#ward 666

But the EXTREME differences between us getting food now, and back when we needed food as Mormons, is astronomical and brought me to tears.

As Mormons, to get help from the church, we had to;

-Meet with our Bishop and explain in detail our financial situation and what steps we were taking to attempt to fix it. It was humiliating.

-Confirm that yes, we had been steadfast members, and yes, we have fasted and prayed for help.

-Wait for the Bishop to decide if we qualified for help, and talk to him again the following week as he thought and prayed about it.

-Bishop told us we needed to "turn to our families" for help first. At this time neither of us were on speaking terms with our family/were comfortable asking them for help.

-I asked the Bishop why we couldn't get help, and how we had both been giving the church 10% of our income our whole lives and were told part of that went to help people in our situation. At this time we were still paying the church instead of buying food.

-Bishop gave us money out of his own pocket and finally agreed we could get food from the church's local storehouse. Pretty sure he could tell we were about to reach our breaking point.

-THEN we had to fill out forms and ask for a food order. When we went to get it, a person with a clipboard followed us around the entire time to make sure we didn't take too much; they also had a sign stating they would ask you to leave if you were dressed "immodestly" because it could "distract the workers".

Last week, we needed food, and this was our experience.

-husband went to food bank; sign said "bring a box". Husband told a volunteer he didn't have a box.

-Volunteer said "a truck is just a box on wheels" and loaded him up with food. So much food.

I was born into an LDS (Mormon) family and was LDS for 22 years of my life. (I'm now 25). I got married at 19 (he's the bestest and we left the church together)

Here's a list of shitty relationships we saw and were raised to think were ideal!

-A member of the Bishopric gave me "advice" after we got married. He told me "women sometimes have negative feelings or think they're sad/mad. When this happens, don't tell your husband. You don't want to trouble him with silly emotions."

-Men/Women were separated for church classes and activities, and during this, it was common for people to bitch about their spouses. This segregation carried over into hangouts.

-My husband was invited to a bonfire and I came with him. One of the men awkwardly said it was "husbands only" and I had to leave. Turns out this is because they wanted to talk shit about their wives and thought I would "spy" on them.

-I tried to include men in more stuff because we shared more common interests. The men would shut down and often look to their wives for permission to talk to me. Multiple couples and men would avoid us after these interactions.

-Women would make their husbands drop their "bachelor" hobbies when they got married. Video games, four-wheeling, legos(!!?) and motorcycles/dirt bikes were the most common.

-whenever my husband and I would try to mingle with everyone (instead of separating based on women/men) we would get odd looks and the conversation would die. Often if I tried to join a "man" circle of conversation they would assume I was coming to tell my husband he needed to leave.

-it was common for husbands to be treated or assumed to be "another child" the women had to take care of (even if he didn't act that way).

-husbands were shamed if their wives made more than them???

-marriage was based off of God first, love second. Marrying a "good strong member" was the first step, and you would "learn to love them" after.

-man make financial decisions, woman make financial mistakes.

However with his homecoming, I know my dad and I are going to be his next conversion targets. He's going to try to bring me back to the fold.

He's also so different from how he used to be and I hope he can settle back in to normal life and become my best friend again but right now all our phone calls are so awkward because all he can talk about is religion and I talk shit about his religion on the internet.