Chapter 8: Ultimatum Part 1

| Part 1: My Analogy | Part 2: My Reality |

Say Something

“What do you call a relationship without mutual accountability?”

~~~~~~~~~~

A friend of mine named Katie recently told me that she and her husband, Mateo, were separating. To me they had always seemed content, if not happy, so I was pretty shocked at the news. I wasn’t sure if I should dig any deeper into what drove them apart, but I took the gamble and asked if she wouldn’t mind sharing her story with me. She responded with this letter:

Krey,

Thanks for asking about our story. We’ve had quite a history, so this may take some time. As I think back about it, Matt and I actually had a great relationship over the years; I can’t deny some of the beautiful, transcendent moments that we shared…so it really is quite a shock to find myself in our current situation.

Our history goes way back to our childhood in the Bronx; in fact, I can’t even remember a time without Matt. We were great friends as kids, although I always found him a little odd. In elementary school, he used to just spit out anything that came to his mind, whether it made any sense or not. If he got into trouble, he would say whatever he had to in order to get himself out of a bind. Some of his stories were completely inconceivable, but if anyone tried to catch him in a lie, he’d come up with an even crazier story to cover it. He also had a bit of a violent streak. In junior high, for example, one time he beat up some of the people who picked on me, and even though he went a bit over the top with his aggression, somehow he managed to talk his way out of even going to the principal’s office.

Although he stood up for me, it came at a price: He wanted my full attention and became very possessive. We became an item in high school, and he demanded complete exclusivity. I noticed that he was very concerned about what people thought of him. He would go to great lengths to paint himself as a model student with an impeccable character, even though he had quite a colorful past.

He had a lot of friends, but he wasn’t necessarily popular. People liked to be associated with him, because he had a lot of connections, but they weren’t very comfortable hanging around with him one-on-one, probably because he always thought he was right. He became well respected in a way, but every once in a while people would mention things about his past that would set him off. He would get very defensive and illogical; his unreasonable excuses never made sense to me, but any challenge would end up in endless circles, and I just didn’t have the patience to do enough homework to call him on it.

Maybe these things should have set off warning bells, but he treated me well and despite these shortcomings we had a good relationship. Sure, there were some tough times, but we were in it together and we got through each challenge in one piece.

We continued as a couple in college at NYU, and Matt started dabbling in journalism. When there was an issue he really cared about, he would write newspaper editorials and gloat about it when they were published. I used to help him proof-read his drafts, and he would scrutinize every word a hundred times, considering how it would affect his image, before he could bring himself to lick the stamp and seal the envelope. Even so, his strong opinions tended to backfire on him, and he always seemed surprised at the very predictable public response to his articles.

I didn’t have a lot of money as a college student, so it was comforting to know that he could bail me out financially if I ever needed it. He never talked about where he had his money stashed, but apparently he must have made some pretty wise investments, because he never had to worry about his own cash flow.

Even though we were exclusive, and I never cheated on him, he was still very suspicious about any other guy I associated with. He seemed very controlling, but I did see some attempts at change, and I loved him deeply. We used to talk for hours about our future and the beautiful home we were going to build. I think he really went through some self-awareness during our college years that softened him up; by the time we graduated, he even began to retract some of the previous hard-line statements that he had posted in editorials and on his Facebook page.

The wedding was more of a formality; in fact, I don’t remember even thinking about it as a choice. It was just something we did; in fact, I can’t even say how long we were engaged because there was no real proposal; he knew I was his girl and we just picked a date. Neither of us really questioned it; we just figured it was meant to be.

I always found it a little odd how he would question my commitment, even after the wedding. He would ask me to tell me I loved him and only him. We actually had this routine where I had to recite my wedding vows to him out loud over and over again. I said them so many times that I had them memorized and eventually began to believe everything they said – in particular that he was the one and only – and that we were meant to be. He told me he was the only one who could keep me safe from the other guys out there who might hurt me. Although he usually dressed in a business suit, he had been in enough fights in his younger days that I knew he could be dangerous if crossed. Odd as his warnings seemed, I felt like I needed his protection, and I was confident that he had my back.

A crucial turning point came when I ran across an old photo on his Facebook page. It was a picture of him with his arm around another woman. The caption read “Me and my sister Abriella, 1992”. I knew Abi had passed away a long time before, back when we were first dating, and I had never met her myself. Come to think of it, neither had anyone else in our circle of friends. The Facebook photo was, in fact, the first and only picture I had ever seen of her; I filed it away in my head and didn’t think of it again for several years.

Then one day I was loading up Netflix, and I ran across a documentary about a brothel that had made the news when it were raided by police and suspiciously caught fire. In the film, they interviewed a call girl who had worked at the brothel. I was hit with the strange realization that this call girl looked strikingly similar to the girl in Matt’s photo.

“I noticed something strange today,” I said when he came home from work that night, “You know that call girl who’s been on the news?”

He nodded.

“Have you noticed that she looks just like your sister Abi?”

“Nope,” he replied nervously.

“Maybe we can we watch the next episode…”

I’m going to have to warn you to stop watching Netflix altogether,” he interrupted, “From now on, I only want you to read and watch what I’ve approved.”

I was awfully confused, but he quickly changed the subject and wanted to play a board game together.

Despite his stern warnings, though, I just couldn’t help myself. The resemblance was uncanny. So the next day I looked at his Facebook page again and downloaded the picture. When I zoomed in on it, I noticed some distinct oddities. For one, when I looked closely at the photo, I could see that he was wearing a ring I had bought for him – years after his sister had supposedly died.

“Pure coincidence,” he replied when I asked him about it, “My sister gave me one just like it long before we ever met.”

I guess that sounded remotely plausible, but the chance that she had bought him the same ring years before was so overwhelmingly minute that I decided to look into it further. I dug around on Facebook and to my horror found posts from some of Matt’s secret ex-girlfriends. It turned out he hadn’t been as exclusive as I had thought, and I was completely shocked to find out that his other exes had all gone through a similar investigation about “Abi.” Some, in fact, had taken fingerprints from inside Matt’s car and had commissioned DNA samples, voice prints from videos, facial recognition, and other technologies to determine the identity of the girl in the picture. They had all reached the same conclusion: The woman in the photo was not Matt’s sister.

I kept up my own online research for more clues; when I downloaded the digital photo from Facebook and checked the metadata, it showed that the photo had been taken on a camera in 2006 that, of course, couldn’t have existed in 1992. To me, that proved conclusively that Matt was lying, and I was convinced that the girl in the photo was the prostitute I had seen on TV. I printed out the statements from Matt’s exes and thought I had collected enough evidence to challenge him.

“There are far more serious things going on here that you can possibly understand!” he said when I confronted him with the records, “I can’t believe that you didn’t trust me when I told you not to click on links that I haven’t approved.”

“And I can’t believe you’re throwing the blame back at me,” I blurted.

He shook his head, disappointed in the betrayal, “I won’t be able to protect you from the criminals who framed me if they find out that you are snooping around. How dare you disobey me?”

My mind was spinning with questions about what sort of business he might be involved in.

“Now that you’ve gone and violated my trust, though, I guess I’m going to have to explain some things you aren’t ready to hear yet.”

“OK…”

“The girl in the photograph isn’t really my literal sister…but you know full well that we’re all brothers and sisters here on earth, so in a way she is my sister. And I never told you that she was my real, biological sister – just a sister. And I honestly have always thought of her as my sister, so what I said on the Facebook page was definitely not a lie.”

My brain was still coming to grips with the newsflash that the girl in the photo was the same prostitute I had seen on TV, which left me a bit creeped out, wondering what Matt was doing with her in the first place. “So you never…”

“Never ever ever!” he shouted back, “How dare you accuse me of adultery!”

“Listen,” I said, “I’m not accusing you of anything, I just want to know the whole story.”

“Well, I’m not ready to tell you the rest of the story yet,” Matt replied, “and it sounds like you’re not ready to hear it yet either. There’s a whole lot you’re going to have to do to prepare yourself for the answers.”

I was exhausted and decided to let it rest for the time being; I meant to bring it up again, but we had a few nice trips planned, and I didn’t want to ruin those. Eventually I just pushed it to the back of my mind; we went on our trips together, and continued on with this awkward phase of our marriage for years.

Matt wasn’t necessarily abusive, but it was a one-sided relationship; he always seemed to turn things around to put himself in a shining light and make everything seem like my fault. He acted like he had all the answers, and he treated me like I was incapable of digesting them. The term gaslighting was new to me, but I started going to therapy and it became a regular part of my vocabulary once I recognized the signs.

In the end, I did find out that he had cheated on me after all. But one thing that I found really odd about that revelation is that most guys who cheat on their partner with a prostitute would probably try to hide that fact, or at least you’d think they might try to bury it once they’ve been exposed. But once his lies had come to light, he seemed almost proud to keep the photo up on his Facebook page; it wasn’t just buried somewhere on his timeline, he actually highlighted it as one of his featured pictures. But he never changed the caption.

This sort of bizarre behavior continued day after day; eventually I cracked and brought up the issue with the conflicting dates, which seemed like indisputable evidence to me. Even though Matt had already admitted that the girl in the picture wasn’t his sister Abi, he still stuck to the date when I questioned him about it, claiming that the photo had indeed been taken in 1992. I shook my head and asked him why he wouldn’t just correct the date, since everyone knew that was a lie.

“It’s no lie!” he shouted,” The photo is actually from 1992, but someone must have taken my camera, reset the date, and swapped the file on my computer.”

“But digital cameras didn’t even exist in 1992!” I said, “so how can that be?”

“Exactly,” he said, changing his story, “Someone must have stolen the photograph that had been printed from the negative in 1992, and then in 2006, they must have used a new digital camera to snap a digital photo of the print itself. So it all makes sense if you would just think it through with that little brain of yours. Even though the timestamp is wrong, the caption is technically correct. So don’t you go around accusing me of lying!”

The belittling accusations were really starting to get to me, and I lost my temper. “You don’t even have a sister named Abi,” I shouted, finally fessing up about some of the research I had been doing, “I checked with the Department of vital records. They say you were an only child!”

“See? There you go again with your ignorant assumptions. Well, you know what? I actually did have a sister named Abi,” he said, “but she was born prematurely at home and never got a birth certificate.”

“So there’s no record of her existence whatsoever?”

“No, sorry, you’re just going to have to trust me on this.”

“You just made her up to suit your own needs,” I countered, “and to cover up your relationship with the hooker!”

“You’re getting caught up in all of these meaningless, intellectual details,” he said, “None of this really matters anyway, right? How we feel about each other is the main thing. Can’t we just drop the subject? I had Fruit Loops for breakfast today. What did you have?”

“No, I need some answers,” I said, realizing how stupidly I had let him switch to unrelated subjects over the years at the first hint of discomfort, “and what do Fruit Loops have to do with anything, anyway?”

“Listen, there is more to this story than is safe to tell you right now.”

“Go figure,” I said.

“That photo was my sister Abi after all,” he said, “but you’ll have to swear with an oath that you’ll never pass along what I’m about to tell you.”

This was getting really weird. “But how can I agree to that if I don’t even know what bomb you’re going to drop on me?” I asked.

“It’s the only way,” he said, “Take it or leave it. But remember, there could be secret agents outside my door, so I’m going to have to whisper the answer to you.”

I was intrigued enough to consent, so we shook on it, which felt really weird. “Fine,” I said, bowing my head, “Yes.”

“OK, what I didn’t tell you before,” he whispered, “is that someone took the only photo I had of my sister and photoshopped the prostitute’s face on her.”

“That’s your big secret?” I asked, “But why would anyone…”

“Don’t ask questions!” Matt said abruptly, “That wasn’t part of the deal. Just look at the picture. It’s obviously a doctored image; can’t you see it clearly now?”

“No!” I answered, “It doesn’t make any sense at all; and besides, the DNA evidence has already shown that you hooked up with that prostitute.”

“That may be true, but you have to remember that I’m only trying to protect her,” Matt said, “And you’re making that very hard to do right now.”

“Whatever your new story is, the caption on your Facebook page still says it’s your sister,” I stated, pointing at the online picture, “Look, I just don’t get it. Help me out here: Is this your sister in 1992?”

“Yes”

I pointed at the same picture again: “Is this the prostitute in 2006.”

“Yes”

“What? That doesn’t make any sense at all; those two statements can’t both be true unless your sister was a time-traveling whore!”

Matt just shook his head condescendingly, “Like I said, you’re not ready for the whole truth yet. You couldn’t even stomach it if I told you.”

“Try me,” I said.

He responded with nothing but a silent, blank stare.

“Say something!” I demanded.

He still wouldn’t reply, so I grabbed the car keys and told him I needed to go for a drive. After a few hours stirring through all of the implications, I came back and told him I couldn’t trust him anymore. When I told him I wanted to take some time away to sort things out for myself, he started into all sorts of horror stories, telling me that all other couples have terrible relationships. Either they fight and bicker all the time or their relationships are all dreary and boring with no purpose – not to mention the venereal diseases that are running rampant everywhere! There was no light and no safe harbor outside our relationship, he said. And if I left him, I would be absolutely miserable for the rest of my life, which wouldn’t last long, given the diseases I was likely to contract and the nature of the abusive partners who would be insane enough to take a gamble on me.

He then moved into making threats about his friends and extended family, who would surely unfriend me if they heard I had left him. His parents were very traditional and did not believe in divorce; he told me they would be especially offended if they heard about me leaving, since in their eyes a woman isn’t entitled to make demands of a man. They had apparently taught him well; that just isn’t how it works in their family, he told me, so they may well disown me as their daughter-in-law when they find out about this betrayal.

Well, I decided to take my chances anyway, since I couldn’t imagine feeling any worse about myself than I did when I was with him.

“Delete the picture,” I demanded as a parting shot, hoping he could show me one small action that might give me a glimmer of hope for a future together.

He said nothing.

“Take it down or I’m leaving,” I repeated.

Silence.

“Say something!”

His silent refusal and the callous stare on his face made me shudder, because I started to wonder whether he might have had something to do with the brothel fire, God forbid. I didn’t want to let myself entertain such a horrible thought or believe that he might have been capable of trying to bury the evidence of his escapades with deadly force; but he wouldn’t dignify my challenge with a response, so I walked out the door and haven’t seen him since.

My therapist told me some distance might be good; so I took her advice, and we’re on a trial separation now. I told myself I’d give it one year before finalizing the separation with a divorce. If the photo was gone before the year was up, I might reconsider. Every once in a while, I’ll check his Facebook profile, and sure enough, that photo of him with the prostitute is still there to this day, so I don’t see much hope for a reconciliation.

Now that we’ve been separated for almost a year, I’m seeing that I can share beautiful experiences with someone other than Matt; maybe that should be obvious, but it was a new revelation to me! And I’ve learned that some of the great times I had with Matt don’t necessarily mean that we were right for each other. I also see that I don’t need his protection after all, and never really did; in fact, I wish others had protected me from him. I see now that he was lucky to have me, but his refusal to do the one little thing I demanded of him shows me that I never meant that much to him in the first place.

This break-up was by no means easy. You know, once you’ve been in a committed relationship for so long, it actually forms part of your identity. Breaking it off is like severing a part of yourself. My family didn’t make it any easier. When I called them up to let them know we were splitting up, they cried. They believe so strongly in the institution of marriage that the news really hurt them. My sister, for example, says she knows her husband has cheated on her, too – and continues to do so – but she shrugs it aside because he makes her feel good about herself and about the world. A break-up would decimate that image, and now I’m beginning to wonder if the tears they cried about my news weren’t really for me, but for how the broken marriage would reflect on our family.

During the first few weeks of our separation, I felt a darkness, like some force was telling me I needed to go back to that safety net; as it turned out, it wasn’t darkness or anything foreboding after all; it was just fear of the unknown. Now I see that leaving Matt has actually had the most comforting effect on my life, and I like myself much better these days. I feel much more at peace, and honestly, I don’t think I could ever get hitched again; I just don’t have it in me. Will I regret it someday? Will I ever want to go back to him? I really can’t picture it; not unless I see a much bigger change than when we were together.

As far as whether that’s a possibility, it is entirely in his court at this point. I have put the ultimatum out to the universe, and I cannot control how or whether it is implemented. If he decides that I mean more to him than a Facebook photo, I might take that as a sign that we at least have a possibility of rebuilding our relationship; maybe then we’ll see if someday we could be better together…“together forever” like we thought we would be in the beginning. If not, I guess divorce is our only option.

Now that I see the word divorce in my own letter here, though, it sounds so final. I keep thinking of all of our experiences and how we both felt like we were destined for each other. I told myself I wouldn’t contact him again until he gets the divorce papers, but maybe he really loves me and the secret agents or the mafia won’t let him change his Facebook page. Maybe I shouldn’t have given him this ultimatum. Maybe I could help him realize what he did wrong, because even if it doesn’t work out for us, I should be looking out for his future partners who might get treated the same way if he doesn’t change. I’m starting to feel bad for being so blunt about it, for forcing his hand. Maybe I went too far. I’ve already started to drop el Dies from my name and change it back to my maiden name, Pilcheck. Do you think I should wait longer before doing something that drastic?

The other day I watched the video for the song “Say Something,” and I saw myself in the girl’s face as she left her man behind. Should she keep walking, or should she turn around and give him another chance? Maybe he wants to say something but just can’t. The song’s lyrics seem to fit my oscillating emotions: I would have followed him anywhere. Now I know nothing at all; should I swallow my pride? He’s the one that I love; should I say good-bye?

This is the dilemma I’m dealing with today. What do you think I should do?

Sincerely yours,

Katie Pilcheck

Say something…

~~~~~~~~~~

OK, so that was Katie’s story, which ends with Nathan’s finger pointing in my face and the very consequential question: “What should she do?”

Well, what would you do if you were her? Or if she were your friend, what advice would you give her?

If you feel like she should just suck it up, keep quiet, honor her marriage vows, and accept Matt’s absurd excuses – that she has no right to demand an ultimatum, and that Matt has no obligation to comply – well, you probably shouldn’t bother reading any further. Or if when you watched the Great Big World video, your first thought was that the girl shouldn’t be exposing her belly button and should dress more appropriately, and maybe they shouldn’t have been sharing a bed in the first place if they’re not married, well then we can’t have the next conversation either. Because that sort of distracting judgment – which embarrassingly took me years to shed – bypasses the entire point of the song, and you’ll miss the beauty and real heartbreak of its message…in which case you surely won’t see any point in my interpretation either. So just click on the little “X” to close this window or throw out the pages with these words printed on them; whatever the case may be, just move on to something else.

If, on the other hand, you feel that Katie should have a voice and that she should stand up for herself and for the truth – that she has every right to put the ultimatum in front of Matt – well then let’s put it into context and figure out who we are in this parable.

I’ve played both roles depicted in the story above: the condescending keeper of secrets and the seeker of answers to secrets that had been kept from me. But I find the most similarities in the role of Katie the jilted lover, who is making some demands of Matt, who symbolizes the LDS Church. So yes, I’m openly admitting that in this story, I’m the naively submissive woman who struggles to find her voice. As far as some of the other associations:

Matt’s history before Katie came into his life is the early church history
Their early relationship together progresses through my own steps with primary, seminary, and BYU
The wedding is the endowment ceremony in the temple
The marriage relationship is the journey of self-discovery that followed while I was raising a family.
The Facebook photograph could be any combination of Facsimiles 1, 2, or 3 in the Pearl of Great Price.
Abraham is Matt’s sister, Abi.
And the prostitute is, well – funny as it might sound – that’s Hor!

So let’s put an alternative dialogue into real terms, paraphrased from real conversations that I’ve really heard or have really been a part of myself between real Church representatives and a real, faithful member who stumbles across something unexpected:

Church: This is Abraham.

Member: But everyone else is telling me it’s Hor.

Church: You mean “everyone” on the Internet? Didn’t I tell you not to click on anything that I haven’t approved?

Member: Ok, yes, but is it Hor?

Church: Yes.

Member: But you said it was Abraham.

Church: Yes.

Member: But they’re more than a thousand years apart.

Church: Yes.

Member: I don’t get it.

Church: God works in mysterious ways, just trust me.

Member: OK, but if it’s not Abraham, shouldn’t you take down the caption on your official homepage saying it is Abraham?

Church: [awkward silence]

Member: Say something.

Church: [more silence]

Member: If you don’t take it down, I really don’t know how I can trust you.

Church: [nothing]

Member: Say something or I’m walking out!

Church: See ya! Oh, and by the way, after the door hits you in the ass on your way out, can you keep quiet about this Abraham thing?

Former Member: What? Seriously? I’m out of here!

It really wouldn’t take much for the erroneously interpreted facsimiles to be removed. The Church webmaster could literally do it with two mouse clicks; the refusal to do so just shows that those who have concerns about discrepancies in the truth don’t mean that much to the Church in the first place. Like Matt should have done, just admit it’s “the Hor” and let’s move on from here!

Instead, the reaction from up the chain to anyone digging around for answers they can’t find in the officially sanctioned sources is similar to Matt’s misplaced defensiveness: “How dare you look into this! If this gets out, it will damage my reputation!”

My response back is this: “How dare you deny this!” Everyone knows there was some cheating going on, just as Katie couldn’t make any sense of Matt’s absurdly dismissive explanations even after she and all her friends realized he had been unfaithful. The dichotomy of admitting that it’s Hor while still claiming that it’s Abraham is what drove me nuts back when I really wanted to believe what I was being told.

So with a few of these substitutions in mind, put yourself back into this story wherever you happen to fit. Hor is just one example I’ve included here because I thought it made for an amusing homonym, but I could go back through the same story ten more times, substituting ten more of Matt’s illicit hook-ups for other topics that disturbed me.

If we go back to the “Say Something” video, when I think about the lyrics in terms of my relationship with the Church, walking away really did tear me up inside. You see, I still love parts of my Mormon experience much in the way that I would imagine Katie would still cherish parts of her time with Matt. The affairs didn’t have to ruin everything; Katie may have stuck around if she had been offered an honest admission and had seen some genuine changes. Likewise, I might have stuck around if I had observed some measure of responsibility for previous mistakes. But the adherence to absurd claims – sticking to your guns with made-up excuses in the face of proof to the contrary – is just too much for me.

I do see my separation from the LDS Church as being very similar to a hard break-up. In this case, it’s a break-up in which you still love your ex and value the experiences you shared together, but you just can’t take them seriously anymore or trust them on their other claims, at least not until they fess up and explain the things they’ve been caught red-handed with. When the apologetics are laced with lies, it sure makes the distant chance of any potential resolution seem incredibly remote.

While I was trying to figure out how to keep the relationship going, I found myself with a day off during a business trip to New Zealand. I drove to the aptly named suburb of Temple View and found an LDS meetinghouse with its doors open. I wandered into the empty chapel and sat down at the piano by myself, playing primary songs that really tore at me. Some people decide to leave the Church and can simply say good riddance. For me, this was no easy decision; I did not want the relationship to end, and going through primary songs really drilled in the implications related to my own kids.

In particular, I struggled to resolve an intensely spiritual experience from just a few months before, when my children and I held a private meeting with LDS apostle Dale Renlund, a retired cardiologist who had specialized in heart transplants during his career. I had tried my best to explain my son’s terminal, inoperable, congenital heart condition to him, and he asked our permission to pronounce an apostolic blessing on his head. At the time of our meeting, I believed that he bore the same priesthood mantle as Matthew, Mark, and Luke, with the same authority as Peter, James, and John. I believed that, as a special, personal witness of the Savior himself, he could act as an instrumental stand-in for the Lord. Here was one of the few people on the planet who could possibly comprehend just how complex my son’s rare combination of complications actually was, and at the same time he was one of just a handful of sustained seers on earth, acting in his role not just as a representative of Jesus Himself but also representing the prophetic guidance of the heart surgeon who would soon be at the helm of the Church. The fact that we happened to find ourselves in the same room with him half a world away from Salt Lake City seemed miraculous. Although I was already struggling to accept literal interpretations of the scriptures at that point in my life, I still clung to the notion that God could anoint mouthpieces with the same sealing power as the ancient prophets. His blessing, I believed at the time, could seal the will of God.

Hearing the optimistic words about my son’s future that he spoke during the blessing had me in tears. It would be very easy for someone unacquainted with the physiological implications to express hope for the future, but knowing that he fully understood why the best surgeons on the planet had deemed the case inoperable, the words of hope baffled me, while his confidence strengthened me.

It was an intensely spiritual experience; to this day I would still call it sacred. Some people who walk away from the church end up recording personal interviews and other private conversations and putting them online for others to mock or scorn. In some cases, those efforts have provided well needed transparency around questionable practices. But in this case, even if I had a recording of Elder Renlund’s prayer, to this day I wouldn’t put it out there to subject it to ridicule. Regardless of where I stand on matters of religious exclusivity, if a Muslim or a Jew or a Hindu or a Buddhist stepped through their own sacred rites with a genuine concern for my son’s well-being, I would not want to undermine those efforts or make light of them; I would let them stand. Regardless of my conclusions about Joseph Smith’s escapades in another century, I still believe in the sincerity of Dr. Renlund’s words, and I have every sense that he cared deeply about my son’s well-being.

This experience was fresh in my mind as I wandered the chapel halls and looked at the paintings of the First Vision, the restoration of the priesthood, and other iconic symbols of Mormonism. Is it possible to choose which ones to retain and which ones to discard? Can I keep the primary songs and throw out the papyrus? Can I bank on the continuity of Elder Renlund’s priesthood power while disavowing the race-based exclusions of the past?

I found myself waffling in the same way that Katie second-guessed herself in the preceding story. I really wanted to trust that the apostolic mantle was meaningful and real, ignoring the accusations and doubting my doubts. I wanted to stay. I was comfortable there. Mormonism had been my identity and my community since childhood. If I gambled wrong on this one, I feared for my own son’s well-being. If there was the slightest chance, even one in a hundred odds, that my own priesthood could help heal my son, I would walk through the motions of retaining, protecting, and sustaining it for the rest of my days.

But were the promised blessings related to my son in some way contingent on my own actions? Was this just a deal between my son and his creator, where my own direction in life had nothing whatsoever to do with the outcome? So many blessings in Mormonism are tied into obedience and adherence that I had a habit of automatically associating a blessing’s results to righteousness, whether or not that was actually said in the blessing at the time. Could the promised results be undone by my own actions, my lack of faith, or my deviant path? If anything went wrong, I certainly did not want to find myself in the position of wishing I still had the mantle of the priesthood and blaming myself for an inability to intervene on God’s behalf. So if this was something I was going to discard from my life, I had better be damn sure I haven’t tied the expectation of a positive outcome into my own adherence to the rules and rituals of Mormonism.

By the time I found myself wandering around Temple View, I had gone further down the road with the dominoes than when we had sat in the room with Elder Renlund. I realized that the origin story for his priesthood authority was canonized in print just a few pages after the facsimiles that I knew were fake. I wanted to be able to separate them, discarding the facsimiles while still believing that the authority to speak for God had carried through to our day.

I didn’t know how to resolve this dichotomy, but I had already spent a few hours in the chapel without getting any closer to an answer. So I stood up and walked out the door to continue my search for guidance. The instant I stepped outside, I laughed out loud and said, “You’ve got to be freaking kidding me!” Here is what I saw:

No lie – this is the actual photo taken at that actual moment! I guess God does work in mysterious ways! My temple recommend was almost expired, and I had no intention of renewing it, knowing that I could no longer answer questions about the myth of Mormon exclusivity in the affirmative. Maybe I had no business being there at all, but given the beckoning sign from above, I decided to go inside the temple and see if I could somehow harness the memories and latch onto my former convictions to get a second wind.

I wandered around and found a couch to sit on; as I looked around at the Book of Mormon scenes on the wall, I had the distinct impression that the tales were as made up as the origin story for the hobbit-holes I had just seen earlier in the day. Try as I might, I could not bring myself to draw a line that would separate fact from fiction in the Mormon saga. That doesn’t mean people today can’t do good things while adhering to an illusion, but I, for one, have no place there. It felt surreal that Joseph Smith’s ability to translate – or rather his inability to translate – had cascaded through a two-century chain reaction that culminated in me finding my own truth at the end of a rainbow near Hobbiton. So instead of a second wind, it just felt like I had reached the finish line of this particular race; I acknowledged that I was probably seeing the inside of a temple one last time before I would be locked out for good.

Even though it felt like closure as I walked out the big double doors and got back into my rental car, I still had to decide whether to opt for a divorce or a temporary separation with the off chance of a future reconciliation. Should I stay friendly and inactive, withdraw and resign, or make a stink from the inside until I face a church court under threat of excommunication? I am an engineer, and I tend to make decisions with my head, weighing out numerical costs and benefits. In this case, even after my head was convinced, I knew this decision had to be made in complete harmony with my own heart. Whatever road I decided to take, given Elder Renlund’s blessing, I knew I had better be absolutely sure of my path: Not with the kind of surety I thought I possessed during my mission days when I would try to convince others to join the movement; and not with the kind of surety with which believers who only read official material profess their knowledge; I knew in this case any lack of reasonable doubt would need to be thoroughly examined and investigated like a capital case. But in the end, it also needed to feel right.

Could there be beauty and life lessons in a speech attributed to King Benjamin if Joseph Smith made him up? Can a Jew or a Christian find beauty in Isaiah’s words if much of what has been historically attributed to him actually belongs to one of his anonymous deutero-personalities? When parables are introduced as parables, we’re free to draw lessons from them. But what if that introductory designation is removed? Does the story that some readers take literally lose its value once we realize it is fictitious? How literal does a story have to be in order to draw a lesson from it? I think there are plenty of lessons to be learned from stretched stories, as long as the stretch is acknowledged. So could I learn some lessons about how I ought to proceed on my own spiritual path by inserting myself into my own parables? I decided to run with that idea and embarked on a story-writing journey for myself before making my final choice. If you look at the length of this book, the process obviously took me a while, but again, I wanted to be sure. Eventually, after stepping through enough of these stories, I concluded that the honesty and behaviors that I needed to see in a partner were just plain missing. I really, really wanted to stay…but I just couldn’t. Much like Katie may have wanted to feel safe in Matt’s arms, her belief that he had set the fire and covered up his role in it thwarted her ability to sense any comfort in that embrace.

I believe in Elder Renlund’s conviction – at least in his belief in his own conviction. But I’m also convinced that he’s wrong about Abraham and Moroni and angels with flaming swords who coerce young girls into non-consensual pairings. I say that with an acknowledged lack of an absolute knowledge – which doesn’t even exist anymore in my life’s lexicon – but I’ve done my homework, and I’m comfortable stating that conclusion as a fact that is just as obvious to me now as the fact that gravity falls and heat burns. I would not gamble my son’s life away on a hunch – not without exploring every last tenet of my own conviction.

I wanted it to be true. But it’s not. I wanted Elder Renlund’s blessing to be prophetic – to be a product of his role as a seer – but it’s not. It is still special in my book, but his role as a seer is a product of Joseph Smith’s imagination, just as Commander Crowe and the Shamanites are products of mine. Joseph Smith himself defined the role of a seer to include the ability to translate ancient languages without having been educated in those languages. That is a gift that was never effectively demonstrated back in his day, and as far as I can tell, it has never even been attempted in the last century and a half – with or without superstones. Perhaps there’s another role in which a seer can see the future. Did Elder Renlund see that I would still have my son with me today, a blessing that medical practitioners had told us was not in the cards for us? Maybe so. But if he did, I am convinced that it would be in spite of Joseph Smith’s claims and not because of them.

Everyone sees what they want to see in the signs around them, just as I sensed peace and closure for myself at the end of the rainbow. Others may have taken that as an affirmation of what was inside the elusive pot, seeing it as a sign to stay. I may look back on it differently someday; but if there is to be any hope for a future together, a few simple, missing steps would be needed to start the process. I’m not holding my breath, though. In the face of Katie’s ultimatum, I still wouldn’t expect Mateo to suddenly pull down the picture, because I don’t think Katie meant as much to him as his need to be right. But perhaps someday somebody who does mean something to him will issue the same challenge, and maybe he’ll change for them. By that time Katie may be long gone, whether happily single or in another committed relationship. Maybe she will wish him well, or maybe she’ll shake her head, realizing that she should have woken up to the tell-tale signs much earlier. These are some of the optional paths I see ahead when I look in the mirror and recognize her story.

In my case, the man who formulated the pages of my scriptures was caught cheating, just like Mateo. I realize my concerns don’t mean much to those at the helm of the church; they are dismissed with absurd rationalizations and gaslighting techniques that point to my own guilt in bringing them up. The fake story with Hor photoshopped into a prophet’s role was published as truth even after leaders realized it was wrong. The same person who made that initial swap claimed to have passed a line of authority from Jesus himself down to a latter-day room where a latter-day heart doctor placed his latter-day hands on my latter-day son’s head and invoked that latter-day authority in the latter-day apostolic blessing he pronounced. I would love for that to be a thing. But if you can’t admit the things that we know are wrong, how can I be expected to believe the things that nobody can prove one way or another, no matter how much I want them to be true?

~~~~~~~~~~

What would you call a relationship without mutual accountability? Some would call it one-sided; others might say abusive, or the real truth might lie somewhere in between. I’m not telling everyone they should just walk away like I did. But I am saying everyone has a basic human right to demand accountability from any organisations they are a part of. As for me, my requests for explanations of indiscretions were met with silence, and I decided I had a right to an ultimatum.

If you suspect your spouse is cheating and he or she tells you not to listen to what anyone else says, to only trust what he or she is telling you, and, in fact, to stop talking to any others altogether, would you comply? Or would you dig a little deeper? And if they were caught cheating, what if they deny, deny, deny while they believe they can get away with it? (To me that’s analogous to the pre-Internet Church.) And then, when faced with the actual, irrefutable evidence, what if they acknowledge the actions but with excuses and alibis that make no sense, then refuse to confront the accusations by saying, “Just trust me,” and subsequently change the subject? (To me that’s analogous to the post-Internet Church.)

When someone is accused of an indiscretion, and finally they say, “Yes, I acknowledge the evidence, but not the wrong-doing itself,” what does that mean? What if they say, “I know it doesn’t make any sense that I did that, but to me it makes perfect sense, and if you just look into your heart, you’ll understand, too”? What does it tell you when they offer no reasonable explanation or apology for their actions and refuse to set the record straight? Like Katie, I didn’t want this break up. Mormons seem to assume that those who leave do so because they want to partake of the worldly ways; in my case I was perfectly happy in my naïve little bubble; I didn’t want a beer, or an affair, or my Sundays off. I actually felt an intense need for that community. But now that I’m armed with the evidence that exposes the unfaithfulness of my former partner, it doesn’t really matter what I want. Maybe I’m missing something with my accusations; I do have to admit that. Like Matt’s excuses about deviant secret agents who are forcing his hand, maybe he really did want to protect Katie and everyone else. Maybe he didn’t set that fire. Maybe the world’s oldest document was in Joseph Smith’s hands and burned up in the Chicago Fire, leaving only misleading traces of fraudulent translations to test the fortitude of sceptics. Plausible? If I can borrow Wayne Campbell’s elegant imagery, perhaps it’s remotely possible in a rectal monkey sort of sense. But probable and worth gambling your life on? Fat chance!

~~~~~~~~~~

Pathological Liars Anonymous

From what I’ve made up about Matt here – standing in for the LDS Church and its apologists in particular – how would you picture him behaving if he were sent to an addicts meeting for chronic liars? In that setting, I picture him sitting around the circle: he stands up when the chairperson calls on him and says, “Hi, I’m Mateo el Dies. Please don’t use my first name; it makes me uncomfortable. Just call me Brother el Dies.”

“Hi LDS,” the other attendees answer in unison.

“Well, I used to have a problem with lying,” Matt says.

“Are you currently fighting this inclination?” the chairperson asks.

“Listen, even though it looks like I’ve had some problems in my past, those who accuse me of having had these problems are all out to get me, and they’re all liars and deceivers themselves. I’ve always been right, I didn’t inhale, I don’t lie, and in fact, I cannot lie. God wouldn’t allow it. Unless it’s for your own good. Then he lets me lie; in fact, he tells me to lie. Which technically means it’s not really a lie after all since I’m just following orders. So you see, I am not a liar and never have been.”

Then one of the other support group members says, “But wait a second, didn’t we just catch you in a lie last week?”

Matt’s defensive response is, “Hey, don’t point your fingers at me. Let’s talk about old man Roman sitting across from me! We should all be pointing at him, since he’s actually been convicted of perjury in the first degree. I haven’t been lying for nearly as long or as hard as he has. So let’s focus on him instead, OK? Relative to him, my lies are actually the most correct truth on Earth! And I’m all about the truth!”

With that, I would hope the chairperson would just send Matt and his trumped-up delusions home, telling him to come back when he’s less deranged and ready to admit that he has a problem. Let’s face it: We all know the Church has had a chronic history of covering up its history in the past, but the process of healing that tendency can still begin with a little honesty and transparency going forward. Unfortunately, as it stands, Church leaders don’t even seem to want to start the process of fixing things, because there is very little acknowledgment of any current issues, only claims that the problems have been fixed already. So how about we start with Hor and see where it goes from there?

If you’re a friend of Matt’s, and if as his friend you accept his stories, believing that Katie has no reason to feel hurt because she hasn’t been betrayed at all, how should you then treat Katie, especially if she is your friend as well? I admit to my LDS friends and family that I may have missed the mark on this altogether. But if I am Katie in this story, please realize that regardless of the truth about Matt, her pain is real; she believes she has been cheated on, and she needs to know that her friends acknowledge that, regardless of how they feel about Matt. And that’s all I have to say about that…Matt.

[Next: Chapter 8 Part 2 – Say Anything]