Calm

Hebrews 9:27. I hope you sleep well and wake up pain free. My back had enough of tidying up (sister is coming tomorrow, I always tear through the house finishing all the little stuff I have been ignoring when she comes, which is so satisfying but often exhausting these days), so I am feeling the pain along with you. Thankfully I have my own indulgence for relief. I haven’t touched alcohol except for a few drops in a medicinal tincture (passionflower iirc, love the burn down my throat btw) since my son was a baby 43 years ago and I got a bad allergy attack and felt miserable. My husband swore by NyQuil (until several years ago when I finally convinced him the studies were showing it wasn’t helping him sleep that well), so I tried it. I was climbing the walls most of the night. Apparently alcohol sets off my rls big time…and that was even before I was really noticing it. Took another ten years and a baby to really kick in. (Antihistamine which is also in NyQuil ain’t great for rls, but rls was still light enough back then that Benadryl put me to sleep) I figured out the rls-alcohol connection because when my brother was a wee one, the doctor recommended a tablespoon of whiskey when he had trouble sleeping due to teething (my brother, not the doctor as I suspect the doctor, who was military, probably had a bit more than a tablespoon when he took it to relax). Unfortunately for my parents, that led to my brother being awake most of the night (RLS is strong in my family. My father has it. I have it. And…my brother has it.) I used to be jealous of those who could use alcohol to get some sleep. I have since learned it may knock you out, but quality suffers…getting knocked out sounds wonderful about now though.

I assume you are assuming this is all he has unless he said so and I missed it (always possible the way I typically pop in and out of the board). It may be since he didn’t add more, but I am still curious if he does.

Think about why you care about being judged. Not to be able to reject that feeling but to find out what is driving your desire to avoid it (especially when you just said you don’t care what people think as long as you are right with God…yet this bothers you). You need to understand what’s going on inside of you, what you are trying to protect and why as well as reaching out to her as that is when real connection and openness can happened. She will likely be more transparent if you are transparent in what’s going on in your head and heart as we tend to reciprocate what we receive from others. If you are defensive and protecting yourself because you don’t want to feel like she is scolding you, she will shift to being more defensive…leading you to be more defensive, then her, etc. vicious circle closing both of you down. But we have come to the level where my advice might make things worse rather than better because I don’t know your situation and most of my advice is built on my own experience since I only got as far as my bachelor’s in clinical psych (and I intended to do research, not therapy anyway). In my own case and several others with whom I share experiences and ideas, I might see putting aside my own need to be heard and listened to begin with because it’s easier to focus on one person at a time as a good strategy because I am relatively secure enough to know the conversation would continue (because my husband does participate even if he finds is hard to initiate and share his own feelings). Also I have found my needs shift once I understand him better, so it’s more efficient to first understand what is going on before I start trying to meet my own needs…besides the basic senses of stability and security I need to feel in order to be transparent with my own feelings. I also find it somewhat easy to step out of worrying about me when my husband is upset about something because curiosity kicks in and is often stronger than fear of being hurt. And my husband avoiding criticism is a huge factor in my ability not to worry about being judged. That security is likely not present in most marriages (like many things there are pros as well as cons to having a partner who focuses on the positive a bit excessively). So I can’t really go into much detail on what might help because your situation is likely very different than my own. So I should stick to very basic. Maybe others have more applicable ideas to your situation. The most basic….You can’t control her reactions, you can only control your own…if you recognize what’s driving them…or most of what is, so your efforts need to be about paying attention to what’s going on behind the scenes for both of you. Maybe just the focusing on trying to figure out the why rather than trying to see if she is judging you will help. If you start feeling judged, maybe you can accept the feeling without trying to avoid it or feel resentment about it and think for the time being ‘let’s be more concerned about the why and then I will take care of the other when I know what’s going on’. That can be both useful and a distraction that can give you important time to create a better, more effective context to process your emotions. An observation…there is a lot of baggage on her end and it’s likely it feels unfair to you at times that those experiences are part of why she reacts to you at times, not just for what you are doing and who you are. It would me. Those first marriages complicate the picture even if she and you are trying to keep them out of your relationship. You two have had relationship altering experiences that you have no personal knowledge or experience of and everything you know must be shared by your spouse…and that may be the last thing you two want to do or think you should be doing. And it may not be right if either or both of you have a tendency to assume the other is comparing or equating you to the ex if they get mentioned. This is where I feel very lost in trying to point you towards anything. The closest thing I have experienced with this kind of baggage was my husband thinking I was comparing him to my dad all the time and finding my husband lacking. Actually it was the reverse, I did compare, but it was my dad who came up short because I had intentionally looked for a man who did well in those categories (interested in kids, enjoying playing with family most, not wanting to fix me). I guess that example can show you need to be cautious about assuming she is actually judging you and it’s not you making faulty assumptions that she is or how she is. Counseling could be very helpful in helping you both focus on the here and now and process baggage if needed. There are many things that are much harder to see from the inside. And I need to stop now as time ran out long ago. Probably will think of other things to say. But I am concerned that I know way too little to be more helpful. There are somethings that are pretty common, but best to have someone who knows the context better. I may be blowing up the importance of somethings because of what I have seen in others (I have relatives with multiple marriages, both carried a lot of baggage and I an thinking of them here when maybe I shouldn’t). The biggest thing I hope you take away from anything I say is the impossibility of knowing enough without communication, so it’s well worth the effort to examine your own assumptions and to challenge them.

Could you use quotes or italics to set apart the words you are referring to? It will make it easier for me to understand your point. It’s taking me a couple of times reading your sentences like this because I am assuming from the way it looks that it’s part of your comment and not what you are referring to…if that makes sense. “except” to “save” or except to save makes it obvious what you are intending to convey. added: oops, should have finished reading as you are doing this and just missed it at the beginning. Another good reminder to read the whole post first, lol

But you don’t know why it matters to her at this point and it’s best not to make more assumptions or compare her reactions to your own cause that is easy to get into judging her. It may not be pride or caring about appearances, but her history that has led to that worry or fear (if that is actually the driver and not something you misunderstood). Perhaps someone has tried to humiliate her because of your kids no longer being members and used their drinking as evidence of her failure…or maybe she feels like she failed, but she is shifting that judgement on to others instead of seeing it as she’s judging herself because she doesn’t want to blame your children for her feeling that way. Our ideas can be convoluted and not as straightforward as others assume they will be like the way my husband saw my willingness to be open with negativity (so we could resolve issues which for me is a sign of a strong marriage) as a sign that divorce was always part of our conversation, that I wasn’t all into the marriage from the start, possibly because that’s part of what avoiding negativity meant for his parents or someone else he knew or it could just have been a result of something here, something there that’s hardly related that got pulled into a pattern for him and he saw that pattern happening for us because that is humans do, we see patterns whether they are there or not. If you go into the conversation already thinking you know what’s wrong and especially if you think she is too concerned with what others are thinking, you are already judging her rather than listening, especially if you feel being able to focus on what God thinks of you rather than other people is a more mature, superior way…which would be understandable if that was all that was going on, but it’s likely to be more complicated than that. You assuming this is likely right will get in the way of understanding. Any conclusions should come after, not before, the listening to her, not us. Plus she is likely to be aware of that judgment and if she is, it would be understandable if she becomes defensive and walls will go up so she feels safer from your judgement and the hurt that will cause. And there is a good chance if your reaction is judgment or pity that she isn’t mature enough not to care, that will confirm the sense of betrayal she already experienced with this. So try to go in without any expectations or assumptions of why she is doing it except that she has valid reasons for feeling this way even if they aren’t reasons that are important to you. You are there to understand and find ways to communicate honestly and openly to help each of you feel safe and cared for by the other, not to determine who is right or wrong.

I suppose she might be thinking that because his behaviour reflects on her and their relationship in others’ eyes, this could affect how others view their marriage. Which could be felt as betrayal I guess. Given extended family is nonLDS and some of their kids are now not, does Maestro live in an LDS dense area where this is a possibility? That intense of an emotional reaction, it seems like fear is the driver of the reaction if so. Could be there is some unknown history here. Perhaps someone in their ward or neighborhood has condemned another person on flimsy evidence and ostracized them from a social group. Or she has been humiliated by a family member for not being a good mother because your kids aren’t members and now if they heard about this, they might assume you weren’t faithful either. And she doesn’t want others to look down on you. Not saying you should ask her if these happened, I am just using these to show there are valid reasons besides ego/being worried about appearances that she might be worried you were seen. So don’t be dismissive of her fear if this is the cause. Again even if something here sounds like it might be right, don’t assume it is. Still ask your wife as the only credible source.

Between 350 BCE and 250 CE…maybe, not sure of the credibility of the site as it uses as a reference an article calling it the Maya Atlantis and asking if there was a connection https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/lake-atitlan-maya-00102663

I misunderstood your point, you were less focused on south- south east and instead on the precision implied by being able to tell “not quite” that direction, whatever that direction might be called..

I wrote more…as I do, lol. I wonder if I should share with you our issues with guns (my husband likes to targetshoot for fun..goes with our son and friends, I don’t want them in our home…I know people who have been killed by their own guns in their own home). Came across bullets unexpectedly in my husband’s closet one day. Not happy about it. Then there was his grandfather’s antique Colt which was a dear keepsake for him. Communication is what works if anything is going to work. Compromise is important too, but you need to understand what is important to the other first so you don’t get resentful thinking you are the one having to sacrifice while the other is getting their way (they are likely thinking the same thing in my experience with friends and extended family).

My one guess is Rain may be right and it’s because you didn’t involve her. My other guess is it’s because the whiskey is in your house (if it isn’t, ignore what follows, I going off the cue of you saying you aren’t going to drink it, which implies it’s in your possession). It’s crossed her boundaries of refuge, the place she feels safe and most in control of her life…where you and her exclude things that stress you two out as much as possible and create your ideal world. And alcohol is very much not part of that world for her for some reason. Just its presence is enough for her to feel her refuge isn’t hers any more, but she is having to sacrifice for someone else. The kids’ drinking is outside the home, not in it, so that is acceptable. a third guess….You not asking her permission to bring the alcohol into your home is a combo of the two But really she should be the one telling you why she is upset, not us. You also shouldn’t just try to think of what you have heard from her in the past and extrapolate from that, but ask her sincerely for more information now. It may be an issue that she feels she has discussed with you before, so the fact you still don’t understand feels like it adds insult to injury. Part of listening involves incorporating it into your behaviour towards her. Sometimes spouses assume the other understands more than they really do because communication only goes so far. If this is the first time she has acted this way, something is different this time, so you need to be prepared to respond in new ways and not assume that what you did in the past will work again. But again, the important thing is to reach out to her and let her know you truly want to understand. And you are committed to help healing this wound whatever the cause and learning how to be better at understanding her needs as well as her expectations of she has of you. One of the worse things you can do is make assumptions about what your spouse wants and needs rather than asking…and not just superficially where you fill in the details, but with examples and doing it over time in multiple contexts. My husband came from a family who shut down anything negative, just ignored it. It was pretty obvious within a few months because we spent a lot of time in their home early on and I saw his family (a great one btw) in action on this. So I thought I was doing my husband a great favour by modeling openness and communication by sharing not only positive reactions, but negative ones. I figured over time he would finally feel safe enough having seen that expressing negativity didn’t lead to disaster. 20 years into our marriage one day he bursts out he is constantly worrying about us getting divorce because of my dissatisfaction with our relationship when it had never entered my head (except right at the beginning of it and that was a drug reaction that sent me into depression). The context he was applying to what I was saying was totally unexpected for me. I had asked him to communicate and he couldn’t. I shouldn’t have been so arrogant thinking I knew enough psychology I could help him feel safe. I couldn’t as long as he had that filter of doom in place. We should have gone to counseling right off to help us get on the same page. He did the same thing for me, making assumptions about what I wanted, thinking he was protecting me by not sharing things he was going through that I couldn’t do anything about…like not telling me he was in a motorcycle accident and in the hospital until he knew everything would be okay and could reassure me. He knew I couldn’t come to the hospital because I had to stay at home for our daughter among other things (he called our son to take him to the hospital), knew it would be a very big stress for me…but for some reason he didn’t get the long term implications of him hiding critical stuff from me. He still often doesn’t tell me he has something he is medically worried about, but it’s gotten better since he retired and I am his main conversational partner, lol. All that just to point out trying to fill in the details on how your partner thinks is likely to be more of a disaster than a success. Best to just keep working with each other, opening up and being accepting trying very hard not to be defensive. If this level of communication can’t happen in your home without making things worse (and it may be just because of different upbringings, not because of anything either of you have chosen…you just don’t think the same way), go to counseling if you can. Even the best intentions won’t get through if the assumptions you have made about each other are wrong and worse, not shared. BTW, my husband and I both grew up in the Church and had psych degrees from BYU, both took the undergraduate counsels class in order to be able to work as student counselors. We took the same behavioral classes and others. We assumed all that shared experience meant we were on the same page, working with the same methods. And it looked that way in a lot of our life…but we were so wrong. We have had a great marriage, but so many bumps in it that didn’t have to be there because we weren’t communicating in ways we each understood. And honestly I am pissed at myself for being so secure that I knew best so that I am having to still work on basic issues at age 65 instead of resolving this in our 30s.

This would tie into Nehor’s claim of using religion as distraction.

This seems like it should be documentable. Do you have references? added: I see smac was wondering too. If he’s correct and/or there is no additional documentation, just ignore this request.

More like sarcasm and a recognition of the absurdity

What if the original language allowed for more precision than English which uses four words to describe 360 degrees of direction? (I have no clue if there is such a language out there, it just seems like there is an critical assumption being made here)

Where is Mfb? I guess he never got his tech issue solved. (every time we get into ‘truth’, I think about him.)

This is what I was actually thinking.

I agree. Which is why I think children should be taught to be comfortable with their own bodies and the sight of others’, including nudity rather than shame being attached. Unfortunately our culture went the other way (those silly Victorians took it way over the top) and we are still recovering. Pity we can’t all grow up in nudist camps. But then porn would simply switch to having clothes on most likely.

How old are you? Just curious as the culture during the time period towards gays and the queer culture outside of the Church and unfortunately inside was pretty aggressive. Got worse with AIDS and the misinformation and myths and propaganda that came out of that fear. Have you listened or read the Thorne interview? Even if he is intentionally downplaying the porn aspect and not just misremembering, I believe his sincerity in wanting to help the men who came to him looking for help. I didn’t know Thorne, but all the other clinical psych and behaviour psych professors I did know as their student as did my husband, some of them quite well. Unless they managed to hide an abusive side of them, these were good hearted, kind men who were concerned about those who came to them. They did volunteer work at the prisons, took in foster kids from the delinquent center, adopted, saw students for personal counseling after hours. And they taught practices according to the guidelines then in force through the various professional organizations. I think I would have noticed if they had gone rogue in their teaching because I did notice it with a couple of other professors (not in psych). The sad thing is everything that was done in McBride’s experiment was relatively mainstream, being done at other universities. Using porn for sexual therapy was standard practice from the research I was reading. They (mainstream psych) were advising individuals and couples to use porn to help with sexual dysfunction. Unfortunately there was not the caution with adolescents back then. I remember Brooke Shields and her “nothing comes between me and my Calvin’s” commercials were all over TV screens all day long. There was protest, but little protection that I was aware of. The controversy with Shields only seemed to drive her popularity. Movies were tons worse. I am not saying this is okay or makes what happened at BYU not wrong. I am saying it’s not unexpected given what was being used elsewhere. The main difference with BYU at the time was McBride was trying to find a way to avoid using porn or even nudes, but to tell the difference in effectiveness he had to have something to compare it to. Controls in comparison studies are required to make them meaningful. I am saddened that he allowed adolescent pictures and Thorne either allowed it or trusted him to do right. (I don’t believe the other professors would have seen the pictures used until after the research was done, if then; they might have only read the description). It sickens me such permissiveness for sexualizing teens was part of the culture at that time. And still is. I do think McBride should have been concerned and removed the adolescent pictures no matter what even if he was using them as ‘control’ in order to ultimately (hopefully) create another option for use in research. The porn…I am undecided. My BS was in clinical psych, so I know there was discussion about individuals who would only be aroused by porn at that time. I can see perhaps some of the subjects saying ‘these (the porn) work best for me and it’s the behaviour I want to stop’. Clinically speaking it makes sense to directly target the behaviour and not adjacent behaviour. Even though the purpose of the research was not therapy focused but on the tools used for therapy, the possibility that the aversion therapy might decrease attraction to the porn was still there (it was thought to work at that time in much of the mainstream from what I studied, though there were some who didn’t think much of it) and I can see McBride possibly thinking why not help the subjects while they were helping him. Didn’t make it right, but it makes it understandable imo.

Lovely. I was certain you know me well enough to know my intentions, but don’t want even to have my words suggest disrespect if it came from a total stranger. If I didn’t know you, I might not have risked it. ❤️

I could with the scripture itself. Since we assume an abridgment of the text itself, I would not be surprised if Jonah like stories were adapted for it as the text is supposed to cover a huge amount of time. For me, scripture is meant to bring us to engage with God, with the Spirit. I believe much in the Bible is pious fiction, some inspired, some not. I have no problem applying the same to the BoM and already do to a certain extent. There is still one theme in scripture I see as a necessity to remain Christian and that is the existence of Christ, his life, death and resurrection. Don’t really care about the details. I care he became like us to save us because he loves us. However, in other areas of faith, I see more need for them to be what is claimed for them, especially when it comes to the sacraments and it’s not just doctrine, principles, and symbolism and all that they teach us that gives them value for us, but authority by which this is done. Not saying they would be valueless to me, but their importance would be diminished and they wouldn’t be so front and center in the practice of my faith. Joseph taught he saw things and the reality of what he saw established the truth of what he taught (thus the witnesses). If he taught he saw the Father and the Son not because he saw them, but because he was inspired to know they existed and they cared for us their children, then that changes his witness, imo, even though that inspiration may have included the divine somehow directing him to gather people together to form a church. But Joseph claimed much more than that happened. If angels did not visit him and give him authority to restore the Priesthood by the laying on of hands, how did he receive such authority? Or did he even do so? And if he didn’t, if there is no true authority in our faith, then what ties us to God that can’t be found elsewhere? If the authority is lacking even if the covenants we are inspired to make are inspired themselves (which I can easily see as a possibility if one assumes Joseph’s narrative was inspired fiction), then while I see temple work for the living as still potentially meaningful as we would be making our own covenants with God, seems like the work for the dead becomes unnecessary. We could make do with fewer temples (in Utah and other places with multiple temples) and use the time and money we invest redeeming the dead in serving the living instead. Do you feel that way about the resurrection? That it would still have sufficient value to remain Christian even if there was no resurrected Christ, but perhaps a divine being who taught humans valuable lessons using such inspired stories? About not just the stories of Christ’s life where he taught and healed, but that he was God who became flesh, lived and died and rose again? That such would still have great value as inspired pious fiction? If so, what is there for you in Catholic belief that must be relatively close to how it’s taught in order to have not just moral value (teaching principles), but salvation for those who participate in it? That must be true as taught in order for you to remain Catholic? I hope this doesn’t come across as challenging or disrespecting your faith, you just made me curious about how you look at your faith in this way given what you said.

Thanks for posting the actual dissertation and the corrections. I needed the reminder not to trust Chat even with googling. It swore on its honor the dissertation wasn’t accessible. Obviously I have been getting even lazier with it than I realized. I haven’t read the entirety yet, will later. Thorne was talking about pictures he used for his therapy when he said they brought in their own pictures. I can’t comment on whether that is accurate without documentation (at this point I want documentation from him, not memories), but he did claim imo that no porn was used at BYU in this area and it looks to me like that is contradicted by McBride’s paper. While I don’t assume all nudes even in Playboy are porn***, the probability they were is high. And even if they weren’t, the inclusion of adolescent boys is highly disappointing. It makes sense to figure out what can help decrease unhealthy attractions, but directly using materials that are exploitative, whether of adolescents, women, or men is wrong, imo. I see porn as exploitative as well as anything sexual with minors. I have changed my opinion about the appropriateness of the materials used and the wisdom of those involved. And my trust has dropped for Thorne’s memory (whether intentionally downplayed or wishful thinking rewrote what happened or he didn’t actually pay that close of attention). The field of medicine and psychiatry is full of exploitation that moved the science ahead, but at what a cost. A cost that should not have been paid in many cases. ***yes, I have seen Playboy magazines, was keeping a friend company while they were taking care of a home for someone on vacation and my friend was interested in how a young Mormon would react, curiosity won that day.

The problem is the narrative around receiving the Book of Mormon. If there was no vision and instruction by Moroni for Joseph, should we trust him when he speaks of a vision of God the Father and His Son? Or any of the new doctrine he taught? That would be a decision each member would need to make for themselves, but I think a good many would conclude, no, they shouldn’t trust him…and many would go down the path of no longer trusting any scripture at all assuming the likelihood it too was all pious fiction. And if on top of this, they had experiences they interpreted as spiritual witnesses of the Book of Mormon as placed in history, they likely would doubt their ability to accurately feel the Spirit and even doubt the existence of all things spiritual. I based my prediction on having seen this happen before with many members who come to question what the Book of Mormon is. I honestly don’t know how I would react. My testimony has never been focused on the Book of Mormon, but I still assume it was delivered by an angel under the direction of God to Joseph. I would be unsettled if for some reason it wasn’t an ancient record, but I am pretty flexible about scripture. If however there is no angel and therefore perhaps no First Vision….First Vision is very big for me.

So you do believe any nude picture is porn since you are repeating this after I posted Thorne’s description of how and what was used. He used the statue of David in comparison. Anything pornographic was rejected if anyone did bring such in. Thorne would have been risking getting fired and McBride getting expelled if they had been caught using porn, I suspect. And that would have gotten around quickly and someone would have reported it. I bet someone reported the nudes given some of the crazy stuff that was going on at the time (a woman not allowed to take a test because her pants weren’t dressy enough, notes put in women’s coat pockets encouraging them to be more modest—so creepy, others being stopped and counseled by young men—creepier). Can’t wear too much makeup, but too little is almost as bad. Don’t be immodest, but better be ‘attractive’. Damned if we did, damned if we didn’t. Someone did a paper in my psych research during that time period on what characteristics a BYU male student wanted in a woman to see her as marriage material. The only thing of significance was she had to shave her legs and pits. I died laughing (quietly) at the profound spirituality of my fellow BYU students of the male variety, not quite so different from other young men of their age. 😛 added: nowadays I would be asking about her sampling method and just who she asked to contribute. Maybe it was the guys she hung out with rather than BYU gentlemen in general. Getting a truly random selection was more effort than the paper was worth.

Not quite accurate….early on, if I understood correctly, the subjects set the pain level (see upper quote) and shocked themselves. Later while they still set the intensity, they signaled readiness and then a couple of shocks would occur over the next few minutes. Thorne suggests knowing the shock/pain was coming would mean they would be focusing on that rather than the picture/ideas the shock was supposed to create an aversion to and so a variable schedule was assumed to be more effective as it has been shown to be in other forms of conditioning.(see lower quote) PS:. I believe Thorne on both accounts as 1) for shocks self administered…the setup was consistent with other studies I had read and 2) for non pornographic nudes, you only have to look at McBride’s thesis to know that using porn at BYU would have been way too uncomfortable for most professors and students since he was hoping to prove they could use clothed subjects just as effectively…my memory is his research did show that. https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Eugene-Thorne-FAIR-Examination_otter_ai.pdf

See the links I posted