My wife and I are dealing with her losing faith in her testimony. It is a classic rubberband type situation. She joined the church as a teenager and I have been in the church since I was six years old. I served an LDS mission and we are sealed in the temple. We have five beautiful children (one of which is in the military and married in the temple). My wife put up with my dysfunction for 18 years ( I have ADHD and we did not know it until a couple of years ago) and I came from an abusive background. In any case, our marriage was on the rocks and I in desperation finally investigated if there was something wrong with me. I began a regimen of medication for ADHD and suddenly it was like a woke up to the world for the first time. We limped through the first year as thing got amazingly better, and now our relationship is stronger than ever and the children are happier because dad is on the right track. The irony of all of this is that my wife has lost her faith. She is trying to convince herself that she always struggled with the idea that God exists and now she is dabbling with habits that she seems interested in such as drinking an occasional glass of wine when we are out to dinner or drinking coffee in the morning at the hotels she stays at (she travels for work). Her wardrobe has changed as well. No longer does she wear garments. She made a “feigned” effort to reactivate long enough to get a temple recommend because she was not going to miss her sons wedding. In any case, I am struggling since I love her dearly. I blame myself a lot for putting her through so much stress and grief due to my own issues and that it was the straw that broke the camels back so to speak. She prayed over the years faithfully for help, for things to change, and they never did. They just got worse. Finally when she stopped praying, entertained living her life without God, everything started to get better. This makes it hard for her to resolve that somehow her prayers were finally answered when she started to not live the word of wisdom and stop wearing her garments. I am torn because of my guilt in creating the struggle, I am torn because I love her dearly and we spent so many years without unity in our home that I would rather follow her current path if only to establish peace and unity in our home. She deserves a break and I do not want to be the guy who is reminding her every day that she somehow is not living right. She is an adult I understand and can make her own decisions, but this affects all of us in the family. I do not feel like I am the guy to put my foot down regarding the children’s upbringing and I fear that they will follow their mother’s example. So a part of me wants to just say, fine it didn’t work with the church but we love each other and life is working for us now. Let us live it the way we feel to do and be happy with each other. The other part of me is terrified that I would be dropping my family off of a cliff from which we will never be able to climb up again.
First of all, I commend both you and your wife for hanging in through what it sounds like very difficult times and seeking the help you needed to persevere. Overcoming things like growing up in an abusive background and diagnoses like ADHD are huge accomplishments. Thank goodness that the treatment for ADHD is relatively simple, with medicines playing a very useful role. Many do not understand that ADHD can continue into adulthood and therefore, never even think to check this out as a possibility.
The process you see your wife currently going through is actually quite normal for people in her situation (you see this also in spouses who are married to recovering addicts). For so long she has had to play the role of the “responsible” one. The one who held things together – almost like the parent in the couple structure. Once the “sick” spouse becomes more functional, it can be a natural response to want to “let go,” rebel, have resentments and switch the parental role. Hopefully, over time the two of you can move into an equally yoked relationship where both are acting as “parents” per se and as equals in the couple relationship. You may consider attending marital therapy to help you both process through the changes you are currently experiencing. Because even positive change can be difficult to adjust to.
Self-blame is only temporarily productive – to motivate you to progress. Please don’t wallow in self-blame – it will be highly unproductive for both you and your wife. Use the past as a tool to help you understand your current issues and to help you move forward and change patterns. However, understand that much of what you and your wife had to deal with was a direct effect of a mental health disorder that affected your level of brain functioning. Having a chemical, biological disorder is not a sin. And any chronic disease will have trying effects on a family structure.
My advice would be to encourage you to focus on enjoying the renewed intimacy with your wife. It is such a wonderful blessing that the two of you were able to get help in time to save your marriage!! This relationship should be your number one priority at this time – especially since you are still going through a reparatory process. The last thing your wife needs right now is feeling judged or inadequate.
I always stick to the following list as to how priorities should fall:
God
Family
Church/Community
The primary purpose of the organization of our church is meant to bring us closer to God and to our family. The primary purpose of the organization of family is to bring us closer to God. And the closer we are to God, the better our family/church/community relationships are. Ideally, things in our life would be aligned so that prioritizing one of these would not be in conflict with another – but many times in our day-to-day imperfect lives this is not the case and so we need a helpful rule of thumb to choose correctly what comes first. Don’t allow for your anxiety regarding your wife’s feelings toward the church at this point get in the way of the much needed progress the two of you are making.
Having said this, I am not suggesting that you need to follow in your wife’s behavior. There is definitely a balance you can successfully achieve. You can listen to, empathize with, and try to understand where your wife is coming from. You can offer a non-judgmental, supportive, and loving stance. AT THE SAME TIME, you can respectfully continue with your own gospel beliefs, attending church and living standards as you see fit. This does not have to be an either/or situation.
The following statements are examples of how you can empathize and support without insinuating that you necessarily agree or will follow suit with her actions:
- “I can see where you are coming from”
- “I can see why you would feel that way”
- “I can’t imagine what it’s been like to be in your shoes the past 18 years”
- “It took me a long time to sort things out. Now I want to be here to support you in taking the time you need.”
- “There’s nothing wrong with having doubts or the feelings you describe. I just want us to be able to talk about them even if we don’t always agree.”
- “Regardless of how we both come out feeling about the church, I want you to know that I love you and you come first.”
Ultimately, we are all in charge of our own testimonies. We can’t force someone else to have or not to have one. You don’t have a lot of control regarding the outcome of your wife’s testimony journey. However, you do have a lot of control regarding your response to your wife, the spirit in your home (one of love, tension, or contention), and your own behavior. Your best bet is to recognize and control your anxiety regarding this issue (then tension will decrease), keep doing the things you believe in (in a non-judgmental stance), and be as open as you can in your communication with her regarding your feelings, your fears, your love for her, and your desires for your family.
You can look under other posts labeled “struggling testimony” for more tips and you may find faceseast.org a useful site to visit.
I wish you both the very best.
The Mormon Therapist
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