Religion and its hold

[jasminegld]

Originally Posted by redevil

...Raised Mormon and by a controlling mother...

Can you move away, say 500 to 1000 miles? Close enough to visit for major holidays, but too far for a weekend trip. This would provide you with the independence that a relationship needs to establish itself firmly. It might save your marriage.

A controlling mother has ruined many a marriage. Quote Genesis: ...a man will leave his father and mother....

As for the counselors, do a search for kink aware professionals, and find a counselor who understands polyamory. There are professionals who will counsel by telephone, if you can't find one local.

[redevil]

Actually we can and do live far far away from his family. I currently live about 3000 miles away and Lobster lives about 6000. His job will keep us away as long as we want it to (and we do!) Sadly they still reach out and since we have 4 kids, it's hard to keep them more then an arms length away for their sakes.

Thanks for the advice about the counselors. We currently have an issue with countries and what's available but hopefully soon.

[kreeativ]

isnt religion wonderful,it has done so much so free the human spirit,to guide and instruct us throughout this journey as humans. just wonderful, i cant wait to get to church and be saved.

[River]

Originally Posted by Quath

It sounds like Lobster needs to find out what he reallly believes and go with that. Create a foundation of beliefs and see how it works out.

Belief grounded in what? Trouble is, too many people go in search of "beliefs" about "ultimate things" with no groundedness. Such people often only have the library of cultural myths to work from, oftentimes, and so don't have much groundedness in their own Earthy, embodied lives. Is it not obvious, then, that one first needs groundedness in one's own life-experience, the body/Earth ..., before going in search of yet more ungrounded fantasies...? No story or picture satisfies. One has to arrive at ground zero--grounded human experience, to even begin to search for a path.... And a path only leads to one's own true front door.

[Quath]

I tend to agree, but I think a lot of introspection will rule out many possible paths. For example, if a person chooses to believe in a god who helps people, then they need to figure out why that god did not help out a child dieing in a mudslide or from hunger.

Or if there is a soul, what does it do? If it is the seat of morality, then why does brain damage change some people's morality and beliefs?

I think this is a very hard thing to do because humans are not naturally very logical about beliefs and worldview. It is very hard to question that which we may hold dear. But I think it does give peace in the long term.

For me, I lost all my religious beliefs and tend to think in more scientific terms because of this. However, that is not the only consistent possibility. One guy I met was a deist. That religious view tends to be very easy to support. Another person I talked to was a Christian who believed that God was so far beyond understanding that allows for many different paths to discover him which covers every religion as well as atheism.

[redevil]

Honestly religion is not something that Lobster and I discuss. It is something that interests him greatly (as does politics) while I am the deer in the head lights. I've been baptized, I have loose ideas of my own but it's not something that I'm very involved in at all. I see organized religions as more of a social gathering. We have not attended a church function as a couple in years, and the last time was her mother's church and that was for her and the family rather then ourselves. For him, having grown up Mormon, and being from Utah, this topic is something he can revel in. With that said, he spent years researching, looking for his own little "loophole" to get out. In times of stress, given a chance he will return to the church for comfort. These times are always when he is not home with our family and only when his work allows for it and also provides it.

His family often attempts to guilt him into returning, even blaming me for his disconnect with the church. Our wedding was an issue all in and of itself because I refused to go through the requirements for a Bishop and his family didn't like the idea of the minister at the church I was baptized in or of a friend becoming ordained online. I am comfortable being the scape goat for Lobster. If his family chooses to blame someone I would rather it be me as they can't get in my head the way they do his. Distance has greatly helped this as we no longer attend events for our nephews and holidays and such but it's still there. When our oldest turn 8 (the age when Mormons baptize their children) the pressure from his dad was horrible! No conversation I had with that man ever went without some dig at our daughter's soul. Even now years after we have been married, I get the "If you only understood the importance of a temple marriage.." speech. In particularly frustrated moods I have been known to throw back "Maybe I don't want to be with him for eternity. Maybe I want to be a cougar and find some hot young thing to be with when I'm about 200" or something to that affect.

In finding poly, Lobster has said many times that he feels more connected to the acceptance and open honesty that comes with the life then he ever did with the religion he was raised in. It provides for a much better environment. Ever glimmer of understanding and acceptance that he has, is followed by his mother's voice and a guilt trip that lends itself right into feelings of insecurity.

I don't think that I'm being entirely clear on things but I'm at a loss as to how to better explain myself. I don't want to change him, rather allow him to find a way to allow the option of there being something not socially accepted by the church.

[ImaginaryIllusion]

Originally Posted by redevil

In finding poly, Lobster has said many times that he feels more connected to the acceptance and open honesty that comes with the life then he ever did with the religion he was raised in. It provides for a much better environment.

I'm not surprised at all. I wish I had something useful to offer here...my head is spinning from a headline item I just read. I've never been a religious person, or raised in that kind of environment...and as I got older I became very appreciative for it. I saw so many friends stuck in the kind of environments that you describe Lobster being in...forced into some box of behavior, or worse for me was the box of opinion...what was ok to think, and what wasn't.
I'll tell the full story sometime maybe, but suffice to say that as someone who cherished being able to think for myself, and make my on decisions about things, the prospect of being forced into any little box of thought or behavior by an old book, dogma, guilt, or any of the above was pretty much a personal form of hell.

Regardless of how much church groups seemed to preach universal acceptance and love for your fellow man and such, my experience was that the practice was always different than the message. People are people, and church groups no different than any other mob...just with baked goods. Fit in and have some pie, or get out and have some heathen donuts from Timmy's on your way to hell.

Fortunately for me, I like Timmy's donuts...and I don't care about social acceptance from groups like that. It serves no purpose for me, satisfies no need or desire, and I can get my own baking from people I like and do get along with, and who accept me on my terms just as I accept them on theirs.

I make a distinction between religion, and the Church. One is a belief system, and the other if a group of people spouting dogma. I have little trouble with religion. It's the organization, the groups of people, the mobs that leave me shaking my head. And I have zero hesitation in telling them to go pound sand whenever they want to stick their fingers in my pie.... figuratively speaking.

I don't know if that will be a palatable option for Lobster, but it is an option. It's possible to take the good from a religion, and keep it in one's life...and live in a moral fashion. It may not be socially acceptable to the church...but the church is just people, as fallible and selfish as the rest of us. Social needs can be found elsewhere...breaking with the church is certainly not unheard of, and sometimes part of growing up is also breaking with our parents way of living. It doesn't sound like his parents will make that part easy...and that's a decision only he can make.

Hmm, other thoughts coming to mind too, but I've rambled enough. May come back to this later.

[SNeacail]

Originally Posted by ImaginaryIllusion

I make a distinction between religion, and the Church. One is a belief system, and the other if a group of people spouting dogma. I have little trouble with religion. It's the organization, the groups of people, the mobs that leave me shaking my head.

This!!!

I gained a LOT of insight when I started to question everything I was brought up to believe. There was a point, where I was actively looking for reasons to abandon my faith completely. It was through that search, that I was able to differentiate between what I truly believed my faith was about vs what was just organizational dogma.

When I find myself being judgemental, I am now able to stop and evaluate where it's comming from. Am I reacting because of years of indoctrination or because there is something truly wrong (they are hurting others, etc). Where I struggle the most now is with my anger toward those (mostly family members), who spout judgements and justify it with religous BS. I have become the irritating person who questions their rants with "Why?".

[Quath]

Originally Posted by redevil

With that said, he spent years researching, looking for his own little "loophole" to get out. In times of stress, given a chance he will return to the church for comfort.

I work with an "agnostic" Catholic. Basically, he likes the culture, but doesn't accept all the dogma. He told me about growing up in Catholic school.

One day, the nuns are teaching him about divorce. They said that the church doesn't recognize it. So "remarrying" was really adultery since they did not recognize the original divorce. If the person died, they would go to hell because they could not ask for forgiveness for a continuous sin. So if the person wanted to avoid hell, they could not remarry.

My friend asked the nun a question: "Can't the man kill his ex-wife and ask for forgiveness for that?" The nun realized that it would work according to the theology she had just taught. But she didn't want to promote murder as a way to get around the divorce issue. She was kind of stuck.

Soon after that, I heard that Israel sells all of its bread to this Egyptian man to "hold on" to for a day or two because they are not suppose to have the bread over some holiday. After the day or two, the man sells it back (with a little money for his profit).

I then heard about some Jews who are suppose to do no work on Saturday. They can not even push the button on an elevator. So they may live in apartments where the elevator continuously goes up and down while stopping on every floor so no one has to push a button.

All of that just made me wonder about all the loopholes people find in trying to thwart what they think is God's will. They are silly when looked at from the outside of the religion and they make God out to be some petty deity who blindly makes up nonsensical rules.

If his family chooses to blame someone I would rather it be me as they can't get in my head the way they do his.

I dated an ex-Mormon. Her ex-husband was still Mormon and he was very lax about it. Then he realized he was falling way behind with child support. So he refound his Mormon beliefs and tried to get my girlfriend's children taken away because she was now an atheist. I quickly learned that other Mormons will lie to help save children from being raised by Mormons.

In finding poly, Lobster has said many times that he feels more connected to the acceptance and open honesty that comes with the life then he ever did with the religion he was raised in. It provides for a much better environment. Ever glimmer of understanding and acceptance that he has, is followed by his mother's voice and a guilt trip that lends itself right into feelings of insecurity.

I feel that polyamory is rooted in honesty. It is about being honest with your feelings, desires and who you are. I see most religions are about conformity and hiding desires (there are some good counterexamples to this though).

I don't think that I'm being entirely clear on things but I'm at a loss as to how to better explain myself. I don't want to change him, rather allow him to find a way to allow the option of there being something not socially accepted by the church.

You may want him to give ExMormon.org a try. I have talked to some ex-Mormons who said that that website really helped them out a lot.

[jasminegld]

Originally Posted by redevil

Honestly religion is not something that Lobster and I discuss. It is something that interests him greatly (as does politics) while I am the deer in the head lights.

I'll mention Unitarian Universalism again. Christians, agnostics, atheists, Pagans, and more sit next together and discuss religious ethics, social justice concerns, religious language, etc. It's a church where Lobster can find people who can talk with him about the religious issues that he struggles with. It might well be a church that will help you be able to talk religion with him...and this might be important to him.

UUs for Polyamory Awareness has spent the last ten years raising awareness about polyamory in UUism to blaze a trail for families like yours. It should be possible to find a UU minister with whom you can talk openly about your situation and find the religious support that Lobster needs.

Jasmine