions in the interview.
Recently I’ve been thinking about my own impressions of my GIDX and how I denied the possibility that he was gay despite what some who hear my story have said “WTF” to. We are in a relationship and often the idea of our spouse and the image they are portraying is just too strong for us to let go of. I really identified with the whole part where she said she had to love him LESS. I was not ready when my marriage ended to end the relationship that had been a part of my life for so long, but I had not choice as he left and in a way the lack of communication and simple understanding for my grief was helpful in that it showed me so clearly that I was in denial as a wife betrayed so fundamentally still seeking relationship with a person who valued me so little. I feel now that my value to him was nearly exclusive to my utility to him. As a person I mattered very little, my grief, my tears, my heartbreak were equal to his suffering in his eyes. Lolly Weed is very generous in her interview, but it is clear that her husband has moved swiftly on romantically and that is very painful for her. As a woman with young children and having the late realization of the hopelessness of her predicament, it is just not as easy as it is for a man. I think there must be a sense of anger and frustration, but perhaps the betrayal is less.
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