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 ----<((@