Cycles of Dysfunction

I took a Women’s Studies class at BYU where we explored cycles of dysfunction. Cycles of dysfunction are destructive behaviors that pass from generation to generation and inhibit healthy familial relationships. As part of the class, we each explored the cycles we were subject to through our female progenitors.  It wasn’t until I went through the process, that I realized that I was caught up in a cycle of dysfunction. My mother, grandmother and great-grandmother had all married men who could not, or would not, take them to the temple.  Now, its fine to not get married in the temple if one doesn’t want that for themselves.  But, there is evidence that each of these women wanted a temple marriage. They went to church. They got all their children baptized. They had problems in their marriages, in part, because of their differing beliefs from their husbands.  All the marriages ended in divorce. For my mother, her divorce resulted in a psychotic break, from which she never completely healed. To this day, she suffers from debilitating mental illness. My mother has passed the greater part of her later-adult life as a shut-in, just as her mother did. It was not necessarily the marrying a non-Mormon that was dysfunctional, but the naive thinking that a religion that meant so much to them and nothing to their husbands wouldn’t pose a problem. So, for these believing women, not marrying a man who believed likewise, seemed to be a factor in some of the profound struggles they faced.

While writing up my findings for my class, it became clear to me that I was following the pattern set by my matriarchal line. Of my mother’s two daughters, I was the believer. I was seriously dating a guy who was not, a guy I’d loved since high school.  As I prayed about my situation, a clear answer came: I needed to break things off with him if I wanted a different outcome than my mother. Obviously, the Lord might direct others to do things differently. But for my journey, the Lord made clear to me that I needed to sharply change course.

The night He answered my prayer, I got real with Heavenly Father. I bargained with the Lord, something we are not supposed to do. But I felt like our relationship was strong enough and that I could bare my soul.  He’d seen me through a lot. We had history. I told the Lord, “OK, I’ll do it.  I’m not sure how, but I’ll do it. But, Lord, thou knowest me and how much I need love. And here I have someone who I love, who loves me back.  And I’m going to give that up for thee. But, please realize that if I don’t find love again soon, I might not be able to make it. I want to do thy will. I want to do what’s right. I want the Temple. And even if love doesn’t find me again soon, I’ll try. I’ll always try. But it’s just I’m afraid that I won’t make it. Please help me.”

***

“But I’ll take the missionary discussions,” he offered.

“It’s just not going to work out,” I willed myself to say. Tears began to form in my eyes.  “Believe me, I wish with all of my heart it didn’t have to be this way.  I wish I didn’t believe, it would make things so much easier.” We both cried. We exchanged I-love-you’s and gave one last hug good-bye.

In saying good-bye to him, I laid my will on the altar of the Lord. And it was one of the most difficult things I’d ever done.

As I walked to my car I sobbed. I immediately regretted my decision.  I wanted to turn around and say, “Never mind, I take it all back. We can find a way to make it work.” Every ounce of my intuition, screamed with horror.  Subconsciously, the collective psyches of my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, weighed on me. That weight, an invisible but all consuming force, compelled me to continue in their cycle of dysfunction: choose a man who loved me, but who had little interest in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The gaping hole I felt in my soul seemed almost too much to bare.  The sheer discomfort of it all made me want to vomit. “If I turn around now, I could probably catch him,” I thought.

But somehow, I didn’t go after him. A superior force came to my rescue and repeated to me the clear revelation I’d heard before: “Break it off.”  So, I drove home.

Within 6 months, Jeremy literally came knocking at my door. I honestly believe he was the reward for my sacrifice, but my happily-ever-after didn’t instantly materialize.

When Jeremy proposed, I only loved him 90%, but I said yes anyway. I couldn’t feel that extra spark for him because I was wired and nurtured to feel excited about someone who would display love the same way I saw it as a kid.  But when Jeremy came along, he was so different than anyone I’d ever dated or even met. I knew the Lord was telling me, in essence, here is your chance to have what you want. I knew in my soul that he was sent from Heavenly Father. I knew somehow we’d figure it out.

Initially in our marriage, I thought if Jeremy changed I could love him completely. If he was just more gregarious and more out-going, I could love him all the way. But a few years into our marriage, I had an epiphany that I needed to be concerned for Jeremy’s feelings. I know, big revelation, right? For the first few years of marriage, I was mostly concerned that he treated me right, with the respect I deserved.

At some point in my life, I’d become afraid to love wholeheartedly.  So, to justify not loving fully, I found faults in Jeremy. When I realized that I was the one who needed to change, and that the problem wasn’t Jeremy, it became easy to love him completely. And when I loved him for who he was, a miraculous thing happened. Between his job and callings at church, he grew and developed, and he became really good at connecting with people. Not only that, I started to notice his sense of humor more and more. I’m not sure if my loving him unconditionally allowed him to grow or if my increased love permitted me to see what had been there all along.  Anyone marrying in their early 20’s has a lot of growing up to do. I sure did. But, I’d always been introspective. That ability to look inward led me to discover what I needed to change and helped see us through the self-centered nature that I came to the marriage with.

Looking back now it's abundantly clear that it never would have worked out with my boyfriend from high school. With years of perspective, I understand that what I felt for him was the shallow exhilaration of being wanted, conflated with the weight of dysfunction tethered to me. The pain that I felt in breaking it off was a result of stepping out of the pattern I had learned, internalized and felt comfort in repeating. Sure, some of the sadness came from letting go of someone I cared about, but the soul gripping pain had nothing to do with him. It was the pain of breaking with ingrained models and losing a relationship that was comfortably following in the footsteps of my mother.  It would have been so easy to stay and avoid the pain, and say it was all for love. But that would have been lying to myself, and I knew it.  And deep down, I wanted something more.

If you know Jeremy, you understand that Heavenly Father blessed me a hundred-fold for my sacrifice.  I couldn’t have dealt with my deep-seated issues as effectively being married to any other man. Besides being dedicated to the gospel of Jesus Christ and his family, he is secure and confident without the arrogance that sometimes accompanies those traits. An insecure man would have made me feel bad when I gained weight, because an insecure man thinks of his wife as an object whose looks and accomplishments reflect his worth. When I quit diet pills for good, I knew Jeremy would love me no matter what. His unconditional love made it easier for me to name and face my irrational demons about my weight.  A lesser Mormon man would have shamed me for drinking caffeine, because he would have feared my habits might cause others to question his worth or reflect badly on him. An insecure man would have panicked when I struggled with church history and policy. Instead, Jeremy listened and didn’t try to talk me out of my concerns. He’d only offer his point of view when I asked. Through his support, I passed through a period of deep questioning about the church and came out with a stronger faith than when I began. And when periodic depression overwhelms me, and I can’t stop being sad or do the things that for most people are easy, but for me seem like monumental tasks, he loves me still.  He doesn’t make me feel that I need to be anything other than who I am.

What I have now is a relationship that is mature, full, profound.  It is one where deep trust and complete love exist which has allowed me to blossom in ways that I could never have imagined as a young woman.

Now, lest I paint our relationship too rosily, let me assure you that there are…things. Like he’s not handy around the house. His working from home this past year and a half has proved a challenge, because we’ve had to define new boundaries and expectations. I have to let him know when I want to have an in-depth conversation and then, if he’s busy working or tired we have to schedule it. This works fine when we are dealing with administrative stuff but is maddening at other times. He can be disconnected or detached, because that’s his coping mechanism. But we manage these challenges because we have a solid foundation.

Some patterns of dysfunction or “evil traditions” are less obvious than others. For some families, there might be cycles of gossiping, fault-finding, shaming, holding grudges, only including people who are “active” Mormons, judging those who leave the faith, disrespecting women, differing expectations for sons and daughters about mission and education, an emphasis on material possessions, an emphasis on appearance, or any number of misguided traditions that were passed down through family culture. Obviously, there are many ways to be dysfunctional and we won’t ever have perfect families (the idea that such a thing exists here on earth is dysfunctional). But its important to try and overcome the dysfunction that gets in the way of the happiness we truly seek.

In the end, our lives are really just the stories we tell ourselves.  And in the narrative I’ve told myself, the above story is pivotal. It is this story that is the keystone of my faith.  It is the experience that tells me that when I trust the Lord, he delivers abundantly. When I sacrificed my entire identity at 16 to come back to the church, he delivered. When I gave up who I thought to be the love of my life, he delivered. When I couldn’t get pregnant, and after almost two years of anguish, I told Heavenly Father it was fine and I’d accept his will, I got pregnant with twins.  He makes more out of my life than I ever could alone.