The last week in January, Jack's sister called a meeting to bring our situation out into the open, with the hope that it would eliminate questions and gossip sneaking around the family. His parents were out of town, but all of the (7) children came, along with 3 spouses, I being one of them.
Jack read a statement he'd written so he could be clear, stating that we'd basically lost our ability to believe in the church, but that we love our children and our family and hope they can respect our decision. That took about 2 minutes at the most.
The next part is really a blur for me. We were there for at least another half hour, if not longer, and they started asking a few questions. The very first question was, "Do you wear garments anymore?" What a stupid question. They asked if we were still going to church, and if I was still primary president. When I said yes, and that I wasn't ready to step down yet, things got really hairy. There was a lot of yelling, a lot of me crying that made no difference to their ability to yell in my face, and me somehow saying something one of my sisters-in-law found offensive, or maybe she did. I wasn't sure.
Frankly, I can't remember anything between the first question and leaving besides about 3 sentences and the memory of my family (that I married into) shouting at me while I was breaking down. It's probably for the best that I've forgotten it.
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I wasn't actually ever going to post about that meeting, since it's really best if we just move on, but since my blog is really just for me, and I don't expect any of my in-laws to read it, I opted to post it because it's caused some serious long-lasting anxiety for me. This is the first bit of fallout I'm mentioning: anxiety.
It wasn't just that one incident that's been a nice catalyst. There have been a few emails or phone calls or whatever that furthered it along. There have been good moments with family along the way, too, and I'll post those as well, since they're important and precious to me. But it's the absolutely heartless comments that I can't understand that seem to find a permanent place in my subconscious, though I tend to consider myself a pretty forgiving person.
I know Jack is from a pretty passionate family. He, himself, is quite passionate. He doesn't really get angry with me, though he did from time to time our first few years of marriage, but he's mellowed out. When Jack's stressed, he's a little more prone to anger. When I'm stressed, I'm prone to internal self-degradation. It's a bad combination, so we try to be aware of the issue and only let one of us stress at a time, or do things to alleviate that stress. We actually do a pretty good job. And we get along splendidly.
Enter our present sphere. He's stressed, I'm stressed. Something stupid goes wrong and he's angry. And I'm withdrawn. And I can't deal with him being angry like I have been able to for the last 10 years because all I can think about is how I felt that miserable night a month and a half ago. I'm reliving it in my mind. They must hate me to treat me that way. How could they hate me? What have I done so wrong?
And, actually, I have a lot more anxiety on a daily basis than anytime in the last 10 years.
This is pretty big fallout for me. I realize I need to get this under control, since it's self-destructive. It's not so out of control that it's affecting how I treat my family or that I'm depressed or anything serious like that. But it's enough that it hurts on a daily basis now.
I've started yoga, and I think I'm going to spend a little time each morning with that. It seems to help quite a bit.
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The next bit of fallout is my inner peace and spirituality. I lost my path, and now I have to make one all from scratch. I'm not really interested in someone else's dogma at this point, since that's what got me here in the first place, but setting everything up on your own is a daunting task for me. There are pieces I've learned from church over the last 35 years that I want to keep, pieces I want to lose.
The thing is, this is very tied back into the whole anxiety thing. I know if I can maintain that peace (I'm not without it, but I'm not doing enough on a regular basis to keep it constantly), I can lose a lot, and certainly enough, of the anxiety.
But where do I start? Prayer works for me. Some who have come to this point the way I did are agnostic or atheist and may think prayer is silly, but my thought is that if it has always brought me peace in the past, then why should it not bring me peace now, whether I have answers to questions about the nature of God or not? And it does, but I'm not always sure what to pray for anymore. I don't have the same set of beliefs as before, and I'm not even sure what exactly I do believe now. Not to mention my lack of trust in anyone telling me what I should believe. It's just something I have to work through, and it, unfortunately, takes more time than I'd like.
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This next bit is obvious: family relations. (I'm just talking about Jack's family in this post, because mine will get its own mention another time, as the situation is different and more unresolved right now.) Jack's parents are still out of town, but his mom has made it clear she loves him but doesn't really... I don't know. Doesn't like him, maybe? Jack has worked through some things with some siblings, and I had one send me a very nice email that I'll always remember late in the night after the family meeting. But I feel estranged, and even though I shouldn't care what anyone thinks, I wish I knew more decisively what they do think.
Jack has two brothers that have been the exception: one goes to church sporadically, the other hasn't been in 12 years. The one that hasn't been in ages is married to a lovely woman who isn't LDS and has been a very supportive and dear friend these last couple of months. Well, much longer than that, but this has deepened that relationship.
Again, this is something that only time can fix. And people wanting to do the right thing, which I think we all do.
