Witness Testimony

I've known Her through Facebook and a Marco Polo group along with others who have been able to leave The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), we all compare our experiences and agree it is a process. I did not wake up one day and decide it was wrong for me. When my questioning began, I was in a typical LDS relationship being married in the LDS temple and having two children. My marriage lasted 18 years, mostly because I was trying my very best to be a righteous wife and mother as the church taught I should be.

Growing up in the LDS church, I was taught I was a daughter of god, but also that I had control over what men think and how they act. Is god responsible for our thoughts and actions? No. Then why would I be responsible for someone else’s? Growing up with the belief that if I wear something just slightly attractive it would be my fault for those bad thoughts men and young men would have. In an effort born out of self-preservation and love for my children I made the only decision I was told would be the worst thing I could do, I asked for a divorce. Since the divorce the only community that I grew up in who had shaped my self-identity stopped letting their children play with mine. They all gave me looks of pity like they knew better than I did, but not once asked what had happened or how I felt. I became the sinful one in my community and was rejected.

My self-identity and ability to be “one of them” was stripped away. Leaving my identity behind was the hardest thing in my life. I wanted to believe but could not because I would have fallen into a deep depression of self-blaming, giving into manipulations, and ultimately allowing the emotional and spiritual abuse to continue. My perception of my own control over my life in the ability to have options outside my marriage, even more so because my children are involved, was severely suppressed. Over time this became a learned helplessness inhibiting my ability to act on my own behalf for 18 years. As I was challenged by the stress of the LDS community and my spouse at the time, who instilled fear and self-blame onto me, I found myself avoiding negative consequences for trying to leave. I needed to be “one of them” because that’s who I believed I was.

I went to church clergy and church counseling many times with and without my spouse in attempts to gain spiritual and temporal knowledge in how to change the toxic relationship I was finding myself in. My toxic marriage included behaviors such as violent intimidation, for example punching a hole in the wall next to my head because I woke him at night when tending to our newborn baby.

Manipulation, for example being told by my Bishop I wasn’t doing enough in the bedroom and needed to pray more to receive the blessing for my marriage to which my spouse used that same wording to manipulate and coerce sexual intercourse. Blaming me for lacking what he needs and feelings of shame and guilt driving the fear that felt like an attack on my faith.

Humiliation, for example by telling others I didn’t take the sacrament because I had unholy feelings to repent of. Isolation from my family who are also LDS, for example downplaying or belittling my reaching out for help to them with excuses such as being too sensitive among other church related behaviors by not practicing enough strict scripture reading and/or praying. Using opportunities to move further away from my family resulting in isolation.

Over the course of many years of this treatment from both my spouse and through the LDS church I came to an understanding that it didn’t matter how hard I tried, my efforts would never be enough and I would always be the focus of blame for my spouse's “mistakes” when he looked for “love” outside of the marriage or for when maltreatment occurred by him within our home. I was told by my Bishop, which was reiterated by LDS family and friends, that divorce would be a sin. The true knowledge I had gained is that the best and only option left to be a better example for my children, who deserved to see a happy mother and a good relationship, is to get divorced. I could no longer exemplify a toxic relationship. A relationship with a church or a spouse that I would never want my children to be part of.

It has been 3 years since I have attended a church meeting because the emotional abuse spouted at the pulpit that ruled my world for so long only triggers those feelings of fear, blaming, coercion, manipulation, episodes of maltreatment, and isolation. I hope my story helps others who have no words for what may be going on within their lives and may not understand it, but know it is not right.