It seems to me that marriages break up because of 1. selfishness 2. difference in values and 3. everything else.

They say money breaks up a marriage- impossible. It’s just a tool. It’s that people VALUE different things and thus want to spend their money differently. They want different “things” literally and on a bigger scale they want different things.

I just lived with an LDS family for a year and a half. We do NOT have the same values. We ARE the same religion. We go to the same church. We place different values on important things:

money
people
respecting people who are “different”
open discussion
sharing of feelings
education
appearance vs. reality
time together
spontaneous spirituality
schedule
tradition
reasons to be obedient

If I were to marry this family we would divorce in no time. We have totally different priorities. Our choices reflect that.
We would struggle at every turn.

I don’t need to find someone who thinks like I do. I’ve never met anyone who does. But when it comes to what is MOST important to me in life- I could not possibly marry someone that I did not see eye to eye with. How can we be a team if we are going different directions or even playing different sports? We each have our part and different gifts- but we’ve got to have the same goals or it will never work.

So the question is- what is MOST important to you? If they are shallow things- you will never be happy in any marriage.
So it’s probably best to not marry until you get that figured out.

There are some things I will sacrifice- big house, my messy habits, certain foods, certain hobbies. Other things I will not- putting God first, loving, really loving, our children, a home that people feel welcome in, intellectual and spiritual conversations with my husband that challenge me, etc.

Some people say I’m too picky and may never marry. But I’d rather be happy and stay close to the Lord than be unequally yoked. I know who I am. God knows who I am. He knows what my heart desires and what I really need. I need someone who is not just in my religion but also SHARES MY FAITH. I need both. But if I could only have one- it would be SHARES MY FAITH.

However- I’m holding out for both.

Broadly, I find that they fit in one of three categories:

(1) They see it as a sign of other faiths caving in to feminism and “the spirit of this age;” I’ve even seen Mormons brag about the fact that the church refuses to ordain women in contrast to other some other churches (see here for an example).
(2) They’re like my husband. They think such faiths are wrong about bigger things, so they don’t really care if they get it wrong on gender roles
(3) They’re like your professor. When the LDS church does it, it’s not sexist because it’s from God. When other churches do it, it’s sexism, so they seem to feel that non-LDS churches ought to be ordaining women.

You would think that the folks from option 3 would simply see churches which refuse to ordain women as preserving a portion of God’s truth in spite of being apostate, but I never said these were consistent positions.

Tangentially I’ve often wondered what effect it would have on the LDS church if the Catholics decided to ordain women.

So long as Catholics, Mormons, E. Orthodox, Jehovah’s Witnesses and complementarian evangelicals all refuse to ordain women, they’ll form a phalanx wherein they reinforce each other’s notions that such discrimination is “okay” because it’s from God. Some Mormons from category 1 above recognize that every church which switches to ordaining women will contribute to increasing public perception that such discrimination isn’t okay and make it harder for the church to maintain its policies, so they’re opposed to it for that reason.

My own speculation: the LDS church will start softening some of its policies and giving women greater responsibilities, sort of like soft complementarian Mormonism, then eventually will give women the priesthood altogether. It just might not happen until you get some top leadership that was born in the 60s or 70s and have grown up with the expectation that women have equal opportunities.

Eve ~ Thanks much. I really love the discussion here at ZD, though I often feel y’all are over my head. But I do love to read.

Time to go pack another moving box…

You also reminded me of a question I’ve often wondered–generally speaking, how do LDS who oppose female ordination in their own church see the practice in other faiths? Irrelevant? A bad move that potentially undermines traditional gender roles and is an example of how apostate those churches are? Or even potentially something good, since they increase opportunities for women, and don’t do so in a context where–from an LDS perspective–God hasn’t allowed it? One of my religion professors at BYU once made a comment that I have to admit I found rather bizarre, that lack of female ordination in other churches was simply a result of sexism–but in our case the situation was different, because we have the true priesthood. (!?)

(Tangentially I’ve often wondered what effect it would have on the LDS church if the Catholics decided to ordain women. If nothing else, I suspect it would make the question more pressing–as it is, we’re one of several large churches that don’t, and therefore not particularly unique on that point–and maybe don’t feel as much social pressure to articulate our reasons.)

Your comment also reminded me of something I’ve repeatedly been struck by in my own theological studies in a very interfaith environment which leans quite liberal. As a liberal Mormon, there are ways in which I feel like my conversations with my fellow students are actually less interfaith than conversations with my fellow Church members–we differ, sometimes a lot, on particular details and doctrines, but there’s a sense in which our most basic ways of approaching religion are quite similar. I honestly feel like I get as much practice at interfaith dialogue at church as at school–and I sometimes feel bad for not making more of an effort in the context of the former.

~ I refuse to attend evangelical churches which don’t ordain women. He thinks it would be nice if women had the priesthood, but believes wholeheartedly that the current LDS gender system is ordained by God.

~ I think that marriage should be an equal system with each party loving and submitting to the other and neither having the “final say.” He thinks that men should technically get the final say if it comes down to it, but since I’m not LDS and don’t accept the Proclamation on the Family or the hearken covenant, he doesn’t expect it from me.

~ He thinks the music at my church is irreverent. I think the music in sacrament meeting is dispassionate and boring.

~ I have many different translations of the Bible and refer to them frequently and want to buy more. He thinks different Bible translations are okay, but doesn’t get why I need so many of them when the KJV works just fine.

I would certainly love it if he saw things my way on all of these issues, but what’s the point in arguing with him about them when I already have so many unbridgeable disagreements with him simply because he’s Mormon and I’m evangelical? Since I already accept him along with those differences, I’m willing to let these other differences go.

OTOH, I could potentially have a horrible time being married to a complementarian, Calvinist, cessationist, paedobaptist evangelical, and there would be an expectation that we come to some kind of working agreement on all of those things and choose a church for the whole family to attend, and one of us would have to compromise on some of them. A reasonable compromise in most of those areas could probably be reached, but it could prove difficult.

Likewise, I asked my husband once if he would rather have me as an evangelical or a liberal Mormon. He immediately responded, “Evangelical.” The response got a chuckle out of me. Apparently being married to someone who rejects the church entirely is better than being married to someone who believes it’s inspired at heart but grossly astray in some areas.

Final anecdote: yesterday I was very excited by the news that the Assemblies of God has elected its first woman to the executive. I told my husband about it and he said, “That’s awesome. I’m very happy for you guys.” I asked why he was okay with it when his own church doesn’t allow women to be apostles or prophets, and he said, “Well, I already think you guys are wrong anyways; why shouldn’t I be happy for your church’s achievements?”

So there you have it. I guess my point is, yes, differing theological positions among people of the same faith in a relationship can be pretty difficult to manage, but once you do accept someone from a whole different faith, those theological nuances really don’t matter so much.

Kind of bizarrely, I’ve sometimes found myself less likely to reveal my Church membership to other LDS than to non-Mormons–for the exact reason you describe. Non-members are going to assume at the outset that this is an inter-faith situation which will involve difference and require dialogue and mutual respect. With other members, it’s all too easy to make assumptions that we already know what they think.

I was on a flight to Salt Lake recently, and the woman next to me was highlighting her Conference Ensign. She kept trying to engage me in conversation. And I was thinking to myself–if this comes up, do I tell her I’m LDS, so that she won’t feel any need to share the gospel–or would that just make the situation more awkward, if she found out what I really believed? Yet here I see my own assumptions at work–random LDS person in a plane highlighting a Conference Ensign=traditional Mormon who would be horrified by my beliefs. Which probably isn’t fair, either. But I must confess that I avoided conversation. (Of course, I’m a general curmudgeon when it comes to being on planes with strangers, regardless of their beliefs.)

It seems to be an unfortunate trend in the church that some marry based on superficial likenesses (e.g. both being members) without finding out what exactly people’s views are. Mormons tend to conflate behavior (obeying Word of Wisdom, having the right number of earrings) with belief and assume that if behaviors are the same then so are beliefs, but that is not true at all. And as was rightly pointed out, it’s more important to agree on daily issues like Sabbath observance than it is to agree on less relevant stuff like the nature of the Holy Ghost.

Several months ago I was in a Marriage and Family Relations Class in which the teacher posed a great question: what do spouses do when their faith journeys diverge? No will seemed very interested in exploring it, and I have to admit I was as reluctant as anyone, not knowing how much I trusted the other class participants, but I’d love to see more discussion in church of the ways spouses have different experiences and come to sometimes very different conclusions about matters of faith. I’d love to know how to start that conversation.

I have a particular interest in this since my RM husband turned into an agnostic and then an atheist in relatively short order after our temple marriage. But I think my experience is just at one end of a spectrum of experiences. People constantly question, doubt, deconvert, or on the other hand discover new faith and strength and conversion without necessarily bringing their spouses along with them. I’d like to see an expansion of the active-inactive (or the Mormon-non-Mormon) dichotomy to explore the permutations I suspect many marriages go through–as, in our various ways, mine has, Ann’s has, and Rebecca’s and LucySophia’s have.