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It sounds like you are already doing a good job at this, but my biggest advice would be to keep respecting his beliefs. If my husband had not been so determined to take me out of the church with him we might have made it, but instead he felt the need to make me feel like everything I loved, and basically my whole life was nothing but rubbish. For me this was the last straw in a string of broken promises, and the different beliefs about whether or not I needed to be married gave me the incentive to leave. The divorce was originally his idea because he couldn’t handle the fact that I still wanted to wear my garments and go to church, but I was the one who stuck with the idea once the decision was made. As someone mentioned earlier, you have the right to feel pain and disappointment over what you are going through, but so does he. Make sure you spend more time trying to understand him than trying to tell him he’s wrong. My advice would be to come up with a list of concerns including your concerns for your son and sit down with her to come up with a solution. I would definitely bring up the idea that she shouldn’t be alone with anybody of the opposite sex, and I’m not even talking about temptation. You never really know someone the way you think you do. The majority of my friends have been either raped or molested and it was always by someone they trusted. One of my friends was actually set up with a guy who tried to rape her by one of her close guy friends. Her friend didn’t know that he was setting her up with this kind of person. He thought his friend was a “good LDS” boy with with “good LDS” roommates, but the truth is that religion isn’t really a factor. Humans are humans regardless of their choice in faith, and these were not “good boys” by anyone’s standards. I think the most important thing will be to make sure that with any policies you do lay down, you need to make sure she understands why. I was a good girl as well, and my parents had a fair amount of rules, but they had a reason for every rule. I NEVER got the “because I said so” line, and that meant a lot. They also gave me a lot of loop holes for the unforeseen. Such as telling me that if my group was going to be late getting home or was going to go to a restaurant or something after a date I just needed to call and let her know what was going on. When I had a problem with one of their rules or policies we sat down and talked about it until we came up with a solution.
I also agree with what Thoreau said about policies needing to be different for each kid. It might be good to plan ahead, but each child is so different. For instance, my brother could play video games or watch TV all day when we were young, so my parents had to put restrictions on him. I on the other hand I would work on building a website for 2-4hrs a day for about 2 days, burn out and go find something more hands on to do for the rest of the week, so they never gave me the same restrictions. My parents also bought me and my sister a more reliable car when we asked just because we were nice about it and patient as to when it happened, and they took their time with my brother because he needed a chance to realize that he couldn’t always get what he wanted right away.
The only church standards I remember are don’t date til you’re 16 and don’t steady date until you’re out of high school, but whether it was the church or my mom I was always taught also to never single date until out of high school. Eternity4me’s suggestion of have her invite another friend to go is a fantastic idea. There is safety in numbers.
I’m new to this community and have only been experiencing the faith crisis for about 5 months, but I think I have some advice that could be helpful. While I agree with others that you might need to take things slow and one thing at a time with your mother, there is no reason you can’t ask her to stop pushing you to date. Even long before my faith crisis I was giving this advice to roommates. While an enduring relationship is something that we as humans are programed to desire, it doesn’t need to happen right away. It sounds like she needs to be reminded both of this, and that finding someone to love is your business. There are very loving ways to convey this, and you will know the way that is right for you. My parents were ages 29 and 30 when they found each other. They were still able to have 3 kids and are still together to this day. I know of other couples that were quite a bit older than that who would not change the length of time it took to find each other. In a way the fact that you are learning right now the restrictions you will be putting on the type of men you want to date is a good thing. While it limits the playing field, it also weeds out some of the men that would not fit with you and/or be worthy of your love. I will be joining you soon in this place of uncertainty as I am currently going through a divorce. For the time being I have decided that I don’t want to date again until I know who I am and have an idea of where my life is going. I definitely hear you on this subject. It sounds to me like right now you need the freedom to focus on finding yourself. You can do it, and you will find a way to be who you are.
Thank you for all your supporting words. It does help, and it makes me feel not so alone. I appreciate the peaceful and respectful feeling here. I’ve had a few people ask what I meant by true believing new order Mormon. It is the best description I have to the fact that I did feel that we should be better in how we treat the LGBT community, and that there were changes that should be made to how much deciding power women have in the church. However, I believed that all these things would change in their proper timing, and that all I had to do was live the best way I knew how. I wasn’t worried about anything even though I didn’t agree with some things. I just assumed it was in God’s hands, and that he would take care of it. Now I find myself wondering if He even exists. I want with all my heart to believe that he does. My views of the brethren have also changed. Before I believed that while they were human, and didn’t do everything right, they were still the closest we could get to God in this life. My new order views were very passive before. For instance when I watched conference I took notes not on what was being said, but on what I felt the spirit was teaching me. I loved it! People would talk about the negative stuff in talks and I would agree it was wrong, but had been completely oblivious to it while watching. Before I believed whole heartedly in the restoration of the church, the God head, the Preisthood, Patriarchal blessings, and most things that I considered to be doctrine. I just knew enough about the doctrine to pick and choose what I believed. Now I just don’t know what I believe. I’ve begun to think that we are just another church, but I also believe that we have a lot of good things going for us. I guess the best way to describe my faith crisis is going from I’m sure, but I’m flexible to I don’t know.
