Exponent II's Blog, page 72

I’m a Mormon-raised stay-at-home mom. Can a career be in my future?

I have been a mostly-stay-at-home mom for over twelve years now. As my four children get a bit older and more independent—my youngest entered kindergarten this year—my mind has been racing through the possibilities for my future. I’ve felt some anxiety to have my plan figured out RIGHT NOW. Do I enter a doctoral program? Take an online training course to build technical skills? Go back to adjunct teaching at a university or shift to secondary school teaching? Follow the path of some of my friends into marketing?

But when I consider the practical requirements of many of these options and what they would demand of my family, it’s like I slam into a brick wall. With four kids and two dogs, daytime appointments for doctors, dentists, orthodontists, vets, grooming, etc. are frequent. After school activities are busy and constantly shifting with the seasons. And while my husband happily helps with the kids and home, none of my immediate options make any financial sense if they require him to miss work regularly.

Facing this seemingly impossible puzzle, I started to think that my situation was somehow unique, particular to me as a Mormon-raised woman living away from extended family. As though giving birth to my first child three weeks after graduating with my master’s and not building a career during the extreme sicknesses of my subsequent pregnancies and challenging post-partum eras was rare. Like maybe it was personal failings or weaknesses or lack of vision in my early twenties that stopped me from building a career or having a clear path forward.

Reading the Nobel Prize-winning book Career and Family: Women’s Century Long Journey Toward Equity by the Harvard economic historian Claudia Goldin completely shifted my mindset. Through Goldin’s population-level analysis of the problem of balancing career and family for college-education Americans born between 1878-1978 (and some predictions for those born later, like myself), I saw how my choices and challenges were shaped by massive forces that were not unique to me. While every woman’s experience is particular to her, and there are always outliers, the likelihood and timing of having a career and family follow generational trends that respond to social, cultural, economic, and legal shifts over time.

So with the persistent gender pay gap and continued institutional sexism, was the women’s movement a failure? No! Goldin breaks down the population of her hundred-year time span into five groups that faced similar constraints and opportunities. Goldin largely uses “men” and “women” as a gender binary and focuses on heterosexual pairings as her data was limited in part by census information and what previous generations of scholars tracked. She defines “family” as a woman having at least one child from birth or adoption with or without a spouse, as she found that it was having a child (and the time off for childbirth and caregiving) that initiated the greatest gender divergence in pay and opportunity compared to other factors such as marriage alone. Goldin distinguishes between “jobs” and “careers,” with the former providing income for work but without requiring a specialized degree and clear advancement opportunities.

College-educated women’s opportunities changed significantly over these hundred years. They went from a stark choice between career OR family to the high likelihood of career AND family over one’s life. For women born in 1878, only about 2.5% graduated from college by age 30, while for women born in 1978, over 40% graduated from college by age 30. For college-educated women in Group 1 (b. 1878-1897), only 30% of married women were in the labor force in their late 40s. For college-educated women in Group 5 (b. 1958-1978), 84% of married women were in the labor force in their late 40s. The trends of college-educated women’s lives changed, with Group 1 having either a Family or Career, Group 2 having a Job then a Family, Group 3 having a Family then a Job, Group 4 having a Career then a Family, and Group 5 having a Career and a Family. Each group/generation learned from the experiences of the prior group and adjusted as society and technology changed. Group 4 had much greater access to birth control than previous groups, while Group 5 was the first to have significant access to reproductive technologies that allowed more women to have children later in life. The women’s movement fought many restrictive laws that limited women’s employment opportunities based on marriage or motherhood. Between women in groups 4 and 5, the largest shifts happened in the timing of career and family, more than the likelihood of eventually having both.

But what accounts for the persistent gender pay gap? I was surprised gender discrimination accounts for a relatively small part of this gap. The largest factor is time.

Goldin calls time “the great equalizer” in that men and women with the same degree in the same industry make roughly the same income when they put in the same time. However, for women who want both career and family, “the timing is brutal.” When a woman takes maternity leave, her pay starts to significantly differ from her male peers because of the lost time at work. “Work, for many on the career track, is greedy. The individual who puts in overtime, weekend time, or evening time will earn a lot more—so much more that, even on an hourly basis, the person is earning more” (9). The issue of “greedy work” and how time=money means that to maximize their family’s economic potential, couples tend to specialize, with one taking on more family responsibilities (being on call for children even if working) while the other specializes in career. Generally, within a couple, the earning potential gap compounds as a woman takes time off for additional children, eventually leading the man to have a much higher earning potential and making it more costly when he takes time off work for childcare for her to build a career. The cost of his time grows, so she is likelier to drop to part-time work to remain on call for caregiving. When couples attempt to resist specialization, taking equal time for family, both careers suffer compared to their specializing peers. Rising inequality compounds the issue for individuals in high-earning careers.

Couples that want equal partnerships face tough math. “Greedy work also means that couple equity has been, and will continue to be, jettisoned for increased family income. And when couple equity is thrown out the window, gender equality generally goes with it, except among same-sex unions.” The gap compounds and wives/sisters become more likely to take on elderly care in addition to childcare (10). Of course, the economic challenge of work/care is even harder for single parents, especially single mothers.

Despite the problems of “greedy work,” I was surprised that statistically, a very high majority of college-educated women who marry and have children do in fact go on to have careers. Of course, certain careers or career tracks draw more women as they offer greater flexibility for ongoing caregiving needs. And while the trends shift over generations, whether women start careers before or after having children, most college-educated women today ultimately have both careers and family. However, women rarely, if ever, catch up to their male peers in earnings after they have children.

Goldin recommends restructuring and rethinking work to address the gender pay gap and career inequality. Work needs to become more flexible rather than individuals within couples becoming more flexible for men and women to have both careers and families without such a gulf in pay. When industries shift to make workers meaningfully interchangeable—not by creating robot employees, but teams with individuals fully capable of stepping in for one another—industries make the largest shifts to close the gender pay gap. Think of the changes to modern pharmacies or the increase of banking teams rather than private bankers. There is a long way to go for work equity, but there is a path forward for industries that make the necessary changes. The lasting results of how the pandemic shifted work is yet to be seen, but it revealed how much of the economy depends on caregiving and how much still falls to women.

Career and Family was fascinating on a population and policy level, but also on a personal level. Reading the book helped break me out of the mindset that my career challenges are rare or unique to me. And while I think that Mormon women are likely a generation behind many other college-educated American women in their choices and timing regarding work and family, the larger trends track. The choices I faced when deciding when to have children and both the short-term AND long-term costs of my career-building options are real. However, I’m in my mid-thirties, and if statistics bear out, I will likely have a full career in my future, even if I don’t start a career-building job or program within the next few years. I can take my caregiving responsibilities and their economic benefits to my family as a meaningful factor in my decisions about what I do next and when I do it without being a failed feminist. But I still have a lot to figure out, and my future career is unlikely to catch up to my male peers. Womp, womp.

I am frustrated at the reality of the gender pay gap and career discrepancies for men and women who become parents. However, I am more hopeful than I’ve been in years about the possibilities of my life and the opportunities ahead of me. On a larger scale, I’m hopeful that with the smart analysis of people like Claudia Goldin and the opportunity to rethink work forced by the pandemic, we may be able to make the changes necessary for future generations to experience greater gender equity at home and work.

*Featured photo by charlesdeluvio on Unsplash

Genocide in Gaza

For over four months I have followed mainstream news and social media accounts reporting on and discussing the conflict in Israel/Palestine. Different outlets are using different language to describe the situation. My choice to title this piece Genocide in Gaza is intentional to highlight the civilian cost leveled against the Palestinian people. My hope is to humanize victims of violence and normalize conversations that otherwise feel too complicated or too scary.

Scene from Gaza after it was bombed by the state of Israel. Photo courtesy of Emad El Byed on unsplash

In the past few months, I’ve had to face my own biases and knowledge gaps and do the work of unlearning and re-examining narratives that weren’t always complete. I’ve had to ask: Does it matter what we say or don’t say on this topic? Is it enough to move forward loving everyone?

I have a bracelet I got at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. It has remember written in many languages, as well as the words what you do matters. My visit there made a lasting impression, especially the exhibit documenting genocide since the Holocaust.

While there is not consensus among genocide experts if Israel’s actions do in fact constitute genocide, a very high legal bar, I look to the words of Raz Segal, program director of genocide studies at Stockton University, who not only calls it a textbook case of genocide, but also points to the importance of naming it and giving a truthful reckoning. For me, an important first step is “letting the truth be heard, and all its rawness, ugliness, and messiness.”* For me, examining my language includes the work of recognizing how antisemitism is intertwined in my country’s history and how it persists today. It’s recognizing that Israel does not equal all Jews and criticizing violent systems and policies is different than perpetuating harmful stereotypes or dehumanizing a group of people.

Stories matter. How we tell them and whose perspectives we leave out. In 2018 Vice President Pence gave a speech at the Knesset, Israel’s legislature. He said,

“In the story of the Jews, we’ve always seen the story of America. It is the story of an exodus, a journey from persecution to freedom, a story that shows the power of faith and the promise of hope. My country’s very first settlers also saw themselves as pilgrims, sent by Providence, to build a new Promised Land.”

I remember the messages of manifest destiny I heard at church. Of pilgrims and the quest for religious freedom. I don’t ever remember hearing how narratives of Columbus, Lamanites and the promised land were harmful to indigenous people.

What about the stories I grew up with regarding Israel? What are the ramifications of language and theology? Of course Mormons across time and place will have experienced different lessons. End of time discussions were plenty frequent in Southern California in the 90s and 2000s. In the Old Testament institute manual one line reads, “Israel will be rebuilt and re-inhabited by the covenant people.” I remember learning that the establishment of Israel was needed for Christ to come again. I don’t remember discussing what that meant for the people already living there.

Palestinian Christian theologian Mitri Raheb invites readers to reflect critically on scripture in his book, Decolonizing Palestine: The Land, The People, The Bible. One of the passages in Raheb‘s book that challenged me was his section on Christian Zionism redefined. He moved it beyond dispensationalists and fundamentalists:

“I argue that Christian Zionism should be defined as a Christian lobby that supports the Jewish settler colonialism of Palestinian land by using biblical/theological constructs within a metanarrative, while taking global considerations into account… The emphasis is not on what people believe, but what they do based on the belief.”

He continues this idea later in the book:

For people of faith to believe that they are elected by God is one thing. To use this belief as a pretext for supremacy or entitlement to occupy other peoples’ land is not permissible. Violations of human rights in the name of “divine right” should not be tolerated.

I appreciate how Raheb distinguishes between four different usages of the word Israel:

1. The biblical and historical kingdom of Israel, distinct from 2. biblical Israel as an abstract, theological concept, describing god’s people, 3. the modern political entity of the state of Israel and 4. Ancient Israel, which he defines as “a modern construct that confuses certain aspects of the biblical story with history, thereby projecting an exclusive, ethno-national and religious state into the bible.” 

Genocide does not just happen. How we understand violence and how we talk about it has repercussions.

Let’s do the work of witnessing. Of learning. Of dismantling. Let’s talk about it.

Resources to learn more: check out this comprehensive document from Jewish Voices for Peace

*Excerpt from The Book of Forgiving: The Fourfold Path for Healing Ourselves and Our World by Desmond Tutu and Mpho Tutu. This book recounts Tutu’s work as the Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa after apartheid.

What About the Wives of These Gay Men?

On Sunday the popular YouTube channel Jubilee posted a video in their “Middle Ground” series featuring four former members of the LDS church discussing issues with four current members. It was interesting to watch, and there’s been a lot of discussion and debate about it online over the past few days. There are plenty of things to discuss about these conversations from both sides of the aisle, but I want to focus on one specific thing today: why we as a culture and religion seem perfectly content to dismiss female sexuality and sacrifice women (and our pleasure) on the altar of getting gay men to heaven.

There was a homosexual man on the panel of current members who’d chosen to abandon his self-proclaimed “gay lifestyle” in order to marry a woman in the temple. To quote him directly from a follow up interview, he said, “I came into this knowing what the church doctrine was. I chose to marry a woman because I knew that is God’s standard. I say it all the time, I still have my challenges, but this is where I’m happiest.” My immediate thought was, that’s fine for you – but what about the happiness of the woman you married?

I have zero judgement towards his wife choosing to enter this relationship, and I don’t want to mention names or draw unnecessary attention to her private life. However, her husband is very public about his sexual orientation and their mixed orientation marriage, so I don’t feel like she has requested privacy that isn’t being granted to her. They appear to have mutually chosen to be a very public face for this type of relationship.

The gay man was invited onto a follow up podcast with three straight men to discuss the Jubilee episode, and they praised him for his decision to follow the gospel plan and marry his wife. No women were on the panel, and no one in the comments (except for me) were speaking up from the female perspective at the time I read through them. 

Before going further, I want to tell a personal story that happened at my gym years ago. An LDS woman got a divorce in her fifties from her husband – who had come out as gay – after decades of a temple marriage, a bunch of kids, and him serving in the stake presidency. She was in a weightlifting class and had just remarried and missed the prior week because she was on her honeymoon with her new, straight husband. She walked in and everyone said, “Welcome back, how was your honeymoon?”. She announced loudly to everyone in earshot, “Oh my gosh, I had the BIGGEST orgasm!” 

That woman had spent decades of her life having bad sex with a gay man, but she had no idea there was a problem because she’d never had sex with anyone else but him.

I am a straight woman who has been married to a straight man for twenty-one years. I believe I speak on behalf of many other women with the following statement, which I’m not sure the four men in this follow up podcast seem to be aware of:

Women, just like men, like to have sex.

Teenage girls think endlessly about sex, just like teenage boys. Women want to get married so they can finally have sex for the rest of their lives, just like men do. Women have orgasms. (They can have more orgasms than men do!) Women have fantasies, read romance novels, admire men in tight shirts, confess endlessly to their BYU bishops because keeping female sexuality reined in before marriage is hard for them too, and when they finally get to have sex…it’s amazing.

I also know that my sexual orientation towards men is much more than just physical and sexual. It’s romantic, spiritual, and emotional. Even if we were Barbie and Ken with no genitals, I would still fall in love with a man and want to spend my life with him, because I love (and am very attracted to) maleness and masculinity. I sometimes get frustrated by men and their unrecognized privileges in the church and society and want to stand on a chair and yell at them about it, but I’m still deeply attracted to everything about them because I was born a straight woman.

After talking to many members of the queer community, I fully believe that homosexual orientations feel just like my heterosexual one. People are attracted to who they’re attracted to, and it comes pre-wired in all of us. Even if I wanted to change my orientation, I couldn’t. I embrace my female heterosexualilty with enthusiasm, and am very happy to be married to a heterosexual man who is also very enthusiastic about it.

I try to imagine an alternate universe where I married a gay man who I loved deeply and was personally attracted to. (Gay men are some of the most beautiful creatures on earth, so I’m pretty sure I could find one I wanted to kiss.) Then I imagine this sweet, gentle man trying so, so hard to please me, but just not being able to, because he’s not attracted to me. My teenage girl heart breaks, because it was set on a lifetime of amazing, unlimited sex with my future husband. 

I frequently see the gay man in this scenario as a total victim – he was likely advised incorrectly by leaders and friends that things would work out fine in a mixed orientation marriage. Unfortunately, he couldn’t test run anything pre-wedding and still get married in the temple, so he’d only find out his true incompatibility with women after he was sealed to his wife for eternity.

Where I begin to feel anger towards men is when they know that their sexual orientation is never going to be towards women, yet they make an informed decision to marry a straight woman as a stepping stone to church prominence, biological children, and a spot in the Celestial Kingdom. She becomes an object he needs as a means to an end, not a full human being with desires and passions. It’s one thing that he willingly chooses a life that doesn’t match his biological desires, but it’s another when he asks a woman to do the same so that he can reach exaltation.

It’s then infuriating to me when straight men (with their enormous privilege of being able to marry a woman that they can effortlessly perform sexually for) applaud these gay men for their decision to enter a mixed orientation marriage. 

In the afterlife, I want these types of straight men to receive a two-part punishment before they can gain exaltation.

Part One: They should be forced to have sex with a man for fifty years. 

Part Two: They should be married to a lesbian for another fifty years, who can only stand to have sex with them on rare occasions, and by closing her eyes and pretending he’s actually a beautiful woman.

After that hundred year period, I would hope these straight men will have gained enough empathy and compassion for the people they applauded in these mixed orientation marriages that they beg their forgiveness.

Women are not a device that men use to reach heaven. Female sexuality is not unnecessary and frivolous. And no woman, anywhere, should have to wait until her second honeymoon in her mid-fifties to have the best orgasm of her life. We need to do so much better as a church about including women’s happiness in these complicated decisions about queer men.

Imbolc

“Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”

Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection

My husband gifted me a beautiful daily moon journal in support of my journey to connect more fully with the universe and my body. One of the aspects I love about the journal is the full-page spread at the beginning of each month describing a celebration in connection with the earth. For February, there is a snowy landscape in honor of Imbolc.

Imbolc is a Gaelic traditional festival celebrated on February 1, the halfway point between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. The word “Imbolc” (or Imbolg) means “in the belly of the Mother” because the seeds of spring are beginning to stir in the belly of Mother Earth. 

In the Northern Hemisphere, we are still in the throws of winter; the ground is frozen, the beasts are hibernating, and the trees are naked – shivering in the icy wind. However, hidden in the womb of the Earth are sleeping roots and bright-colored petals and juicy fruits and billions of possibilities just waiting. 

You see, Imbolc is a celebration of hope – hope for change, hope that the darkness will fade, and even when nothing in this freezing, gray world tells us this is so, the belly of the Mother remembers. 

In honor of Imbolc, my journal asks me to reflect on aspects of my life or myself that have undergone a period of dormancy or hibernation. What has been sleeping inside me, waiting for the right season and conditions to sprout?

Perhaps my creativity. Perhaps the stories and poems I’ve been too busy and too scared to imagine are lying dormant inside of me, waiting to sprout like the stirring seeds in the belly of Mother Earth. Perhaps my fear has been a frozen winter that, if examined, can begin to melt.

Imbolc is a reminder that winter holds spring just beneath the soil – we are like the earth with billions of possibilities waiting within us. 

What aspects of your life or self are in a period of hibernation? How can you embrace the energy of Imbolc to awaken and nurture these areas?

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Photo by Evgeni Tcherkasski on Unsplash

What does Prosper actually mean in the Book of Mormon

This year I decided to host a ladies Scripture Study group from my home. I’m not really interested in the Come Follow Me timeline for the year. I wanted to do a deep dive into the Book of Mormon, and I had a hunch that at least a few other women would feel the same way. 

I decided that we’d study the book of Mosiah one chapter at a time. I wanted to go slow so that we could truly appreciate the text. I created a schedule that has meetings for 6 or 7 weeks in a row and then 2 week breaks. We’ll be working through Mosiah until the middle of October.

So far the study group is going well. I’ve had a total of 7 women attend – though not all at the same meeting. We’ve met 6 times and people keep coming back so I guess they value what they are learning. 

Because we are going slowly through the text we actually have time to examine some things that would normally be glossed over or skipped entirely in the Come Follow Me curriculum. 

One of those things is the phrase “keep the commandments of God, that ye may prosper in the land.”

This phrase pops up right away in Mosiah Chapter 1 verse 7 where King Benjamin is giving advice to his sons. It occurs again in Chapter 2 verse 22 when King Benjamin is addressing his people. 

This phrase also appears in many other places of the Book of Mormon.

At its surface this phrase reeks of the Prosperity Gospel. The idea that keeping the commandments will translate into physical wealth as a sign of God’s favor. 

I can vaguely remember reading this phrase as a teenager in my Sunday School and Seminary classes. The teachers would use this phrase to convince students to keep the commandments so that we could get good grades or get into the colleges we wanted.   

As I’ve gotten older this phrase still comes up sometimes in Sunday School, but it’s usually tempered a bit with, “well the Lord will bless you as he sees fit. It may not be with money, but he will bless you.”

I knew I wanted to address this phrase in my study group. I spent quite a bit of time digging into the phrase and the layers of its meaning. I want to share some of my findings and thoughts here. Keep in mind I’m just a budding theologian. This is my personal exploration of the theology behind this phrase. I’m not saying this is the definitive explination of what this means. It’s just another way of looking at it. 

Let’s look at the whole phrase as it appears in Mosiah:

Chapter 1:7 I would that ye should keep the commandments of God, that ye may prosper in the land according to the promises which the Lord made unto our fathers.

Chapter 2:22 And behold, all that he requires of you is to keep his commandments; and he has promised you that if ye would keep his commandments ye should prosper in the land; and he never doth vary from that which he hath said; therefore, if ye do keep his commandments he doth bless you and prosper you.

The phrasing is slightly different between the verses, but basically the phrasing is “Keep the commandments that you may prosper in the land.”

Let’s separate that phrase a bit so we can understand it. 

What does Prosper mean?

We’ll start with what does prosper mean?  I looked up the word Prosper in the dictionary and the first definition is: “succeed in material terms; be financially successful.” No wonder we equate this phrase with financial success. 

The second definition that came up was: “flourish physically; grow strong and healthy.” I also found this definition in the Thesaurus: “as in to thrive or to grow vigorously.” I think I prefer the word thrive to prosper. It connotes life and strength rather than just financial wealth. 

So we could alternatively think of the phrase as “Keep the commandments that you may thrive in the land.”

What Land?

I think it’s also important to consider the land that is being talked about. Mosiah says “that ye may prosper in the land according to the promises which the Lord made unto our fathers.”

I wanted to know what promises and which fathers he was talking about. I traced the phrase back through the Book of Mormon and found it in 1 Nephi 2:20. Lehi is talking to Nephi about what the Lord has told him regarding Nephi. He says, “And inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper, and shall be led to a land of promise; yea, even a land which I have prepared for you; yea, a land which is choice above all other lands.”

I think King Benjamin is referring to Lehi and Nephi when he talks about “our fathers.” But the phrase that Lehi is using makes me think of even older promises to older fathers. He says that they shall be led to a land of promise. When reading the Book of Mormon we always think of the land of promise as the Americas. However, the nation of Israel was led to their own land of promise years before.

Israel’s land of promise came with many stipulations and commandments in order for the people to possess it. There were also blessings promised if the people kept the commandments in that land.  

The blessings are spelled out in Leviticus 26:3-13. I’m using the ESV translation here so it’s easier to understand than the KJV.

3 “If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, 4 then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. 5 Your threshing shall last to the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall last to the time for sowing. And you shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land securely. 

6 I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid. And I will remove harmful beasts from the land, and the sword shall not go through your land. 

7 You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. 8 Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand, and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. 

9 I will turn to you and make you fruitful and multiply you and will confirm my covenant with you. 10 You shall eat old store long kept, and you shall clear out the old to make way for the new. 

11 I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. 12 And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people. 13 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. And I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect.

In many ways, what is described here is a type of new Garden of Eden. The land will grow food easily. There will not be harmful animals. And most importantly, God will dwell with people and walk among them again. That sounds like a beautiful land of promise to me. 

Perhaps we could define prosper as having God dwelling among us. That sounds way better than material wealth. So the phrase could be thought of as “Keep the commandments that God may dwell with you in the land of promise.”

Lehi and Nephi would have been familiar with these promises because the promises were part of the Law of Moses. After they had the brass plates they would have been able to read these promises and remember them through their journey to their promised land.. 

They also would have been familiar with what follows these verses in Leviticus 26. There the Lord spells out the destruction that will come to the people if they do not follow His commandments. This would have been especially applicable to Lehi and Nephi because they were living in Jerusalem as many of the destructions were being fulfilled. The Northern kingdom had already been carried away into exile and Lehi had received visions that the Southern kingdom – including Jerusalem – was about to be destroyed as well.

Clearly Lehi and Nephi had an incentive to want to keep the commandments so they could prosper (live) in their own land of promise rather than suffer destruction for not keeping the commandments. They would undoubtedly teach that to their children.

Which Commandments?

Now we come to an important question, What commandments does this phrase refer to? 

Is this referring to the 10 commandments? The 613 commandments spelled out in the Law of Moses? The teachings of Jesus? The temple covenants? Things your bishop says are important? Things General Authorities tell you to do during General Conference? 

Just saying, “the commandments” is a pretty broad phrase. 

I think this broadness is where the phrase has the most potential to be weaponized. Maybe you’ve heard things like, “Reading your scriptures is a commandment. So if you aren’t reading your scriptures you won’t prosper.” Or “you have been commanded to pay your tithing. If you pay your tithing the Lord will reward you with blessings.”

We see this thought pattern carried out when people leave the church. It seems that some people are just waiting for their family member’s lives to fall apart when they leave the church because it will reinforce the idea of “They stopped keeping the commandments so of course they stopped prospering.”

So what do we do with this part of the phrase? 

Frankly, I’m struggling with this part. I don’t want to say that certain commandments aren’t important. But I also don’t want to be guilty of making this overly broad either. 

I’m feeling like this part will need more research and study to further understand it. In the meantime, I’m going to punt and say that following the teachings of Jesus is a good place to start when trying to understand what commandments we should be keeping. 

Final Thoughts

I want to conclude with something I noticed while preparing to teach Mosiah Chapter 2 to my study group. As far as I can tell, Mormon as the narrator of the Book of Mormon doesn’t use the keep the commandments/prosper in the land phrase himself. The phrase is usually a direct quote of someone in the narrative.

Mormon does use a slightly different phrase in his narration at the beginning of Mosiah Chapter 2. He is talking about the people of King Benjamin coming to the temple to hear King Benjamin’s speech. He says that they brought animals to sacrifice as a way to give thanks to the Lord. 

At the end of Mosiah 2:4 Mormon says that one of the things they were thankful for was King Benjamin “who had taught them to keep the commandments of God, that they might rejoice and be filled with love towards God and all men.”

Mormon is making a connection between keeping the commandments and being filled with love towards God and all men. 

Perhaps “love towards God and all men” is Mormon’s definition of prosper. Considering he was living in a time of war and destruction between two nations I think he would have longed for the peace of King Benjamin’s time. He wasn’t interested in material wealth. 

So maybe we could think of the phrase as “Keep the commandments that you may be filled with love towards God and all people in the land.”

* * *

I hope I’ve given you a different perspective on the meaning of this common phrase from the Book of Mormon. It’s easy to look at this phrase with our 21st century, western thinking and assume that it’s talking about material wealth. However, the deeper meaning has more to do with our relationship with God and with other people.

I’m curious about your thoughts. How do you interpret this phrase.

Photo by Jonny Gios on Unsplash

On (Not) Manifesting By The Uplifted Hand

It’s ward conference, so nondescript men in black coats and white shirts fill the stand. One of them reads aloud, name after initial after name. We’re just supposed to raise our hands. It’s run of the mill. Hardly worth thinking about.

I am sitting at the back of the stand, one of only two women (both of whom are there to do music related callings). The rote, banal list of leaders and the question that follows hardly register anymore.

But I don’t raise my hand. My body seizes. My heart races. I’ve only done this a million times, but…I can’t. I can’t. I’m…not?

My arm stays down. I neither sustain nor dissent.

My body is frozen. My brain is racing. What did I just do? Did anyone notice? Will someone say something? What is the potential social fallout of my spontaneous action? Will someone think this was premeditated? What am I doing here?

Still the man with the authority at the stand, whose name I do not know, is reading more initials, more titles, but it is not until local leadership that I can move to raise my hand. My body and brain are once again aligned.

This happened once before, at one of those early stadium tour engagements from President Nelson. It’s traditional to stand when the Prophet arrives, and I have stood for any number of General Authorities in the past, but in that moment, my body said no.

My sister, sitting next to me, stood up, noticed me sitting, and prompted me.

“The prophet has arrived.”

I stayed in my chair. I just stayed. Why couldn’t I just stand like everyone else?

I have to trust that my body knows what is harmful to me. That it would be harmful to sustain leaders whose actions I do not condone. That it would be harmful to me to pretend that I do.  

At the same time, I don’t feel a call to raise my hand in dissent. Not yet anyway, not in these perfunctory rituals of ours. Absent a meaningful process for registering and addressing dissent, it’s all symbolic anyway.

So, I neither dissent nor sustain. I cannot, with integrity, do anything but sit in this middle space that is neither all nor nothing. I do not raise my hand.

Photo by Josh Applegate on Unsplash

Guest Post: Dear Priesthood Leader

by Emily Nielsen & Brittany Mallory

Dear Priesthood Leaders,

We both attended the leadership training on Saturday afternoon where four men (and no women) spoke to us about how to lead our organizations. During the Q&A portion with the Area Seventy, Emily asked how to help our young women feel more valued at church. The discussion that followed left us in a whirl of frustration, sadness, and anger. We feel we must “speak up and speak out.” (1)

The doctrine of women’s roles is clear, powerful, and unique. We are equal. We have a Mother in Heaven as our divine female example. As with the Father, we know little about Her, but what we do know suggests a partner of comparable power, authority, creativity, kindness, and grace. (2)

Our early Relief Society sisters operated with great autonomy and power. They marched with suffragists, they independently ran the Relief Society (including the budget, the publications, the staffing) (3), they served missions as doctors and artists so that they could have a “wide and extensive sphere of action and usefulness” – including home, community, and nation. (4)

Joseph Smith and early sisters alike taught that part of the restoration of the gospel was turning the key for women’s progress and ability to have freedom and choice. (5) Joseph “spoke of delivering the keys to this Society” and women were ordained to lead, including as deacons and teachers after the “ancient Priesthood.” (6) The early Saints boldly demonstrated how women should and could participate in the church. Where others limited women’s ability to speak, teach, and lead, our church and its founder promoted the voices and actions of women.

We do not live up to this today, and there is pain as a result.

What was shared in the training was not in line with doctrine and ignored the pain of women and men who are grappling with the blatant sexism that exists in our church today – particularly in archaic and erroneous cultural practices and understandings that we have heard throughout our life. For example:

● The claim that women’s “divine power” is to have children and men’s “divine power” is to be ordained with priesthood authority and be the only ones who hold the keys causes both pain and confusion for many women. This comparison is not only erroneous but inconsistent. Motherhood is the equivalent of fatherhood, not priesthood. Furthermore, this teaching causes intense longing, isolation, and added sorrow for women who can’t have children or aren’t married. Even for women with children, this idea does not help women to feel valued at church, as women with children exist both in and out of the church. In short, it does not explain why men occupy so much of the leading and teaching time within the church, or give spiritual insight for women – mothers or not – who are seeking belonging at church.
● Emphasizing that men and women, including young men and young women, both have access to priesthood power and have similar duties. Statements that try to emphasize our access to priesthood power through our covenants ignore the blatant reality that there still exist major points of visible sexism. Indeed, the most obvious differences still stand: men control the majority of decision rights in the organization, including ultimate decisions about staffing, finances, sacrament meeting, and ward direction. The majority of speaking, teaching, and leading happens by men, and it is men who preside over sacrament meeting and young men who administer the sacrament. Women and young women have eyes to see that there are no female-held callings where women “preside” over men. Women are not Sunday School presidents or in the presidency. Women are not ward clerks. Women are not ward mission leaders. Women are always outnumbered in ward and stake councils. Women are not conducting youth or temple recommend interviews. Women are not present on disciplinary councils. Telling women we can have access to priesthood power through our callings but not extending these meaningful opportunities to women does not offer spiritual insight or further belonging at church.
● Claiming in any way that women are better, more spiritual, or more important than men. While well intentioned, this does not treat women as equal partners or disciples of Jesus Christ who is no respecter of persons. At the same time, it does not treat men as equal partners. It devalues and dishonors their contributions as disciples. For example, the idea that women don’t need anything to enter the temple but men have to be ordained to do so is inconsistent with the doctrine of Christ that “all are alike unto God,” and hurts both men and women (2 Nephi 26:33).

Many individuals made comments trying to explain why these questions (or the original question, of how to help young women feel more valued at church) are not a problem, or that it will get better once the young women go to the temple. These men and women may be well-intentioned, but their repetition of these common talking points comes across as insensitive and condescending to humble seekers of truth.

The Savior answers differently. He cared enough to go through a process of deeply, intimately, and completely understanding the pain and suffering of the one. He sought out the experiences that would help him understand us better. He suffered and suffers along with us, whatever our genuine pain. Surface level answers, like those given in the training, only add pain and confusion for a seeking individual. The gospel is founded on the principle of asking difficult questions and working with God to receive answers.

Stale talking points parroted in the absence of any true insight or care for the questioner on any topic shouldn’t be good enough for disciples of Christ. We should mourn with those who mourn and take their burdens upon us: “Our covenantal assignment is to minister, to lift up the hands that hang down, to put struggling people on our backs or in our arms and carry them.” (7)

All is not well in Zion. As women, mothers, and Young Women leaders, we have received personal revelation that we must work to obliterate these cultural gender norms. We are particularly concerned that many of our younger sisters – who are full of spiritual power and strength – will find it too difficult to reconcile the gaping divide between the doctrine they believe and the actions and behaviors they observe at church. (8)

For many women, including ourselves, it is painful, difficult, and disappointing that it is within the church – where pure doctrine reflects women and men’s equality – that we see, feel, and experience the most inequity. When we operate in our work and academic institutions or within our homes, we are respectfully regarded as whole people. It is only at church that there are limitations placed upon us because of our gender. Our voices, personal revelation, and God-given gifts are underutilized and siloed.

It is not just the women who notice. Increasingly, men are concerned for their wives and their daughters. We hope you are concerned, too.

There is pain that needs healing. While we believe from our experience that ultimate healing comes through the Savior and our Heavenly Parents, we have also felt healing balm from others who have mourned with us and worked toward a better way.

In fact, during the training, in response to a text sent to our bishop that said, “This meeting is tough,” his beautiful and moving response was, “Hang in there. We need you with us. You are seen and heard.” For him and some others to stand and challenge what was said was precisely the balm that was and is needed. Other responses simply communicate, “Your pain is not warranted. We don’t see you.”

We cannot keep feeding women and young women false cultural interpretations of why inequities exist. The only appropriate answer is: I don’t know. We will do everything we can. I’m sorry this is so hard.

“The world’s greatest champion of woman and womanhood is Jesus the Christ.” (9) We are committed to our discipleship to Him and have strong faith in His gospel and atoning sacrifice. Because of this – and as the mothers of  three young adult/young women daughters, a three-year-old daughter and an eight-month-old son – we cannot sit by complicit as our daughters, young women, and friends are told that the pain and inequity they observe is not real or valid. I (Emily) will not ever sit quietly again in a room where someone is claiming that my son “needs something extra” in order to understand his worth and make covenants with God.

We are both holding onto the hope that one day soon, things will be better (especially in time for our youth). (10) We believe that speaking up and sharing these insights is part of sustaining you in this effort, and pray you will hear us out.

We share this with deep appreciation of your time, service, and consideration.

With hope in Christ,
Brittany Mallory & Emily Nielsen

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/s...- wide-and-extensive-sphere-of-action?lang=enghttps://history.churchofjesuschrist.o... need the strength and vision of our young adult and young women sisters. President Kimball stated, “There is a power in [Relief Society] that has not yet been fully exercised to strengthen the homes of Zion and build the Kingdom of God—nor will it
until both the sisters and the priesthood catch the vision of Relief Society.” Spencer W. Kimball, “Relief Society—Its Promise and Potential,” Ensign, Mar. 1976, 4.James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ: A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy Scriptures, Both Ancient and ModernPresident Spencer W. Kimball, “The Role of Righteous Women,” October 1979

Saying Grace

This is the twelfth in a series of guest posts on the topic of mixed faith marriages (MFM) from a variety of mental health professionals, coaches, podcasters, counselors and regular readers offering advice from their own experiences. Keep your eyes on the blog over the next few weeks for more great content, and feel free to submit your own essay to this series by emailing exponentabby@gmail.com. (Thanks! -Abby Maxwell Hansen)

Guest Post: Bridget Fawcett currently navigates the world of co-parenting, works full time and serves as the technology specialist in her ward. She feels lucky to be on the water and see the sun rise over the mountains when rowing with her crew in the mornings. Her dreams include meeting someone who makes her laugh and connects with her soul.

When my husband told me that he’d gone on a faith journey and he was leaving the church, I was upset. And hurt. He’d made his decision. There was no turning back. No discussion. Nothing I could do. I felt helpless. And left out. Ruminating. Thoughts about all the times over the 15 years of our marriage when the stronger one of us would hold up the weaker swirled in my head. Thinking about all the times we hated our callings and would joke around about going inactive. Wondering about what this would mean for our family. I felt betrayed. He embarked on a journey without me. And maybe at the time, he didn’t know where the path would take him. Fine. But this life…we chose to do this life together. And he then chose to explore an existential question without me.

In a thoughtful way, he quietly left our ward. Talked to the bishop, waited for a replacement for his young men’s calling. He postponed leaving a few more weeks so he could take the kids to church while I finished up some work travel and weekend conference commitments. The first available Sunday was Mother’s Day. So he came one more time so I didn’t have to wrangle our 5 kids alone on “my day”. Then it was over. He was done. I asked if we could be a Christmas and Easter type of Mormon family.  He consented.

The first few months going to church with our 5 children was hard for me emotionally. I was on the verge of tears most weeks. I felt alone. No one asked about my husband’s absence because they assumed he was traveling for work. I let them think that. I couldn’t handle reality without crying.

Navigating a mixed-faith marriage after years of all-in leadership callings, weekly attendance (even on vacation) and regular temple attendance felt rough. Farewell, Family home evening. So long, Scripture study. B’bye, family prayer. I was angry with God. Like what did I do to deserve this?! We needed help to navigate this change.

It was important for my husband to have a therapist who wasn’t LDS. I didn’t care. I just wanted to make sure that we grew together and still had some common ground. We found a Christian-Jewish therapist who had been raised in a mixed-faith home herself. She helped us address the cracks in our marriage that our religious differences exposed.

I joined the Mormon Mixed-Faith Marriage group on Facebook and he accepted my invitation to do the same. When the MMFM group was planning a cruise, I signed us up. During that cruise, we bonded with the other couples in deep and profound emotional and spiritual ways. This bond manifested itself in physical ways. Out of 10 women, a couple were peri or full on menopausal, 8 of us synced up periods within a few days. Crazy! Hearing each other’s stories brought us together in love and unity.

I attended Post-Mormon meetup groups, potlucks and camping trips so that we could have mutual friends outside of the church and in our area. I felt awkward at many of these functions, especially when  people disparaged everything about the church. They usually curbed their tongues when talking directly to me, but I felt so alone. Alone with the Post-Mo’s and also alone with my LDS friends. I felt different.

My husband’s faith journey had him dabbling with atheism, agnosticism, and humanism. We read books together and had many philosophical discussions. Through it all, I found myself getting lost within the chaos of so many voices. So much input. So so many ideas. He challenged my ideas and beliefs. He challenged our children. One by one, almost all of them have also left the church. In my head I repeat the verse, “Where can I turn for peace? Where is my solace when other sources cease to make me whole?” I want my journey to take the progression of the verses in the song. I long for, “He answers privately, reaches my reaching.” I’m just not there yet.

We went on a family walk at one point during Covid. A couple of the kids were misbehaving and I made a comment to the effect that in our family, “we don’t do [insert unkind behavior].” Then my husband corrected me by replying, “don’t speak for me, you may not do that but that doesn’t mean I don’t.” His words cut. Divided me right in half. If we couldn’t have shared family values, what could we have?

We lasted 5 years as a mixed faith family before separating. After 20 years of marriage, we didn’t divorce due to religion. It was all the other stuff that widened our marital cracks though ultimately, we just weren’t good for each other. As devastating as it is to have lost my nuclear family, I feel peace that the heartaches we experienced as a couple are over. I am happy that our co-parenting game is strong. Our children feel the love of their parents. They have started their own differentiation journeys and I hope their future romantic relationships will positively reflect this growth.

After divorce, you might think that the days of a mixed-faith journey are over. But alas, no. I still navigate life with my mixed-faith children. It doesn’t matter that my wasband doesn’t pray with them. At my house, before meals, we sit around the table, hold hands and say grace.

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This post is part of a series about navigating Mixed Faith Marriages. Find more from this series here.

What an Unplanned Pregnancy Taught Me About My Mixed-Faith Marriage

This is the eleventh in a series of guest posts on the topic of mixed faith marriages (MFM) from a variety of mental health professionals, coaches, podcasters, counselors and regular readers offering advice from their own experiences. Keep your eyes on the blog over the next few weeks for more great content, and feel free to submit your own essay to this series by emailing exponentabby@gmail.com. (Thanks! -Abby Maxwell Hansen)

Guest Post: Carly Roberts calls Washington home on both sides of the country. Originally from Washington state, she now lives in the DC area, where she’s a stay at home mom to three. She certified as a life coach in 2021 and wants to help other believing women in mixed faith marriages. She loves to dabble in many hobbies, but the current favorites are bouldering, reading, and sleeping. She has always loved writing, which usually takes the form of poetry these days.

I didn’t have a honeymoon baby, but I might as well have. Twenty-two years old, proud user of an IUD, and here I was peeing on a stick because my period was late. Not exactly what I had pictured five months prior when I was kneeling at the altar. 

While I wanted to have kids someday, I didn’t want one then. As a young Mormon girl at BYU, I had gone with the flow of “the plan” for most of my life, without stopping to really think for myself (because if you go to church and check all the boxes, you don’t have to, right?) Well in an insane act of rebellion against the plan, I had decided that I wanted to wait a couple years before having kids so I could enjoy some quality time with Adam. Then I saw the two blue lines.

I spent the remaining eight months in a very real funk. We’ll call it: depression. I felt angry and scared, and guilty about being a mom when I didn’t want a child yet. I hated talking about my pregnancy too. So I avoided it as much as possible, and was horrified when I started to show. It meant that my body and the child in it were open for public comment. Between family, friends, and especially myself, my head was swimming with thoughts and opinions. The guilt was overwhelming at times…How could I be a good mom when I didn’t want to be one yet? Didn’t that automatically mean I would resent my daughter once she was born? 

My experience in labor was the cherry on top of it all. Details aside, it was painful, and I had never felt so out of control of my body and my life. And then, all of a sudden, she was out. She was physically out of my body, and it was like someone had flipped a switch. Eight months of pure dark, and all of a sudden the light was back on.

By the time my brain caught up with reality a few months later, I had decided that God had pushed me into the proverbial pool to show me that I could swim. I didn’t blame my IUD failure on a nurse or my body: I honestly believed, and still do, that God wanted me to have a child, and knew I was never going to make that leap on my own. So instead of prompting me and putting me through months of agony over it, God just made it happen. Adam likes to joke that I’m really good with real problems, but it’s the hypothetical ones that get me. And he’s not wrong. So the way I see it, God just made my “problem” real right when it needed to happen. And then they decided to do it again.

I can’t hold too much against them, because getting shoved in the pool this time was the best thing that could have happened to me. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t shocking. To the young Mormon girl from BYU who got married in the temple, her husband saying he has doubts about God is going to hurt a bit.

All my life, I have cared deeply about being a good person. And until I accepted my mixed faith marriage for what it was, I had used the church to determine my definition of “good.” But Adam’s somewhat offhand confession of doubt turned into many more conversations, and it became obvious which direction his beliefs were turning. He eventually left the church altogether, and we had to decide: are we committed to each other, or to a version of us that exists only in our heads? At that point, I had to come to terms with my options. I could expand my view of what good looked like, and open myself to the idea that not all healthy marriages have two Mormons at the center. I could maintain my definition of good and also maintain my marriage, but in doing so accept that our relationship was always going to be subpar. Or I could leave, and try to find good with someone else. When I let myself ask the question, I knew I wanted to stay with Adam, and I wanted to be happy. So that left me with one choice: find out what happy looks like when it’s not dressed in a white shirt and tie.

It’s been interesting in hindsight to compare my first pregnancy with our early mixed faith marriage days. So much unknown territory, and so many big emotions. One of the miracles of my pregnancy though was that through all the fear and sadness, there was something inside me that kept saying “just feel it.” As I’m writing this, I’m picturing the Emperor telling Luke to give in to his dark side, but that’s not the kind of thing I mean.  The voice was what Mormons would equate with the Holy Ghost. Quiet, unobtrusive… Still, and small. And it lovingly told me that it was okay to just feel angry and sad if I needed to.

That lesson has carried me through many times, not least of which was Adam’s faith transition. I remembered how dark my pregnancy felt, and how light it turned right after. And that gave me courage to find the light at the end of this tunnel too. In the meantime though, I let myself feel sad and hurt all over again. This time, I better understood what those emotions meant. They meant that a part of me was wounded, and was in need of healing. And so I stopped to listen to what they were saying. On the night that Adam first went out for a beer, I sat in the shower and cried. He was there with my knowledge, and if not approval then at least with an acknowledgement that it was his decision to make. As I let myself crumble under the downpour, my mind split into two versions of itself. There was the one in abject sadness on the shower floor, and alongside it was the therapist with a notepad quietly observing the scene. While sad me cried it out, the therapist asked what was going on.

Adam’s at the bar and he’s drinking on purpose.

Why does that make you sad?

Because he’s going to like it.

Why is that a problem?

Because I don’t want to drink. But if he likes it, he’s going to keep going out with friends who will drink with him. I’ll be left alone with the kids, he’ll go out and have a party, and pretty soon I’m going to be the boring, stern wife who’s just stopping him from having a good time. Who wants to be married to that person?

So you’re afraid that because he’s having a beer tonight, he’s going to leave you?

…Yes.

To other versions of myself, that conversation sounds silly. But to me, right then and there, it was real. I’m grateful for the times I’ve sat with the raw pain long enough to hear what it says. Usually my mind and body have hints at the solution too, and learning to hear those is another skill altogether. Remember how I had to redefine good? Sometimes the healing came from not wearing my garments, or from spending a Sunday at home with Adam and the kids. The me from before coudn’t have done that without a heavy side of guilt. Now I’m learning to embrace peace however it comes. Sometimes that aligns with the church, sometimes it doesn’t. And recognizing true peace took practice. It still does. And it takes honesty. Because I don’t want to open my arms wide enough to accept everything in this world as good. I want to call abuse abuse, and I want to avoid situations that are harmful. But making up harm when it wasn’t there isn’t honest either. Saying Adam wanted to leave me when all he wanted was a drink discounted his integrity and commitment to me. I was grateful to recognize where my hurt was coming from, but recognition brought a readiness to move past it. 

There are still times when I feel a little bullied by God. Like they didn’t just push me in the pool: they put me on the Titanic the night it went down. But those times get fewer and fewer, and I can honestly look at my marriage now and say it’s better than I ever thought it could be. The joy I feel in living is greater because my husband stepped away, and asked me to consider what else good can look like. And for those moments when I’m floating on a piece of wood in the ocean, wondering how our opposing views are going to mesh, I remind myself of one vital lesson: there’s room for two.

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This post is part of a series about navigating Mixed Faith Marriages. Find more from this series here.

Developing Respect and Communication in Mixed-Faith Relationships

This is the tenth in a series of guest posts on the topic of mixed faith marriages (MFM) from a variety of mental health professionals, coaches, podcasters, counselors and regular readers offering advice from their own experiences. Keep your eyes on the blog over the next few weeks for more great content, and feel free to submit your own essay to this series by emailing exponentabby@gmail.com. (Thanks! -Abby Maxwell Hansen)

Guest Post: Megan Story Chavez is a licensed marriage and family therapist at https://progressivepathstherapy.com/ and a professor of Marriage and Family therapy at Utah Valley University https://www.uvu.edu/mft/. She enjoys working as a therapist with couples who have a significant difference in their relationships such as mixed-faith, interracial, or mixed-orientation partnerships, and emerging adult individuals. Megan’s research focuses on the biopsychosocial-spiritual framework, currently, the studies she is working on center on the interconnection between spiritual transitions and mental health. She loves teaching graduate students, especially supervising student therapists. Megan enjoys attending concerts with her partner and playing with her two kids. 

My Experiences
As a newly married 30-year-old Mormon woman, I didn’t expect to be sitting on a pew alone each Sunday. However, that is exactly where I found myself in Omaha, Nebraska each week. I had moved to Omaha to pursue a post-doctoral internship and my partner had followed once we were married in the Provo City Center Temple in July of 2018. The 949 miles to Orem Utah where I grew up felt much farther each week as my partner got ready for work and I got ready to attend church alone. He had quit his well-paying and stable job to move with me to Omaha so that I could pursue my career. After searching 3 months for a job, he wasn’t going to ask for Sundays off. So with that, each Sunday we separated, me going to the LDS chapel and him heading to work. This was the first taste I got of what it might be like to be in a mixed-faith relationship. The way people at church would look at me, the bishop calling me into his office to ask where my partner was and why he wasn’t attending, and feeling isolated and lonely when I attended church.

My next taste came professionally when we moved back to Utah County after my internship ended. I was working full time as a marriage and family therapist in Utah County. I began to see many clients who were struggling with their faith practices. As a trained couple’s therapist, my case load became full of couples who had one member of their relationship who had decided to leave or step away from the LDS faith. This became a crack in the relationship for both partners. I often would hear the questions they had about how to make things work, each question laced with loads of uncertainty. Couples wondered if they could make it work and maintain the joy that they had once felt in their relationships. I used the knowledge and training that I had to support each couple that came into my office.

However, I also found myself stuck because I had studied at two different MFT programs that taught me to use research as an aide to my work as a therapist. I would search for peer- reviewed sources to support what I was doing with the couples only to be met with articles that had some helpful information but didn’t focus on couples who were mixed or interfaith. They didn’t focus on couples that were or had been in a high demand religion. They didn’t focus on what helps them succeed, but rather highlighted the problems that occurred. This didn’t fit with my approach to treatment which typically focused on a solution focused and emotional attachment lens. I wanted to know what helped couples who were interfaith and in high demand religions like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints make it work.

When I started at an academic position in August 2020, I knew right away what I wanted to study. I was ready to jump into a meal of understanding what helps couples in interfaith relationships within Mormonism be resilient and make things work. I conducted a qualitative
interview study with 6 couples, 12 individuals to begin to better understand the questions I had about resiliency processes in interfaith couples. My research team and I looked for themes and what happened helped build resiliency in these couple, then we looked for the pattern of how that happened. I worked with a team of students who had various experiences within the LDS faith or outside of it. Our hope was to triangulate the data and really look at what the couples we interviewed found worked for them and get away from considering our experience. The goal of qualitative research is to let the data tell the story. We found important things that began to help me support my clients in their experience. I would like to share some of the themes we found.

Findings
The themes we as a research team heard from couples about what helped them make it work were respect for one another, ability to differentiate from each other, communicating openly, prioritizing their marriage, practicing loyalty to each other, holding boundaries, seeking
support, and finding common ground with each other. These represent just some of what we found but include the largest themes in what helped the couples we talked to make it work. These research findings then led me to focus on some of these things in my clinical work with
couples in mixed-faith marriages. I’ve found them to be super helpful in breaking down skills that we can practice in relationships with people who have differing spiritual beliefs than our own. For each of these I’ve started identifying what it means to me as a clinical provider,
consider examples of what it looks like in practice, and the things we can do, as humans in relationships, to develop these skills. One that I think makes a huge impact is respecting the beliefs and ideas of people who have varying beliefs.

Practicing the Findings
Respect can mean many things. When I consider respect, I think about a regard for another person and admiration for them. When I respect someone, I consider them and their opinions. Even if I don’t agree I can see their ideas as good and usually I seek to understand
their ideas before trying to critique them. Within a mixed-faith relationship, maybe this means when my partner or family member starts to describe a spiritual belief or idea they have, rather than quickly consider and critique it, I would try to understand what they mean. I would try to see why it has value for them. I would admire their consideration and thought on the idea and try to understand it.

But what if I think very differently than the idea, how do I manage that? One tool I use therapeutically to practice respect and increase open communication for others is Nonviolent Communication described by Marshall P. Rosenberg (2015). He described a four-phase process that I think can really help us as people practice respect for each other’s ideas. I have shifted it a bit as I’ve practiced for the last ten years as a therapist. This is my interpretation of it. Here are the four parts of the process.

1. Observation: I am going to highlight what I observe. What are the facts?
2. Feelings: I am going to highlight what you seem to be feeling about this topic. What do I think you may you feel?
3. Needs/Values: I am going to highlight the values or needs I am noticing you may have and ask about it. Why does this matter to you?
4. Requests, Question, or Validate: I am going to ask more about it, make a request, or validate their ideas and beliefs. (Remember validation does not mean I have to agree, but rather can see why it matters to them).

So maybe with someone who describe a spiritual belief it goes something like this as we listen.
1. You are talking about how much you respect and admire Joseph Smith.
2. I can tell you feel passionate and revere him.
3. It seems like this matters to you because you really value strong leadership and curiosity in people and see those qualities in Joseph Smith.
4. I can see why you would respect him as a leader in the church. I am curious who else you see that has these leadership qualities?
Or
I can see why you respect him as a leader, and there are some things that I have a hard time with about him, could we talk about this later when I’ve had some space to think more about it?

I’ve found as a therapist and human, using these skills has helped me show respect for people who believe differently than myself, while also communicating openly about it’s impacts on me. As someone who is a retired member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint,
I’ve used this 4-part communication process both to share my feelings and to understand and seek to respect the ideas of other people. I use it in my work with students, my family members and partner, my friends, and my kids. When hard things come up about faith with my family members or friends, I use this to talk about my personal experience. I will state the observation that something about the conversation is challenging for me. I feel left out or lonely because I value connecting with my family members and feel isolated when the conversation revolves around church. I sometimes take a break or ask my family if we can talk about something else that is more inclusive. I have found using these tools personally helpful for me in my process of navigating mixed faith friendships and family relationships.

*Rosenberg, M.B. (2015). Nonviolent communication: A language of life. PuddleDancer Press.

Megan and her husband on Halloween in Omaha.

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This post is part of a series about navigating Mixed Faith Marriages. Find more from this series here.