Re-Examining Past Relationships version V.I

I decided to expand on my last post:

After dating the perfect TBM RM, and having my heart shattered in a million pieces, I decided to not date any other RM's. Taking our culture into consideration, I didn't want to date someone who I could fall in love with, and have them GET MARRIED to someone else that quickly. I felt like the best thing for me would be to date younger guys, and then send them on their missions. You know how the song by the Foo Fighters goes... "Done, Done, on to the next one".

When I started dating Jer, he was a pre-missionary. But he was so sweet, and he worshipped me. At the time, I needed to be worshipped. We had a lot in common, but neither of us had what the other one wanted in a life-long companion. However, being naughty little mormons, we commited the sin next to murder. We felt guilty, tried to stop, confessed to our bishops, but couldn't stop. After a year of off and on being bad, we decided we should just get married so that it wouldn't be a sin anymore. The caveat was that we had to be married in the temple. We couldn't bring shame to our families. At this point, I was my parents only hope for eternity.

We got engaged, and then made our appointments for full confession. Jer confessed to his bishop, first. His bishop said it was entirely possible for us to be married in the temple, in 6 months. I went to my bishop, who said that I needed to go through a full 12 month repentance process. I freaked out... a whole year?!?! Not only would that be difficult, but I would have to face the questions from our community, as to why our engagement was so long. Mormon engagements are usually around 3 months, the longest is 6 months. If you're engaged for a year, there's gotta be a reason why. Everyone was going to know that I was full of sin.

Then there was the fact, that for the repentance process, I had to be at church EVERY WEEK. And, I couldn't participate in the weekly ritual of taking the sacrament to renew our commitments and covenants to our savior. We're taught to not judge each other based on who does or doesn't take the sacrament, but it's difficult not to notice those around you who pass the tray by. When you pass it by, you know that you're being noticed. Especially when you have to do this for months. Basically, I had to put myself out there for all to see, and all to know, that I was not worthy.

I did this for 6 months. I went to church, paid 10% of my gross income, and passed the sacrament trays to the person next to me. Sometimes it was very awkward because I would have to stand up and walk the tray down the row, in front of everyone. After the 6 months, my bishop allowed me to take the sacrament again, as well as have a calling in the relief society. I thought I was special and "renewed" at this point, but I still didn't feel any different. And, I was still unworthy of the temple.

We honestly, and truthfully, repented. There was one under the shirt slip up during the 12 months, but other than that, I was able to turn the sexual attraction off, in my mind. I had to battle the many questions that came my way, as to why the engagement was taking so long, what were my plans, why I was dragging my feet, etc. I did my best to brush off the questions and tell them that we were just taking our time and enjoying being engaged, but I knew that they knew. At least they suspected.

We were married in the temple, after the 12 month waiting period. The whole event was surreal. We did our own endowments a week before the wedding, and his grandmother invited everyone to breakfast after, with the exception of my parents and me. I couldn't get married in my wedding dress, because it was off-white and too low cut. I didn't try it on with garments because I didn't have them yet, so I didn't know how much needed to be covered. It wasn't a slutty dress or anything, but the garment lace kept sticking out.

Our wedding night.... wasn't what we had hoped for. I wasn't able to go from "Sex is bad, sex is fun, sex is terrible, stop thinking about it, stop being turned on", to "sex is okay again". I know I disappointed Jer, terribly so, because he had no problem picking the energy back up. I just couldn't do it. And thus set the tone for our 9 years of marriage.

I want to make it clear that Jer did absolutely nothing wrong. In one of my bishops interviews, he explained to me why sex is such a sin before marriage. He basically said that it shows that we don't trust the lord to pair us up with a parter that we are sexually compatible with. Knowing our sexual compatibility before marriage is unnecessary. Not important.

I call bullshit on that.

Jer and I didn't split entirely because of sexual incompatibility, there were several reasons. However, we simply never should have been married in the first place. We got married far too young (He was 19 when he proposed to me), and for the wrong reasons. Plus we had the mormon mind fuck to deal with, which I was never able to un block from my brain.

We are great friends, terrific co-parents. We consider ourselves lucky to have each other.

I will have another installment talking about my reslationships post-marriage, but I don't want the individuals who read my blog to panic. Our intimacies are between us. I am doing this examination to explore myself, my nature and tendancies, my reactions... not to expose those that I was lucky enough to spend close time with. I will be respectful and focus the study on ME. Afterall, that's what this blog is about! :)