Faith-Toxic Relationships

[Raingirl]

On 4/6/2022 at 9:25 AM, Tacenda said:

I wonder how many dreaded going back to their ward family after things opened up for attending on Sundays again. I know that when I just watch on Zoom, I'm content, I don't miss feeling like I just don't fit in or the constant feelings of not being accepted. But I'm fairly new in my ward, it takes me a good 5 years to feel comfortable in a ward family. But if anyone has a toxic situation with people in their ward, I'll bet it was difficult to go back into that environment again. 

I can totally relate to this. 

[Kenngo1969]

15 hours ago, Tacenda said:

... Okay, @Kenngo1969let me have it!

Ummm ... okay.    What do you want?   What is "it"?  What would you like me to let you have?  Your experience is just that: Your experience.  You think I'm going to tell you that you didn't have the experience you had?  What would be the point?  I will say, however, that perception is a huge part of any experience.  In fact, to go all @mfbukowski on you, perception is experience: How can we "experience" anything we don't perceive? 

Personally, I would be wary of attempting to impute [accurately] any motive to anyone else, but perhaps that's just me.  Sometimes (oftentimes, in fact) as human beings, we believe we're fairly certain what motivates someone's (in)actions toward us, how the person feels about us, how he or she perceives us ("Ewwww!  She's a germ! "  ), and so on, when, in fact, since each of us has his or her own problems and challenges, it's possible ... likely, even ... that the person scarcely has given us a second thought. 

Laying aside the question of whether your perception, in some way, is accurate, is it helpful?  I suppose "helpfulness" is in the "eye of the beholder" or in the "perception of the perceiver."  Perhaps, though, even the question whether a perception is helpful can be answered (at least in part) by answering the question I asked in the beginning: What is it you want?  If your perception helps you, in some way, to get something that you want, then it's helpful.  If it doesn't, then it isn't.  (What I want, though, may or may not be healthy: If I want to nurse a grudge, then believing that someone is antipathetic toward me might be helpful to that end, but it probably isn't healthy.)  

There are people on this planet who, to put it charitably, don't think highly of me.  As much as a part of me might rue that state of affairs, on the other hand, there is a part of me that says, Well, consider the source.  Does "the source" have all of the information that it would be necessary to have about me in order to reach a fair assessment of my character?  Is the source biased in some way?  Whatever the source might say about me, is it consistent with what my family, my friends, and my close associates would say?  And so on. 

[Nofear]

18 hours ago, Buckeye said:

I believe strongly in this relationship model and use in my counseling of members often. In short, while there will always be faults to see in the "other" (whether a spouse, child, sibling, or organization like the church), the focus must always be on the positives. Once the negatives become dominant, particularly when one's approach is contempt, divorce is soon to follow.

If a member gets solely focused on an issue such as SSM, they will eventually separate themself from the church. That separation may be very understandable and even wise, such as when one's LGBT child is placed in an unhealthy and untenable place by the church community, but members should try to step back and make the decision consciously rather than with contempt.  Likewise, if the church makes the sole focus on a particular member their disobedience to a specific commandment, they will eventually separate themself from the member. As an example, I've seen vastly different reactions to members who do not live the WoW. Wards that embrace the member and try to find ways to work together (e.g., call the brother as an assistant scout master) have much better results than those that try to shun. The successes are not just for the member but their family and the whole ward family.  Here's to continued hope that such an approach can be found with LGBT members, whose numbers will never significantly decrease in our church because we keep giving birth to new ones. 

 

Thank you for sharing your perspective as a professional.

[The Nehor]

I don’t think the marriage comparison works. Marriage partners by the nature of the relationship know how to hurt each other a lot. The church just doesn’t. It might hurt someone a lot but it is more likely to be out of ignorance or misunderstanding than a deliberate attack. People can have an unhealthy relationship with their ward or the church as a whole but I can’t see it scaling up the way a marriage can.

People’s relationship with God on the other hand, oh boy: There is a reason it is often compared to a marriage.

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

On 4/6/2022 at 9:15 AM, Nofear said:

An interesting article: https://publicsquaremag.org/media-education/pop-culture/saying-goodbye-to-faith-toxic-influencers/
 

Basic premise is that in a personal relationship (such as with a spouse) the behaviors "criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling" are behaviors that really have a severe negative impact on the relationship often ending up in the eventual dissolution of the relationship. For some who are disaffected with the Church, the same behaviors are present. Not all, certainly, but for many. The article basically presents the idea that if we treat our relationship with the Church with the same care and love that we might have with a spouse (imperfect though they may be) we will be healthier and happier. I don't view the Church as being perfect (we still have a ways to go to be more Zion-like) but I nonetheless find a great deal of happiness and comfort with the relationship.

I guess the question would be what merit or short-comings do you see in this kind of comparison?



 

As a convert, I did not join the Church expecting perfection, nor did I marry expecting perfection, and certainly did not expect it when I became a parent. Which is why I am still a member, still married, and still a parent, for almost 50 years now. I am not perfect, therefore I have no right to expect it anywhere else. Although I do expect, and have hope that when I meet my Lord and Savior, then and only then, will I experience perfection.