Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeWaters
Btw, it seems like it's pretty tough to get divorced in our church.
Lady in our ward, husband inactive suddenly. And continues to be inactive x 2 years or so. She discovers he has been massively treating on her. They get divorced. She's so embarrassed by the divorce (many people knew the circumstances) she goes inactive herself.
A couple years later she remarries, and is either apostate or close to it. Done. Refuses all contact.
People really liked her, wanted to reach out to her. But I bet she would report that she was shunned and her community rejected her.
|
You are right that going through divorce within our LDS culture can be quite rough. I have experienced it firsthand, not from an adult's perspective, but as a 12 year old when my parents went through it. There is so much I could say about this topic, I don't know where I would even start.
I will say the shunning thing can be very real to the participants, and I would never try to say that she didn't feel it somehow. I do empathize with her on that aspect of her story. I experienced it too. It was the early 80s when divorce was very rare within the church at that time. We went through a pretty rough time in our ward immediately after my dad left and for a couple of years until we finally made the decision to move out of our home in Sandy and go to Provo.
That move was just what my family needed. It was motivated by the crappy treatment thrown our way from some of our fellow ward mambers. Then we moved to Provo where no one knew us. Suddenly we felt accepted and welcomed by other church members. It was a huge blessing for me and my siblings.
And I can even turn this into a sports thread because I feel like BYU sports was a happy thing for me and my brother that helped us while going through this. We were already BYU fans, but in the months after my dad left us, there was the 1980 football season with Jim McMahon, capped off by the miracle Holiday Bowl finish. I remember my 9 year old brother talking with my mom in another room while the game was going on as she was helping him feel better about something related to the divorce and our tough times. He had stopped watching the game. I was still watching the Cougars getting blown out.
Then the comeback started and I remember going to tell my brother that something was happening and he might want to come see. He did and we got to celebrate together when Clay Brown caught the pass.
Then just three months after that we did it again when Danny Ainge went coast to coast against Notre Dame. Those were happy times in the middle of a rough period for my family. My mom doesn't care at all about sports, but she has commented before that she was glad we had that to add a little happiness to our lives.