Tai Kwon Leap – Boot from the Church

I have been excommunicated. No silly quips, no talkingaround it. I’m out.

You are reading the blog of a sinner. Bingley met his Jane and needed nothing more in this world than to be with her, so we live in sin until we can be married. I never claimed to be perfect. But it is important you know the nature of the person writing in this Victorian blog.

Jane and I will be married at the earliest possible date, but the various regions of Victorian England have 2-18 month waiting periods for fulfilling divorce requests. As such, I must wait until I may be legally and lawfully wed to my Jane.

I have children. They see what I am doing. I could not pretend I am without sin, or hide it. I also need to come clean before God so that I may marry Jane with clean hands, and to ultimately be a good example to my children (the lesson? When you sin, you have to own up to it – face the music). So I went with Jane’s hand in mine, and confessed to my Bishop. He explained I would need to be judged by a disciplinary council and would face disfellowship or excommunication. Within aweek, I was confessing to my Stake President. And then this past Sunday, I went before the Disciplinary Council of my Stake and spent over an hour being peppered with questions by the 15 Judges in Israel. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disciplinary_Council for a detailed description of the process. It's painful.

I love the Gospel. I love the Church. Excommunication is the only way I can accomplish a few things: 1) release from my covenants while I amsinning; 2) a "fresh start" with my Jane from every possible perspective (we will now start our Church lives together from the bottom up); and 3) taking the punishment reserved for my offense and working my way up from there. They can’t punish me again – and when it’s through, the records will be destroyed that I ever sinned because repentance and true forgiveness are real and they are complete. It is a beautiful thing.

One interesting point – when you are excommunicated, all blessings are put in a sort of hibernation until the First Presidency approves your return to the Church and your blessings. That includes the Holy Ghost.However, the Spirit will comfort and protect you in times of need, unless your life is pushing the Spirit away. I walked out of the Council after about 90 minutes, and it was an emotional blow for sure. But I did not feel lost, dejected, destroyed, betrayed, hurt, or any other negative emotion. I felt rather even-keel. I know I will be back in the Church at the first possible moment. I know my Savior loves me. And the only way to explain my ability to take this immense event in stride, is that the Spirit has been sent to comfort me in my absolute hour of need.

My Jane, as she will explain, has been extremely worried about me. She may have been more hurt by the event than I was. This is because my Jane loves me so. She holds my heart in her hands and she is very worried that some pain will metastasize and grow into a cancer that permanently keeps me from the Celestial Kingdom.

The thing is, my testimony is stronger than ever. Each day, I pray frequently with my Jane. I pray secretly for my Jane. My Jane and I read the scriptures every day, while holding each other. We believe in the word of God, the word of His holy prophets, and we look forward to taking the steps to enjoy Eternity together. She is my True North – she always points me in the right direction. She has singlehandedly turned me toward God in the most meaningful way possible.

I love my Jane, and we will continue holding and guiding each other for Eternity. I’ll see YOU at the Temple.

What We Have Here Is A Failure To Excommunicate

I love sex and all that comes along with it. I love how it feeds my soul and clarifies every aspect of my life. It sets everything right for me. I love how closely it connects me to my lover. I love how truly loving the whole act is, and how giving it is when it’s right. I’ve been having sex since I was 16. I was hell-bent on not sleeping with Bingley and wanted to pass this impossible test of not having sex before we were married so badly.
It would have been so much easier if I were a virgin. It seems that I’m incapable of denying myself something I addictively craved. The way I put it into perspective for myself, was that I had been having sex with my ex-husband even though I knew our relationship had unfixable problems and I had been gradually falling out of love with him for years – legally we were married, so it didn’t matter that my feelings had faded. Was that being honest to myself and God? Was my signature on a piece of paper more binding than the love in my heart? I don’t think so.

I am built to love one person I love with all of my mind, my body and yes, my soul. But I do use sex as a way of showing my affection. How do I un-slut myself? If my first instinct is to jump Bingley and hump him silly, but then successfully deny this overwhelming urge, does that mean I did it? Am I now spiritually in tune with God's plan? I’m not sure that God wants us to discipline ourselves so we deny ourselves what we want. That just sounds like lying. I think he wants us not to want those things to begin with.

Such a hard lesson to learn and not sure I am capable of it. I would love to just love everybody and not think bad thoughts about people. Just because I don’t say it out loud, doesn’t mean that I don’t harbor hate in my heart. How do I work on this? How do I change my initial instinct to sin?

I accept that I am who I am. I need to be myself… not some person that suppresses their impulses thinking I’m being Christ-like. I am a sinner: I say a lot of bad words, I love sex so much I can‘t wait, and I hate people that abuse the welfare system (e.g., I hate them so much I wish they would all die). I’m starting to feel that way towards the will-work-for-food sign held by bogus homeless people. It’s not Christ-like, I know.

I was praying when I first started sleeping with Bingley I wanted to know that I was still loved and that my choice wasn’t damning. The answer I received was that I was a work in progress. I am working on being better; it’s a lifelong task, and I am closer now than I was. The drive to be better is the key to following through. That’s why when Bingley and I decided to live in sin, we weighed out our options and came to the right conclusion for us. Family and friends suggested that we just ward-hop for six months till we can be married and our sin would magically disappear. But we knew we needed to honor God and His gospel, the gospel we both love. I don’t think we could have lived with ourselves if we kept our sin to ourselves. We needed to fess up and deal with our punishments together.

I was untouched by the church – it seemed that punishment for my sin was unnecessary. My sweet Bingley’s punishment was of excommunication-able proportion. It's a bizarre twist of reality that my lack of punishment and the severity of Bingley's was more of a punishment to myself than I could bear. It hurt me to look at the man I love so deeply and feel wholeheartedly responsible for the loss of his blessings and the comfort he had earned over a lifetime of diligence.

I did feel anger -- not at God but at myself. I couldn’t bring myself to pray and when Bingley would read the scriptures to me I would try so hard not to listen. I felt unworthy and guilty when I felt the Holy Ghost. It was a hard time for me and it was even harder because Bingley was comforting me when I should have had the strength to comfort him.

I struggled to just stop and pray see what happened. I was so scared I wouldn’t get an answer. I laid on my bed in the fetal position, closed my eyes, and just waited till I felt peaceful enough to start. I wasn’t even to the, "I’m thankful for this day," part when I felt that wonderful warmth of love and comfort that moved me to tears. I was uplifted from my bad mood and was no longer afraid. In an instant, I was given the knowledge I needed to move past this dark part of my life. I needed to forgive myself and accept forgiveness from God. I was blessed with the comfort of knowing that even a slut like me could earn genuine acceptance into God's kingdom and that my dream of a temple marriage was still in my grasp. Heavenly Father is truly incredible. He is capable of forgiveness something I feel I am incapable of. If I could learn from his example and just forgive myself I would be that much closer to my goal, but I am a work in progress….

~Jane

The Bar is Too… Wrong.

This week is a difficult one for Jane and for me. We spent a collective 28 years growing increasingly frustrated with our exes.

I was frustrated with my ex for:

1) always sleeping in (sometimes till 1:00 p.m.)
2) insisting on regular Starbucks runs
3) drinking alcohol
4) refusing to go to church (see #1 for the usual reason) on tim
5) slowly destroying all intimacy
6) being lazy
7) not wanting homemade meals (either to make or for me to make for us, since I, a good Victorian man, am useful in the kitchen)
8) not sleeping in my arms at night
9) being angry in the mornings
10) preferring tv, movies and Facebook to walks outside or anything else outside the house

There were 100 things that would frustrate me day-to-day, as happens in so many deteriorating marriages. Why was being married so difficult with her? Why was I eternally unhappy? Why would I longingly think about international travel but have a miserable time when I tried it with my spouse? Why was I constantly feeling frustrated about wanting a healthier lifestyle but wanting it alone? Why did I
want a loving, touching, intimate relationship but feel frustrated about the complete lack thereof? Why was I complaining to God that I felt I had missed something important in life, because everything that should be fulfilling I would find absolutely unfulfilling?

The answer is: I was holding my ex to the wrong standard.

If you have read my past posts, I believe Jane and I have been intended since before the world began. If we believe in the Great Plan of Happiness, if we believe we constructed this world and planned out our lives, then Jane has always been mine. That means I had an innate sense of what I expected from my marriage, from the relationship that created my marriage, and what I was actually seeing and hoping for
was elements of the perfect relationship I was ultimately to have with Jane.

I actually feel bad for my ex now. I pressured her to be someone she isn’t, by complaining over the years about the things I expected from the relationship. My ex just wasn’t that person. While we did have happy times, and we had children together, all the little pieces weren’t there… ever. Even taking for granted that our relationship was inevitably going to divorce because of the insurmountable
differences between us, I could have made her life easier over the years by accepting her for who she was, and not trying to make her into the friend, lover, wife, and eternal Partner my Jane will be for me.

My Jane loves me. Everything I ever hoped to have with a wife, I have with Jane now. And there is no reason to expect it will magically evaporate at any point – life will only get better as I appreciate and love her for who she is more and more each day.

The lesson here is: accept your spouse for who he or she is. If your spouse is not constructed of the little pieces you expect from your eternal mate, then don’t be upset at them. They are who they are. If you need to divorce, do it. But it’s simply torture to keep pressuring someone to be a different person than God made them.

@))>---- Bingley ----<((@

Higher Standards

I will own that I have high expectations for people. It is something I wish I could overcome. I am still surprised when I find out that friends who I thought liked me have been talking mad poop about me behind my back, or that my family members are thieves and have been hiding their stolen loot in my house. When I meet someone new, I always hold them to a high standard; that standard gets lowered as their shortcomings unravel piece by revealing piece. I do have trouble maintaining friendships because I just can’t respect or support most of my so-called friends’ morally bankrupt actions. I’m not sure whether this outlook is a fault of mine, or a defense mechanism that protects me from having too many broken people in my life. I did however hold my ex-husband to an even higher standard. He has been the only person for whom I have made exceptions, and to whom I have given ridiculous amounts of pride-swallowing forgiveness.
I always wondered why things that should have been happy milestones in our life always felt emotionally paused – like my life was on hold. I never truly enjoyed our accomplishments, and I was always surprised that numbness was my reaction. Sometimes an overwhelmingly sick feeling of wrongness would fill my body. I can remember, last September, my ex and I were on vacation. It should have been a happy time. I was kissing him and this feeling of gut-wrenching discomfort cramped my stomach. I always felt that feeling when I tried to date a guy I didn’t like, and it struck me as odd that I was feeling it now with my husband after 15 years of marriage.

I also remember feeling this way just before I got married. I figured that I must have some warped intimacy issues that I needed to overcome. I hadn’t felt that feeling in so long, it stunned me and got me wondering, “Why now?” My ex had recently pulled me through an unfair amount of hell, not realizing at the time how much damage his actions caused me. I added his new betrayal to the long list of things that drove me absolutely crazy.

These are in no particular order:



1. His speeding was overly annoying and reckless. He would tailgate and cut off everyone on the road. If someone asked him to slow down, it would just make him drive faster. I would wish for him to get a speeding ticket so he could see that the rules applied to him too.

2. His flatulence. He had no respect for others and would openly fart anywhere thinking it was the funniest thing ever. The only thing I felt was that it was really sick and humiliating to me personally.

3. His eating habits resulting in his self inflicted depression. He would eat and eat crap upon crap, and then complain that he had no energy and felt fat. Well duh…..

4. His hygiene was something I wished he would take more pride in. He would only shave like every four days and he didn’t have that sexy stubble that some men have – his is sparse and light so it looked like his face was always greasy. Showering was another challenge for him.

5. His butt crack was always showing. I would jump behind him and cover his back, so people wouldn’t have to see and I wouldn’t have to be embarrassed.

6. This is the most annoying one of all. His laziness was over-the-top. He did absolutely nothing to help me keep our home in order. He would only contribute to the mess because he was unable to pick up after himself. He couldn’t even put his dirty clothes in the hamper – he would throw them on the ground beside it. He never put the lid back on the toothpaste, so I would make a point to buy the ones that had attached lids (I wish they did that for milk).

7. His disregard for my feelings was painful. I would ask for help around the house, and his reply would be, “Well, I work.” I would say, “Well, I work too,” and he would say, “Well, you don’t work as much as I do.” Such a jerk. He never did anything to help me – really, his idea of work was always half-hearted and crappy.

8. His inability to grow the heck up. You would think, that as you get older, you would mature past the 14-year-old boy with A.D.D... but not my ex. Reasoning with him was a torturous annoyance with irritating results.

9. The flip-flopping. He couldn’t ever make a meaningful change in his life. He would say he wanted to change so desperately – after a month or so, he would flop back to his old self again. It made it very hard for me to respect or trust him.

You could be thinking to yourself, “Gosh this girl is harsh,” but put yourself in my shoes. I had to put up with this amount of crap, year after year, with no improvement or desire to be better. It would weigh heavily on anyone.

I had pulled myself emotionally away from my ex and unknowingly opened my heart to new possibilities. All of the wasted years and missed opportunities for true happiness over the past 15 years makes me incapable of wasting any more time. Choosing to live in sin with Bingley was, in so many words, exactly what I needed in my life.

Another thing that is really interesting is that I didn’t know what I was missing till I felt the undeniable love that was customized just for me. All of the things I wish I had felt (or thought I should be feeling) in my last life, I feel now with Bingley. It is like my body has awakened, and I can feel all of the things I thought you should feel when you‘re married. It was cruel of me to expect those things from my ex because he wasn’t designed for me. It’s such a blessing and a surprise, that even after my long marriage and my over-the-hill age, Bingley and I still have so many firsts that are just ours. I thought that ship had sailed. It’s never too late to change that ship’s direction…




~Jane

Remember the Date

When I was considering the exact method for divorcing my ex, there were many factors to balance. Among them, of course, was the time of year.

As a marriage matures, certain times, days, seasons and events take hold in the marriage psyche. It all starts with an anniversary. Some couples celebrate boyfriend/girlfriend anniversaries. Some couples celebrate their engagement date(s). Some couples only celebrate their wedding date. I’m sure all Mormon couples, those who are sealed at some point after their legal marriage date, celebrate their Sealing date. And if spouses aren’t endowed prior to their Sealing date, they may celebrate their endowment anniversary as well.

If you have the average 2.1 children (we’ll round down to 2), you celebrate their birthdays. Couples celebrate both spouses’ birthdays. Almost everyone celebrates Valentine’s Day. And Christmas.

Let’s stop here. The couple that celebrates everything we’ve listed so far, will celebrate 11 days throughout the year. Chances are, those days are scattered about rather evenly.

When I chose to finally commit to divorce, it was a month after Christmas. I could have waited a month, but then we would have hit Valentine’s. If I had waited another month, I would have hit my ex’s birthday. Had I waited a month beyond that, it would have been one of our children’s birthday. When exactly would have been a good time? When it’s time to move on, there is no time that completely leaves your soon-to-be ex-spouse unharmed.

You have to understand that divorce is a dramatic, emotional event. There is no “good” time. If you have made the very serious decision to leave your spouse, and have prayerfully sought guidance from your Heavenly Father, I highly encourage you to carpe diem (seize the day) and take the Spiritual support when you have it. The Lord gives you the help you need when you need it (not necessarily when you ask for it). If you don’t take the blessing of spiritual support when it’s offered, will it be there when you get around to acting? I think that dithering is kind of like throwing a blessing back in the Lord’s face. This would explain why someone can be motivated to break up, and then dither for this reason and that, and then wonder why they can’t find the right time/place/feeling to leave and a year has passed by.

It’s important not to go out of your way to hurt your ex – especially if you have children, your ex will be in your life forever. However, if you have received your Heavenly Father’s support, you have to be firm and strong in your decision and see it through to the end. You don’t have to sit and point out all their faults, and beat them down, you just have to leave. In my case, my own family members (father, aunt) decided to tell my ex everything I confided in them, so it did hurt my ex to hear the results of a few years’ venting (point being, sometimes you just can’t avoid hurting your ex). You should do everything in your power to extract yourself from the relationship without burning more bridges than necessary. It will be frustrating; it will be painful; but, in the end it will be much better for you (and the children, if there are any in the picture).

One more point – in your following relationship, don’t be afraid to have special “dates” with your new spouse. The dates didn’t cause the misery in your old relationship – they’re just land mines when you’re ending one. Embrace special dates, embrace each other, embrace special events. Make the most out of them and the most out of every precious moment with your next spouse – if you do, you will probably not have another ex.

@))>---- Bingley ----<((@

Left Behind

Letting myself
accept that I had fallen in love with Bingley was a breath of fresh air I
delightfully inhaled with ease. I knew the hard part would be breaking the news
to my spouse and to my family. If I could have controlled my emotions somehow, I
could have avoided all of the broken hearts and turbulence that the divorces and
remarriage will unavoidably cause everyone involved.

…But is that
fair? Should I lie about my feelings to keep the peace? Should I stay in an
unhappy life because I have already invested half of my life in it?

This situation
is something I had never considered could happen to me – and quite frankly, I’m
not built for it. If I didn’t have the comfort from the Holy Ghost, I could have
never done it. I would rather wallow in silent unhappiness so I could spare
others (and myself) the turmoil inflicted by me voicing my needs. I have always
been this way – I put myself second or third and never let anyone know that I
was suffering.

I can see how my
actions were a shock to everyone. I needed to be with Bingley and I came to the
understanding that there would never be a good time to leave my old life. I was
fixated on timing it just right, being fair, and I wanted my ex to be taken care
of. I also wanted to save my ex from himself. He is the type of guy to fly off
the handle and do disturbingly dumb and reckless things to hurt people, not
realizing he is only hurting himself. I had to push all of those thoughts aside.
The fear I felt was imprisoning my desire to take action.

I wonder how
many people stay in unhealthy situations because they are terrified about what
their spouse will do to them? It’s sick, and it helped me realize that if my
husband was going to do everything in his power to hurt me, then he is probably
someone I don‘t need in my life. He is so that guy. I prayed and asked
God to give me the strength and support to help me navigate this surprising new
path I could almost see. The answer I received was DON'T LOOK BACK. This
answer gave me all the tools I needed to follow my path with crystal clarity.

My ex did as I
predicted, making several pathetic attempts at trying to hurt me; but the
freedom I felt, knowing he wasn’t going to be able to do this to me for long,
was thrilling. He knew he had lost all emotional power over me so he moved to
plan B – he used my things to control me. All of my keepsakes and possessions I
had worked for and earned over my lifetime were being used as a way to inflict
control and pain. He even tried to take back gifts we had given my family in
good faith. Deeming what I could have and what I could not was a ridiculous
abuse of power that instantly dissolved when I let him know that I wanted
absolutely nothing. It was the only way to make it clear to my ex that he had no
more power over me.

I have
completely started over and I have to say it’s such a blessing to be free from
all that useless, material stuff I used to fill my time. I didn’t really
know how truly unhappy I was until I broke free from all of the gadgets I used
to conceal and distract myself from my discontent. I didn’t know it was giving
me the illusion of happiness. Now there is this constant undertone of true
happiness I feel, which makes life easier to breathe in. It’s a blessing I wish
everyone could experience. There is never a convenient time to change the bad in
your life. Don’t let fear and loss of your things keep you from happiness. Find
the strength to choose now and NEVER LOOK BACK!

Sweet Dreams Are Made of These

Now you, our humble Victorian audience, have spent some time learning our complaints from the past. Surely, our battered hearts will redirect some further, future conversation back to these ugly topics. But for now, let’s accentuate the positive. Jane and I are a foreordained relationship. We have felt so, but little evidences have popped up as we started to unravel our old lives and re-ravel them back together. I was looking through some old writings over the last few weeks as I was taking inventory of what I should take with me out of my old life and into my new. From possibly my only dream journal ever, recorded by Quill way back in the last century, within 9 months of marrying my ex:

“I usually don’t have concrete dreams. They are often just a bunch of jumbled thoughts reflecting images seen over the previous few days, sometimes in a horrible movie form, like a David Lynch movie that I will never understand. However, the night before last I had a dream that was obviously some sort of message, for I actually remembered it 15 minutes after waking up (usually I forget dreams within minutes of arising from slumber).

I was driving in our carriage, down an ocean-side road I had never seen. Somehow I knew there was a big storm coming. At any rate, a little water started to run over the road, but I kept driving; in fact, I think I sped up. I knew it was going to get worse, and about 100 yards up, I saw the road get completely washed away. I turned around and started driving away from the destruction, but once again the road was engulfed in a maelstrom of crashing waves and churning seas. I was now stuck – all the time I was at peace, knowing I was protected. I rolled up the carriage windows, just in case I also was engulfed by waves. I was hoping I would be rescued, but right then the carriage, with me in it and the horses attached, was washed out to sea, and the carriage sunk to the bottom. I was not worried, just thought I should do what I saw on those Discovery channel shows and hold my breath, push open the door and swim to the surface.

At this point I realized I was dreaming and did not want to hold my breath because I was worried I would hold it so long I would die, and it wouldn’t be good if (my ex) found me dead when she woke. That thought was just silly – I did wake up shortly, and asked the best dream interpreter I knew about the dream later. He said it probably was a warning to know when to get out of trouble when the situation gets out of hand, to not let myself get into anything that could destroy me. He also said that the feeling of peace I had throughout the dream is an indication that I am protected in whatsoever I do. That part was nice. This dream was the first dream I can ever remember that was so concrete.”

So let’s interpret this dream properly now. An actual dream foretelling the future? The family carriage was going to sink to the bottom of the sea and I would be protected. I would have absolute comfort that everything would be fine. And how did that happen? Why, my Jane, of course!

With 5 years’ inability to figure out why happiness was escaping me, the words to an Angels & Airwaves (some popular minstrels of our day) song come to mind:

“I'm sorry I have to say it but you look like you're sad Your smile is gone; I've noticed it bad The cure is if you let in just a little more love I promise you this, a little's enough”

And that’s what my Jane did. She started a trickle of love flowing to my heart, which was like a stone. But when a trickle of water gets into the cracks of a stone, no matter how large or strong, it can crack the rock in two in a good freeze. She cracked the stones of my heart in twain, and the trickle quickly became a fire hose of love.

That’s how much my Jane loves me.

@))>---- Bingley ----<((@

Live Or Die?

This story has been something that I could never make sense of until now. All right, I know the
irreverence and flat-out disrespect that comes along with divulging someone
else’s patriarchal blessing. Since the blessing in question involves me, I feel
as if this itty-bitty exception will be judged on a curve. I will try my best to
handle it tactfully. I won’t go into detail -- Girl Scouts’ honor.

My ex-husband received his patriarchal blessing when he was on another one of his
holier-than-thou spiritual lies. The spiritual high would always fizzle a couple
of months later due in large part to the Corona (with lime) and packs of
Marlboro 100’s in a box he claimed to be helpless against. Those harmful vices
always led to his repetitive regression.

We were unknowingly late getting to the patriarch’s house; he claimed to be
understanding about our tardiness but I could tell in his voice he felt put out.
I felt bad that we took time away from his day and can remember being upset with
my ex-husband because it was his direction we were following, I never questioned
if he had the right time. When we passed through the large wooden double doors
of the patriarch’s modest home, I could instantly feel the strength of the
Spirit. The room was simply decorated with very few pieces of furniture. The
fragrant, white, freshly-vacuumed carpet had perfectly-aligned vertical stripes
left behind by the green 1960’s Hoover vacuum that was placed neatly in the
corner.

I can remember folding my arms at my chest and bowing my head in reverence. The blessing
started and I felt this calmness wrap around me. During the blessing, I was full
of peace and strained to retain all of the information I could. Most of it
flooded out of me as quickly as it flooded in. Early in the blessing it stated
that my ex-husband would be alone and that he had very hard struggles ahead of
him if he chose not to follow Gods path. This instantly forced my eyes open to
see if anyone else was bothered by this news, I was surprised that I still felt
comforted it was early in the blessing that followed a chronological lifetime of
foretelling if he followed God’s commandments. I remember thinking the whole
time that I was going to die. If he was going to be alone early in his
blessing, then I was going to die early in my life. I wasn’t upset or scared
at all – I felt peace and comfort, through and through.

Looking back now, I understand that the “ALONE” stated in the blessing was referring to me
leaving him. At that time in my life I couldn’t even list divorce as a possible
possibility; my death was the only plausible explanation. I talked to my mom
about this after the blessing and she agreed that her first thought was that I
was going to die and my ex-husband would be alone as a result.

God is incredible just in his dealings with us. My ex-husband bluffed his intentions
and God all-knowingly called him on it. I was blessed with the strength, peace
and clarity that I needed to follow through on a decision I should have made a
long time ago. I was blessed for my choices and my ex-husband was punished for
his. Hopefully this life lesson will help my ex grow as a person and gain a true
testimony concerning the power and individual justice God delivers to everyone.
I am grateful everyday for my Heavenly Father and the love I feel He has for me.
I am grateful for the comfort of the Holy Ghost and the direction I still
questionably follow even though He has never let me down.

I will never understand how beer and cigarettes could ever be the deciding factor in keeping
you out of the presence of God and His guidance. I don’t really feel pity for my
ex about his choices; he was always hell-bent on going against God to spite me.
He never had a testimony. He loved breaking my heart and watching me gather the
strength to get over it. He toyed with my emotions to shut me up so he could
have the best of both worlds. I was trusting, and my ex used this fact to his
advantage. In a way, it was his ignorant way of proving his superiority over me.
I used facts and knowledge – he used defiance and dominant control. The methods
my ex used on me to keep me dumbly trusting in his lies are the same methods he
uses on God. What an idiot…

                                                                                      ~Jane

Opposites Detract

I’ll just say it – Opposites attract about as well as disagreeing sides of two lookalike magnets. You can push really hard and make them touch, but sooner or later the force you apply will go away and they will happily separate.

When I told some of my fellow Victorian acquaintances about Jane and the many similarities we share, these people would literally gasp, put their hand to their mouth in shock, and utter, “You’re too ALIKE. Opposites attract!” And once they were through with this useless mantra, they shook their heads and resumed other activities, satisfied that they had re-aligned the planets.

Why on earth does this make sense? Why would it be best to have everything out of common with the man or woman with whom you choose to spend your life (and Eternity)? You are the person who you are, and you have traits that oftentimes you have chosen over less comfortable alternatives. The further you go into Opposite Land to find your spouse, the more a person has chosen/developed traits diametrically opposed to your own.

I think the mistake people make when they attach themselves to an opposite, is confusing “novelty” with “endearing.” When a person sidles up to an opposite and develops an attraction, the differences are novel because they are seeing mistily through the eyes of someone who sees the world in another color altogether. The problem is, in close contact all of those opposite traits will ultimately grate on your nerves. In my life, my ex was a late sleeper (she will still sleep past noon given half the chance). I’m an early riser. My ex liked to sit on the couch and watch endless hours of television and movies; I like to go for walks. I liked to go in the ocean; she thought anything colder than the Caribbean was too cold. I think the first 15 minutes of church were the most important; she thought it fine to show up an hour late, regularly. I think you should eat as healthy as possible and cook at home as often as possible; she would send me to fast food instead of letting me cook. I hate to argue with my spouse; my ex out-and-out asked me to fight back more. And to top it all off: I believe we are on this earth to be happy; she believes your duty is to remain in a marriage without happiness, love and intimacy.

I would venture to say that anyone contemplating divorce has a similar list because they married an opposite. My Jane is the same as me; we often exclaim, “We’re the same person!” With certain obvious physical differences, we are indeed. Jane and Bingley’s minds could interchange and we would be just as happy. I think it magical that in one woman I could find a love for the little things in nature, a love for spicy food, a hatred for all the same things that I hate, a love for children, a love for touchy-intimacy even when you’re just walking down the street, a love for constant little doses of each other, and wonderful things we discover every day that they other person loved that we never contemplated in our past lives. We constantly discover new things about which we hadn’t formulated opinions, but now we love them in part because the other person does (Jane knows more cheeses than I’ve tasted, for example).

So again I say: Opposites detract. Your souls should be like mirrors if you are to grow close to your loved one for eternity. Our lives are supposed to run in parallel – if you have two lines (or lives) that diverge ever so slightly now, if you don’t chain their line to your own, the lines will grow apart through eternal progression. Ten, twenty, fifty years from now, the gulf will be so wide, you can’t even see the person you married. That is not happiness; that’s being desperately, painfully alone.

My Jane loves me. She loves the same life that I love – indeed, she wears the same color glasses I don so that I can view life. My Jane is me, and I am Jane.

@))>---- Bingley ----<((@

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

I was 16 when I got married the first time. Sure, I felt I was old enough to handle all of the
responsibilities I thought came along with tying the knot: I could keep house,
handle the complex feelings that come along with being sexually active, and I
could cook some. What I wasn’t aware of, was the fact that at the ripe old age
of 16 I wasn’t a formed person yet. I couldn’t anticipate the evolution of my
maturity. I didn’t like who I was at all, but I did love that I had the
unsupervised freedom to be who I thought I wanted to be.

It was fine for the first couple years. I was very easygoing; I just sucked up all of the life I
could as I was pushed over, and over, and over again. I learned a lot about
myself over that time, and was exposed to so many different kinds of people,
places, and things. Over the years I understood that I was working towards
loving who I was becoming, and coming to terms with who I wasn’t.

I always knew that my husband and I had completely different personalities. You always hear
the saying “opposites attract” – looking back now, I don’t necessarily think
opposites should get married. I was trying to think of an example, to explain
the kinds of conflicts being opposites can cause. The very first week of my
marriage, my husband started a heated argument that made it clear to me that we
had completely different ideas and morals. He forced the issue and strong-armed
the right to take our hypothetical son to a strip club on his 18th birthday. I
was an uptight lipstick feminist Mormon, with the opinion that all strippers
have sadly suffered some form of sexual abuse or full-on rape, and I feel this
fact should take away the sexy smoke and mirrors that strippers manipulatively
provide. My husband was so shocked by my morally opinionated reply that he
became ridiculously enraged over it. I was shocked by how fumingly angry he
became over a son we didn’t even have – if we did have a son, the argument was
over an event that was going to take place 18 years and 9 months in the future.

I learned quickly not to feed into his temper over irrelevant topics. I remember thinking
at the time, “Why doesn’t he see my side?” He didn’t, because we were too
different to relate to each other. It was the cause of so many arguments, I’m
humiliated to admit it to print. We just had different outlooks on life.

So what do you do in a relationship where both people are interested in completely different
things, and have completely different opinions about them? Compromise and take
turns doing what the other person likes. It works for awhile; but as the years
pass, you both come to the understanding that you hate doing what the other one
loves, so in truth you spend half of your time miserable. I can only speak for
myself, and I have to admit I was happier when I could do what I wanted without
the annoying look of discontent on my husband's face. This ultimately forced me
to realize that I could only enjoy myself when I was by myself. I was more
fulfilled wrapped up in my own thoughts.

I would still miss the idea of having a good time with my husband and would work constantly to
make him happy thinking it would bring us quality time spent together. I found
more times than not, we would fight about whatever retarded topic we
disagreed on, making it more and more difficult to even be in the same room
together. On a good day I could bite my tongue so it would appear that I was
enjoying myself (while really I was hating every second). Sometimes I bit my
tongue so many times in one day it would swell and ache, forcing me to shout out
a long monologue of word vomit for all of the things I was keeping to myself. I
can only be pushed so far, people!

Now comes my chance at something most people never have the pure pleasure of doing. I get a
clean slate with someone who has the same interests and moral fibers I do, like
we were woven from the same cloth – right down to our politics, food, and
religion (biggies in my book). It’s so refreshing to look back on my past
relationship and know that I will never have to deal with such nonsense
again.

~Jane

Puzzles and Locks

When Jane and I were falling in love, we were learning a tremendous amount about each other in the shortest possible time. The more we learned, the more we loved each other. With the pressure from our exes and Lydia to destroy our relationship, Jane and I quickly concluded we needed to see each other.

Jane and I had several goals: Marry as soon as possible (i.e., the day my divorce process, longer than her own process, was final), get sealed as soon as possible, and keep sinning to a minimum. So we originally resolved that I would stay in London and Jane would stay at Longborn. In this way would the distance keep us honest. I would offer to go to Longborn, and because of my work schedule Jane would counteroffer to come to London. When our exes and Lydia teamed up to destroy us on a particularly difficult day, I booked a carriage ride to Longborn for 3 weeks into the future.

The first plan was for me to leave first thing in the morning, arrive at Longborn at the carriage terminal and court her for several hours before the latest possible carriage ride home. When I booked my ticket, however, we resolved that I should be there 22 hours instead. I received permission from work, scraped all my pounds together to pay for it, and began waiting for the trip.

By the time the day came to board my carriage ride, I had found a way through work to get the whole trip paid for. This surprise was a tremendous blessing. We would now have 22 hours together between the carriage ride in and the carriage ride out, and just a little break for me to have some work meetings. And the whole thing would be free!

When I arrived at the carriage terminal at Longborn, I stopped to catch my breath outside the carriage. I rearranged my clothes, took a deep breath, and headed down the escalator. There was no one there! I immediately thought that perhaps my Jane had been consumed with nerves and decided not to show up. In looking left to right for someone, anyone who might look like the Jane of my youth, I did catch out of the corner of my eye a woman vaguely fitting my memories but by the time I looked back she was no longer at that wall. I looked right again, then left, and there was a very nervous, very embarrassed, very strong woman pushing through her fear and shaking her head in a mass of hair as she approached me saying, “I just need you to hold me.” And she threw herself into my arms.

Have you ever seen those movies where the right key or combination hits a lock and you subsequently see a ton of lock mechanisms click and slide into place for the door to open? When Jane’s body hit mine, the only thing I could say was, “You fit!” because her body fit exactly into my own. And whatever love I had when we corresponded from afar up to that point, was dwarfed by the love flowing between our hearts at that moment as she unlocked our hearts with that embrace.

I would spend the next few minutes petting her hair, holding her tightly as she fit so perfectly in my embrace, and I asked her to kiss me, saying, “We should kiss.” And we found that our lips fit like two sets of soft puzzle pieces. Our hands fit in each other’s, our bodies fit against each other, and our lips fit. In the car, her head fit nestled into my neck. When walking, she fit in my arm. When we stayed at a cottage outside Longborn, no matter how we lay, we fit as if we had two bodies designed to fit in any combination. We were the key to change each other’s lives, it was a relationship that carried more beauty the further we delved into its boundaries.

We quickly learned that we knew how to apply tenderness and affection to each other. It was something that took no trying – we simply touched, and the other person felt loved. She would reach up and touch my face, and the cup holding my love would run over. She would run her hand up my back, and I would have to close my eyes as the affection consumed me. She would kiss me, and I would melt. She even dressed the way I would dress a woman if I were the dictatorial type. It was as if someone sat her down and said, “Here are the things it will take to attract and capture Bingley’s heart…” and she memorized each one.

We then had one more bit of excitement. We had a meaningful parting, where I gave her the first priesthood blessing in what may have been decades. We prayed together, we embraced, we cried in random horse stalls as we rode to the carriage terminal, and had a beautiful but emotional parting. But I was late for my carriage. The woman at the carriage boarding area told me the ride was overbooked by 1, and that I would get free quid and a free ride the following morning. I sent correspondence on the Apple letter-sender I carry with me, and Jane turned her horse around to pick me up from the terminal for an unexpected 10 more hours together. We were filled with joy, we were overcome with passion, and we looked forward to our next visit.

But within hours, we each had decided we could not live without one another. She resolved to move to London to be with me, and we set a date for 3 weeks hence. Jane would join her Bingley in London and we would live happily ever after. This idea, like the rest of our relationship, quickly settled on our hearts and fit as another puzzle piece locked into place.

The Wrong Piece

I knew my marriage was over prior to falling in
love with Bingley. Being Mormon made me feel that the only option I had was to
work on my marriage indefinitely, with the hopes that I would eventually be
rewarded. Eventually I was -- my reward just wasn’t what I thought it would be.
I figured my husband would learn from my example and, over time, gain a
testimony in all things I hold sacredly dear. I was wrong; the reward I was
gifted was the pure joy of realizing I had done exactly what God wanted me to
do. It gave me such peace to receive the revelation that I had moved past the
ability to overlook all of my husband's selfish choices which he concealed with
convincing dishonesty. I was rewarded with the comfort I needed to follow my
feelings that were guiding me in a direction my head would have never taken me.
I was led by my faith and the slim chance of a life with someone who was equally
deserving of love.

I hadn’t seen Bingley in over 18 years. I figured it
would probably be a good idea to meet. I had already come to terms with my
reasons for my divorce, and if things didn’t work out with Bingley I would still
be getting one. Mustering up the courage to see Bingley face to face was a
challenge. I tried not to think about it and took the stresses as they came. I
was happy he was coming to me. I don’t think I could have handled the ride down
the escalators lowering me to ground level as if I were on display for an
un-obvious critique. I wanted to see him first.

I showed up to the
carriage terminal about 30 minutes early feeling all of the usual nerves. My
allergies were acting up so I ran to the bathroom to wipe my nose and make sure
it wasn’t red -- I figured since I was there, I should go. As I shut the door I
could see a long line of chamber pots along the wall I was facing, each one
occupied by men of every color.

I HAD ACCIDENTALLY WALKED INTO THE MEN'S
ROOM!!!!! My heart stopped. I was humiliated; this kind of thing always happens
to me whenever I am overly stressed or preoccupied. I could hear a father
teaching his young son how to pee standing up. I thought I was going to faint.
After the longest 3 minutes of my existence, I pretended to compose myself and
walked out of the stall to the open exit saying in a humbled giggle “So sorry, I
walked into the wrong room.” I knew my face was red by looking at my lobster-red
arms.

I walked quickly over to the arrival screen and it said that
Bingley’s carriage had arrived. I was overcome with equal parts of fear and
excitement. I could see people from his carriage walking down the far escalator,
so I walked towards them searching the crowds of people hoping to lock eyes with
my Love. No luck; I didn’t see him. I thought just for a second that there was a
mix-up, so I walked back to the first escalator. Looking up shyly I could see in
his face that he had just seen me too. His face full of sweet joy and happiness
walking comfortingly to me with half open arms. My heart was full of love and
completely sure that this was the man I have needed my entire life.

Have
you ever put together a puzzle? Let’s pretend that a puzzle is a metaphor for
your life. Each of the pieces represents a choice that must fit your individual
pattern to complete your life’s picture. When you start a puzzle, you get the
easy stuff out of the way first -- the things you don’t have much choice in
(like family) that could be the right corner piece of your puzzle. The left
corner piece could be your religion and so on. Finishing the edges of your
puzzle is just the beginning filling it in is the challenging part it’s trickier
harder to make out what piece goes where. Have you ever found a piece to a
puzzle that the shape and pattern that, although a little uneven, just about
lines up? You wiggle this puzzle piece with light force and somehow it slips
into place. You don’t question if the piece belongs there as far as you know
everything is coming along fine. Over time more pieces of the puzzle find their
home and the picture of your life gets clearer. It becomes very clear that the
uneven puzzle piece doesn’t fit. For me that puzzle piece that I had to force
into place was my marriage. It just didn’t fit. When I walked into Bingley’s
welcoming arms I knew with all of my heart that I had found the missing piece to
my puzzle. He fit perfectly.

                                                                                ~Jane