HELP!! - Wife converting to Mormonism

[Stephen168]

Hey world and everyone in it - Mormons believe that marriage relationships are of great eternal significance. Mormons are taught (and often believe) that being sealed in the temple is of critical importance to acheiving the highest level of blessings God offers us.

Christ never believed or taught this.

 

[mangy_dog]

This kind of demonic oppression is best expelled with prayer and fasting-Confession and Communion-daily Rosary.

This means you not your wife. Prayer changes things and the Blessed Mother can and will defeat the demon that is attacking your marriage through mormonism and JW’ism.

 

[TexanKnight]

Just out of curiosity, should the OP’s wife get baptized, do you think that he should not long for her to become a believing Catholic?

I personally know of three, and I’ve encountered stories from at least a dozen more. The three I know personally:

• A guy I used to work with in Utah. His wife was LDS, he was not. He once told me “You mormons are ok, now that you’ve finally accepted me and my strange ways.”
• An LDS coworker, after his LDS wife died, married a nonmormon. They have the specific understanding and agreement that “time only” is just fine with both of them.
• A lady in my congregation is married to a nonmember. He’s apparently an alcoholic, and has possibly been physically abusive in the past. I’m not privy to everything every mormon has ever said to her on the subject, but I’ve gone over to his house to do a service project, and my wife has talked with her about alanon and dealing with a husband with problems like his. We’re happy to see her when she’s at church, and whenever she has a story about how he’s doing better, we celebrate with her.

So no, Rebecca, you cannot truthfully say that an interfaith marriage will end once the mormon loses hope the other will convert.

Does it happen? Absolutely. Is it an LDS-only phenomenon? Hardly. For example, I don’t know anyone personally whose spouse divorced them because they become mormon, but I do know several who were kicked out of their homes and disowned by their Catholic parents.

lol…I doubt this. But, if you want, I can post tons of stories about it happening by LDS parents. And friends. etc.

Yes, I’ve heard several stories like this too. I’ve also heard more from nonbelieving mormons who like the culture and don’t want to lose it. Preserving and strengthening a marriage is on a lot of people’s minds. And I restate my earlier opinion, that it should be on the OP’s spouses mind too.

 

[Z_Ninja]

Originally Posted by NeuroTypical View Post
Just out of curiosity, should the OP’s wife get baptized, do you think that he should not long for her to become a believing Catholic?

I personally know of three, and I’ve encountered stories from at least a dozen more. The three I know personally:

• A guy I used to work with in Utah. His wife was LDS, he was not. He once told me “You mormons are ok, now that you’ve finally accepted me and my strange ways.”
• An LDS coworker, after his LDS wife died, married a nonmormon. They have the specific understanding and agreement that “time only” is just fine with both of them.
• A lady in my congregation is married to a nonmember. He’s apparently an alcoholic, and has possibly been physically abusive in the past. I’m not privy to everything every mormon has ever said to her on the subject, but I’ve gone over to his house to do a service project, and my wife has talked with her about alanon and dealing with a husband with problems like his. We’re happy to see her when she’s at church, and whenever she has a story about how he’s doing better, we celebrate with her.

So no, Rebecca, you cannot truthfully say that an interfaith marriage will end once the mormon loses hope the other will convert.

Does it happen? Absolutely. Is it an LDS-only phenomenon? Hardly. For example, I don’t know anyone personally whose spouse divorced them because they become mormon, but I do know several who were kicked out of their homes and disowned by their Catholic parents.

lol…I doubt this. But, if you want, I can post tons of stories about it happening by LDS parents. And friends. etc.

Yes, I’ve heard several stories like this too. I’ve also heard more from nonbelieving mormons who like the culture and don’t want to lose it. Preserving and strengthening a marriage is on a lot of people’s minds. And I restate my earlier opinion, that it should be on the OP’s spouses mind too.

reminds me of a video I saw once at my wife’s (then girlfriend) parents house they were watching. It was about a pair of missionaries and they were at an Hispanic family’s house and the father was portrayed as being so angry that his daughter was talking to missionaries saying, “you are Catholic and will always be Catholic.”

 

[VanSensei]

Honestly, OP, I would ask her if she’s sincerely converting, because it seems as if she discovered the Mormon faith, like overnight. That’s kind of disconcerting. If not, I would ask her to reconsider.

 

[Offdoodykcrn]

I’m mystified by the choice of Mormonism from a lapsed Catholic. Many women that turn away from Catholicism cite the marginalization of women among their reasons, and they gravitate toward churches that (they perceive) do not discriminate on the basis of gender to any role in that church. Mormons would not fall into that category. Not to mention the whole Joseph Smith thing… jiminy christmas that’s a weird faith. I don’t claim to have all the answers, and God bless those that find peace in LDS church, but anyone that believes the garden of Eden is in Jackson County, MO needs their head examined. The humidity here alone is enough to disprove that…

I do hope you and your wife find peace. I would suggest marriage counseling if you feel a distance in other aspects of your marriage. Is she really on board with the idea of Caucasian Native Americans, how the Book of Mormon was written, and the values they extoll? If she is, I would think she would value your opinion and abide your wishes in not leading your kids away from the Church in which they were raised.

 

[Frank_Blunt]

My wife and I were married 10 years ago. Both of us were raised Catholic though I was a practicing Catholic throughout my life (save my college years when I was doing typical college kid stuff) and she was not really involved in the church much past the age of 10.

We were, however, married in the Catholic Church and had all 3 of our daughters (now ages 7, 5, & 2) baptized in the Church. The older 2 attend Sunday School at our local parish and the oldest celebrates her First Communion in 2 weeks.

Throughout all this time, my wife has not been really involved in the our parish at all. While she’s supportive of the kids and their learning in the church, she’s rarely gone to Mass with us (though admittedly, the youngest only recently has behaved well enough to make it through the full Mass so she’s stayed home with her). She’s a spiritual woman, interested in religion, but over the last few years has questioned her faith and understanding in the Catholic faith saying “it doesn’t speak to her”.

For close to a year she had a Jehovah’s Witness come every so often to speak with her despite my objections. Thankfully she came to her senses and came to the same conclusions most other Catholics do with that religion and broke off those sessions going forward.

She’s attended non-denominational services with a friend of hers as a tag-along. No harm there I suppose. But the last 4 weeks she’s attended LDS services on Sunday while I’ve taken the kids to Sunday School and Sunday Mass (including Easter). I like to think I have an open mind and most Mormons I’ve met were nice enough. And despite having Mormons living next door to us as a youth who were weird beyond belief, I had viewed her visits there as mostly harmless.

Then last night she dropped the bomb on me that she’s being baptized in the Mormon church next Saturday. 1 day after our 10th anniversary and 1 week before her oldest daughter’s 1st communion. She’s in agreement that it’s important that the kids are raised Catholic (all of my family and her father’s side of her family are Catholic - no Mormons to be found anywhere) and that they can attend “her church” but also have to continue through Catholic Sunday School and receiving the Sacraments - so, Daddy’s Church or Both.

Suffice to say I’ve done a lot of reading about the Mormon faith the last 24 hours and am scared to death as it relates to the kids. She’s a stay-at-home mom and has a huge amount of influence on the girls as most mothers do. I pray to God that what she said about the girls’ continuation in the Catholic faith plays out down the line. But even today I can see in how she speaks so excitedly about her upcoming Baptism and how they can make new friends at Sunday service and how one of my oldest’s best friend attends the Church and how she’ll be baptized after her 8th birthday in a few weeks, that my kids will gravitate to their mother without having the ability at their young age to understand how that can affect their relationship with their entire Catholic family down the line.

I can’t begin to explain how heartbroken I would be if any of my kids follow into the Mormon faith. I’m in tears thinking about how their wedding day would be not only without me being able to walk them down the aisle but to not even be able to witness it should they marry a Mormon boy in a Mormon temple.

I want my wife to be happy and live a fulfilling life and in all honesty she’s been a new person the last 4 weeks. She’s been better with the kids and our relationship (which is filled with a lot of silence and held-in frustration a lot of the time) has been pretty good this month. But I fear that this could hurt down the line more than I can imagine.

Just had to get this off my chest. If anyone has their own two cents or advice to add to this, I’m all ears. And I’ll definitely need your prayers.

I sympathize with your situation, since your faith forbids you to divorce, and I assume you married her in the Catholic church. If this ended up destroying your marriage, and she were to remarry in the LDS faith, and you could not remarry in yours, that would be a cruel situation to you and your children, far worse than that of a mixed denomination marriage.

Some good news:

For some reason, LDS woman and Catholic English speaking man, is from my observation and experience, a fairly low-conflict marriage situation.

The really heartbreaking conflict marriages I’ve seen were between an LDS man and a Catholic woman! That’s when they and their families put heavy pressure on each other to convert.

Don’t underestimate the power of the relationship of a good honest working Father with his daughters. You don’t need to compete with their Mom, especially as they hit their teenage years. You are their father and nothing can replace that.

My prayers and good wishes to you and your family.

 

[Indifferently]

To the OP:

Just stay strong in your Christian faith. Improve your prayer life. Lean on God and he will look after you. Do you pray and recite devotions morning and evening? Do you make careful spiritual preparations on Sunday morning, or just “turn up” to church as Mass is about to start.

 

[akb2011]

Hello there! I will be praying for your family. The Mormons are really good at what they do, I should know, I converted when I was 19. What I always find a bit ironic, is that they always claim to be pro-family, yet have no problems splitting families apart.

I came back to the Catholic Church about a year and a half ago. I wrote my reversion story (Me, the Mormons and the Catholic Church) on my new catholic mom blog called Modern Catholic Mom. I started this site with several goals in mind: bring fallen away Catholics home, bring new souls to the Church and revitalize the faith of current Catholics. This is not some shameless plug, I truly want to help others. It is what God has called me to do.

Please don’t hesitate to email me, I would love to chat with you and your wife. It might help for her to hear from a fellow mother. andrea@moderncatholicmom.com

I will be praying for you and your family.

Blessings,

Andrea