Comments on: My Mormon-Evangelical Interfaith Marriage — Parenting & More

By: Emily

Emily — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 04:30:15 +0000

Your blog was wonderfully written and very insightful.

I am an active Mormon and but divorced. I am young, almost 31 with two small children. I had a temple marriage and was married for 7 years. My temple marriage to a mormon man was terrible. After years of him committing adultery and eventually ex-communicated. I just had to get a divorce. I can not tell you how much happier I am out of that marriage.

I love the church and will always believe. I even served a mission which is big in the Mormon church if you are a women. After what I went through with my now ex-communicated ex-husband I simply just wanted to date someone with intergrity and values. I don’t live out west and non-married mormon men are rare. I simply started to just chat with people on line. Eventually I met a Catholic man, not really active in the catholic church but he is wonderful to me and we get along so well. He really respects my beliefs and things are progressing that I really think I could marry him.

I am concerned as he has two kids and I have two kids. It is in my divorce decree that I stipulated, more for my ex-husband, is that both parents need to raise the children mormon. So, stipulated this as I feared he would not take the kids to church. So, I too must raise the children Mormon. The man I am dating is supported. However, if one day we do decide to marry, I wonder how this will work as their may be some conflicting beliefs and leniency with what he lets his kids do as opposed to me.

As you know, I am able to have another temple marriage after my divorce as my ex was ex-communicated but I do not think the man I’m dating would convert. If you think about it, I was married to a non-member for four years as he was ex-communicated 4 years ago for adultery and I still stayed and he continued to cheat. The man i’m dating respects and supports me in all church activities. It is just hard to have what I’ve been longing for 7 years in how a man should treat me, yet he isn’t a member and I may have to sacrifice a temple marriage. I can say that I am finally happy after 7 years. It is definitely a struggle right now between my faith. I do not judge people and respect all faiths. As a missionary, I learned most importantly to love all people, not to just simply preach what I believe but to love people and let them decide. If I force others of what I believe then I am following Satan’s plan myself and taking away their free agency to choose.

I am researching inter-faith relationships and marriages as I am heading down that same road. I appreciate anyone’s comments and wish everyone peace this holiday season!

By: Russian Singles

Russian Singles — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 09:28:10 +0000

Thanks for the information on topics.I was excited for this article.
Thank you again.

By: Bridget Jack Meyers

Bridget Jack Meyers — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 02:00:43 +0000

Hmm, good questions Lola, and I’m sorry to hear about your situation. Give me a few days to think it over and I’ll see if I can give you some suggestions. Happy thanksgiving!

By: Lola

Lola — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 22:10:20 +0000

I was overjoyed to read your article I have been searching for couples with similar situations as I and have found very few. In my situation however, my husband is Baptist and I am Mormon. He will not have children with me unless I agree they will only go to his church and they will never hear any Mormon doctrine. You can see how this would break a woman’s heart. I understand that he feels responsible for the salvation of his children but he does not see that I am just as responsible as he. Do you have any ideas of how I can bridge this gap between us? How are you able to accept the possiblility that your children might become LDS? I think my husbands stumbling block is that he will be held accountable by God for this.

By: Bridget Jack Meyers

Bridget Jack Meyers — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 04:57:18 +0000

Lindsay: I guess you live in a world where different people never have different experiences? I also graduated from BYU and lived in Provo for 6 years, and I stand by what I saw: girls wearing shirts that were too short so that their garments poked out, navel symbol and all. My husband saw them too, and I remember my Hebrew 201 teacher snorting about it in class on one occasion. Maybe you just don’t notice these things because you aren’t an outsider and you aren’t looking for them, I don’t know, but if I were you, I’d take your accusations of disrespect out on the members who wear their garments improperly and not on the innocent non-members who point it out.

By: Lindsay

Lindsay — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 02:20:42 +0000

I don’t even know how I came across your blog, but I am a graduate of BYU as well as my husband and the majority of my family, and I must say that I have never seen a girl with a bare midriff revealing what you stated above. Due to the fact that your husband is LDS, it seems that you might have just a little more respect for what we believe to be sacred so that you are not skewing things for people who are not familiar with what you are talking about.

By: Rasul

Rasul — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 05:59:30 +0000

Hey Jack,

It was very interesting and enjoyable to hear about you and your husbands story. I am glad that I don’t have to deal with some of the hard decisions you’ve had to make. My wife and I are both Bible believing Christians, but I can totally relate in some ways…I’m black and my wife is white. You don’t pick consciously who you’re going to fall in love with; you’re kind of presented with a choice and you choose whether to go with it or not. God bless you and your family and thanks for being so real.

Rasul

By: Bridget Jack Meyers

Bridget Jack Meyers — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 01:53:00 +0000

Hi Nina, I saw your comment a few weeks ago and meant to reply, but gosh, just got so busy with my family issues.

I’m glad you liked the essays and I hope you caught my mention of Juliana Boerio-Goates and her husband, Steve Goates. She is a Catholic and he is Mormon. I linked to one of the essays she wrote on the subject. If you wanted to ask her any questions, I’m sure she would love to hear from you, just mention where you heard about her.

By: Nina

Nina — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 23:54:21 +0000

I stumbled onto your blog by accident. I was searching the internet for information regarding interfaith marriages – mostly where one partner is of the LDS faith.
I found your blog very insightful, while I am not an Evangelical Christian. However, I am marrying a practicing Mormon. I was raised Catholic and I consider myself to be a Catholic. Currently I’m not practicing my my faith. It’s more out of laziness, which stemmed from my college days, but my beliefs are still very important to me.
At the beginning, Soon-to-be-husband also struggled with the fact that he can’t be married in the temple. We continuously talk about religion but given our history (long story and really don’t want to post everything in the comment section).
There are some good point in your blog, the both of us haven’t thought about and I look forward to reading more about your journey.

By: sarah

sarah — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 20:25:48 +0000

I’ve heard a lot about Dr. Huntsman, but have yet to take a class from him. I heard he’s hard, so it’s mostly out of intimidation that I’ve avoided him. But maybe I’ll have to bite the bullet and take one.

I’ve emailed back and forth with David Dominguez a couple of times; he seems like a good guy.

I actually heard about you last year from Roger Cook, a philosophy professor. He loved you. I randomly stumbled onto this blog while searching for whether or not Sarah Palin was LDS (haha), and figured out that it was you he was talking about…strange, how things like that happen! Good to hear from you.