“You don’t need to go to college. The only thing you need to learn is how to be a wife and mother,” my trade-school-educated dad said, scowling, as my master’s-degree-holding mom and I looked over college brochures. As much as my 17 year-old self consciously rejected that idea, it had become deeply ingrained in my psyche over a lifetime.
While I was growing up my parents didn’t say much, about life or my future, that wasn’t church-related. Consequently, the vast majority of my ideas on those subjects came directly from the LDS church. What were the messages I received? Modesty, marriage, children, modesty, marriage, children, over and over and over again. There wasn’t any mention of individuality or differing circumstances. There was one option: wife and mother. Wife to a temple-worthy, returned missionary (with a marriage in the temple) and mother to as many children as possible as soon as possible.
There was little talk of education or personal fulfillment. I remember one quote from the current prophet (at the time that I was in Young Women’s) where he did say that girls should seek an education, although it was mentioned almost as an aside. Seek an education, but FIRST seek to get married and have children. Of course there was also the underlying suggestion that the husband’s education would take priority.
So that was the program I followed. I attended singles wards when I turned 18. After a couple of relationships that didn’t pan out, I met the man who would become my husband. Just after I turned 20, we started dating; three months later we were engaged. Five months after that, we were married in the temple. He was a returned missionary, active in the church with callings in leadership. The bishopric and everyone around him praised him as one of the “good guys.” Marry the right person in the right place. Check.
Although I had been accepted to some good universities, after high school I started a degree program at a local community college. I was putting myself through school with a part-time job and zero debt, woohoo! Nearly immediately after we were married, my husband decided he would go to school at BYU. My degree program was not available there or at any college in the area. That meant I would have to put aside my education, at least in my chosen field, until my husband’s education was complete. I didn’t protest because that’s what a good Mormon wife did, right? So three months into our marriage, we moved from our home state of California to Utah.
Over the years it began to be apparent that he never was going to complete his schooling. He tried different programs, different schools, different approaches, and different plans. I realized we weren’t going back home to California and I wasn’t going to have the option to complete the program I had started.
But by that time it didn’t matter, anyway. We had our first child two years into our marriage and the second came two and a half years later. My husband wanted me to wait until both of them were in school before I continued to pursue any kind of formal education. I tried to put myself 100% into my role of wife and mother. I did all the things I was supposed to do and then some. At the time I didn’t realize I had married a man who was raised to believe the “provider” was king and the whole household existed to support him. Because he was the husband, the Proclamation on the Family stated that he was said “provider.” So even though I worked as much as him during the years he went to school, and continued to work part time at home after my children were born, I was expected to do everything else involved in running a household.
Making friends was very difficult. I couldn’t relate to the ever-cheerful, good Mormon women around me. I couldn’t limit my ambitions, hopes, dreams and desires to only children and family. I love my kids with all my heart. At the same time, I just couldn’t be the kind of woman who stays with her kids 24/7, doing every activity with them, speaking in an over-the-top theatrical and cheerful voice. That just isn’t me and it never was me. I couldn’t relate to the ideal marriage façade I saw all around me. I wasn’t happy in my marriage and I couldn’t understand why, especially since I was following all the prophetic advice and all the “rules.” I was very much alone for years.
It took many conversations with a sister-in-law for me to begin to realize I was in an abusive marriage. It wasn’t one of those stereotypical, getting beaten every day, fearing for one’s life kind of abuse. It was more subtle, twisted, and difficult to describe. There was much emotional and verbal abuse spotted with several instances of physical abuse. It was difficult for me to realize because I was raised in the same way. So cliché, I know.
Without going into defensive mode, feeling like I have to make a case to validate my decision, I will suffice it to say that after 9 years of marriage and finally moving back to our home state, I filed for divorce. Now I am faced with attempting to make enough of a living to support myself and my children, including paying for child care, without a degree or much of any market-worthy experience. Largely because I followed the prescribed path the Church promotes so vigorously.
I’m standing at a major crossroads in my life. There are opportunities, challenges and a whole lot of unknown in front of me. It’s hard not to look back and regret so many of my decisions in the past, but I’ve decided to start where I am now, take what I can get, and make the best of it.
–Submitted by Catherine
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Wow, what a tough road. I wish you the best going forward!
First, I want to say, kuddos to you on having a great attitude: “but I’ve decided to start where I am now, take what I can get, and make the best of it.” Second, I want to say that I’m sorry for what you experienced. If I can be blunt, to me, it sounds like a nightmare. I’m glad that you had someone to talk to that helped you see what became a turning point in your life. I wish there were a healthier approach to the general approach to what a true coupling and partnership between spouses look like in The Church. As it is, I think I’ve been blessed to be around members that think similarly as I do when it comes to family roles. Leaders and lay members alike. But it bothers me greatly when I read stories like this, stories that bring to light how much further this path still is, in getting to a healthier place for all of us.
Catherine, I’m in California and I want to be your friend. I know it’s a big place and the odds that you’re near me are small. But I could have been you so easily. It’s only dumb, stupid luck that my gamble on a husband turned out well. I’m in south Orange County. I used my real email address in making this comment, I give permission for a moderator to pass it on to you if you want it.
Catherine – hugs and best wishes for you! I was in a similar situation, but it took me 29 years to wake up and smell the trash! 99% because of what the church taught me about being a Mormon women and what it taught X about being Mormon man. I had NINE kids when I was strong enough to say no more (emotional, verbal, sexual abuse) I had no schooling or marketable skills so it was a scary time. But God and Goddess are good and within a week I had a job one day a week that transformed into more hours shortly thereafter. Within a few months I was attending college on a Pell Grant. All of a sudden my world was in technicolor instead of black and white. Of course there’s LOTS more to my story but the bottom line is – I did what was RIGHT and always listened to the Spirit. It’s been almost 12 years since we divorced (I’ve since married a wonderful NOMO) I still have ill feeling towards the church; I do not trust most LDS men as they did NOT come to my aid, my ward is very judgmental since I should have “known better” about marrying a NOMO, and I have come to look at everything in the church with new eyes, especially the way women are treated. Hold your head up high dear sister – you’re on the right path for you and your kids. Miracles have and will continue to happen for you!!!!!
Heather, I hear you and am glad to see that you are in a healthier place.
So many of the practices of our church tell me a story– that it is Possible to Have Truth (there are many things that I take to my soul and they burn in my bones– such as the Plan of Happiness for all of God’s children) and yet we can live it like a cult, mind-control and everything.
I am thinking of reading the feminine mystique, just so I can get a grip on what other people are talking about. I’ve not studied it, but I have studied our scriptures and our rites and in the end, I come back to myself and ask, Why, if there were so many prophets, did they not define “good” as “good for all” instead of just “good for men”? WHY? Did God not love His daughters at all, or were the men, including prophets, just assholes back then and even somewhat now? Where is the encouragement for women to grow and develop? Why are women so consistently assigned the job of sacrificing everything they want to think or do, so that others (men and boys and girls, until they grow up) can grow and develop? Was this decision of God… or man? I tend to think that the whole Curse of Eve thing, wherein women are temporally and in our temple rites, eternally, sublimated to men, is a load of crap. God never punished Eve for being the first to make the right choice. I say we are meant to be side-by-side. I say it is men who promoted the doctrine of sublimation of women, and that most prophets left it because they benefited from it.
Abusive relationships are cyclic so it can be weeks between the abuse or mere minutes. Being physically abused is one of the extreme forms of abuse but all abuse is wrong. No type of abuse is better than another since all are harmful. I say this as a formerly abused wife.
Catherine, I read through this and thought it sounded really familiar. Then I saw your name. I love you!!! You are so incredibly strong and I am in awe at what you have overcome. Call me sometime.