We Each Pay a Fabulous Price

I've been contemplating this post for many weeks. It was first going to be a personal post about the struggles I've had over the past several months. However, life moves on and my perspective changes. There was a family member that was sent to the emergency room and surgery. Relationship issues also intruded our space and I thought perhaps it would go into that direction.

Instead, I want to write about others who went through their search for truth in this period of time with me. Most I met on Facebook as we sought solace with others to try and deal with all the discomfort that it brought. In many ways, I kind of view it as a first world problem, considering all the other problems that beset mankind, but it affected us all in very personal ways.

You wouldn't think that the very action of not going to church, or changing your outlook on life wouldn't bring many families to the brink of dissolution, but it does. How do you exit a belief that dominates your life? Perhaps it shouldn't, but it does, and that is part of the underlying problem. I don't want to talk about the merits of faith or disbelief, as those can be had elsewhere. I want to talk about what it means on the ground. This won't be exhaustive, just a quick look at what it does to families.

I don't want to write about all of the issues I've had. I will state that I read a few books by members of my faith that raised questions about history and doctrine. I tried to understand what I believed and why. I confided in people that I knew and trusted and eventually it became more than I could overlook. I wanted truth. I no longer wanted to be fed belief for its own sake. I talked to my wife about it and everything became difficult. I wanted to know she loved me, even if I started taking a different road. Did she love me or did she love my position or what my belief offered her? It began the most difficult part of our marriage to date. It stressed everything as we worked out how to respect each other for what we were. There was a time when I felt I was so disruptive to the family that it would probably be better if I lived somewhere else, if but for a time. We talked deeply about who and what we were. We opened up to a degree that we never had before and started to discuss things that we had hidden or pushed down. We did work it out, but our discovery and talks extend to the present as we feel free to change ourselves and our thinking as time goes on. I no longer feel static and rigid in my thinking of some sort of expectation. I can be wrong. I can change my mind.

Tracy and I have worked it out, and we continue to work things out. Many of my friends online weren't so lucky. For whatever reason, many of them divorced. Some had other issues to work out as well as Tracy and I did. Others found themselves in abusive relationships and owning their beliefs translated into owning their lives once again and left for a better life. Others questioned their decisions all the way back, all their lives. To a degree, so did I. I questioned everything. If I was so wrong in one part of my life, perhaps I was wrong in many other.

Barry Mills put it very well in his blog post "I Choose You, Again"

The large majority of people who leave The Mormon Church go through this process of questioning every major life decision they make.  You feel like The Church robbed you of choice.  (Ironic, since agency is a core tenet of the religion) Did I do “that” because I was Mormon or because it was a good choice?  Would I make that same decision again, now that I’m not Mormon?

Would I have gone to college, if I didn’t go on a Mormon mission immediately after high school?  Would I have a different career?  Would I enjoy that career more than this one?  Would I feel more fulfilled?

I married the first woman I had a real relationship with, a year after returning from my mission.  Would I have done that, if I wasn’t Mormon?  Would I have dated other women?  I’ve only had sex with my wife.  Would I have had sex with other women?  What would that be like?  Did I marry the right person?  Would I have gotten married at all?  Would my life be different?  What would that be like?  Would I be happier?  What do I do now………….

I am very introspective, so I have always questioned my decisions to some extent, but it was more immediate at that point in my life than any other. Others evaluated their lives and made more drastic changes. I've long since decided to let others live their own lives and like and love them all the same. I don't have time or position to judge them. We all deserve to be happy and if they aren't happy where they are, then they should make a change.

"We each pay a fabulous price..." comes from a line in a song that came out while I was on my mission. I still feel that my mission was my most costly time in my life. It changed me in many ways, not many of them good but it forced me to try and be a better person. It was what was expected of me, and what I felt others expected of me. Don't live your life for the expectations of others. Ask more questions. Dive deep into your choices. If it doesn't work out, change.