Latest / The Rave Social Podcast / 34 TEA TIME: Being an Ex-Mormon, Getting Married at 18, and Divorced at 23

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34 TEA TIME: Being an Ex-Mormon, Getting Married at 18, and Divorced at 23 · The Rave Social Podcast

• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome back to the Rave Social Podcast.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Jaden, and today we're going to be introducing a new segment for 2025, and that is tea time.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: I obviously love talking about marketing, but one of my other really big passions in life is to have just real and raw conversations.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you've picked this up from the podcast episodes in the past, but I love talking about human design.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: I love talking about manifesting.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: I love talking about my life and all the things that have kind of brought me here to this moment.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm really excited to add this segment.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I don't know about you, but I really like to get to know people.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's what I'm doing here.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm letting you kind of in to see part of my journey.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: And um, at the same time, I'm kind of talking about things that I get asked a lot on social media.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: So one of the things that has really shaped who I am and how I show up in the world and in my business is growing up a Mormon, um, which then led me to getting married at 18, way too young, and then later divorced at 23.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it's also something that a lot of you ask me about on Instagram anytime I post that like I've been divorced or I'm I'm an ex-Mormon.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: People are like, what is that like about?
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I get questions about what it was like getting divorced, I get questions about what it was like being Mormon.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I figured now's the time to just really open up about those things.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm gonna dive into that story.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna answer some of your questions that you submitted over on Instagram.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I really hope some of you get some good things out of this podcast.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: And as you're listening, if you have more questions or if you just want support, you can always uh find me on Instagram and send me a DM.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: I have so many notes for this episode because I'm like if the lore goes so deep and I'm sure I'm gonna miss things, but um, I will just begin at the beginning.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: So basically, I was raised Mormon.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and if you don't know what that is, after watching The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, I completely understand because that um show was definitely more about like the culture and uh the vibes, not as much about the actual religion.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but nonetheless, very good reality TV.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um Mormons also go by the term the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is too fucking long.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why we just shorten it to Mormon.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's a very, very conservative religion.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, some of the big things that make it conservative and that you may notice about the culture is that they are not allowed to consume alcohol.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: They are not allowed to smoke or like do drugs, which that's kind of reasonable.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but also no caffeine, coffee, or sodas that are caffeinated.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the funny part they're allowed to drink caffeinated sodas now.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like, I do know and I did grow up with families that did not allow their kids to drink caffeinated soda.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, like Dr.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Pepper, no, Diet Coke can't have it.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: But I do feel like that rule has like loosened up over the years and now they're able to drink soda, obviously, because Swig, Thirst, all of those companies that were started in Utah are literally soda companies.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, some more things are that they require modesty.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, um, even before you get married in their religious ceremony, you're really taught like to be modest, especially as a woman.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like your shorts should really come down to your knee.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: You should wear sleeves on your shirts, like the shirt I'm wearing right now.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: You're no cleavage showing, no midriff showing, um, all of those things.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that was very much something of a standard that I was definitely taught to be, I don't know, upholding as a child, which is so crazy to think about.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, another thing is that only the men in the Mormon church are allowed to hold, like, they call it the priesthood power, which is basically they're the only people that are allowed to like how do you even explain this?
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it sounds so funny to say it now, but like they're the only people that have like the control and like the power in the church.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, women are not allowed to have the priesthood.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: So that inherently like puts men on a pedestal, which really causes a patriarchal problem within the church, I would say.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they're also very popular for their religious ceremonies, like including getting endowed in the temple, which is when like a man or a woman goes through the temple and they receive like certain promises and they make certain promises to God, and then they from then on they have to wear these like under garment clothing pieces.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um very odd, but it's what they do.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then the last thing is is that no sex before marriage, which I'm sure you can see where this is gonna lead in this podcast episode, but it's true, you are not allowed to really have any sexual like contact with another person if you want to be married in the temple.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And if you do, you have to go through this really lengthy um repentance process to be forgiven, to be allowed to do that.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: So um that includes like oral, you can't do any like oral things, even like heavy making out, they say you're not supposed to do.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: So um yeah, I don't know about that.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Very, very odd rules that they have here.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that's kind of the foundation and the basis, just to give you some context into this conversation.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing: if you are LDS or Mormon and you're listening to this, like I just want you to know that I respect you and you're allowed to like believe and do whatever you want.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, these are just based on my experiences growing up in the church.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, okay.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: So as a kid, I really just went with it.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think as any kid does, you just do what your parents tell you to do.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're just gonna go to church on Sunday and you're just gonna go to primary.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like you don't have that free will, so you just do what you're told.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I really truly didn't know that there was another way that you could be and still be like a good person.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because in the church, they really teach you that, like if you're not following all of their things, then like you're basically gonna go to hell.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: And unless you like repent, I don't, whatever.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that kind of instills a fear in you from a really young age of like, oh, I have to be perfect, I have to follow these rules.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then any of my family or friends or people in my neighborhood that were not Mormon, I immediately was like so judging them.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how could you want to exist and like not be with your family forever?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Cause that's a big principle that they teach.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I just like if I had family that like would drink and like it would make me so uncomfortable, I would literally like my heartbeat would race.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: I would be like, oh, this is like so bad.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I can't even believe I'm around this.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I will be honest, that continued until I was about 20.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I had very like almost like a PTSD um type of feelings of being around anything that wasn't like what I had already known to be like right and true.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that's absolutely psychotic.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but then to get to my like first WTF moment, um was definitely.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm sure I had these like more earlier on in life, but I don't really remember a lot of my childhood.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: So um this was when I was in seminary, which is like um you could get a free period in high school, and then you could walk over to the church building.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: They would have these like little church buildings near the high school, and you would take a class called seminary, and it was like basically a Bible study church class during the school day.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Tragic for real.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I remember being in there and the teacher, I don't even know what I don't remember what you're supposed to call them, but the teacher was talking about how tattoos are bad.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And what he was saying is that if you have tattoos, like you are sinning because you're changing the way your body looks.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And in the church, they really don't want you to alter anything about your body, they want you to just come stalk and die stalk, if that makes sense.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but this really triggered me because also within the church, all of the women had boob jobs, no shame.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: I have one too.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, their hair bleached, they had, you know, cosmetic facial procedures, they had bleached hair.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: They were doing all of these things that were like, but you're altering the way your body looks, and that that should also not be allowed, you know what I mean?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: But they're not considered sinners, like they're not sinners, but if I get a tattoo, then I am a sinner.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: That does not make sense.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: So that was my first little moment, and I know that one may not seem so major, but to me it was like, huh.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was my first little crack into like, okay, so maybe not everything that I'm learning is like true or right.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that leads me into my kind of second thing is that when I realized that I was being told that I wouldn't be with my family if there's an afterlife, right?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: So in their church, it's um they kind of rank you based on how like holy you are, what like kingdom you could go to, and they really want you to go to the celestial kingdom, which is like the top one.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're basically a sinner, you cannot get you can't get up there.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're like not in the church and you're not endowed in the temple and married in the temple, you cannot get to that kingdom, like period flat out, like you're not going.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: And when I realized that, I had some really gross feelings because I have seven siblings, none of them are Mormon.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: I have family members that are not Mormon.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I had friends that were not Mormon.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, so you're telling me that if I follow all of these rules and I get to this top little kingdom, none of the people that I love and care about are gonna be there with me.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Why would I wanna go there?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: I have a question.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Why would I want to go there?
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: That does not make sense, and so I, you know, and they have little rules and regulations within the church of like how you can get people there after they die.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: But ultimately, I just felt really disturbed by that.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I didn't want to be.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think in that moment I kind of had this feeling of like, I don't want to be in a church or associated with people who um, you know, I I'm not better.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: I at that time I wasn't better than my friends and family and everyone who wasn't Mormon.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I was just like, I don't like this.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um and this kind of leads me into because you know, that was kind of towards the end of my high school career.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I also got married when I was 18.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm sure you can already kind of see like how these are connected and intertwined.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: But basically, I was 18 years old.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my high school sweetheart, boyfriend at the time, had just left to go serve a religious mission.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and he was gone for, he was supposed to be gone for two years, but he came back early.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and when he came back early, it was essentially like there's no questions to be asked.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: The next step was basically us getting married.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Mind you, I was still in high school at the time.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: I, this is some crazy lore.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: I had booked a photographer, a wedding venue, gone dress shopping.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I went dress shopping for my wedding dress at my national high school cheerleading competition in Anaheim, California.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Babe, you're literally still in high school.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing going dress shopping?
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Mind you, I wasn't engaged.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: I was not engaged.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: So all of this was planned by the time you know May comes around and I'm graduating.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: I obviously know I'm getting married.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: I obviously know I'm getting engaged.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know when, but we knew it was happening.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I actually spoke at my high school graduation, and one week later, I think to the T, my high school sweetheart proposed to me at the time.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then about three months later, we got married.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: So a very short engagement.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, everything, like I said, was already planned while I was in high school.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: So graduated, getting married, no big deal.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and here's the thing no one really, no one close to me questioned it.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: I did have strangers question it and be like, are you sure that's what you want to do?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but what are you gonna do?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Trust a stranger?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're 18, you don't can't compute, you know?
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: None of my friends, family really questioned it.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in fact, we were just encouraged to do it.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: And here's why.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because you cannot have sex before you get married.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I really had big dreams.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: My sister had gone to college at the University of Utah.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: I watched her, she was having so much fun.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I am going to the University of Utah.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: I cannot be stopped.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I was gonna move point blank, period.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was going to the University of Utah.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: And basically, our options for our relationship, or so we felt at the time, was like, well, we're not gonna do long distance.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we can't live together without being married.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: So why don't we just get married and then go to college together?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, basically we just got married because that was the pressure, that was the norm, whatever.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I do think like at the time, probably we were excited about it.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but we were just so young.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, literally, your frontal lobe is just not developed when you're 18.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: You should not be making choices like that.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's obviously ultimately my responsibility and it was my choice.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: But I do genuinely wish that I had someone in my family close to me that just said, you know what?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: There's more than one way to go about this.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: You're not a bad person if you guys, if we did choose to move in together, you know, you're not a bad person for that.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you're not going to hell, etc., etc.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: But really, truly, nobody was that person for me.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so I got married extremely, extremely, extremely young.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: This leads me to kind of the deconstruction of the religious process that I was in.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um so shortly after we got married, actually about one week later, we moved to Salt Lake.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: And we were like, holy shit, this is a massive city where I grew up.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up in a very small town, Ivans, Utah.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so coming to Salt Lake, I had only ever been to Salt Lake for like cheer competitions or no, literally, like that's it.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or like a concert.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: So to me, it was like a wonderland.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, this city is enormous.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we both started working full-time corporate jobs.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was in college full-time.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: So my eyes were just being open to like all the different opportunities and things that existed in the world outside of my little tiny Mormon bubble that I was in.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I will say, like, this kind of part is a little bit blurry.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: I just remember we moved to Salt Lake.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: We shortly after we moved here, we stopped going to church.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we never really talked about it.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: We just like never went to church, really.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then it was like a slow deconstruction.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: So like I stopped going to church.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then like I started drinking.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like I had my first drink of alcohol and I was like, oh my God.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: It took me a long time to be comfortable with that.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think I was 20.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was I was 19 or 20 when I had my first like drink of alcohol.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it was kind of a slow process, and that's why I can't tell you like the exact steps.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: I just know that like I stopped going to church.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: I had like my first drink of alcohol, like I tried smoking pot one time.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I uh, you know, stopped wearing my garments.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: I remember that was like a huge one.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Those are like the undergarments that you have to wear after you get endowed in the temple.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then I think I started to notice some of my friends that I grew up with weren't Mormon anymore.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I got a little bit more comfortable with it.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: I read the CES letter, which is like basically a letter that somebody wrote.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um honestly, I don't remember all the content of it, but it kind of like brings to light the things that the church like hides on purpose or um kind of like the shady things that they've done in the past, and also just like things that are incorrect in their literature and things like that.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I do remember reading that, and honestly, that didn't have a huge impact on me because I think I had already made the decision before that, but it was interesting to read.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I just did a lot of soul searching.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I do feel like this had an impact on my marriage at the time.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: His, I mean, my family's also uh Mormon.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: His family was Mormon, but his family I think was more Mormon than mine.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: I guess there's a scale.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so when I like stopped wearing my garments and like I wanted to post that like I went out to get a beer with my friends and stuff like that, and I couldn't.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was very secretive that we had, you know.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: I guess I had left the church.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: I honestly don't really know where he was at with that.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it was really secretive, and I felt like I could not be myself.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like if I was around his family, it was like I was hiding everything that I actually was.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: And he really didn't support that.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he wasn't like on my on my team and wasn't like, hey, if you're uncomfortable, like I'll talk to my family, whatever.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: It was very much like I was very alone in it.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I do think that had an impact on our marriage, regardless of like his status of being LDS or not.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I will say, like, our biggest arguments were always over like religion or politics.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I think yeah, I think that did have a really big impact on our marriage ultimately.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't want to say that like the marriage was awful and bad, but I do want to say that like it wasn't right.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I am like all for just like you deserve the world, and I wasn't getting that.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: So there's that.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, kind of the last step I would say in my like deconstruction of being Mormon slash, you know, all these things are really intertwined in the marriage because they were, I mean, they were one and the same ultimately.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I got diagnosed with a brain tumor in 20, ooh, 17 or 18.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: I can't remember the year.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but basically when that happened, I had a really massive come to Jesus moment.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't really know why, you know, it wasn't life-threatening.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: I I was okay.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: I was having some health problems, but I think I just it it really caused me to go inward.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like my whole world was like shaken up, and I was like, oh my god, like bad things can happen, all this stuff, and it really made me look at like who I was as a person, who I wanted to be as a person, and what supported that.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: So friends, family, everything.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't know.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: I I think that and I think you could ask my fiance, he knew me at the time.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think he saw a big shift in me at that point too.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it I think it was just like one of those first moments of being like an adult, having free will, like your your consciousness is coming too.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: That I realized, like, okay, I don't think that I'm Mormon anymore, like at all, which is like a really big step.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you've ever left a religion or like a cult, you probably know this feeling of like, wow, I think I just decided.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I do think that was kind of my moment for that.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um and yeah, that brings us to almost now.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was married for five years and then I got divorced when I was 23.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing: I am not gonna get into all the details of like why we got divorced, especially just because like I don't speak to him and I don't want to um there I feel like he should be able to tell his story and also it's private.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm not gonna go spilling his I don't know.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't, it doesn't feel right for me to like tell his story.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not gonna get into the details of why exactly I got divorced, but I will say this things can look really perfect and beautiful from the outside and be absolutely shit on the inside, and it's really a personal thing, and I I'm speaking from my own personal experience and feelings of like, yeah, on Instagram, like I'm sure everything looked great, but inside of your own home, it's so different, and it's in those small conversations, the intricacies of a relationship that really a divorce happens, you know, it's not these massive problems, I think that most people think like, oh, we have this huge problem, we just can't agree on it, we have to divorce.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, no, it can be like accumulation of a lot of small things and just an ultimate like realization of like they are better off without me and I am better off without them.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: And like it's very painful, I will say, but it it's just not all divorces are because of like something crazy happening, you know.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I do think people were really surprised when I got divorced because I was pretty good at hiding my feelings, and you know, here's the thing I don't even think I was hiding it, I was just dealing with it privately.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was going to a therapist and there were conversations within our home, and I don't feel like you need to publicize those things.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let's just be honest, you don't need to publicize them, and so I think from the outside it can look really surprising.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, I had no idea everything so seemed so perfect.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: But it's like, yeah, because we're not gonna be like posting our marriage problems on Instagram, so there's that.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but at the end of the day, here's the thing: getting divorced gave me the most beautiful life.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm literally gonna cry.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: But truthfully, it's the best thing that happened to me because I didn't know how good life could be, and I didn't know how loved you could be by somebody.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: I really did not know.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was definitely settling, and you know, he probably was too.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I guarantee I was not a perfect partner, especially just with the age.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do you be perfect?
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have enough experience to be a good partner, I think.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: But um, I the things that I have done since being divorced, I would have never done inside of that marriage.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and now I am engaged to somebody who genuinely loves and supports me.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: I feel so safe.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: I feel so there's so much trust, there's so much love in our relationship that um I can just truly say that like it was the best thing that could have happened to me.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: I got a second chance, and a lot of people don't do that, and a lot of people are too nervous to do that because getting divorced is fucking scary.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's just true.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel really lucky that I was able to get divorced and have a second chance and move on with a big, huge, beautiful life.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: And the same for him, you know.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: I would hope that the same is true for him.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's all good.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's all good.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: What happens happens.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm going to get into the questions that you guys asked me.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: I put a little question box up on Instagram.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: You guys asked me some questions, so I'm going to answer them.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: The first one was How did you go about the conversation about leaving the church?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, as I kind of mentioned before, like the conversations with my ex-husband, they got better over time.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: But basically, I would just, I would just kind of update him, like, here's what I'm feeling.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and he would just kind of be passive about it.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think everyone's different.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was too like traumatizing for him.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: I really don't know.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: But um, I would just kind of keep him updated on how I felt and the direction I saw myself going in.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, with I will say, like, I was way more worried about what my parents thought than what he thought.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so eventually over time, I think I had a mental breakdown, quite literally, one night.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I called my mom and I said, I know that this is going to upset you, but I cannot live like this anymore.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: I am not Mormon.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it honestly did go pretty well.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: My mom and dad, I my dad was super understanding.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my mom was pretty understanding as well.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: And they never, you know, they never like tried to say, oh, you should read this Bible verse, or blah, blah, blah.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like they didn't try to like get me to come back, which I really, really did appreciate because it was like, I made my decision.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: I need to have this free will for myself.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: And they really respected that.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, I'm so grateful for that.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: It made it a lot easier.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: The next question was, how did you go about having your records removed?
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I have not actually removed my records formally from the church.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a few reasons.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: One, it's like annoying.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's an annoying process that you have to go through.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: Two, nobody's bugging me.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like they're not sending missionaries to my house.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they're I'm not being, yeah, I mean, I really am disconnected from the church and I don't.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: If people were like sending missionaries to me and I like were calling me and texting me and like inviting me to church, like I would for sure get them removed.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: But it to me is just not that big of a deal.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's not something I believe in.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: So for that reason, it's like, okay, like, I don't know.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone has my records to some degree, so I don't really know what the big deal is.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: I, yeah.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe one day I'll remove them.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't care that much, honestly.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, the next question was Was there pressure outside pressure that made me get married?
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think she also said something to the fence along the lines of like, or did you like want it at the time?
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: I will say, like, yeah, I definitely wanted it at the time, but you have to know that I was 18 years old.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, how much do you know?
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: You just I I didn't know.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't have enough information to even make that decision.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, yeah, I wanted it, but it's like that doesn't really mean that it was like okay or the right move.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know what I mean?
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and was there outside pressure to get married?
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: I I I know that during that time I was very like disassociated.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: I was just doing what I was supposed to do.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and if you've ever been like in a really organized religion or a cult or anything like that, you just don't know that there's other ways to do things and that you're going to be okay if you choose to do them the other way.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if I had chosen to move to Salt Lake, we live together, whatever, we dated for a little more time, whatever.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that I could do that and be okay.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: I literally thought that like horrible things would happen to me, to him, our families.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you're just so paralyzed by fear that it's impossible really to make that decision.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I mean, yes, there was outside pressure.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think both of our families really wanted it.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: My extended family was really interested in it.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, like I said, nobody told us we didn't have to, which is kind of fucking crazy.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: If I had a kid that was 18 that was like, mom, I want to get married, I would be like, let's wait till your frontal lobe develops.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not that I don't think you two are perfect for each other.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's just that I think you guys should date a little bit more before you get married.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what's the big deal?
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: I really wish I would have had some direction in that way because it definitely would have changed the trajectory of my life.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: Not that like I totally reg, I am one of those people that's like, no regrets, because it is part of my story.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: It is what happened, and I truly like I don't regret it.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: It led me to this point, quite literally.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it's okay, but I do think it would have been nice to have someone to tell me that it didn't, I didn't have to do that.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, so basically it's just very, very scary, very painful.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's all.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for coming to tea time.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: That is my story of getting married at 18, divorced at 23, and leaving the Mormon church.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I would love to chat with you guys more about this.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you guys have more questions or this led you to think of other things or share your experience, I'd love to hear about it.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: You can always find me on Instagram, send me a DM, a voice note, whatever you want.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, that's a wrap.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: But um, yeah, I mean, you might be like, how does that even apply to you and your business?
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: But like I said at the beginning, I just really like to get to know people, and I'm hoping that kind of my story could resonate with somebody.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: If you know anyone who's 18 who's trying to get married, maybe just direct them to this podcast episode.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: Or just kindly say, like, I don't know, maybe you should wait till your frontal lobe is developed.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and can we like create a law where you're not allowed to get married till you're 25?
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like that would be a good move.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening, and I will see you in a couple weeks.