What Started My Daughter's Disaffection

[_consiglieri]

I have three daughters. One is on a mission and two are disaffected from the LDS Church. Of those two, one is angry about the Church and the other is less angry.

I was talking to the less angry daughter the other day. She is 28 and lives in Utah. She told me how it was she came to become disaffected from the LDS Church.

She is the daughter of my first marriage. After my divorce from her mother in 1995, she went to live with her mother and her mother's new husband in Utah. Her mother and new husband had two daughters in pretty short order.

Her mother and new husband were not married in the temple.

But her mother refused to cancel her temple sealing to me (in spite of my asking).

When my daughter was a teenager, she was confused about the whole sealing process. Her little half-sisters would have whose parents in the eternities?

She was told on more than one occasion by more than one Church leader that her two little half-sisters were sealed to me and my first wife because we were the only ones who had the temple sealing. In other words, her two little half-sisters would not belong to their father, but to me (!).

My daughter thought that was crazy, and that is why she asked more than once, hoping to get some clarification. But she continued to receive the same answer.

This, according to my daughter, was the first step in her disaffection from the LDS Church.

Thoughts?

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I had a Bishop call me out of the blue when my ex wanted to be un-sealed to me so she could be sealed to her now husband. This was like... 7 or 8 years ago (maybe more, who knows). I told the Bishop I was disinclined to give permission (because I was being a shithead and hated my ex). He said that since I had resigned my Church membership that it wasn't really up to me. Then I asked why in the “F” was he calling me? He hung up. She was sealed to her husband.

I thought the whole exchange was bizarre.

- Doc

[_Sanctorian]

The sealing policy is messed up. My good friend divorced her husband. They wouldn't let her cancel the sealing. She was like "I don't want to be married to him in this life. Why would I want to be married to him in the next?" That was the beginning of her final exit.

[_annie]

My divorced friend, who was active at the time, was remarrying a non-member. She wanted her sealing to her first husband cancelled. The BP and SP said it wasn't possible. She asked them to go higher up, but they continued to say that the sealing was permanent. In an effort to understand the whys and wherefores of it all, she Googled polygamy. Once she'd got over the shock of reading about polyandry and the coercion of minors, she went back and told the SP that she was going to approach a journalist about her situation. The SP then arranged for cancellation.

[_Jonah]

I cannot thank my ex-Bishop enough for his influence on my daughter from sending me a cancellation of sealing request letter for my ex-wife.

When I received notice that my ex-wife wanted to remarry in the temple and the Bishop asked if I had any objections to her doing so and having a cancellation of my sealing, I responded that I didn’t divorce her with the intention of having any strings attached. I did mention though that I found it odd that she would qualify for a temple recommend. I cited a few of the questions from the temple recommend interview and pointed out how she had stolen/emptied the savings accounts of my kids, failed to pay back a personal loan to my father (the money to pay back the loan was provided for her in our divorce settlement), etc. I concluded the letter by saying that at the very least I would imagine the church telling my ex to “make things right” before allowing her to proceed with her temple marriage. I also invited him to contact me personally with any questions he might have and that I could provide documentation for him if needed.

I never heard back from the Bishop. A month later my ex-wife was married in the temple. My kids’ savings accounts were never restored. My father was never paid back the loan.

A month or two after the temple marriage my daughter had one of her Young Women’s interviews with this Bishop. At the conclusion of the interview he asked her if she had any questions. She asked, “After you received the letter from my father, how in the world was my mother able to obtain a temple recommend?” The Bishop told her that since I was no longer an active member of the church, what I wrote had no credibility.

Once my daughter was able to reflect on his words and piece together that inactivity/credibility carried more weight than actual truth, the pathway out of the church opened up for her.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Bishop!! It only took you a few minutes in an interview to accomplish what I had tried for years to open the eyes of my daughter. I am eternally grateful.

[_moinmoin]

Sealings are only cancelled when one of the divorcees is going to have another sealing. That's so that the ordinance is still in place even in the event of a civil divorce. Are you not sealed to your second wife, consig? Or, did you get a sealing clearance?

Doctor CamNC4Me: We have a couple in our ward that was married in January, so their eyes are on a January/February sealing. The wife is concerned about needing to get a letter from her ex-husband (whom she represents as crazy and vindictive), because he will refuse. I told her that, in my experience, the letters that really matter are from the priesthood leaders and the person seeking a cancellation/clearance. The letters from ex-spouses offer them a chance to "have their say," but it's pretty clear that a disgruntled ex-spouse doesn't have "veto power" or the ability to gum up the works. The process of seeking and getting (or not getting) these letters can lead to some interesting experiences!

[_Maksutov]

I had a Bishop call me out of the blue when my ex wanted to be un-sealed to me so she could be sealed to her now husband. This was like... 7 or 8 years ago (maybe more, who knows). I told the Bishop I was disinclined to give permission (because I was being a ****head and hated my ex). He said that since I had resigned my Church membership that it wasn't really up to me. Then I asked why in the f*** was he calling me? He hung up. She was sealed to her husband.

I thought the whole exchange was bizarre.

- Doc

These are the kind of knots that Mormon theolegalism leads to.

[_moinmoin]

I never heard back from the Bishop. A month later my ex-wife was married in the temple. My kids’ savings accounts were never restored. My father was never paid back the loan.

A month or two after the temple marriage my daughter had one of her Young Women’s interviews with this Bishop. At the conclusion of the interview he asked her if she had any questions. She asked, “After you received the letter from my father, how in the world was my mother able to obtain a temple recommend?” The Bishop told her that since I was no longer an active member of the church, what I wrote had no credibility.

That's terrible! I've always taken the input from ex-spouses (active, inactive, or whatever) seriously and weighed it as a factor (when they aren't clearly off the rails or with an obvious vendetta).

My sister discovered her husband's double life when their son was five months old. Very Mark Hacking-esque (lied about going to college, forged her signature on loans she didn't know about to finance his lifestyle, prostitutes, etc.). He had a secret PO box she didn't know about, and a Discover Card bill she didn't know about miraculously came to the house (the house wasn't on the account in any way for obvious reasons). She divorced him and he was excommunicated.

Years later, after rebaptism, RoB, etc., his stake president contacted her regarding a letter for him to be sealed. She told him that she didn't want to be an obstacle to that, and therefore didn't object, but that he should know that he had never paid child support (she has her own business and forged her life without it, but he had never attempted to pay it). The stake president said that he told him he was current on it, and could prove it. My sister said that that is impossible because it is done through a web site in her state, so he couldn't have submitted "proof." Turns out that he had built a web site that mimicked the state site to fool the stake president, and the stake president found that very interesting. This halted the process in his case.

[_MsJack]

I was visiting with a couple in my then-husband's ward shortly after moving to Illinois (2009-2010). The man and woman had each married young in the temple and had a son, and then lost his/her spouse in their 20s. They had gotten married to each other and had two daughters together, so they had four children total: two older sons who were on missions or at BYU, and two girls who were about ages 9-11.

When they told me their very sweet story, my curiosity kicked in, and I blurted out, "So who are your daughters sealed to?" The father's eyes got wide and he said, "We don't talk about that!"

But one of the girls caught on, and said, "We're not sealed to you??" Apparently the girls were considered sealed to the wife's deceased husband. I'm not sure why the wife instead of the husband... nod to the Levitical "have kids on your dead brother's behalf" laws? I felt horrible that I'd "outed" this revelation to the girls, but was also a bit flabbergasted that the girls had been baptized into the church without being told that. Seems like important information.

My LDS friends later said it's considered impolite to ask people about how their sealings work. I honestly didn't know.

Of course, in this case, it wouldn't have been a problem if the church would just repeal the "a living woman can only be sealed to one man" rule, but that wouldn't have been the case for Consiglieri's daughter.

[_moinmoin]

Of course, in this case, it wouldn't have been a problem if the church would just repeal the "a living woman can only be sealed to one man" rule,

There are exceptions to this (granted by the First Presidency). I am personally aware of three.

My second-to-last mission companion wore a fork bent around his wrist. He was a greenie, and his German wasn't good enough to explain it to bewildered people, so I told him to answer, when asked why he had a fork around his wrist, "Es ist eine Waffe" (It's a weapon). And then I would step in and explain . . .

He was very close to his cousin, and their favorite restaurant was The Pie. His cousin got married, and began having very vivid repetitive dreams about how he would die. He died six months after these dreams started, he died exactly as he saw in these dreams. His wife was sealed to another man a year or so later (she was 21 or so), and this really bothered my companion. I asked him if he expected her to be a widow for the rest of her life, or to only be married civilly? He said he understood all that, but she had only been with the "love of her life for six months, and she will have been with her 2nd husband a whole lifetime. Wouldn't she probably choose him over his cousin?

There are all kinds of messy, complicated scenarios for which the only answer is "It will all get sorted out in the hereafter." This answer is often not really satisfactory for people directly involved.