Mormon Marriages

I referenced a rumor yesterday which might indicate that couples who depart from Mormonism have a high rate of divorce. I've had some thoughts about why and thought I might share them.

If you are actively Mormon, then some of what I am going to say, may be offensive. I'm going to make some broad generalizations. If it offends you, either you don't fit the generalization, or I may have pointed out a chink in your armor. Either way, you can choose to deal with it as you wish.

OK...

Let's first consider the motivations for marriage.

Mormons are huge on the no sex before marriage thing. In fact the guidelines recommend minimal physical contact prior to marriage. And yet despite all of this, most of the lessons which young men receive (maybe the young women too) are about sex. It's a lot like my theory behind the porn problem in Utah. If you constantly talk about it, it's all that is going to be on peoples mind.

So for young men, it's an almost constant barrage of... you can't have SEX, you can't have SEX, you can't have SEX... SEX, SEX, SEX, SEX.

Maybe I'm just a horny freak, but a huge motivator for me to get married was simply that... SEX!!! I don't think I'm much of an exception though.

So with the typical mormon guys, they date a little, some make moral mistakes and some don't... And then you get shipped off for two years into a situation where you are almost entirely excluded from the opposite sex.

You return from that, and everything you hear is about marriage... You have to do it quick, and you have to stay clean, and not have SEX, SEX, SEX, SEX.

I would suspect the vast majority of Mormon men, get married to have sex. Yes, you have to kind of like the other person, but ultimately, you have to tie the knot to get laid.

I don't know for sure about the young ladies, but from what I've observed, their motivation comes from continued teaching of their role as wives and in producing children. Good Mormon woman get married and then give their husband lots and lots of children.

She needs to pop out kids, keep them all neat, polite and respectful, keep the house clean, and take care of her husband.

Now her husband can't just be any guy... He has to be a good Mormon Priesthood holder, because without a good Mormon Priesthood holder, she won't make it back into heaven. And marrying a good priesthood holder, means she has to appear to be the perfect wife, and produce lots and lots of kids.

So men get married for sex. And women get married because they have to find a good man to produce children for.

There's another little twist as well... Young Women constantly get warned about the dangers of waiting to get married. There was a flawed teaching some years ago that kind of indicated that if a woman didn't receive any kind of marriage proposal in this life, that God would take care of it in the next. However if she did get a proposal and turned it down, that was it for her.

So you have groups of guys out looking for wives so they can have sex, and a group of women, who are terrified that if they don't get married they're doomed.

And so they get together, date for a week or two, get engaged, and then married a couple of months later. It has to be quick, because the Man has to have sex, and the woman has to snag the Man so he can't get away.

And so begins the typical Mormon couples wife together.

My father has stated before that any two people living the Mormon Gospel can live together, and I would submit that as true. Of course if there are problems you can always tie it back and blame one of the couple for not being tolerant enough, patient enough or righteous enough.

But with a shared religious system as strict and stringent as Mormonism, most people can make it work. Your goals become attaining exhalation and you're continually focused on that. The husband - if he's a good one is always taking care of church stuff, and the wife is always keeping the house clean and taking care of the children.

The rub is that is either of them don't do as well in their respective duties then it HAS to be because of some sort of sin, and the herd mentality helps correct that behavior, or at least mask it.

A man might be an abusive dick to his wife, beating her and the kids, but he might also be a bishop, and so it's an acceptable thing for the wife to have to endure. He's obviously righteous - hence the call to be a bishop, so obviously she must be the reasons for the beatings. This is actually a fairly common problem with Mormon leaders - not all of them mind you, but I think to attain leadership positions, you need to be the tough, egotistical type, and those types are usually the abusive types too - just my observation though.

There are a whole host of other dynamics and things which might happen here.

Let's turn our attention instead to what happens when a couple leaves Mormonism... Either one or both of them.

All of a sudden you're faced with reality. You have to deal with now, because you're not longer consumed with the eternal goal. Mormons may see that as a negative, but I think it's a plus. You get to actually live your life as a couple. It's kinda cool!

So you're living in reality, dealing with reality, and facing stuff as it happens.

All of a sudden character flaws become more apparent. This person isn't going to be perfect one day... They're imperfect now, and that's who you're stuck with now.

And while all this is going on, you're having to deal with the loss of a shared reality.

As I've drifted from Mormonism, I've noticed that I have a hard time conversing with Mormons. Everything Mormons talk about is Mormon related. It's why one of the most important thing for Mormons to know about other people is their status in the Church. If they're active they can share a common dialogue. Little Johnny is a sunbeam, they're learning some new songs for the mothers day program, and he said the blessing on the food last night.

You lose your very specific gender roles as well. The man is no longer the head of the household, leading the family back to God, and the wife is no longer the doormat who has to raise the kids and support her husband.

You become a true couple, working together at whatever it is you're working on, and sometimes, with the loss of the Church, you're not entirely sure what that is.

It's very disorienting, and I would suspect that there are as many issues as there are couple who leave, or where one spouse leaves.

I guess at the end of the day, it makes sense to me as to why couple who leave the Church would split. Perhaps with the loss of a shared religion they realize that they really have nothing in common.

Mrs Koda and I have found some common ground and we're working on keeping our union intact. There are issues, many of which are a direct result of a shared background in Mormonism, but we're facing them together to try and deal with them.

I personally feel like we're closer now. We don't have the gospel in common, but we have each other, and I for one am very grateful.