Finding Community Outside of Mormonism - Chelsea & Nick Homer - Mormon Stories 1403

hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon stories podcast I'm your host John delin it is February 18 2021. we're here recording uh at the Holiday Mormon stories Studios and today I am uh super excited for the interview today we are interviewing Chelsea and Nick Homer is that right yep yep yep hi guys welcome to Mormon stories podcast thanks for having us so good to have you um for those of you who uh don't know uh I guess let's see how did I describe Chelsea and Nick super cool couple at some point uh you know they were they're married in the temple bountiful temple right and uh at some point early in their marriage uh Nick has a faith crisis Chelsea ends up um starting an Instagram page kind of earlier in the days of kind of influencers and Instagram and she actually a dozen Instagram posts about uh her husband and Faith crisis as a believing um member that ends up getting picked up by the church and even put on the church's webpage on lds.org later uh Chelsea starts a support group on Facebook for women who either in faith crisis or whose husbands are in faith crisis and um and so uh and how the story ends we're going to make you wait to find out and so uh what we're what we're doing today is we're just interviewing uh a young couple who has gone through their own faith Journey um that that has been decently high profile in terms of the church partnering with them for some social media collaborations and then um you know they've also made efforts to try and work through things themselves and support others in the journey and so it's going to be just one of those multi-hour heartfelt authentic real uh Mormon Journeys with a cool couple so without any further Ado again Chelsea and Nick welcome to Mormon stories thank you we're excited to be here apparently we are a very cool couple you are all right so let's see how should we begin Chelsea I think I want to start with you and your early journey and then we'll we'll flip back and forth is that all right yeah guys okay yep all right Chelsea so how does your Mormon story begin um I mean I was born into a Mormon family and uh three sisters my parents are now divorced um but went to church every week very traditional Mormon family um went to BYU uh that's where I met Nick my last semester at BYU um but okay really quickly so your parents divorced uh how old were you um this was maybe four or five years ago so I was an adult when they divorced okay okay so growing up yes you were you grew up in the Farmington Bountiful area yes yeah and that's kind of an intense place to grow up right yes went to Davis High School um on Seminary Council uh it's very very Mormon and what was talk about the church in what it meant to your family and what it meant to you growing up okay growing up I I mean the church was everything to me I loved young women's um and I think just having a sister at home matched at church like I just went and had a lot of friends at church and um didn't really perceive any problems at all like it was a pretty uh comfortable place for me and my family um how was your family known to Ward members did you guys have a like an image or reputation um yeah I mean I mean I would be like the child that would bear their testimony every Sacrament or fast and testimony meeting so um and my mom she was always in leadership positions um and yeah I mean we definitely have a reputation of being very very traditionally believing Mormons would your parents do for work um my mom was a stay-at-home mom she's um when I was in high school she went back to be a therapist so she's now a therapist but growing up she was a stay-at-home mom and then my dad um was job to job doing sales he started at Frito-Lay yeah so and just kind of moved around Horizon Organic and we actually was born in California and moved around to like Arizona and Colorado but um the majority of my upbringing was in Utah did you have a favorite primary song as a kid or some favorite primary songs um I'm trying to be like Jesus uh I was trying to be like Jesus everything was about Jesus um I look back and read my journals growing up in like middle school and Junior High and everything I'm just bearing my testimony every single day in my journal um it is it is hilarious to listen to or to read yeah um yeah I mean the church was my identity that was like our second home away from home um and I had some really great leaders um growing up and uh I I remember like even my mom my mom was a little bit more relaxed of like sometimes our extended family would go to Chuck-A-Rama on Sunday and I would have like it would be a meltdown I would be like for hours just be stewing like maybe I should stay home I don't know what to do like just the agonizing that I would be breaking the Sabbath in any way um so I was very I don't know if I was a pretty black and white thinker but I definitely um yeah definitely like a rule follower like if this is what the church says and if the church is true then that's absolutely what I'd like to do John powhai and I would go you know and so yeah um do you do you remember in your teen years either having doubts or questions or like trying to gain like some people just feel like they always have a testimony others are like wait I want a testimony I need to get one so I need to read the book of Mormon and do moroni's promise and pray about it like what was your testimony Journey like as a teenager um came pretty naturally and I don't know if it's because I was constantly reinforced with um being like leadership positions in young women's and uh constantly like giving lessons and I would go to different Stakes to like bear testimony so I feel like I it was um I was just constantly looking for ways to edify my testimony there was no deconstruction process really um growing up it was yeah I was very very very much believing um and I would like read do the Book of Mormon challenges so I read the book Mormon several times growing up um and I was very serious about my faith so it wasn't something that was just like a second thought it was my identity uh did you ever have any Temptations to kind of break the rules or did you ever like have moments of string or doing things you shouldn't or kind of like uh you know guilt and shame things you have to talk to the bishop about like any of that typical torment that some Mormon teens face around guilt and shame it was any of that part of um sexuality for sure I definitely had obviously an attraction to men and I like boys growing up and and I would like even kissing I would feel deep shame like my first kiss it was like hours of build up like his name is Tyler and he was like almost coaching me to like let him kiss me so that we could naturally progress as a healthy relationship and um so after we kissed I went inside and just sobbed like I felt like I was dirty like so there was definitely a lot of physical shame that I'm still as a 30 year old unraveling from because it was I mean I remember the bishop interviews and I just wanted to pass the test with flying colors and I didn't want to have to do any type of asterisk or anything that would be remotely seen as problematic so um yeah there was a lot of sexual shame um and that you wouldn't have labeled as such at the time no I wouldn't no yeah so yeah dating was really difficult in high school because I definitely had some relationships that we would like make out heavy makeouts and I would just feel sick for a week or two after but like I wanted to do that like naturally physically that's something I wanted to do but um then I would go to church on Sunday and I would I don't know get this like reupholster of my faith of like okay I'm gonna do it I'm not gonna make out anymore I'm not you know and anyway so it was just like not a healthy cycle um and that continued through BYU and even through dating Nick yeah so we'll come back to that yeah uh any any moments of Doubt uh you know at all you know any any exposure to the types of things that would make someone doubt our question as a teen you know through kind of your Seminary years that you had to face um yeah I I remember my mom she actually had um a bad situation with um a bishop in a Ward and I remember she didn't tell me all the specifics at the time but I remember her being very upset um it was between my mom and dad so there was strain in the relationship obviously and she felt that the bishop wasn't being supportive of what she wanted to do with her relationship was was separate from my dad for uh for a little bit and so I remember my mom coming home and she was just really upset really emotional and that was at least one instance where I was like oh there's there's a problem that I'm perceiving as inflicted by leadership in the church and it was hurting my family but I didn't know a lot of the specifics um probably because she was protecting me so yeah um but like as far as Doctrine and stuff I I don't remember having anything that seemed alarming to me at the time I just really wrote off the feel good you know families are forever uh love peace happiness you know like kind of just I don't know yeah you were in I don't think I mean from what I know of your childhood you had no reason to know Hang-Ups as far as belief yeah what did you love about the church's role in your life as a as a child in teen what were the things that you really I talked with Janice Spangler yesterday about Richard Rohr and first and a half second first and half parts of life right yes yeah and uh you know we all need a first half we all need something to give us structure and identity and meaning and purpose and and so in that sense whatever your structure is there's value if you have a structure you know so do you look were there things that either then or now you say you were really really grateful for that were really positive for you or is that hard to say now um I'm like in the heat of my anger stage right now of the deconstruction and I'm trying to see where my identity stops and like where the church's influenced like it's so interconnected as you know and um but I was thinking actually last week uh my sister-in-law is the camp counselor for her Ward and she came over and she was wanting to pick my brain about some activities because I had served as a young woman's president when we were first married and um so I just loved young women's I loved girls camp and I also maybe I'm a freak but I loved Trek now that I know how problematic a lot of that is at the time it was an adventure and something that I like really bonded with my peers over like it um I actually like get emotional thinking about like oh Ellie's not gonna really go to girls camp and I just there's just something about being in the nature and we were singing songs and doing crafts and going on Hikes like there was just something that was I really really enjoyed that and I yeah I I that's something that I will miss um I also loved going to church on Sunday and just seeing families that I knew and recognized and um community community yeah the community was huge and that's something that that was probably one of the hardest things to step away from was that feeling of belonging somewhere and people knew our family and when we struggled you know financially like we'd have people you know drop things off on our porch like there's just it's that's a beautiful aspect of the church and they do that so incredibly well um yeah when I was growing up my parents got divorced in seventh or eighth grade and um when I didn't always have my dad in my life or my mom the leaders kind of sometimes filled those roles and even provided kind of a semi-parental role during really key moments of my adolescence where I probably really needed encouragement or motivation or or support or just love or were there leaders that kind of did that for you yes yeah young women leaders specifically it was the people that I think about now are all women the people that I miss the most and the people that I'm like um sad for my children to miss out on are just a few yeah the women leaders in the church were such a support for me and for my sisters and dating like it is confusing and and there was some structure and element of like people checking in on me and just make sure that I was okay and and doing well in school like um yeah it yeah the women leaders were there were a few that I can think of and they actually I think a few of them unfollowed me on Instagram since all of this and it has made me sad it's been a complicated grieving where it's like I just I want to honor that but also like I'm I'm carving my own path and I and I feel like they feel betrayed like they I don't know they're disappointed you know and it's weird to think that we'll come back to that yeah I can tell you're getting emotional yeah what are you feeling I I don't know it's just I don't know I feel like all the lessons of them teaching us that were curious and we're Brave and we're smart and then I feel like I'm using those attributes and my decision has been to step away but in that I've been like I don't know I feel abandoned by the community that I thought I love so much you know yeah so anyway oh that's cool yeah also emotional it is it's so much good and hard all mixed into one right yeah it's just complicated and that's what makes The Grieving so hard is like I there are some undeniable Goods but there are also so many traumatic things and I think about yeah lessons that I at the time thought oh this is good for me I know this is good for me and you know going on our honeymoon and stuff I'm like so angry and livid thinking this was not good for me this was not good for me so we'll come to that yeah that's good any really quickly Chelsea thanks for being so vulnerable um I've got tissues under the chair I think uh any other thing about your childhood or adolescence that in the events that happened moments that should be told that that play really later into your your faith Journey your faith crisis Etc I just want to make sure we cover everything before we move to Nick no that's a great question um I think the temple also was a really big thing like I remember going before um early morning before high school to go do baptisms for the dead I did that like religiously uh it was the temple was like a safe place for me anytime I was dating a boy or trying to get answers about college like I would go to the temple and it was always um a very uplifting peaceful place to be and um that plays out later with us deciding to get married and then also transitioning away so Temple the temple was a really um in the Bountiful Temple right the Bountiful Temple yeah there's something about bountiful like Holland like a lot of the Apostles have tight associations with Bountiful North Salt Lake Farmington is that right yes yeah can you talk just really quickly about like what what kind of that Farmington Bountiful area is like in terms of Utah Mormonism I mean it's very concentrated uh like in high school obviously I knew that there were people who were not members but in my mind everybody was a member uh and Samurai Council High School of how many people uh yeah and we had Seminary Council and it was just like this Elite thing that you know you're invited to and it was like one of the biggest seminaries in Utah and um for Seminary Council we had to pick a scripture and a theme for the year for all the students and so there was a council of about I don't know eight or ten of us so it was fairly large and we went to someone's house um during or after school and um we all got together and said okay we're all gonna go and read our scriptures and then we'll come back and then we'll like brainstorm and pick out a scripture for the theme for the evening for the year yeah and so uh we all went away and I again I was so serious about my faith and very thoughtful I was probably in this closet for almost an hour just like praying and trying to figure out the theme because this is so important and this is going to impact students lives and um but I got nothing I just couldn't come up with anything I wasn't feeling the spirit and I was really confused I come out turns out everybody had just taken a five minute flip through their scriptures and came back but they were all just sitting there waiting for me and I had been gone an hour like really trying to get an answer and I think that was just like that can sum up just like my intention I was very intensely believing and intensely uh I just I really participated and so I feel so mortified I just told Nick the story like the first time I know I just heard that yeah I was so embarrassed after that I was like I don't care what scripture we choose you just choose I'm just so embarrassed I just want to go home because I could tell that people were laughing and kind of snickering like okay you're taking this way too seriously but uh yeah so it's an intensely Mormon area and you were an intense Mormon in an intense Mormon area yeah and I I honestly felt like I was thriving like I got the um like leaders would come up and be like I want to set you up with my son I think that you you know just like I don't know I just kept getting enough validation that what I was doing was right and uh that I just kept going and it led me straight to BYU all right okay and anything else nope yeah all right so uh Nick it's your turn yeah tell us about your your Mormon story yeah so childhood and yeah yeah I so I was born and grew up in the Avenues in Salt Lake uh that's intense too yeah talk about that for those who don't know Utah oh well I mean it's it's been a while since I we moved away in in elementary school okay but but a very very Mormon Community although I know that every time someone would move in the ward they'd be replaced by someone from out of state and we were always so just worried that this Mormon you know it's such a desirable place to live I guess and and you know every time someone would leave uh we wouldn't get replaced by another Mormon family right yeah um but but very LDS Family um I mean I remember I don't know three or four year old we'd practice being missionaries and we'd knock on the door and my parents would let us in and we'd like teach the first discussion my me and my brother my brother and I whoa um yeah oh and that's um I don't know if anyone who's listening I grew up listening to scripture Scouts scripture Scouts every night was scripture Scouts and just list like just breathing and eating yeah the dog Scout yeah um we would wake up so my brother uh was um it still is an amazing pianist and he would wake up uh like 5 30 every morning and play piano for you know practice for two hours and then everyone would come together after you know having a piano wake us up for the last hour so and then we'd have scripture study for I don't know 30 minutes every morning of my childhood if we're on vacation if we're traveling somewhere it's we like we'd go up to Idaho every uh Christmas and we'd just be like so anxious to get out on the snowmobiles and it's like nope we gotta like read our scriptures first as a family [Music] um I mean every family dinner like you know we always ate dinner as a family but we would stand up and go in the living room and kneel down together and pray and then come back to the table and eat um I I think maybe in and I don't know the the most interesting and funny story to say how Mormon we were is uh you know like a lot of Utah families we uh we'd go down to Lake Powell uh for a week every year on a houseboat and on Sundays we would all bring I mean we're in the middle of the lake back in a canyon uh we bring friends and everyone we brought our Sunday clothes and ties and everything and we would get permission from the bishop to do uh past the sacrament on the houseboat not only that but then we would be assigned talks and we would give talks not only that then we would break into Sunday school and then break into young men's and young women's and we'd have a full three-hour production on the houseboat and we'd be in our like Sunday clothes and ties as like boats are driving by like going out to ski and I remember feeling that like they must be looking at us thinking we're like a little overboard but also I remember uh uh just thinking like no like we're doing we're doing a surprise cried yeah like we this is what we're supposed to be doing uh I mean never once did I take a sip of coke uh poke yeah Coca-Cola Coca-Cola Coca-Cola I should Define um anything caffeine because just caffeine and and I think what Spencer W Kimball uh is kind of the last prophet who probably put a stake in the ground on caffeine um but just very I I would skip classes in high school to go to extra Seminary sometimes I'd go just I loved hanging out in the seminary building um I'm trying to just very very Mormon what were your parents professions um so my mom has been a stay-at-home mom um my whole life and uh and then my dad is in the insurance industry life insurance and Estate Planning and and growing up he was a bishop in our Ward growing up and and I remember thinking as a kid going and visiting um you know widows in the world with them thinking I I thought like I think is my dad the prophet I think if he's not the prophet he's he's up there he probably meets with the prophet once a week you know just feeling like we're not like not Mormon royalty at all but we're like we're very very just very Mormon important in your community yeah yeah it was the like all of our our friends were church friends my parents friends were church friends there there wasn't anything outside of us being Mormon we were primarily LDS and then we were homers um that's how he described it to me while we were dating oh yeah first we're Mormons and then we're homers and it made perfect sense to me meeting his family yeah but just very I don't know if there and this bled into my mission um oh yeah never kissed a girl uh and before my mission never would have even thought about that and just studied before your mission oh no no I had several opportunities um and just was like nope this is not um because of John by the way right oh John okay John by the way and uh there were just these like talks that were recorded there's one tape it's called dating9-11 he did with uh Wilcox and I must have listened to that a hundred times and uh it would just I don't know I like it I I just what did they say what did the oh it was just talking it was basically a clever like talk show they were radio hosts for dating 9-1-1 and like people would call in and be like I'm in a dating emergency like I picked up the girl and her shoulders are visible or something like that like what do I do and then like well you can like is this like talk show I know yeah I thought it was really funny um now looking back I'm just like no that was not um uh anyway I I was just very very into it and it was my whole life did you have favorite primary songs um I don't know that I did uh other than just all of them okay um yeah did you did you ever struggle with worthiness you know doubts shame guilt fear no Bishop stuff the type of stuff Chelsea talked about no high school kid honestly and this may be too much but if if you had put a gun to my head and told me to masturbate I would have been like uh like I just wouldn't have known what to do like it just wasn't I did not think about I I was absolutely attracted to women uh and wanted so I would sit and fantasize about cuddling as young as oh a five-year-old um but I knew like oh like porn off the table we do not you know just I knew what what the boundaries were and I was a hundred percent dedicated to operating within those boundaries so um you're saying that you never masturbated as a teen no is that right no yeah and and they're believe it or not that was that was me too uh I didn't until after I was married and most people won't believe you when you tell them oh yes that's impossible people do not believe him and I'm like I definitely believe it I mean I don't want to say that there are plenty of people that believe and and still do that but like for me it was a matter of no you just don't those there's sins you don't commit and that's something you don't commit yeah so you just rely on the nocturnal emissions basically yep as a team yeah and it just I don't know it wasn't even uh I was absolutely I mean I remember as a kid just being so interested in girls and my mom would tell you that I just I thought about wanting to I don't know yeah I just I really wanted to be in a relationship but I knew that that is not okay and that part of me was very repressed until uh after my mission for sure did you uh did you ever have either sort of that desire to gain your own testimony and and challenges with that or you know exposure to anything that would cause you to doubt a question and then have to work through that no um high school years no I I remember a few times feeling like why haven't I had my my moment where you know I have a Joseph Smith moment um and then instantly going into like Nick for you to deny that you've that you don't have that strong of a testimony already would be so ungrateful and blasphemous almost and so I'd instantly be like oh no I know like I know ever the church is true and my testimony is Rock Solid um and yeah I think deep down I knew like hmm I honestly from uh from studying the scriptures and you know like things like calling an election made sure and all like I felt like well I'll get there at some point where I'll see um and and actually have visual confirmation that my beliefs are um true but beyond that I felt like no I I've got everything short of having an in-person tangible touching feeling experience that that I just know that this is uh the truth um any other childhood or teen experiences with you or with your family that that will play into your story later that you want to make sure and mention um it sounds like the perfect Mormon family almost like Ned Flander Mormon and Ned Flanders for sure um I'm trying to think no uh trauma no no okay not really uh like the Mormon dream happy family oh happy family so like it wasn't like your parents were like mean or grouchy or angry but then in public we're nice and kind no I think I grew up knowing that my parents relationship I not knowing but thinking their relationship is 100 about the church and if one of them ever was to if they were to leave the church that would disintegrate this family um but they were absolutely both faithful and committed and just in and I I knew like oh well that's that is this is a solid a glue as you can have in a family um and so no everything was great up I mean yeah I guess I didn't touch on my mission uh I go ahead and talk about your mission before Mission or no out after um but I was just absolutely dedicated I was in Brazil the very Southern Corner portable South Mission um and just uh I don't know I I looking back there is maybe not a minute that I could account for on my mission that I wasn't just putting everything out there and uh it honestly my mission was still I mean looking back I roll my eyes at you know the motivation behind it all and I don't believe those same things but High baptisms that's about like was your mission a high baptizing Mission uh no I mean well I guess for Britain no the Northern parts of Brazil are high baptizing um Southern parts of Brazil you have a lot of German and Italian influence um and and that probably reflects I mean much higher baptizing than Germany and Italy anywhere in Europe um but on my mission not to um I got there and was instantly very disillusioned that like there's missionaries who aren't reading their scriptures for two hours and they're not leaving at 9 30 and working all the way until 9 30 at night and there's like before P day the The Zone will get together and sleep over at the Zone Leader's house and then kind of have a like group Zone party the next day and I was like they would be doing that and I would be off in the corner and reading my scriptures and it's 9 30 turn off the lights like I'm asleep and they're all doing their own thing did they make fun of you or did you feel ostracized a little bit um there was a phrase they would say jayaga which is GH Glory those Omens so the glory of men like you're looking for the glory of men and I was definitely labeled as that the like Nick or Elder Homer you're doing these things you want everyone to look at you and think you're this awesome missionary um and uh yeah right yeah or to become a Zone leader or an AP or something um but I I was just ABS I knew that every minute of my life previous to this had been preparing to like getting me ready to serve a mission and I was not gonna waste a second um and they're actually there was so for the first year I feel like I just kind of got stuck with not super motivated companions looking back I'm like oh they're actually pretty pretty great companions I was just uh extreme um but like our our goal in the mission was to teach like 15 lessons a week and uh as soon as I became a senior companion and had a little Greenie with me we just start pounding the streets and we were teaching 40 50 lessons a week and just had a yeah we were having phenomenal success to the point that our mission president kind of did a road show around the whole mission being like look at these two Elders like they're killing it and like why why can't why can't we all do that well the most baptisms you got in a month baptisms um I honestly got switched around a lot because we go in an area and we you know I I think on average uh so the mission would do about a hundred baptisms a month and that's 200 missionaries so you know a baptism per companionship um so that first area that we just um yeah we killed it and I got transferred before anything really happened but the next month there were 18 baptisms um at like four or five families and and then kind of hopped around the rest of my mission um and so I I didn't do a lot of baptism baptizing but I know that I went into areas where uh there just hadn't been a lot of work done previously and really turned them around and I was very proud of that um your magazine leader yeah yeah I was I was a Zone leader and then was an AP for uh eight months that's the Blue Ribbon being an AP I know I know yeah in the back oh okay she got her AP I also I remember going to a Davis basketball game when I was in high school and I thought the cheerleaders were so cute and I was like I'm gonna marry a Davis started she wasn't a cheerleader but I married a David like 10 years after that Davis girls were hot yeah I know yeah um yes anyway I I just uh and I would tell so many people afterwards that if you're if you go on your mission and the mission isn't what you want it to be um or if you know there just isn't a culture of like working yourself to death like you can change that you can be the thing that changes the whole mission um and I certainly felt like my dedication and my work ethic um I don't even know where I just like my Uber Mormonism uh definitely made changes in the broader Mission and it was very Faith promoting to see that well I remember when I started dating Nick you had a book of all the letters you had written home or was it your emails my dad made it and they were telling me like I mean I think a lot of parents project like my children are gonna do really well in leadership positions with the church but I remember that moment of feeling like they are projecting that Nick will will do amazing things in the church and that was like a seed that was planted that like oh he will never leave the church you know so yeah so did you um did you ever like oh man I I kind of want to serve in the church someday maybe I'll be a bishop or maybe even a general Authority that kind of oh at the time I absolutely felt that um uh I you know it's not something that you're supposed to like aspire to but I definitely felt like I my commitment level was such that if I was called to one of those to you know a position uh with higher responsibility that would absolutely be committed and be willing to give just leave it all on the table so yeah did either of your patriarchal blessings play a role in how you thought of yourself or your life Chelsea I didn't ask you this um did you get a picture yeah I did and it was really long and it mostly talked about missionary work that was it was like a page full of missionary work and I'm talking about me and my husband having opportunities that would change the mission field and so like interesting it was it was really like a lot of yeah that's when I read it that's what I thought like and so I didn't say that but like reading through the lines I was like oh it's probably something like that and so then meeting Nick I was like check check check check right because coming off of his mission and all of his reading his emails and stuff and the Miracles that he was like witnessing I'm like this this is it you know and so I think it definitely played a factor hey turquo blessings are almost like tarot cards or fortunate you know because like they are it's basically fortune telling by someone who claims to have power and then you like in it can frame how you think about your life and then you have to go and make it happen how about your physical blessing Nick yeah mine for sure I I thought that there were I don't know I I fasted a lot previous to like pray to know if I'm ready to get my patriarchal blessing took it very seriously um and there was a point there was a part that said um you know as you I I can't quote it exactly now but as you do these things referring to like uh you know study scriptures and be faithful and just grow in your testimony the time the point will come where your knowledge will be made sure and I I that sounds like a second second anointing yeah yeah we're calling an election yeah and I know that my dad perked up and and both my parents actually afterward were like there is because they're listeners that don't know it uh it means I I mean going through the temple there is verbiage that says this is all like the the time will come where all of this is made sure and is like sealed on you like you're going through the steps now this isn't the end there's actually something else Beyond this and I didn't know about the temple at the time but I absolutely knew that the scriptures in many in several areas there's kind of like a web of of uh footnotes that I'll reference uh that there there's this point where you are brought into the presence of Christ you would meet Christ yeah and at that point you have been saved and you are like you're good that's Denver Snuffer stuff yeah and that's um oh yeah it was a much bigger thing in the early church yeah um so you were thinking that might be your Patriot blessing made you think that might be in your future yeah for sure um and and I probably studied on that more I mean it's like a 14 year old I was studying and looking into this and what are the conditions under which this happens and oh yeah yeah so um so that element of my patriarchal blessing made uh me I don't know just made me feel like I could go far or no I could go but like I like I don't know yeah you can be impossible he could be an apostle someday yeah I mean it's a it's a small percentage of the church that would have an event like a second anointing so uh yeah I was very aware of that part of my patriarchal blessing so listeners one of the most important episodes of Mormon stories of all time is the Tom Phillips episode where he talks about receiving his second anointing and also Hans and bergita Matthew talk about that as well so if you haven't check that out write that down Tom Phillips and or hanza Brigitte Matson um you'll want to learn about the second anointing it's important yeah um okay any other thing about your no no I spilled the beans that's everything yeah so it sounds like you were like on the track you were on the train to become that Elite super Mormon guy yeah I know I know I was like an absolutely super Mormon guy I know everyone I went to like high school would be like oh Nick was annoyingly Mormon um but yeah definitely okay all right okay so uh you come home from your mission and uh take us to either of your let's just now jump in where you're both telling the story okay what what ends up leading to you guys being together I I guess there is some space there for me uh um because I came home from my mission at 21 but we met at 26. we got married take the time just hop back and forth with your story so yeah um I don't know I came home and went straight to BYU and was super super in but over the years I can see I I just had so much fun at BYU um yeah Provo like we still drive around like if we ever go to Provo Nick's just like I love it are you in the dorms yeah so I was in uh like Heritage halls I guess that I did a year before my mission and then after that I was just in the few streets directly south of campus and we just had so much fun I give examples of the fun you'd have oh so like your best we built so there's a girl who I home taught in a wheelchair and her wheelchair batteries went out and uh and so we were like well can we have your wheelchair your insurance gets you a new one and we put a couch on it and we drive all over BYU campus with this motorized couch you can see YouTube videos of him and he was like featured on the news it was on like the Today Show and seeing it because BYU banned it so we drive it in because you were driving in like the elevator yeah we'd go on campus and BYU Bandit yeah it's it's ridiculous yeah it's kind of embarrassing looking back on it um but yeah if you YouTube motorized couch um and I have so many people Intel like I just started working a new company and I've had people like oh my gosh like you were the couch kid um any of your like favorite moment was when Mindy Gledhill used your couch for one of her she didn't see Jane when they started the rooftop concert series somehow they uh found tracked me down and and the first rooftop concert series they were up there on them they wheeled out on the motorized couch um so that um I was just very into um I like I I spent a few years uh as the activities like co-chair and would just go all out for reward yeah and this is the award that I met him in oh yeah good Apartments um condo or not yeah yeah like Kensington I think yeah yeah Kensington so right in the middle of condo row which is this group of apartments and we I think everyone knew that like our award is the award like for the entire month of of October like we would have a first the first week of October we get all the family home evening groups together and we'd sort them into Hogwarts houses and then they would get like three families here three families there and then they'd you know you're Slytherin you're Ravenclaw and I've never even read a Harry Potter book so I was an imposter doing the Harry Potter but we would set up zip lines across the street where we'd zip in on brooms people were painting their cars like fires in the middle of the street legitimate paint his entire van um Hufflepuff colors yeah Hufflepuff right I was gonna say huff and Putt but no Hufflepuff he's never read Harry Potter yeah I know and we it was just huge and then the next month we do a huge Price is Right I'd go out to local businesses have them sponsor they put packages together for like restaurants and dream dates and then we do the prices right and everyone would like you'd get extra name entries to be called up if you came themed so everyone would get a huge uh like one of the big rooms that um lecture Halls at BYU and everyone like we built a whole wheel and the Plinko board and everything and we we do a huge Price is Right and people go nuts and then the next month we like like you bought five go-karts yeah we bought five go-karts for Halloween and were Mario Kart and driving all around the street so we just had it was just so BYU yeah and yeah we had a really great paying job but it was in student housing and he wasn't in school when I met him and so just a few of his buddies just had money that they could spend to do really fun things and all of us more college students were like how are you buying all of this stuff and you had the motorhome that you would pack we bought a motorhome with a couple of roommates and two to take to The Bishop's house for a pool party and oh my gosh yeah yeah we just had the time of our life and it would study at all well I I guess at that point I was just recently graduated but even before uh marketing business okay yeah um so yeah uh I don't know it was just a great time and definitely just thrived within mormonville but I know that my parents and probably others were like this like trajectory of potential General Authority Nick is being slightly tangented toward like have fun party and and you know part of that I felt like looking back so my dad if you know like the young ambassadors he was in the first group it's a singing dancing uh traveling group at BYU Empire Elite show choir yeah it goes all over the world yeah so apparently and I'm details here but my my dad put together a group before the young ambassadors existed of just like oh here's some guys he can juggle and they can sing and these people dance and would perform for local businesses and that group ended up turning into the young ambassadors um and uh so I I remember hearing that my dad and he would put together these huge events and just feeling like oh I'm I am living in the Homer Legacy of just yeah partying it up at BYU but your dad was worried that your frivolity would well and I think it is it is true like like on my mission I was absolutely not interested in like do I want to have a good time no like I'm here this is the Lord's time and uh and I think my attention was shifting like I want to have a good time like I want to really like yeah we just it was it was something that could have only happened in mormonville USA yeah it really but it was what kind of pulled me off from like everything in my life is about church and it was actually not like we're just we're having a really good time we're being really really good people were you dating at all uh casually yeah I mean definitely I wanted to get married um but not too often intensely why weren't you super dating I think I think probably a lot of it has to do with the overwhelming uh number of options down at BYU and when you were going on dates constantly oh I was going on dates but it never yeah I turned into something why were you like like Chelsea why weren't you making out with with girls and you know yeah Nick why yeah I'm so sorry no I mean there were girls that I dated but I I don't know that I had serious relationships longer than a couple of months um until Chels and I think part of that was um just having I think a high bar whatever that means but just thinking like no like the person I marry they've got to be the general Authority's wife interested in dating because I moved into the war this is the word that he was doing orchestrating all this crazy stuff and the first Sunday Nick happened to volunteer to be the guy to take pictures of all of the new members directory anyway um but he came to my door like right after like he definitely was interested in pursuing like you were not passive about it yeah definitely assertive um yeah I was very interested yeah and yeah for whatever reason the person I was interested in and the person they were interested in wasn't lining up I just weren't finding a good fit yeah okay was that frustrating are you just having something absolutely oh yeah there was a moment near the end of uh when I was in school you know you just you go to BYU being like I'm gonna get married and uh I just had this moment where at the time I thought it was you know the holy ghost or whatever but just had this feeling of like Nick you will graduate and not get married and I was like okay well I guess that's it like that's actually moved away to California for was it a year like half a year half year and then moved back she's like if I want to get married to a Mormon girl I've gotta go back so yeah part of California uh Walnut Creek just uh the Bay Area yeah all right but I definitely was someone who always had stories about how I was pursuing someone and then and then the signs you know like I don't know always had some miraculous story about how I saw a girl and I want to meet her and then did all this and then I met her and like oh my gosh um that just never translated to marriage which I'm so grateful for um but yeah so should we talk about your arrival Chelsea okay yeah so I so we're five years apart so he obviously was at BYU before mean so we kind of just barely missed each other and I dated a lot at BYU I had quite a few very serious relationships I had two missionaries um you know and the whole writing the letters and and waiting and it just uh I had so much anxiety around dating in the idea of choosing a life partner I mean that's just daunting when you just spell it out uh so I did a lot of stuff the pressure of not wanting yeah I imagine you would have like felt disappointed that your dad struggled yes yes marry someone that doesn't yeah there were definitely things that yeah that um from my past and my family that I didn't want and I'm have actually like come into our marriage too I mean parents obviously affect you and so their relationship scared me and commitment scared me um but I had lots of options at BYU and I dated often like just yeah school and dating but I also didn't want to be that person that just got married super quick and I think there was a stigma my mom just kept saying you you've got to go to school for an education she really emphasized that she wasn't she kind of would be like can you just wait to get married until like your last year at BYU or after just because she yeah she knew the importance of an education and that there's I mean she needed to go back to school and to start a profession you know later in life and she just knew like it's really important to get an education so how are you studying um so I did Communications public relations and I actually did an internship for the church in New York for um yeah they're working for just doing public relations stuff for them she was working in the building in the building connected to the temple and Nick actually came out to visit me because we were we had been dating then he came for like three days and I ended up moving back home to try to figure it out with him and we dated what two two years which is fairly long first yeah that's not Provost yeah we both had um I think you'd have liked to get married earlier and I just had a lot of Hang-Ups yeah and my mom has a therapist had a huge packet of list of questions you know and I went through him I even was like are you gay we need to like talk about every single thing um sexual stuff like pornography obviously was a really big one masturbation was a big one I remember we had a lesson in our award together where they passed around sheets of and it was Anonymous but all the guys filled it out and then they shared the stats of how many people were like viewing pornography and stuff and it was alarming for women because like we were just like this is I mean all the messaging we were getting around any type of self-pleasure was harmful right yeah um I know a lot of the girls came home from that Sacrament or that Sunday school lesson feeling very scared and like if you're dating a guy in the ward then you all of a sudden had a bunch of like red flags that you needed to sort through and so I remember just asking Nick just endless questions about his childhood his you know parents and uh hopes and dreams for the future and how he spends his time but I mean Nick just like he was just so good to I I don't know I I know marriage is a risk but I thought having exhausted so many things that I thought it's going to be slightly less there is no yeah no curveballs coming ahead yeah yeah and I was very wrong so yeah so he did a couple years we did it yeah on and off like we broke up a few times what did you love most about Nick and Nick what did you love most about Chelsea uh I mean initially I was attracted to his energy he was just like he's kind of an introvert but he was also the life of the party like he was creating fun where there wasn't fun like he just made things more enjoyable and also he um is just really smart like I love talking to him and like he would just he's very passionate about some things in engineering like he would just go off and talking about things that I'm like I want to be with somebody who we have good conversations and so I think conversation and energy were probably the two biggest okay attractors yeah and and I think Charles um for sure was just um and it's this is sad that this was the main but like the person who you are trained as a Mormon that you're supposed to marry you know the person just so so good and the person who grew up going to the temple every week and and all of that like that was I I know at the time I wanted to check off all you know you have all those checklists so that drove me to Temple attendance well just just like she was in I'm fully in invested in the church she is fully an investor of the church um but also Chels is an amazing empath which I do not have that strength and it I I mean one like she was when we got married um our first Ward she was the young women's president and she is so phenomenal with with making sure every single young woman in the world knew that they were like deeply loved and and if they were struggling or having a problem she would spend hours and hours and days thinking how can I help that one girl and that's something that I I saw in her definitely early on when we were dating that she's just so good and I don't know uh absolutely just someone who cares and loves and wants everyone and like a social justice Warrior if someone is not being treated right Chels will know and and she will like figure out how to make that right um but just since I don't know in so many like at the time she was everything Mormon would want to marry a foundation for our relationship we both love that we both believed yeah yeah was it oh and I was phenomenally attracted to her as well let's say that okay I still am still am even more so was it hard to be good uh when you're dating two years yeah you know what we did have some makeouts that uh we saw our Bishop twice but I think it might have been because I felt so guilty but yeah yeah looking back seeing what my friends were seeing the bishop 4 versus what we went and talked to the bishop for it was we did not need to see the bishop but we did but we yeah just I think so that you just you had you wanted to make sure that I mean it was like heavy heavy makeup for sure and then the lessons that we were getting like our Bishop at the time was very like don't do anything don't lay on top of each other and we were definitely doing that and so like there were things that he had said and then I knew that we had done um Looking Back Now I really regret seeing him but how'd the bishop handle that was he I think compared to the other people who were coming to him he's just like oh like it's so good that you guys are here like be careful but like you guys are on the right path you're doing good yeah he was kind about it yeah okay but just the very Act of going in and like confessing things was really weird like I felt like I compulsively had to do that you know and uh yeah anyway so we definitely uh that that um set the tone for our honeymoon I feel like of being shut down so many times and every time we would have like a really good makeout or something like that I would feel really really guilty so I feel like all of those moments they just kind of like compounded on top of each other and um that good girl switch like oh you'll just flip that switch once you step out of the temple and it just didn't switch so yeah or flip anything else worth mentioning about your courtship or your lives before we talk about uh your your marriage your wedding night the temple all that stuff no well pre yeah no yeah we're just 100 in bound to be a very Mormon couple oh I guess I will say the answer I got to Mary Nick we we're off and on a lot but I went to the temple I think it's when I got my endowments taken out that I had a very spiritual experience um and that was kind of where I got the answer where I got that piece uh just like yep next to the one and so that Temple answer was really important to me and it later came to be like a slap in the face when Nick um she didn't denounce the temple but you got the answer but I got the answer in the temple and that was like once we're already engaged what was the answer that I could marry him like I just felt so much anxiety and so much like but if there's something I don't know about him you know all of the just feeling scared and nervous and anyway I felt that peace and what I felt like was an answer and um again like this the temple was kind of a safe place for me and even with yeah getting my like with my endowments I know I had a lot of friends who had very traumatic experiences their first time um but I I didn't um it was actually really a positive thing and I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that um why because now learning more about it it's just weird you know like it's like I I feel like I should have had red flags like I should have had the alarms going off in my head um with some of the things and the things that I would be covenanting to and through Nick and you know like there are things that now are really triggering for me but at the time I didn't see it okay so have you had a good you had a your some people have a real traumatic endowment experience in the temple yeah and you're saying it was really good you loved the temple so why wouldn't you have a great experience yeah yeah so and then we got married in the Bountiful Temple yep anything you want your engagement or you know it was all great oh I guess I could tell I could tell you proposed [Music] like we're left embarrassing and people are going to think less of us after if they have to listen I surprised Charles I mean we were just we were pretty up and down in our uh dating and uh pre-engagement but I I surprise you out of nowhere and flew you to we flew to you thought I was taking you to lunch yeah and we missed the turn off for like Subway and you're like Nick it's back there and then like oh I'll just you know flip a UE and then like Nick you just miss it again Nick why are we on the highway why are we at the airport and I'm like oh well instead of driving around the airport we'll pull in the parking lot because it's easier to cut through and we were like in it and I parked and I'm like just calm down I'll get you back to work and you're like what are we doing and I popped the trunk anyway we flew to California and did a sailboat and ended up on the beach and you and you knew he's just like just a proposed just to propose and yeah maybe holding me hostage because he knew I know I was like but I took her to a sailboat in California yeah we found some like Steve the sailboat guy on and he ended up talking about a sailboat the whole time Nick was playing but he was talking about the whole time so it wasn't romantic like it was just out in the water and it was really fascinating so Nick's like I'll just do it on the beach but we got a flat tire before we got to the beach so it was dark um and we were just like walking on the beach and then Nick um kneels down and you knew the whole reason we were going to California is that you were going to get proposed to so you're just waiting for the way it wasn't yeah and then um I I think right after you kneeled you were yeah I was like I I don't I don't know I don't know and then I asked him to give me a blessing on the beach yeah well what type of blessing and what like piece of comfort um and I'm so glad the sun was down and I'm and we're the only ones on the beach but right there I gave her a blessing and just told her that you know I I don't know but just a blessing of peace and comfort and uh yeah how was that for you the whole thing was bizarre this is it's just weird I I felt sick to my stomach um why wasn't it amazing um I think marriage to me was daunting um and I wanted a different marriage than the one I had seen growing up and it's a risk and uh I just I didn't know what to anticipate are you afraid of um I don't even I think just being disappointed or let down in marriage or feeling like we wouldn't be happy or that we would hurt each other somehow like making mistakes and and you're just a high demand lady in uh Provo like you had a lot of people wanting to take you out and so I think saying like Okay I'm done with all those options this is the person yeah I mean that's definitely um committing to one person is not an easy thing so yeah But ultimately you said yes so we got married so okay so uh anything you want to say about the actual wedding ceremony and then of course like I'm taking the honeymoon was a was kind of a big deal is that right or not or yeah I mean it definitely was um the disappointment was there but uh our the actual ceremony was I mean everything we kind of anticipated it would be so yeah just what you would expect from a Mormon marriage I don't think there's anything noteworthy and let me ask what were your expectations for each other and for your family like if you had like a a 5 10 20 30 40-year plan what was the understanding of kind of what you were both committing to because it because it's almost like a three-way agreement you're marrying each other but kind of Jesus or the church are kind of like the third party in the marriage yeah right so what what was because I'm you know the dream's gonna fall apart but what was the dream right well yeah I had the expectation I think there was just so much as much as you had your questions that need to be asked and all there was so much that didn't need to be talked through because we knew of course we're always going to be devout members of the church and that comes with a thousand other things that we know will stay constant through our marriage um but but we were a hundred percent uh I mean no questions asked um that we were signing up for a life of an LPS lifestyle yes yes and that our kids would be we'd have a family yeah I mean I had aspirations for a career which I know some of my friends didn't at the time when we kind of talked through stuff but I it was still like I'm still young and I'm still trying to figure it out um but uh yeah I mean we were definitely and staying in Utah I think we don't didn't have really any anticipation to leave Utah either yeah so okay so just living I mean obviously you were going to be Mission president Mission president's wife yeah yeah no but I think we were operating under the assumption that that like we weren't saying that but like we were gonna live up to and become whatever live up to the expectations of being faithful members of the church yeah for sure okay so how long did the dream last night we just died the moment we stepped out of the temple honestly okay so talk about that well yeah not as far as our expectations of being very Mormon but I think I was anticipating that the ceiling would somehow um I don't know not solve problems but I feel like I would feel different afterwards and so it's like we you know quote saved ourselves and did all of this build up and work towards this moment and then walking out I'm like I feel the same like I feel like Nick and I are the same you know like yes we have paperwork that something substantial just happened here but um I think that was the first one I'm like oh so like I I was disillusioned uh a bit you know thinking oh marriage doesn't solve problems and it's not all you feel magically yeah yeah yeah and I'm sure some people maybe experience that they're after stepping on the temple but Nick and I are both like yeah we're we're married you know and we had a very uh like uh we got married at um This Is The Place Monument so also another historic Mormon Place venue um and then we went on our honeymoon and well I guess the first the wedding night I think that was the first time where we like really had to Grapple with um the lack of information that we had about our own bodies oh just uh or was it I like me figuring out my body painful on your end it was very painful for me and I didn't I didn't really know that that would be a thing for me I you know and um or at least as painful as you thought it would be like I think we all were like oh I think it's supposed to be not comfortable and I felt dirty honestly I felt dirty I felt uh nervous to be naked or be exposed around somebody that I had consciously made sure that that wasn't the case for several years um and it wasn't natural it wasn't uh yeah like I talked about that switch it just I was like come on it should be going now and it just I was really scared and I felt so it should be going on you mean like I felt like we should just naturally just be like sexual beings this thing that we have repressed for so long it should just stop like we should not feel guilt we shouldn't feel shame like we've done all of the right things in the right order like why isn't this happening and you felt what you felt I honestly I just felt dirty and I wasn't anticipating that like I thought that I was told that that would go away because I had followed the rules how do you feel Nick uh yeah it just it wasn't I mean my whole life I just been like oh like you know you hold off and hold off and then it's just this explosion of ecstasy of a honeymoon and I I think for both of us I was um definitely just figuring out like my body and and you yours and dealing with shame I don't know that I was dealing with as much shame but I was feeling absolutely let down that we weren't just like I don't know just did this you had high expectations and it's yeah there was just a lot of unpacking to do I mean Nick was 28 and you really hadn't masturbated and didn't view pornography like I mean that's a lot to wait up for and I I felt bad he was 28. and so I felt really really bad and guilty that I was letting him down like I could tell he was like I don't know why I'm getting emotional I could tell he was so sad like he was let down and I could see the expectations recalibrating in his mind you know and that's a sad to let somebody down like that and I couldn't control it were you sad were you let down oh you were disappointed I knew you were just not disappointed in our marriage at all um and and I don't know that this is I don't know it just was looking back I think contextually in the conversation of our faith journey I see how much damage the rhetoric and just the narrative did to that week that should have been you know amazing this honeymoon um and so but at the time I was just like oh like I guess we just need to figure out sex some more and and intimacy and and uh so it wasn't like a I didn't feel let down by the church at the time uh I did I did I said I feel like I've set up to fail like I set up to um like this modesty like I took that very seriously and it's just like you know the garments like and I hadn't been working I think I've been wearing garments way longer than I had been like mine was just like a few months or a month you know and so it was just different and I felt yeah we both left our honeymoon just feeling like I just wanted to go play on the beach or like we went to Hawaii and any type of like going to the bedroom scared me so I just wanted to be outside doing something Nick actually was on crutches because he had hurt his leg doing his water jet pack anything that he was doing at the time not a little company um so we couldn't do any hikes or anything because he was on crutches so it was like we were it was just a weird week that we both had so much build up towards and then just were let down yeah so you felt really disappointed yeah and so people are like oh I wanted a honeymoon stage and I'm like it never really even started like like we yeah that was the first hurdle and it was just like trying to learn sex the same time that Nick was starting a company and draining our savings and then a few months later is when Nick said I have questions and so it was just a lot that first year yeah um I never want to go back to that first year it was so bad I don't think people can fully let's just say non-mormons that are watching people that don't understand kind of an orthodox fundamentalist religious mindset but it's like what's wrong you're both young you're both attractive you're both naked you've got a week you're in Hawaii what what is the problem what would go wrong why isn't it just fun and you're exploring and you're having sex and you're swimming and you're getting to know each other why wasn't it just this fun frolicky thing I mean I know you've already said it but I'm just I mean the brain is an important part of sex and enjoying sex and and pleasure and so that for me was completely occupied by anxiety and shame and all of the rhetoric that I was just going over and over in my head um examples would be what uh that like I hadn't ever explored myself down there and I didn't want him to see before I had seen no nothing he didn't know how to how you worked nothing yeah and I haven't even like looked at myself down there with the mirror like I was just so like I didn't feel self-conscious about my body like I felt confident about my body but I resented my sexuality and that also Taps into resenting my body you know and so the brain I'm just learning is just so important into enjoying and having a good consensual experience and that organ was tapped out well yeah and I think just like I mean my exposure was watching movies and like everyone comes at the same time and we climax beautifully together and then it's just and that just wasn't happening um and I'm gonna I'm gonna ask a bit of a tiny explicit question not for any period reasons just because I think it's important that we talk about this stuff yeah so did were you able to orgasm on your honeymoon at all though um I can't even remember if I did I orgasm really quickly like that hasn't been a hurdle in our relationship so that wasn't a problem I think your brain anticipating that this is bad this is not good closing up and then like the first initial period of time where I was exploring like with penetration was obviously very knew that that was really painful so the combo was just a really bad combo but the actual like orgasming and stuff that hasn't been a hurdle and and then if we're being explicit like for me he's never fired my gun my gun was going off at all sorts of times that I did not want it to go off yeah and so it's like let's do this ah shoot we'll try again in an hour yeah after 28 right yeah so I'm just I never remember like like that was a long time to wait and to be disappointed yeah oh 28 years 28 years yeah were you taught about lubrication at all yeah we were given we had a friend who gave us a bucket of coconut oil now anytime coconut oil like cooking we're like oh honey man yeah had your parents or church leaders and you had any education at all um not from the church obviously but uh my mom like she I I there were several conversations but and they mostly dealt around like maturation related stuff and less of like the physics and I think the big thing too was my parents um I don't want to feel like I'm like dogging on their marriage but they didn't have a very affectionate marriage like I know their relationship there was like zero affection and so I'm sure that is a layer that I that impacted that as well but um I wasn't surrounded by anybody a woman who was actively like owning her sexuality I hadn't seen what that looked like um and like I had taken like a BYU marriage course and stuff and there were like I knew like the basics of how things happened and come together and but I just wish that could have been a normalized conversation like every time those conversations were very formal and tons of jokes and tons of like sugar coating and going around the conversation that I just wish someone would have just been like it can get kind of messy and it can like just Natasha hell for Parker like listening to her podcast like really opened some doors just hearing how she talks to her children about stuff that's something I crave and wish that would have been the case I mean in Mormonism it's such a virtue to make it to your marriage without sex yeah and I remember even as a Mormon dad even as a non-believing kind of progressive Mormon dad of teenagers all I cared about was my daughters wouldn't have sex yeah until they're married because that's somehow bad and wrong like that and and I'm wired to still think and feel that way but there's a whole different perspective which is wait what if you are educated about sex in explicit ways what if you're able to date and have sexual experiences explore different partners explore yourself get to know yourself through masturbation and then what if in your courtship you're able to develop a healthy sexual interaction such that by the time you're married you know each other well and you do have a honeymoon but it's but it's beautiful and it's natural and it's fun like that is so non-mormon to have that mindset but all of a sudden I think whoa what if that had been our experience what if that had been your experience I and I think early on we kind of went into that mode we're like you know honestly we would not have minded if we had other sexual experiences outside of marriage because then in that moment like it wouldn't have been this or even just with each other like you know because I mean the first while we're like we're not compatible like this isn't you thought it was a problem yeah it was definitely a problem um with Nick obviously wanting to have sex more than I did with how painful it was and then also I just had to unpack a lot and uh that was definitely a source of pain for sure yeah because I was going to ask why didn't you just sort of say okay it's our first week we're gonna be you know it's it's a process we'll learn there's hiccups but we're just in this fun process of like exploring and okay it was a little painful like what makes it so it was like oh my gosh this may be a big problem versus framing it as just learning and and trying new things and we'll figure it out at the time that's how we framed it like we just thought we just gotta give ourselves times but then like after four months six months eight months a year yeah then it's like at what point is this we're just learning because it seems like it's such a natural thing for young teenagers who are doing it like how come they can do it and we are not doing that yeah so it was like at what point and I just kept telling myself I'm learning I'm learning this isn't okay you know and and at some point it was just like Nick's like this is like actually like we should really think so these problems continued for months and a lot of it I think is honeymoon was um just hard and then this pain reflex was developed where you just the thought of sex is like I'm tightening up this is gonna yeah like any time he would like just show any affection like I would naturally jump like this is going to end in pain you know and so then I became yeah and so then I became less like wanting to like cuddle because I'm like he's just gonna have sex after this and it's just gonna hurt so like it started to like affect other affectionaries in her life and I actually went to a um pelvis pelvic therapist yeah and so I only went one time and I was like okay so I just started using my dilator more frequently and that ended up resolving some of the the pain issue and um but it was just really unfortunate that it took us so long and some of those responses had been formalized so if anything maybe were a message of Hope to anyone listening that because it has gotten so much better yeah but um it's also hard because nobody talks about sex and so I would talk to my friends and they were like my honeymoon was the best thing ever and nobody wants to say they're bad at sex no one wants to come home from their honeymoon after making it to the finish line of being celibate and saying that really sucked like no one had told me anything like that so I felt even more shame of like hearing other friends getting married and saying that their sex life is amazing and just being like yeah same and then I go home and I'm like it's so bad you know and I just wish that more people I mean I know it's such a personal thing but I just would have loved to hear at least from like two friends or something to just be like yeah it was really hard you know because you didn't have people to talk to about no I don't talk about sex even like my twin sister she was very private about her relationship and I didn't even know questions to ask you know like because I had an experience she got married several years before me and I was just yeah yeah it's just kind of a lonely place to be when you're struggling you're in the church you know with sex related stuff and fortunately I feel like it is becoming um a bigger conversation with lots of accounts online they're you know on great resources and podcast but at the time I didn't I hadn't figured out that those existed and so I just felt really alone yeah so is this a big source of sadness and pain for you Chelsea um yeah I I mean it kind of ties into messaging around women in general in the church and it's it's all compounded into one for me and it's a big source of anger okay stop messaging I'm just like I felt like my purpose in the church is like a line in our family tree and it was to have children and to like my body was a very that was my purpose was my body in a lot of ways and then also how to dress my body how to use my body what my body can do and how I what I can talk about um anyway and then to see like oh I actually resent my body and I feel like I'm not able to tap into a healthy sexual life was really difficult what are the messages you receive about your body as a woman a Mormon woman that that way upon you and that may lead you to feel those things like just tell her um lessons like about Chastity were very specific and I was in young women's at the time of like the chewed gum analogy was being used it's you know like if you have sex or if you're sexually promiscuous it's like your chewed gum and your spouse your future husband will not want you you know and so it was kind of like my tied to Eternity which is being married in the temple was relating back to my sexuality and modesty was a huge one for me what does that tell us what that is Modesty of like I mean we'd go to girls camp and our headlines would be measured you know like your shorts had to be so long um you had to have like the cap sleeves and you know the dance dresses like our young women's leaders would want to see her dance dresses and you'd you know in the Utah County you would wear your dance dresses to church the Sunday after a big dance at school and if it wasn't modest you wouldn't be wearing a dress you know so there were just so many different things of it just um was all-consuming it was the air I was breathing um and the young woman who showed up to church wearing inappropriate attire like a spaghetti strap or shirt or something like that would be mocked they would be judged and girls would talk about them leaders would pull them aside sometimes you'd be sent home from activities um they're big repercussions for addressing quote and modestly at church or even at school the girls would say oh you're wearing that at school but then you wear this at church you know like it's just and the the leaders would reinforce it and the strength of Youth pamphlet like I had that thing highlighted of you know the standards that we need to keep and how to kiss and how to date and what activities were appropriate and inappropriate for a date um it's just very specific guidelines and it's impossible not to judge yourself or others with those specific measurements and that and that ends up harming you later how um I mean I I'm sure there are some women who remained semi-unscathed maybe but for me it definitely affected um uh the way that I view sex and the way that I view my because with Nick of like it being dirty of uh they're just being a pit of Shame of any time you know I'd get to making out I would know my Bishop is going to be disappointed in me or my family yeah and negative associations with sex related activities in general um in your body my body my unclothed body is uh is dirty is unwanted is a sin is um and you don't just shake that off you can't I mean it's just like ingrained and I know my mom even said at one point she's like if you like you could wear a bikini like she was a little bit more open-minded um that way which I really appreciate um but I was like are you kidding me sister burning Hammer you know would be so upset and um and I was like one piece only you know and um it was just I it was yeah and then you have the Honor Code office and at BYU and so that's also reinforced of how what to wear and not wear at BYU's campus and I mean not only could it be us like church the negative Church repercussions but social repercussions as well and um anyway it sounds like just lots of associations with bad with fear of dirty of of of uh negative consequences and if you're bombarded with those negative associations right for a decade then all of a sudden how do you just start being a sexual being have a healthy sexual relationship with your spouse be naked in front of your spouse do sexual things and not be constantly bombarded by those negative associations I hadn't really heard too many positive that's the thing is like bombarding with negative but there wasn't uh this counter swing of well sex is just so wonderful because no one talks about how wonderful like they would maybe make like a passing comment like sex is great you should wait you know but like there was never this uh I don't know this feeling of women just talking about how they loved their body and their sexuality and um liked being naked or you know like the one positive was children and so that's what I associated with like sex is for children you know and and that was the one like starting a family you know and I and yeah it took us like a year to get pregnant with Ellie but I can't imagine the hurt it must be for people you know who go years with trying you know because I feel like for me that was the one positive Association that I had with sex or that's what you told like how you as a woman in the church provide value yeah that's my value in our family and so there's just so much so much to unpack and maybe not everyone had that experience growing up but in our award in Utah County or I mean in Davis County that's that was the messaging that I was internalizing so Nick recess and I did a podcast with uh Amy McPhee all the best about patriarchy and how patriarchy can hurt men too were there any negative implications for you for all these messages about modesty and women and sex and shame or was it mostly Chelsea that was affected yeah I don't know that I internalized um in the same way that Charles did like I think I was ready to like okay like can't you know sex is bad or or I don't know but I was ready when we got married to be like sex is great now like this is flip the switch um so yeah I don't know that that it really is the woman that has the burden in Mormonism of oh absolutely being pure of not of dressing they don't talk to boys about how to dress and if men have improper thoughts it's the girl's fault for not dressing appropriately um yeah that was definitely the message I was getting and that's what we would hear you know at combined youth activities um and also the number of activities and um lessons centered around this for women are so much higher than men like they're just more frequent like we were constantly talking about Chastity and modesty and Purity Purity was such a big thing and virtue um Purity and virtue I mean those were just really important things for me because that's what I was hearing all the time and you guys were doing different lessons talking about film setting up tents we're we're talking a lot about this but I really think you know when they talk about divorces it's sex money you know in-laws like they're there's some main reasons why people get divorced and sex is one of the main reasons and so we're spending this long on it just to make sure we drive home the point that for all the good things that I'm sure are associated with being raised Mormon yeah the Mormon Church gets sex wrong in so many ways and it really has significantly negative impacts for so many marriages um that it really is a plague in it and we have to talk more about it or we're not going to learn from it and so I know Church Headquarters listens to my podcast and watches pay attention fix your messaging around sex thank you very much please yeah okay okay anything else before we talk about faith stuff or other no that's I think that's no it's all out on the table so thanks for thanks for doing that really yeah thank you okay so when what other cracks start developing or good things you know whatever yeah no let's focus on the negative no um I think pretty early on I remember one time Chelsea doesn't even remember this I we had been driving and we're coming in walking in from our car and I don't even know contextually how it fit in but I asked could you ever see yourself leaving the church and Chels was like I could imagine a a nightmare scenario where and I was like oh like I cannot even I think we've been talking about someone who had left the church and I was like can you even imagine yourself doing that and um and I remember being like no no like how could you even imagine any scenario the worst possible thing could happen and I we would never leave the church but I remember you saying like there's a scenario and I remember thinking like should there be should there be a nightmare scenario under which I would have to reconsider and and I don't know why that stuck with me but it was around that time that there was just um I don't know and honestly it start out with just a few tiny things that are nothings like the the the the seagull story that the seagulls came and that there was the Crickets and and that just swarms of Seagulls came and and ate all you know because the crickets were yeah and it turns out there's like there's like one journal entry about a woman like oh and there were some seagulls you know and it just got that's just been just retold and retolded yeah in Mormon lore yeah so so there's that there's the story of the Three um Pioneers who carried every single uh person in their hand cart company across the freezing Lake and then they all died because of uh their exposure to the cold and then Brigham Young said that they would all be uh go straight to the Celestial Kingdom and it turns out like they I think they all lived to semi-older Pioneer ages they didn't die yeah uh at least not right then yeah um and so finding these tiny little stories that I'd always just been like oh these are these are good faith promoters another another one that I randomly came across and I don't know I don't even know what caused me I must have seen one of these and just thought like oh wow are are the other ones valid but I I remember looking into the um Joseph Smith Brigham Young succession crisis and you know we've all heard that Brigham Young stood up and everyone hurt even though he was speaking they heard Joseph's voice and and uh are you learning this stuff I don't even like ah this is edgy stuff so you're talking about when Sydney Rigdon yeah Sydney and Brigham Young are fighting yeah yeah I had no clue that there was any type of but that I I remember around this time what is the truth what's the problem there were just tiny little oh well yeah there was a lot more politicking going on um and it's been a while since I've visited that story let's see if I'm right so basically the story is that the the members in Nauvoo after Joseph died don't know who they should follow yeah says follow him Brigham says follow him and the story is that when Brigham stands up The Voice or the countenance of Joseph kind of overcomes Brigham and that signals to all the members yeah that they should follow brick yeah and that every single member had that exact same experience and it was a no-brainer and how is that not necessarily and uh and don't quote because it's been a while since I've uh researched this um but yeah just that there was a lot more going on behind the scenes uh in that that was not the clear experience for many if not most people yeah the way I remember and there's a dialogue article about this is there's no account of anyone ever writing that story down when it happened yeah yeah at the time it was years later somebody tells that story in a general conference and then it starts getting retold yeah but there's no and just like these other stories and then years down the road there's people that say they were at that event that experienced it yeah who we know weren't even there because they were on missions in England and so it sounds like it becomes this kind of collective memory thing that almost gets created out of nowhere and then retold but there's no evidence right before because he's in the seven no he's in the not 70. yeah which is much more outside of of Naboo yeah and he calls a ton of people to be 70s right before that so that they kind of report to him and will feel loyalty to him yeah and I just had no clue and so there's you know and at the time I I came across a couple of these stories um and was and they just kind of like it just kind of got some gear string and I remember telling Charles like oh you know I want to learn more about Joseph Smith from not just church published books and so I remember even like praying about it and feeling good I'm gonna read rough Stone Rolling and uh and I remember telling you like yeah um this is around what year approximately this would be 20 50 28 we got married in 2014 so probably the end of 2014. yeah early 2015 that time frame and so reading rough Stone Rolling I was like oh this is not the Joseph Smith that I grew up that I testified to everyone about on my mission what are some of the things you that surprised you oh man it's been honestly it feels like it's been a bit um it's okay if you don't remember yeah I I mean there's a lot I just don't know what to go into but his demeanor in a lot of ways like he he was very I mean we we talk about Joseph's like um he couldn't even write a letter at the time but he's he spends his whole childhood telling these phenomenal stories about Indians very much a a Storyteller and treasure digging uh things like that um there and then I don't know just kind of it painted a picture of someone who's power hungry and vengeful and uh you know polygamy okay yeah actually polygamy was a big Revelation for me um that like oh it was just Emma like and I know and like I knew growing up that that Joseph Smith was technically polygamous but I just was like oh those were all spiritual uh marriages and so learning about uh fannies sucks yeah yeah yeah um but learning about the mechanics of how it happened you know with Fanny and then others and then others and Emma not knowing about this um and then I started listening I'm lying about it yeah denying it yeah and like marrying it was it the Kimball sisters and then remarrying them in front of Emma so that she because he marries the Two Sisters without him as permission yeah then he gets him on board but he but he's already married these two and he's mad he's worried that Emma might find out so he has a sham marriage performed where she's giving her permission for her in front of her with her permission he marries them again not letting her know that he had already married once and other people are in on the Sham of fooling Emma yeah that's kind of disturbing yeah and I apologize I feel Rusty on these um it's I'm here for you it feels like I've you know moved on and that's been a while that but for for months um you know what what turned into and I remember you telling me on an earlier conversation of like some of the numbers don't make sense in the Book of Mormon that was a big thing for him which I'm like I haven't really even thought about just the wars and the numbers and the Nephites and lamanites and millions it's basically millions of people dying in these huge epic battles with swords and shields and helmets and then there's no archaeological yes and also Nephi and his family coming to the Americas and then they split up into two groups they're having Wars people are dying you can only a small group of people can only reproduce at a given rate even if they're having enormous piles of babies and they're having Wars you're not going to end up in multiple civilization two civilizations of millions of people anytime soon a couple hundred years yeah and I just um population growth doesn't the math doesn't work yeah so there were just things like this and uh and I was being very open with Chels at the time which was I I think the best thing I could have done but not going well because you know we're having these conversations and like oh well okay actually let me back up because I'm I guess I'm still reading rough Stone Rolling and bringing questions to you and you're like I'm almost plugged into like your podcast yeah was that scary to start listening to Mormon stories did you know it was yeah yeah I knew who you were if I didn't excommunicated by this point I think it was around that okay 2014. yeah I was warned in 15 I was excommunicated okay yeah so I was I was ramping in right around then but I do remember one thing that uh early on just was a big nail in the coffin I spent my mission thinking the temple came directly from God and you know this is Pure Heaven um content and but it's you know I remember going through it for the first time and thinking like church must be true because no one could have made that up and that you know that might this this must be straight from God who would make this up trouble ceremony yeah and so I went through my whole mission every night I'd go to bed and I would be thinking through the signs and thinking through the tokens and doing them on like I'd be laying in bed and being like put my fingers here put my finger here what am I supposed to mean this this is supposed to unlock huge troves of knowledge and you can't get into heaven without it yeah and I am not and right now they just seem like dinky little passcode things that God will be like what's the sign like and he's like great you made it like what there wasn't like there's supposed to be a lot of meaning here and and so I had spent so much time and I had assigned a lot of value to those you know like they had over time repeating and thinking through them like you know my finger in this place means this and that is very profound for me and then I I remember learning about the history of the endowment and that there are um oath and self-harming um actions that you take in realizing that a lot of the a lot of the value that I had assigned to certain hand movements that those did not mean what I had what I had caused them to mean in my mind that they were just relics of something that is absolutely horrifying slitting your throat pulling I like I I want to go too graphic but for those who don't know we're talking about holdovers from the Masonic Lodge Temple ceremony where you would make actions of slitting your throat or disemballing yourself and this is how it was when I went through the Mormon Temple they changed it between what I went through and you went through they changed in 1990 but if you want to go on the temple you can go YouTube you can Google it and you can see the motion you'd make to Slit your own throat or to cut out your own heart or to disembowel yourself yeah and it was super disturbing but was doubly disturbing was that it was just Joseph was a Mason he learned all this as a mason in Nauvoo in the secret Mason Temple ceremony and then he just brought that into the Mormon endowment ceremony so that makes you wool is this Divine or is this just something he copied and pasted from another yeah secrets and it's so violent and then you why and then it's why is it changing because you think that the temple ceremony is a revelation from God and then you find out they're just oh got a little social pressure okay let's take a couple things out oh we got a little more social pressure let's take a more so they're editing it it's it's it's plagiarized from somewhere else it's graphic it's violent all those things can be really traumatic yeah is that right I don't mean to tell you yeah well yeah and and it was just learning that that is the history of these signs and I threw so much effort on my part and spiritual confirmations and feeling this I think that was a moment where I was like oh like I can't I can't trust the Revelation that I'm receiving again and feeling based Revelation because um feelings are not the best way to determine whether something is right or not they can be a great way of determining is this good for me um but whether something is true or not or uh I don't know feelings I that's why I started to realize that everything that I've known so solidly my whole life uh I'm finding additional information that's making me wonder did I know those things and so I I think looking back I can see that even when we got married there were things on my shelf that I was that I could not have even acknowledged me if you'd asked me Point Blank about them um but they were there and and just yeah these cracks start coming and then all this was getting dumped on shells I wonder if like the act of going getting married in the temple like you had subconsciously given yourself permission to explore that because I feel like before we got married if you would have told me these things I I would have been like I'm running yeah and I absolutely knew like if I leave the church um or if I even had questions not that I was considering having questions at the time but like that would end it for this relationship and for my future with anyone in the temple so Chelsea let's hear from your point of view what's it like when you're like you had your dad who struggled you had your parents that struggled you held out for like the perfect Mormon guy you found the perfect Mormon guy he checks all the boxes you get married you have kind of the sexual discomfort and shame and guilt and now all of a sudden the perfect Mormon guy starts reading rough Stone Rolling listening to like potentially sketchy podcasts and super sketchy and then starts uh coming to you with doubts and questions tell the story from your perspective well I I mean it started out little like he just I don't know if he was softballing it I'm not I I mean and this was at the beginning he just said I have some questions like are you comfortable with me exploring and I appreciated that gesture and I said of course like my I feel like my mom laid this Foundation of like we don't need a fear doubt like questions are good and um so I just didn't even think anything of it and I was serving as young woman's president at the time in our award and I was just at the church all the time and um just doing activities with the girls we only had like maybe seven eight girls but um it was a lot like I spent a lot of time with the girls um and anyway so it was weird because I was like really amping up my participation in church and I would come home and I could see Nick was welding stuff often for his water jetpack company that he was starting at the time and he was always plugged in probably to your podcast and he was always plugged in and and um between our conversations like every week like big jumps would be happening and it was really alarming because I you know at some point I was like okay he would say something about Joseph Smith and I would say oh I didn't know that or I don't I can't really explain why that is and he told me about the temple because that was such a big thing for him and I was like I didn't know that like that's that is really troubling you know I was trying to be empathetic and validating but also keep myself at a distance because like I didn't want to unravel as I was watching him do it um and I remember one conversation we had this was like in the duration of a year about our first year anniversaries when he was like this I this doesn't resonate with me I don't believe by 2015 he's like I don't believe anymore yeah so it was blown full blown it happened so fast it was just unraveling and I was just watching and I was I was scared but also like it's kind of a shameful thing that I didn't talk to anybody about it I was just we just go home and like in our apartment and and he would just be like unraveling and he was obviously angry and confused and you know all of the feelings of feeling like he was lied to or you know just felt betrayed and um but he was very tactful like he didn't take it out on me and I think that was a gift that if I think if he would have I our trajectories probably would have been very different yeah and I just fully realized that like I'm the one who's messing stuff up at one point you know and I was just like crying and really confused because we had a conversation of like okay if God can be on the table we can make this work out if you don't like Joseph Smith that's okay we can like focus on God and he's like well I just don't know if I believe in God you know that's a huge heavy hitter and I was just like okay I don't know how this is gonna work so what was that like for you emotionally I mean I was oh for sure I was like we just our marriage is awful like divorce was for sure on the table we talked about it when you're in yeah and and Nick was he did come to me and he's like apologetic I mean I know that he kind of like is a victim in this of us he was unraveling but like he was like I realized I changed our LDS Plan like we had this lifestyle that we both signed up for we had like signed that contract essentially and I'm the one changing it I know that I'm changing it um and he's like if you want to get out of this marriage like I support that I want this to work I want to stay married to you but I know that I've changed it substantially enough that if you don't I support that and that was just like a little Olive Branch to me where I'm like okay he's not out to get me and that's when I started to strip away like him attacking or deconstructing the church wasn't deconstructing me you know like I had to separate myself from the church and watch him deconstruct but he wasn't deconstructing his relationship with me and so we had a very Frank conversation about we want to stay married or try to make this work at least so why did you so there are spouses that just say huh no this the deal is church or nothing so like it's either you stay in the church or I'm I'm out of here why weren't you especially because you had had other bumps right why weren't you just I'm done I'm out honestly um The Narrative and the stories I've told myself growing up of why people leave the church or they're like deceived they're wanting to sin they're evil like Nick hadn't changed his personality was I mean he was obviously grieving which I could sense but he was still the same man I married and I I knew that and uh and he was starting to like I would go to ward council and they would talk about Nick you know because they talk about people on The Ward and and Nick would come up and people saying like the light is gone from his eyes or maybe we should make him an assignment to get him like they could just perceive that there was a something happening on his end and just watching like and hearing what people would say about Nick but then going home and I'm like well Nick isn't like me like he's not mean or he's not wanting to sin like I could tell he was like really intently trying to figure out what was going on and a big thing was the support group in Salt Lake the faith again meet up talk about that so Nick did you go before without me one time yeah so I went so that's what it is and how you heard about it so it um it's a group of um I I guess every month they get together and they'll have someone from Memphis is that right is that yeah yeah there is there's Jay Jay Griffiths Jay Griffith is that right it's been a bit as well I apologize group he meets holiday-ish yeah and I can't tell you where they're I bet they're not meeting right now uh with kovid but I still get emails that they're doing virtual events but it's basically a group that once uh a month they'll have someone present um and kind of like a sunstone-ish crowd uh someone from the the church history department will talk about uh Christopherson was I guess yeah faithful intellectual Mormons yeah people who are awesome I couldn't talk about hard things in Sunday school so they went had a place like this to go yeah yeah so I mean what I I and I don't know that I could give you the best pitch for what the group is other than it it was a room full of very thoughtful people who it seemed like had dealt with these issues and had had to really drag themselves through you know this an ugly realization that what everything that they knew wasn't everything wasn't you know just clean and pretty this is like a wide range of individuals like so Nick took me the second time and said I think you might be interested because I was still kind of grappling what well let me tell the first time I went was Thomas worthland McConkey and he had just written the book uh navigating Mormon faith crisis and he started out and did a meditation uh 10 minutes and then uh just talked through the Mormon uh or uh adult development stages and how that um just sinks really well with with the faith transition and I just felt I felt like I was among kindred spirits and I I just felt the spirit or what I wouldn't have called it the spirit but just I felt so at home and understood and validate and these were like people who were leaving the church or struggling with the church or just struggling with information aren't bad people these are these are the cream of the crop and they're really good people and so yeah I remember coming back to you and telling you like that was like top five one of the most spiritual experiences that I've had and so him and giving that yeah to me yeah because he came home and and you read the book Thomas's book and you were just like he he was just raving about it and so I said I want to go with you next time because I definitely needed I could sense that I needed a little bit more of that empathy because I my only exposure to someone really actively deconstructing was Nick um so we went and I don't even remember who the guest speaker was it didn't really matter honestly because I was just sitting in the bathroom with Nick and then I just saw like just so many people and I'm like this is so much bigger than Nick and people were asking very thoughtful questions and they're like grandparents who are trying to make it work for their adult children and their you know people our age there are people who are raising small children like I it just completely obliterated what I had the narrative I created about people who were struggling like completely like it was just like the most what's making you feel emotional I just I'm just so grateful that people create spaces you know and people have podcasts like you like create a place where people can explore the struggle and and find humanity you know and uh that was such a gift to Nick and then Nick in turn gave that gift to me and I at the time I didn't feel like it was a gift you know I was still really angry that he was sabotaging her family but you know it was it was a big moment a very clear moment for me that I was like wow there's something here that I need to learn and and to rewind I think you asked um how did Charles go through all of this and not get defensive and say like whoa you're changing the agreement I'm out uh and uh I mean the answer is that Chels cares Chelsea is an incredible empath and she when she sees someone hurting she more than defending herself she wants to find out why that person's hurting even if the facts behind why that person is hurting is hurtful to you I don't want to take away like I was very defensive like we fought a lot like our neighbors uh probably heard a lot as we were trying to set boundaries because Nick would just like as he as I started to empathize a little bit more you know then he would feel more comfortable of like yeah well did you know this or like maybe you should read this and sometimes it was a fire hose and you know when you're feel what and I would feel defensive and I would feel like I could feel myself shifting you know I could feel like my testimony like I was still in young women's and I was bearing my testimony like every single Sunday basically and it was changing and I was slowly like the lessons I was like I felt like restricted like I couldn't talk as openly as I had once been able to and my testimony just became more and more generic like it was more like I love you and I just want you to be happy you know and it was never like placed it and actually quite a few of the young women um have left the church and it's been interesting an interesting Dynamic since so your lessons to the young women got generic got more generic questions yeah yeah because I'm like I can't teach this lesson on Joseph Smith like after like talking to Nick about some things like I was like I need to do more research and I don't want to teach someone something that I don't know for sure without like researching and and I knew like you know when you know there's like the Europe polygamy podcast I held off on that for years because I knew if I listened to that it would hurt so bad um anyway so I just like I I held it off because I just knew if I did that it would hurt and I would unravel you know and it's a weird place to be to like know that there's stuff you don't know and if you do happen to go in that room that it could shift things drastically you were holding off why say it again the church was everything the community belonging um I had really good experiences that quote I could not deny you know there's just a lot that was my roots were in the church and what did you fear I if you like if you let your guard I didn't know life outside of the church I didn't know that I don't know I didn't know what to fear you became like the anchor in our family and our future potential children like now that I'm out you're the only thing that this kind of goes into like when we started telling family and I know there was the idea of like okay well the children are on you now like if you leave the whole family will be wiped off they put the pressure on you again yeah I think it was the intentions were good but yes it was like you if you leave the church the whole family will be gone you know and so there's also the added pressure of like I don't want to disappoint people around me you know yeah marriage is hard enough like marriage is hard for everyone yeah you're dealing with all this the sexual stuff and then all this Faith stuff that's and it's your first year of marriage that's a lot yeah yeah it was a lot and ninja and you're building a career right yeah so we were traveling around the country doing boat shows and it's stuff and anyway that first year was really hard and I don't want to say like it's easy to go in hindsight and be like Oh but you know I empathized and it was like it was hard like we fought a lot and I don't want to minimize that because we were trying to set boundaries and I didn't really know another mixed Faith couple that was making it work and so I didn't know what it looked like and so we were trying to figure that out yeah so and then comes yeah I don't know if we want to talk about telling family or children or what's next what is next I guess we we stayed quiet about it for a while and then we kept going to Nick's family's house and we would kneel to pray and inside their house his family's house is like a temple it's a Temple and so I felt like an imposter we would go to family dinners and Nick here he's like I don't believe in God no one in his family knew anything about it and I would just go feeling like we're lying we're lying to them so you didn't want to come out to your parents well yeah and I was fine just being like this is my thing and I'm keeping it to myself but more and more I kept realizing how this is affecting Charles that people would ask like what's your husband's calling or just just random little things where Charles kept feeling like she had to cover up for me I kept feeling like this is Nick's story to tell but really it was my story to tell too like it we are married and being in a mixed Faith marriage like I felt abandoned in a lot of ways and I didn't have support and so I said Nick you need to tell somebody so I can tell somebody can I back up could you for a second yeah so like I'm a parent I have four kids and I think like now as I'm trying to learn about what it means to be a healthy parent I realize that the number one thing I want the number one indicator that I'm a healthy parent a good parent is if my kids tell me everything like if my kids will tell me everything about what's going on in their lives the good and the bad the hard and the good then I know I'm making them feel safe making them feel comfortable that we have emotional intimacy that's how I measure and so I just want to contrast that with the idea that like your parents love you Nick you're in this super tight-knit family family is everything you've got the gold star five star Mormon family you're going through a earth-shattering the most difficult thing you probably had ever experienced up until that point in your life the biggest dramatic explosion of sadness ever in a first year of marriage and your reaction is I can't talk to my family like what is that what is that yeah I mean or or can't talk to anyone oh first you're Mormon and then you're homer so I'm sure the odds a layer of right yeah yeah and talking to anyone it's not just like oh this is like embarrassing I want like it would ruin their day and month and years if I bring this up to them were you afraid would happen if you talk to your parents oh ABS it would just it would be devastating for them to them to them yeah that's not all but okay oh I mean devastating for me I I I don't know it's just this severing of like ever because I look back through my whole life of mission and Seminary and scriptures and it was all like I knew that that's what was expected and then that's what a good Mormon boy does and a lot of that I I realized looking back that I got a little bit of a high of every time someone would be like well the expectation is we don't drink caffeine and I'm like I'm gonna do that so well I won't even know what caffeine you know looks like or like whatever like I really like you gave me that expectation and I I feel like I met it and then this is just I don't know being public about this is like oh and I've fallen completely from every expectation you've ever had yeah so there's the fear of disappointing them and and so many Mormon parents will blame themselves how did I feel what did I do wrong as parents so kids so I mean this is this is where we get in the territory of unhealthy organizations I don't like to use the word cult on Mormon stories so I'm just going to say unhealthy organizations what are the features of an unhealthy organization and one feature of an unhealthy organization is when spouse you know spouses or parent-child relationships where people can't tell each other what's going on that's a red flag if you're in an organization that makes you feel like you can't tell your partner or your parents or your children what's going on there is something terribly wrong okay but but if we go one level deeper on that you don't want to tell your parents because you don't want them to feel like their failures but also you don't want to tell them because you have what I call the Nephi complex you love being Nephi yeah your ego your sense of self your ego your pride your identity is all wrapped up in being the noble Nephi child and all of a sudden telling your parents means they're going to no longer see you as that Golden Child and you're going to just fall from grace in their eyes I don't mean to project that onto you no that's absolutely um absolutely the case um so yeah and and you lose their love basically yeah and so for me I was fine just being like I'll just keep this to myself this will be my thing maybe it'll come out over time um but one thing I will say going through this and we've painted a picture of a pretty dreary first year of marriage I would say at some point it transitioned into US throwing all expectations out the window and just seeing each other for who we are two broken people who deserve to be loved and understood and who are dealing with things and struggling things and and there was and it's just looking back over time um this beautiful like I don't know respect and love for each other has blossomed from such a terrible Faith transition and more and more I'm seeing myself looking at Charles like wow like she she just deserves to be able to like this is as much as this is my secret this is her dirty secret that she's having to keep in the closet and hide from everyone and like and so I think you wanted to be more open and be able to talk about it much more than that just a fun like one or two friends or somebody that I could talk to because it just is so isolating and um yeah there's so much to care and then to be around next family where everything like every conversation is relating somehow like back to the church and I'm like this just feels wrong dishonest right yeah yeah it does lighting yeah we're being inauthentic and um anyways so you had a conversation with your mom yeah I was home one night um and somehow I don't know something came up ah I don't know this is Chad um LGBT uh I had a roommate who ended up uh we were uh friends in high school and I think it was Chad um yeah he ended up uh coming out his game at the time I'm full BYU I was like why would you choose that you know and then over time realize like oh my gosh how beautiful and he ended up marrying someone and they're so happy and um and so I think something was expressed about lgbtq and I was like I just don't know if I think that and and I know my mom was like well wait what are you saying you don't think this or you don't think that the prophets and and you were testing the water yeah and it just I had no intention of coming out like this but over the course of 15 minutes it's my mom myself and my younger brother it just turned into like well do you think this like no and then pretty soon she's crying and it just turned into a really ugly sad I mean it wasn't ugly like yelling at each other but just a really sad falling from Grace like what you talked about when she realized that you communicated what to her the the yeah it culminated kind of these tiny baby questions of do you will this how about that culminated in I don't I'm not a believing member of the church and I'm trying to yeah so um and it wasn't I just didn't anticipate it happening then and she broke down sobbing so yeah she broke down and uh yeah the next so I you know the memory of that night is fading but it was just it was sad and my dad wasn't there but um instantly it was well uh I think I left him and my dad texted me and said it sounds like you had a conversation with Mom would you mind coming back tonight and we can talk tomorrow so the next night I was up there and to my surprise um I know it was really hard for my mom and and I think she shifted into defensive mode um talking to my dad he was very open and like oh well you know tell me about the thing like tell me about like I want to know the information that you're struggling with I'd like to look into that too and see if I can find answers and so then you know I'm dropping stuff like well like you know I'm not just blindly following this document but like if you want a good overview like CES letter you could you could poke through that and so then my parents are both like well we gotta read the CES letter and find all the answers and then they read that and instantly shift into like Nick is full-blown deceived this is like anti-morphin propaganda and he read this and just believed everything and he's gone and so uh there was just there was a lot of back and forth and and then and to their credit especially my dad he spent a lot of time looking into all these things and trying to find they can send you fair Mormon stuff yeah I actually and man my memory is not doing great today but I actually he set up a meeting with one of the former um leaders of of fair Mormon um and we spend a night talking about um you know well why is this an issue and why is that in and uh you know everything else is like ah this just feels very apologist and like remember what types of issues you discussing yeah like well Joseph the the failing Bank um yeah yeah and well when we look at these things it actually turns out that Joseph did everything right and there were you know elements Beyond his control that actually um you know and so there's people who lose their life savings yeah yeah so anyway I from my standpoint I think I went in expecting that like never come home again or at least until you've figured this out we need some distance and that distance looks like probably five years distance so just like I went in expecting that we cut off yes expectations were so low that he was like I didn't die yeah and like right they still loved me uh and so overall I realized it was absolutely so devastating for this did Fair Mormon help uh no no I I was at a point did it help in your relationship with you and your parents no why no it was clear I guess the why did it help you why did it help your relationship with your parents it didn't help me because I I felt like I had been very thoughtful in searching Out Source material around all these issues that I'm dealing with and if someone comes back and Cherry picks just like oh well you know like that actually was a good thing it's not a bad thing it's a faith promoting thing if you look at it this way and like maybe if there's this one issue and you have to you know revise how you look at it like okay maybe but if there's a hundred issues and every single one of them you have to do a mental you know gymnastics backflip to be like well if you kind of Twisted it works at the end I'm like no you were you were trying way too hard and and you were looking at this first with the conclusion that the church is true and then how can I make this make it look like the church is true and that was very clear to me that that like no if I just if I look at all these things and they're all kind of ugly and then they all pile up together to be this ugly mess it's a pretty good chance that under all of that is the the foundation is an ugly mess as well um but I know addressing how did it affect my relationship with my parents I think they're looking at these things and being like well Nick the answers are so simple all of these things you're having problem with Fair Mormon just did a write-up you can just like check check check they're all not problems anymore why aren't you why aren't you being faithful and how you're looking at this yeah and the idea of I should be faithful um or I should have like Sherry Dew's book it's worth the struggle it's all about oh sure you can wrestle with doubts and problems but you have to go to it with the pre-determined conclusion that it's all true and then how do you look at that and make it be true and um if anything I think in life I'm I would like to always be someone who looks at information and this is like oh that's not what I thought I will pivot and I will change what I believe because like rather than fighting against facts and science um big believer in science here and so yeah it just didn't feel like the the responses to these questions um were anti-science not it just bent how can I bend this to maybe look okay but from my parents standpoint it looked like oh Nick is thrown out the spirit and Faith as legitimate um resources when trying to make a decision and for them uh which those things are legitimate uh reasons or or uh things that they can fall back for making a decision it just made me look even worse that that I'm I'm choosing not to look at the faithful answer and I'm choosing to push all that aside and I'm trying to believe the worst possible thing about the church and so apologetics definitely did myself and and them I think disservice um going through all this all right Chelsea what what are what's coming through your mind and how's the story working for you in parallel oh with Nick's Family oh um so I wasn't there for any of those conversations with Nick and his parents um did you relieved did he talk to him at least yeah I was I oh yeah I was really um I I just felt like this it was time like we had done this enough long enough silently um and I actually had my own few conversations with his parents um it's interesting because I was obviously more in the same boat that they were kind of like caught off guard by Nick's deconstruction of his faith and um anyway but they were very they were um approached me like apologetic for their son like they knew that I had issues with dating and like wanting to you know have a great marriage and so they were very kind um but I mean they offered like they said if you divorce her son like we would support that which I know um it was very thoughtful like it was coming from a thoughtful place but uh I came home and told Nick and that was just devastating because for him he was perceiving my only value to you is in the church and I'm still your son I'm still a good person but because I no longer believe like I am not worth it you know what did you think about that statement I was really hurt too because I'm like divorce was already on my mind and so to hear somebody like an outside party say that like that was really troubling because I'm like oh so you're perceiving how bad it is like it was just weird to hear somebody else suggest it caught me off guard for sure and um it and I look at now and I just I feel angry about it but I know like they were grieving and it was literally like perceived as a death for them in their family like to think about eternity and and like so they were definitely grieving and a no-brainer in my parents marriage the church being what holds them together if one of them left the church it'd be like yeah divorce is pretty much on the table and solidified so I I could see how they would project that to us um and that's the Mormon teaching of family that makes that reaction oh just that your salvation uh and especially a woman is tied to the man or and you're tied together and yeah if I'm not going like I know John said if you need a blessing like he kind of stepped into that role that Nick was supposed to fill of being a priesthood leader in our home that he was like I will I will do that he's dead Nick's dad yeah but finish it out but it means yeah if I'm not going down this path and and gonna end up in the Celestial Kingdom you're not going to end up there unless you attach yourself to another man who's going there which is so yeah it was yeah anyway we've had with Nick's family like he didn't tell his siblings for a while um yeah and he ended up sending an email and it was kind of met with I'll let you say it I don't know I I'm sure it was just a painful shock and so um you know there's I I ended upset I'm like I'm not going to call everyone together and be like I'm gonna tell you some really devastating news and make you react in the moment at least for my family it felt better like I'll send an email then they can all like think about it react reflect and maybe we'll have a follow-up conversation within a week or so and and uh I don't know I I received some positive responses an email to everyone yeah did you list all the reasons why or no no I really tried to be absolutely you know yeah just like hey like it was yeah um my brother-in-law responded is like oh that's okay like I have questions too you framed it as I have some questions yeah and then and then someone else got explained to him like no Nick's saying he's out because of those questions and then it was like oh oh I didn't oh shoot so I definitely was very sugar Cody and apologetic and then when everyone realized the magnitude it was yeah it was what well I don't know a lot of uh silence it didn't turn into combative explosions and all it's just kind of and there have been um acknowledgments that like hey I think that what you're doing that you're trying to be good and you're seeking truth and that seems like and I for me I'm like yes like that is as good of a response as I could hope for but I know it has been absolutely just the last thing that they would hope for me and and devastating um yeah and I I perceive the silence as Nick was like Overjoyed that he wasn't completely cut out of his family but I was like I I felt devastated because I also was looking for support you know and because I was like I don't know if this marriage is Gonna Last and that's I call it the Crickets effect that is the most common response from parents from siblings from Ward members it's yeah it's it's like the faith crisis is viewed as a virus it's like a quarantine you you need to quarantine it and the way you quarantine the faith crisis is is uh is is separation you don't talk about it you avoid it and you just pretend it's not there or you risk infecting yourself and other people so we're not blaming Nick's parents we're not making them out to be bad people that is the most common response and it's incredibly hurtful and disappointing and uh traumatic uh for the for the people that are on the receiving end of the silence that's a really great way to put it yeah and I can tell I can see why it makes sense it's it's a very uncomfortable thing to deal with on both sides so I just would like to like if any of one of my in-laws or somebody came to me and even if it was something I just could not comprehend if they came to me in tears saying that they were struggling you know it just it doesn't seem like a natural response but I think that's just so much of the indoctrination and the fear of believing something outside of the church like there's it it's hard to explain to someone who's not a member of the church or part of an orthodox religion just how deep it goes you know yeah what response would you have liked just even an acknowledgment just even if they're like Nick is deceived I don't even know what's going on but like I love you and I support you and it's if there's something that we could do for you to show that better like please tell us yeah anything honestly just just acknowledging that we existed and that it was hard like I'm sorry that this is hard for you you know just something yeah and where I was going to say earlier in contrast to your family like I know you talked to this earlier about you know with your mom yeah what about your mom yeah I guess you can tell she pulled me aside one day like I was just in her car and she said um I know Nick is a good man like she she recognized that and he was you know very involved in my life and um anyway she just said is this something that I should support you know she just put that out on the table I said yes like Nick and I are wanting to make it work and she's like okay like that it was just a very like she yeah she just got on board immediately and she's like I I want you to still believe in God like I want you to still find Value in the church like that's where she hoped for me but she's like if you want to stay married to Nick I know he's a good man so she was supportive yeah so that's a that's a good response yeah yeah I really really appreciated her response and my dad was the same like um they were divorced at the time or separated at least and yeah and he was obviously very emotional and just like I the church means everything you know and Boris testimony but he still was like I don't want to lose you so I'm gonna support you so anyway there was a contrast but and with all of your sisters as well it was something we didn't feel like you know we've talked about this coming out with my family it didn't even feel like there needed to be as much of a coming out on your side because it yeah I guess with you and especially Rich who at the time were just like talking we lived so close um and kind of like what you said like I told my mom everything you know and it just seemed like a natural thing like once Nick said I feel comfortable with you talking about it with other people that it was just a natural thing you know so hmm but that has slowly shifted with me being more public about it I think coming out and like disbelieving is one thing and then sharing about it a lot is another so should we go to that next when when you guys started talking openly about that yeah openly and then probably baby blessing time so yeah we had my daughter Ellie and I was still um trying to make the church work uh at the time and so I wanted to bless her and and obviously Nick was at a place where he didn't believe in the priesthood or anything so like that we met with the bishop several times and I mean the bishop in the war that we were in in Bountiful was great like he handled everything the best that he could have you know yeah I think our Warren Bishop would have said like yeah bless like if your baby's Gonna Be Blessed Like if you feel like you can do it do it we're Bountiful he was like you know honestly if you don't believe in in the priesthood like you probably shouldn't do this yeah which I was like okay that's so anyway my dad did it in our home but this had been months and months of agonizing and Nick feeling like this would be a shame-filled experience with him being pigeonholed as a terrible father publicly in front of both of our families because I know as a kid growing up you'd see people bless and anytime I saw a grandparent bless a like recently born child like I would be like Dad has porn problems or like like I would instantly know like the guy's not he's doing something wrong shame on you Dad um and that's you know it's the Mormon dad blesses the babe the Mormon baby into the you know gives them a name and a blessing into the church it's a ritual like a baptism or a christening and it's all was supposed to be the dad that does it yeah it's it's in the ward it's at church it's in front of everybody traditionally and so if the dad doesn't do it then everybody's saying why there must be a reasoning is he into porn is he an addict like what's the problem and so and even if there's nothing wrong and you're just having doubts and questions a leader can say well you're not worthy to bless your kid so now Chelsea's dad has to do it or some member of the ward and it's almost like being cuckold it's almost like being emasculated yep absolutely like the person like the first ride of passage for uh Ali I am not a good enough dad to do and that really sucked um so yeah anyway but I mean we compromised saying let's do it privately in our home that way it won't be like this public shaming Scarlet Letter experience for Nick and both of our families knew where Nick was so it wasn't like a coming out but um anyway the day actually went better than we thought like my dad gave a he came over actually a few days before the blessing and asked what Nick and I would like to be said which I really appreciated that gesture definitely I thought that was really nice so he gave a really respectful blessing like we said maybe it'd be best not to like I bless you to get married in the temple and you know like he kind of took all of that verbage out and just made it more of like and bless you with peace and you know good family and support yeah so it was nice and the day ended up great but you know as with most LDS people are wanting to post about this beautiful day um with your baby in the blessing dress it just felt inauthentic to be like hashtag blessed our child is blessed but all the behind the scenes that had just been agonizing that I kind of came out as saying oh we're mixed faith and my dad blessed her at her house so this is on Instagram this is on Instagram an Instagram post just basically like we're in a mixed Faith uh marriage and my I didn't spell into all the details but I basically just outed ourselves and just said my dad gave a really beautiful blessing like at our house and so I wasn't pretending to be anything but like here's my daughter and her blessing dress you know like and did you have a decent following at the time no I mean just like close family friends acquaintances at BYU um and anyway I was so nervous though because most before that I was just sharing pictures of like my family fun vacations we went on and so I like was so nervous I turned my phone off uh just like the vulnerability hangover and uh then I turned my phone on like later that night and it was just like an outpouring of love and lots of messages of um support and quite a few friends who I had no idea were also in a mixed Faith marriage or trying to figure out like if they should stay in the church or not and so that was just kind of a blessing of like oh wow there's just so many of us and I just had no idea so by opening up yeah others it like invited others to come and share some of their hardship and and I it was a really positive experience Sam it's the gift of vulnerability that is it is so and that was the first time that we had shared anything and then I didn't talk about it um after that until a roommate who or not a roommate a friend who actually was living next door to us the time that we were setting boundaries and fighting a lot she works for the church and she worked in the marketing department and she said the church is doing this program or trying to do this I don't know it's a new like social media initiative yes and she's like we called eight or nine people to be guinea pigs to share a less traditional viewpoint on something about aspect of the church this was 2015 the beginning of 2015. so the church realizes that there are problems and they're they're trying to so they're trying to humanize a few little aspects so she's like I love your baby blessing post and about mixed ear makes Faith marriage what if you share something like that on the church's Instagram yeah I do correct this is 2017. because this is Ellie's book oh that's true yeah 2017. sorry okay so 2017 the church is realizing that social media is getting away from them yeah November policy November policy like the internet is like swamping the church with yeah problems and so they realize we need to we need to get in front of that have proactive social media campaigns that that maybe help people feel more comfortable that maybe address some tough issues so it's a it's an explicit PR Church marketing initiative to reach out to Social influencers and what um and just share a snippet of your life that doesn't quite align with what you would see as a typical LDS Family so the whitewashed perfect everything's perfect yeah so there said there were eight or nine of us I don't know who else um like I didn't know anyone else who she called but she said okay just write something and you know the church has a bunch of different like blogs and offshoots of so I didn't know it was going to be the official Church Instagram until like the day before and um I started to get nervous because at that point like I mean it was The Scarlet Letter for Nick's family to have like I don't even think anyone in your ward home family or anybody yeah knew anything about you and so the fact that anyone who follows the church online would know that Nicks left the church like I know that was not something what was the post so on the church official the church official Instagram basically like Nick has left the church photo of you guys yes our baby in her blessing dress the three of us in a photo and then your your text of like the was the text your words yes yeah so I wrote everything yeah that we were in a mixed Faith marriage and uh and it was more about how you can still make it work wasn't it lean in wasn't it like yes it was moving yeah moving closer tell the tell the basic sentiment uh basically like uh if you're struggling to have empathy with people leave the church like moving or move in with people who have who don't look like the traditional believing spouse so I talked about like someone not being able to bless their baby you know and like just moving in closer to hear their stories and when you find out more about them it'll be harder to villainize and to think less of them so basically I was like let's stop judging people for not fitting the norm in the church and I guess if we're going to give credit where credit is due that's pretty cool though definitely the churches oh 100 yeah vulnerable than to talk about some hard things yeah and they're using you guys to help tell the story so the attack I was the very first person that they were rolling out with this new social media program and anyway they tagged me for maybe 30 minutes and it was like my friend texted me and she's like we have to untag you because we're not trying to create like we're not trying to sponsor people because then I just started getting followers like I think I got like five or six hundred followers within 30 minutes and she's like he followers did the church account have at the time yeah something like and then it just started getting like but people attacked me in the comments because they knew me and so like slowly more more people just started reaching out to my private page and it just started rolling out but there I think that was wise of them not to sponsor people because I think they would be very embarrassed of sponsoring me now at this point um but that's weird because they want everyone to follow them and attack them but then they they may not want yeah to promote and tag other people are you in Canton oh no I just okay um so I mean it's there's a bit of a double standard there they want the followers but then they don't want to yeah and they weren't getting any followers from me because I was just a small little account but it was it was a um the feedback was mixed way more mixed than like our little blessing post was all positive uh because I mean the projections of Nick like how could you possibly want your husband to leave like be in the same house with your child that your child's going to hell like all of these weird things you know just comments or messages direct messages uh direct messages of people who like disagreed with what i s you know what I was saying and that was it was mostly positive a little bit of negative but then the church later said uh or the person the woman I was working with to create that post she messaged and said that post performed the second best to president monson's passing like just in the system and it was I don't think it was anything that I wrote I think it was just that they were talking about something that wasn't pretty imperfect and I think people were craving that and they saw that and so they're still doing that on their Instagram now but um just these stories just started rolling out you know of people who felt like they've been marginalized or done align with some of the things about the church anyway so they asked me to write a follow-up blog a few months later so this was 2018 like in June or July when it was published it was who do I choose God or my husband um and this one yeah this one was very mixed response what would you basically say in the article and this is on the church this is on the church yeah LDS once again you thought it might be on like oh one of their blogs or something and it was on like the home page of lds.org for like a couple days on the home page it was on the it was like the friend Center main hero image like who do I choose God or my husband which I later read on a post-mormon uh Facebook group saying what a clickbait title and it is a clickbait title but like it can I just say I had been begging I had talked to Elder Holland about this I had been begging for the church for 15 years to help make some sort of statement to just say don't abandon your spouse if they lose their faith yeah like I this was an answer to my prayers my secular prayers by that point because I had been for 15 plus years swimming in the divorces in the fractured families of all the people the church was just leaving high and dry I I had two lunches with elder Holland and in the second lunch I'm like can the church please just make a statement that says don't leave your spouse this is like 2009 2010 don't leave your spouse if they have a faith crisis because the church is destroying families yeah and it wasn't until this that that it seemed like the church finally started getting the message which which I was sad that it took so long I was outraged that it took so long and I was so happy to see it happen yeah because the narrative before and that's even what I talked about in the article of the narrative is like you get divorced or like you leave your spouse and that's an honorable thing to do um and you know Bishops Bishops would tell couples that yeah board members parents yeah so anyway I I try to humanize Nick as best I possibly could saying like you can do both I can still stay in the church and still love and support my husband who who doesn't so that was the essential meat of this the story and uh it was interesting going back and forth writing because I would use adjectives or describe Nick and anything that was humanizing him would be removed from the article so it definitely had quite a few drafts to get to the one that was published and they wanted to make sure that it was Nick uh leaving and like that was his choice and kind of him inflicting that on our family like it was it was um a weird experience super happy because I was trying so hard to make it work and then this was just another pinpoint of like villainizing Nick which is exactly what my article was trying to say not to do you know and so I mean the employees that I worked with at the church they were wonderful and and doing their job you know I don't have faults with them but just the whole process of writing for the church is really difficult because you have to follow the rules those messages are super correlated yeah they've they've got a message that they want to convey in a framing and you got to fit into their framing in their messaging and you have to like include like there's like a scripture reference or they had a list of things that I needed to include in the blog post so yeah it's really PR you know oh it definitely was super PR yeah yeah so anyway the response to that was like I still have PTSD with posting on Facebook because it was so bad just people I mean no matter what and now as I've stepped away from the church I can see people's um arguments with me you know like why can't she see the light or you know so people were attacking me they were also attacking Nick uh for keeping stakes in the ground of the church like just have the whole family leave like just you know so like it ex-mormons yeah there were people from that standpoint but then also yeah you should just leave yeah like why are you trying to make something work that clearly will not work for your family you're gonna hurt your kids in the process um basically saying it's bad it's bad that I'm trying to make it work okay that's one attack and then like for Nick obviously the attacks of like how could he do this to your family if he really loved you he would stay like the pain that he's inflicting and then they would project where our kids are going to be in the future and I got like met like paragraphs like I got an email that made me so angry that what'd it say she as someone who had left the church and she was attacking me like if only you knew and she was trying to you know say all the things bad about the church or critical about the church and and stuff and I responded my first son was like I don't know if I should say this on the podcast but I'm like I know Joseph Smith was an [ __ ] in a lot of ways and that like completely he changed the trajectory of the conversation because like I was aware like Nick and I had been talking for years at this point um I knew that there were a lot of substantial issues but I also was like I'm not ready I'm not ready to leave like I I like it here still like it still was working and so we just got ripped apart I mean obviously there was also a lot of positive responsive you remember the negatives but what were the positives the pause a lot of a lot of people are like my spouse is questioning I don't know what to do like and I think it was just hopeful to see another message like it doesn't have to mean the end for your family when somebody questions and that they were so grateful that the church would would push this narrative out that like you can make it work so there was a lot of positives and like I still get messages of like oh you're the who do I choose woman or whatever because the article was definitely so long ago but uh substantial for some people and how they were approaching their mixed fifth marriage so overall is the article something the Instagram and the blog post is it something you guys number one are glad you did versus not glad and is this something that was overall harmful to you or neutral or helpful like as you reflect back are you are you glad you did it or not I'm interested in your answer absolutely I I think for sure the pros outweighed the cons and I think if anything it could have been a selfish thing that I was able to find friends and community that I needed it helped you find yes yeah because people would come into my DMs or private message me and just say I'd love to get lunch or I'd love to talk like Anyway there was just this camaraderie that I was craving for so long and it was like wow there's so many of us this is awesome I mean but there's also um this idea of maybe don't share publicly until you've healed and I was just an open wound as I was posting in the years to come as I was posting and deconstructing publicly and that has inflicted a lot of pain and and probably some trauma unnecessary trauma of I didn't I didn't know my voice let alone unsolicited opinions on how I was navigating this journey you know but I think that's also what's made so many people interested in in following you yeah seeing this process develop like if you like go into this ugly Faith transition thing and then fall silent and then three years later pop up and like we figured it out like here's that helping yeah so it's it was a personal decision and I just felt like to stay authentic because then I would get people messaging like as my belief started to shift over the months and and the last two years like people would be like well how do you make this mixed Faith marriage work if you're super believing and he's doesn't believe in God like I would I'd have to say well I'm less we're less and less mixed at this point and so I just felt like I had to just for the authenticity's sake to keep posting and updating like oh actually I'm struggling with this and this is kind of hard and it's true because a lot of people anchored onto you like Chelsea's making it work her husband left but she is making it work if I I just need to figure out what her secret is and there's so many people messaging you but we do that to lots of people like you'll see a friend and be like they're doing it so I can do that and if it that they change their status it you know what rocks you that's the thing because if any Mormon out there discovers that their child or in-law daughter or son-in-law is having faith they use your story to say look she can still stay you should yep absolutely put pressure on the believing you if Chelsea can stay you can stay and and keep a mixed marriage is good and keep it and it it can be used as a as a weapon yeah to pressure people think of Josh weed right and like Tom Christopherson like there's just like people that you just like you really stake a lot of weight into their stances and it can be really hurtful so yeah and I had this conversation with Alan and Katie Mount because when they first started marriage on a tightrope you know I think I think I'm not trying to tell him a story but I think you know I'm thinking in my mind well Alan's a non-believer now and Katie is a Believer now and I think they they had a question for me at one point which is like is this sustainable because the truth is it a believing spouse tends to become non-believing at some point for a couple reasons one is because they have to go they go through their own process the information they've been they've been exposed to the virus yeah so they're going to catch the virus at some point probably most likely not always but most likely but also the church isn't set up to make mixed Faith families feel good like it doesn't feel good to go to church and to have your spouse not go with you it doesn't feel good every time they talk about eternal families for you to be thinking when you're a church well that doesn't count that's not my story because my husband's no longer believing and then you get to see all these supposedly happy families who are faithful and it church becomes this constant reminder that you're not unplanned that you failed that your family's not going to be exalted and so it's really hard I think for the believing spouse to hang on and so over time you've been held up as these icons or these examples of mixed faith of a mixed Faith couple but is it sustainable and then you're faced with disappointing everybody who's looking into you as a role model and it's not just a handful it's like hundreds or maybe even thousands and so it's it's really hard to be thrusted in the public Spotlight yeah I yeah I really like what you said no and and it is weird because you make these assumptions like and people would tell me and project like oh it's only a matter of time before you leave and I would hate that and I would resist in that I think that was maybe also subconsciously another reason I wanted to stay was to prove people wrong that like no I can change the narrative I can stay um but and I want to say like oh I made all this up on my own like this decision but like Nick definitely had an influence and I would be naive to say that he didn't um you know what you were talking about of like the church isn't equipped to are making you know mixed Faith marriages feel good at churches like I went to the temple and then you know through an endowment session and this was at a time before they changed some of the verbiage but I was realizing that I was like covenanting through my then atheist spouse and I'm like what is going on this hurts like daggers I don't want to be here you know there were enough like points that um you know a big one um a hard part for me was uh the priesthood you know we had another child after Ellie and I actually wanted to bless him because I'm like seeing how like hard it was for Nick and just just meeting with Bishops and I'm like I I feel mad that I have to Outsource to my dad like I am so involved in these kids lives why can't like I'm fully capable of doing it you know and so that desire grew even more knowing that Nick was like tapped out of that role and Nick tapping out actually like people would tell me oh um they could have been so great it was all about this lost potential like I had people coming to me all the time like he was he could have been a Powerhouse you know and I would I would be so angry and sad and I think partly because I felt those things too you know I had my patriarchal blessing I had put him in that role of like he was gonna be such an amazing dad and priesthood leader in the church um but I think I was also partly sad because I'm like I don't think anybody would ever say that about me like if I left you know and realizing how much Nick had and then lost like we were at the same level and I was realizing how much I didn't have because Nick had tapped out of his potential priesthood and I realized like I like I want the priesthood like why are we at the same status when I am trying so hard to make this work and we show up and we're like equals we're peers and the leadership power play of the church you know and that was a huge huge thing for me but I could have been a mission president you could have been the wife of a mission president I mean and I'm not trying to downplay like that there are very influential women in the church and I know that um but like just seeing it and play out in our lives and in our family Dynamic and the church like I the patriarchy really like that really rocks me and I wouldn't have really exposed myself to that if he didn't leave so I feel like there's all these experiences that I just could not have um projected what happened but seeing Nick leave like that really changed my role and my relationship with the church because it made you feel less and it made it shown a spotlight on the fact that your status was lesser I want to make sure like my proximity to priesthood which is the power and the currency in which you can have important be the person in the room where the decisions are happening was removed like Nick cut that and so I my proximity to that power that like I wish it was more than the priesthood power like if we had currency outside of male and women roles in the church like that would totally alleviate that burden but right now at the priesthood line is a huge um connection to I don't know being in the room where important things are are said and talked about and decisions are made and and Nick cut that and I didn't realize the ramifications that that would have on my role and My Worship so if the church is run by the skeleton of patriarchy right men having access to power and Prestige and influence and status and decision making and then Nick gets cut off then then you're cut off as well yeah like our family nothing that you did of Europe right right and so anyway it sounds selfish to say that um or conceded like I'm just out for power but I I think that just goes for anybody like I just want I want to walk into a chapel and see women on the stand like I'm just realizing how many things that I thought were neutral were not neutral it's not neutral to get you know worthiness interviews it's not neutral to see General Conference and and vast majority of them be men you know male leaders like that's not neutral and I started to be more aware and mindful of that and it just got so heavy and then with Nick cutting that cord I was just like and me wanting to bless our baby and it just felt I don't know what all of those times that I had suppressed like it's not that bad like in ward council um you know there were some hurtful things that were done and I felt like if only I had the priesthood then maybe they would trust me more or put me in charge of something or like I could your feedback would be considered more yes yes something I would have more weight to my existence in the church um and Nick's uh leaving made that more tangible and I I just kept saying oh maybe it's maybe it's not that and then having stepped away like there aren't those comments like the comments are what about your kids like what about your children and then again it's like it's my only Power in the church the line of the family tree am I just supposed to extend the Family Tree is that what my role was in the church and it just felt like a slap in the face that I would I felt like all those times I wish that it wasn't true and it's feeling like it is so that basically again it's not about concern for you it's about what about your children that message about your body is sex is for children your body's for children your worth is your children and you know what about you yeah as an individual yeah and that's uh I don't know and I feel like leaving I get I know people are like well you can make the church a better safer place and I I do still feel like oh man that would have been awesome to do that but I don't want to expose Ellie and will like that was the Catalyst for me stepping away I heard this quote from Glennon Doyle about the God my most we get his kids are carved in our hearts and their heart is held to buff out and I'm like I don't want to bring my kids to a chapel see that again the god memos we get as kids are carved into our hearts and they are hard as hell to buff out and hearing that quote like that for me was like I don't want to expose Ellie to the patriarchy that walking into that Chapel of just sitting there you know and just seeing all of them and just the visibility of the patriarchy is so huge like just look at the pictures of all the general Authority leaders and like it's undeniable it's undeniable and so that's for me I was like I just don't want to expose my kids to that so that was the final like after going to church you know by myself or Nick would sometimes coming to hang out with Nursery with the kids you know we did that for a while and I just said but at what cost like why you know and belonging in community we were the big things and so that's when I was like maybe I'll just post about meeting up with people who can relate and that's when the Facebook group and the community started to grow so one night I just hopped on Instagram and just said hey does anyone want to come over to our house and have a pizza party in game night and we can talk about our existential crisis together and 20 ladies like strangers showed up and I was surprised that I mean this is kind of a weird thing to just invite someone to and anyway so the ladies came over and they stayed until like midnight or one when it was kind of like random conversations and whatever and then everyone went downstairs in a circle and then like everyone just went through their heavy stories and it's just like there were a lot of the same themes but everyone was unique in their stories and and what's it like for you it was just so validating like it was just so and we all weren't at the same belief status like some people were still trying to make it work some people had stepped away and just the wisdom and everyone was so thoughtful and mindful like with the way that they would describe their Journeys to be respectful but we decided to just start a Facebook group with just those 20 ladies and then we started to do meetups and this was before kovid like we had Thomas Wortham and Conkey come to our house we cleared out all of the furniture in our house every single we put it on the back porch and we I got I got down in the crawl space and reinforced the joists in our voice so that we could have more people yeah and it's not a big house and we fit like 100 people in there we just put chair to chair bodies people are sending up our staircase like in our kitchen um in the hallway and Thomas led us through like a beautiful meditation and then talked about the stages you know navigating just recreating my experience with it yeah Nick's like can you ever recreate that yeah and he's like sure you know and we had Janice Spangler she did um a meet up of just answering questions of people trying to figure out on how to make it work and questions about how to deal with family and we had like a sex therapist one time we did like white elephant like we were just doing meetups at the park um was the intent to help people stay in a mixed fifth marriage to help people stay in the church I mean like when I started the group I was still trying to make the church work uh for our family but as it evolved like I mean it's just it's hard to stay put in one spot and so I think we all just have unraveled um now the faith the faith Journey meetups is what the group is called on Facebook Journey Meetup Journey meetups is it public or it's private because there are quite a few it's women only at this point because initially it started as mixed Faith support and I just thought it could get kind of hairy if we had uh male men and women spouses meeting up together in what is probably a tense situation at home you know so I just wanted to avoid the drama so at this point it was uh ladies only and mostly Salt Lake um yeah but it has just started to grow and so now it's about 2 000 women what yeah and it just seriously maybe like 25 ladies join it every week just it's constantly growing I don't know and and they're all bearing their soul and saying like this is the thing keeping me alive this is like where I'm finding a lot of people are closeted as they're transitioning away so it's more of women who have left the church or who are navigating slash transitioning or distancing and setting boundaries how does someone join if they want to join just request to join and I will add you can they see it they can it initially started as private but then so many women started joining I'm like I can't just go manually do this because I was just doing it by myself and so yeah they just search it and then um oh and the types of people you want are people in faith crisis women women women who are in need of support whether and there's some women who are still trying to make some aspects of the church work but um it's not a group if you to join if you haven't explored some of the critical things about the church so um anyway I would say a vast majority have left but it has been very uh for a Facebook group dealing with something as difficult and complex as a faith transition we've had maybe five instances where I've had to like resolve some issues but it has been very supportive and empathetic and I think the women are just like craving to talk about what's hard in their lives and and if it is mostly women who at this point have left I think most of them have been in that group through some phase of their transition yeah there are a few ladies that we started out as mixed faith and we've all kind of transitioned away together just on our own Journeys but yeah how common is it for a woman to go into Faith crisis mode and then resolve it and then stay faithful versus end up leaving and losing faith I've seen one woman in the group who's done that out of the 2000. I I think it's very very rare that was a perplexing case but um I don't I mean maybe there are some others that haven't told me there have been like one or two that have messaged me and said I this is kind of a hard place that I'm really trying to like stay as faithful as possible and I think if you're really trying to stay as faithful as possible I mean you it may not be the best group to join unless you need support in doing that but the women have all just been very like some of my best friends now I I met in the group and so did covet kind of kill the momentum absolutely what were you doing in terms of meetings before covet so yeah we did the Thomas Wortham and Conkey the Janice Spangler we did some play dates and it's also like meant to be a hub that other women can meet and just do their own playdates so there's just a bunch of like offshoots of women and even now there are women who are like let's go on a hike together and there's like five women who go you know so it's just kind of a hub to be like is anybody in St George and this is Branch to people out of state as well but mostly Utah but yeah it's just like is anyone located here I'd love to chat with somebody and I just had a friend call um on the phone she's someone I met in the group and she said this group has literally been life-changing I just met a friend in the group and we talk often and you know so it's just like when you step away from the Ward you're kind of stepping away from a very convenient way to meet with other people and so this is just similar to thrive this is just another way to do that it's a little bit more work but it sounds like a full-time job it is yes yes it is it's so fulfilling for me and so I just yeah I love it the community I just can't wait till we can start doing meetups again what do you want to do so what what do you see the future of the group potentially being you know that's a good question I don't know right before right as covid kind of shut everything down we had uh it scheduled the Lindsey Hanson Park to talk about Europe plugging me because that is such a huge topic and her podcast comes up every few days on the Group Forum you know um and so I I would love to create just I don't know more meetups and a venue for people who are wanting to raise kids around other people who are like-minded similar to what the ward aspect brings you might have to drive a little bit further but if we could create a place that's you know great for families to come together and couples and ways to meet friends who you feel like you won't be judged for drinking coffee or not wearing garments or not believing in God so but I don't know it's just kind of unraveling yeah it's open-ended see what it becomes should the church be worried that groups like this pop up so there's another group we've referenced Waka or women of a certain age w-o-c-a that's got thousands of women in it and they're they're kind of more women 40 and above who are supporting each other losing their faith and then celebrating life after Mormonism so this sounds like a walk-off for 20 something yeah yeah you know the Waka has younger women too but should the church be worried that social media makes it so accessible for people to find Community to find support is it something that's all good is it from the church's perspective is it dangerous do you have any thoughts on that um well I'm kind of I'm going between the balance of burn it all down but like with speaking of the church but also like everyone close to us and family are all still very believing and I want my kids and we want to have really good relationships with those people so I'm trying to find that balance of like being respectful and honoring that but also like I'm so angry and the fact that all these support groups are needed is just really unfortunate but I think it's absolutely uh a detriment to the church for sure like women women join the group and are exposed to things and even just in conversations like the same way with Nick like I was exposed to things that Nick was talking about that I don't think I would have naturally looked into myself but then as I look into it I'm interested and it's also devastating so I mean you're just proximity to people uh with uh critical thinking of the church I hate to keep using this metaphor but it's basically a super spreader super spreaders of the virus well and it's just yeah like especially me growing up hearing about the Good Ship Zion and everyone who gets off like they're drowned they're miles back clean you know an iceberg it's gonna melt and they're done and so just being exposed to people like we're just like the little rowboat that just comes by and just like picks people who are swimming in the ocean and just plop some in so it's not a place to get people to leave that is definitely not the intention the intention is to support where people most people feel like they're doing it by themselves yeah and then they see a bunch of other people in row boats who are all singing songs and being happy and it's like wow like it the it is not bad when you leave the good ships iron like there's yeah like there are women who are you know like talking about their coffee orders they're celebrating their double piercings or a new dress that they bought that they can't show anybody else and their tattoos yeah it's just my alcohol for the first time yeah it's a pages of Celebration and also women coming to terms with maybe feeling oppressed or you know things that are just really hard to work through and it's just like if you need some cheerleaders just you know 50 comments of women saying I believe in you I support you I think what you're doing is important because a lot of times many of these families and women are just feeling like being told that you're deceived this is evil you're bad for exploring you know so if you had to aggregate sort of a highlight and this is putting you on the spot a bit if you had to aggregate a high level summary of the ways that common ways the church seems to be hurting women what are some of the main sources of hurt that you're seeing repeat representation is huge what do you mean uh women leaders putting more women in places of privilege and position to make changes and to do art and to write in the like the programs I feel like just representation in the media and the things the articles that the church produces would help alleviate some of that so when women are being hurt by not having by not having yeah I feel like um yeah I mean garments in general like that has been a conversation that has ended a topic that has unraveled and changes have been made but I wonder like does that have garments for women um I mean there's the physical and hygiene level of where it's complicated for women where it isn't quite as complicated for men and I wonder if more women infections yeah we're involved in the process of making it and picking up materials and and I think there probably are now more so in the design of it I think that uncomfortable yeah yeah um but isn't about body and sexuality and body love isn't there something around garments yeah yeah totally uh and I feel like um there are people like Dr Julie Hanks you know on Instagram who are trying to break down some of those stigmas and the negative associations and um I would love to see it if garments were just optional like it just seems like it's it's disappointing that it's um like to get into the temple you need to be wearing garments that's like the repercussions of not wearing garments are huge um they are Eternal yeah okay how else are women being hurt um uh conversations around Chastity and modesty I think are huge and I think those are conversations that I'm seeing that are being changed and that are evolving and um which I think is a really good thing um also work outside of the home and the whole state home mom and gender roles and the proclamation the family the proclamation the family was also something that was huge in my town or my patriarchal blessing it referenced it like three or four times and that's a document that I read and studied at night going to sleep and now I look at it and it's just like so there's just what's wrong with the proclamation it's just so problematic on the gender roles the fixed gender roles like women are feeling I have so many friends who are feeling like I need something outside of motherhood I need something that's fulfilling but I would be um disappointing that expectation that the most important job and work you can do is raising your kids so that's definitely a conversation that I feel like could really um change in the topic of education and um what about that going to school to go to school and not as a venue to create an eternal family yeah to meet a guy yeah to be a good mom yeah study at elementary ads so that you can be yeah and I'm seeing these pushes from the inside from Members like women and I think that's really important so hopefully these conversations um I don't know start to help but it's it's hard because it seems like it's just pushing from the bottom up so I would love to see more women involved and yeah and a lot of the women in your group it sounds like the main pain is that they're going through this or their husbands going through this and they have no one to talk to right and and and they'll say this is the only place that I've posted publicly about this um so it just creates a venue for their like otherwise complete silence in the rest of their lives yeah and it's an interesting Dynamic to see obviously Nick left before me and so I didn't get the opposite where when the woman is the one who steps away before the husband or maybe the husband won't like there is a power Dynamic that wasn't apparent in our relationship with the priesthood and being a leader in the home and I know many women feel very dismissed um by stepping away and trying to reclaim power or you know things that they feel like they're missing reclaim claim or claim yes claim that's true so um and they feel very dismissed and like yeah that they aren't being heard and that their needs aren't valid because Nick leaving and stepping away like I feel like and especially because he made more money than I do um or did at the time and so I know that was something that I felt like him stepping away was a bigger hurt for the church than for me you know to step away but creating these Facebook groups I mean this is definitely something that is not helping the church either um what are the sometimes when the critics like Fair Mormon people want to attack me or Jeremy runnels you know there will be people who when the faith crisis happens their marriage doesn't survive either because it was a really bad marriage to begin with OR they don't get the support from the in-laws or the parents that they should or there's just too much stuff or for whatever reason there will be marriages that don't survive this and uh and so when a Critic wants to kind of like you know attack me or Jeremy or others Lindsay they'll they'll say well you're breaking up families because as soon as someone listen to Mormon stories then later fast forward they got divorced right if I I'm sure that many of the women in your group experience marital stress as they're going through all this and as they learn this stuff and as they even meet other women and talk about all the hard things and I'm sure that's uh led to some marriages being threatened if somebody were to say well this group's bad for families it's bad for marriages because all these women get their complain about men complain about the church get all angry and then and then inevitably there's going to be some marriages break up if somebody were to say to you well look see your cousin people to get divorced and you're breaking up families what would you say about that that type of accusation yeah that's quite the accusation I mean I feel like those marriages um in my experience um this is maybe anecdotal but uh the marriages that withstand a faith transition um I guess I don't want to make blanket statements I'm just saying there are other factors that are in play right and and this might be a this might be just like the church and leaving the church this is an opportunity to realize maybe we aren't compatible or maybe the qualities of um like for women who are married to men who love to use the priesthood over them there are qualities that are underlying the priesthood label like there are qualities to the personality that are problematic to the marriage and the leaving the church or joining the church or whatever is just exposing that and so I feel like this maybe is a catalyst and sure that that can be an accusation that can be made but I don't think that this is a reason that is breaking up families I think there are other underlying factors that should also be considered well and if the church was the only thing holding your marriage together and then and then that glue falls apart whose fault is it well it's probably more the church that is the only reason you got together in the first place so yeah I'd like to say a faith crisis reveals your marriage yes yeah ruin your marriage it reveals your marriage and if your marriage has strong fundamentals it will often survive if your marriage doesn't have strong fundamentals and like you said you were married for the church then your marriage could be in general but is that the podcast fault yeah support group's fault is that the church's fault is that Joseph Smith's fault is that the deception the fault of the deception yeah yeah totally and I feel like there are people that I've met who the church has exposed that maybe the big reason that they got married was the church and them separating was a really good thing so you know like sometimes divorce is good yeah yeah and I feel like villainizing or saying divorce that means someone's failed like I don't think that's the case that's just a complex situation but yeah podcasts leaving the church support groups that's not the reason that's killing families so I've I've been a part of these internet Mormon communities now for 20 years and you know there there are some very predictable things it's like memes you know anger at the church leaders showing your first tattoos showing your first you know times to drink alcohol showing your first time maybe to try marijuana talking about sexual stuff like you know these all these are all talking about bad interactions with church leaders or weird family members but talking about the alcohol and you know marijuana and tattoos and taking off your garments some would some would say see they wanted to sin they left the church because they wanted to drink beer or they wanted to be unfaithful to their spouse or they wanted to get a tattoo and that just shows they never really believed in the first place they just wanted some excuse to sin and as soon as they found some excuse to sin they were off sinning and they never really were committed in the first place what would you say about those types of accusations I would ask the person how many people are you close to who have left the church like how many stories have you been exposed to because that statement comes from in my opinion a lack of exposure yeah like Chelsea right now is trying really hard to like coffee and like no one can that's another one my first coffee yeah like you could say Chelsea and you did because you want to drink it and it's like no like it's interesting though because that was a big or one reason that Nick after he had stepped away from the church that he said I'm not gonna drink I'm not gonna drink coffee I'm not gonna do anything so people can't weaponize that specific line on me and I thought that was really interesting and I'm like Nick Just Let It Go like I still haven't dried beer really I'm 20 years into my faith crisis I've never tried and for that reason yeah I don't want to so you don't want to weaponize yeah exactly I haven't tried weed I haven't yeah yeah so I just think it's a lack of exposure a statement like that yeah but that yeah it has not been the case for anyone we know the repercussions for stepping away from the church are so high that like a drink of coffee I feel like is just not yeah it's just not worth it with what you lose in a lot of ways so yeah the other thing that people don't realize is that if you do get a tattoo or if you do get a double ear piercing or if you do try whatever sometimes it's just like the church I associate now pain and hurt with the church what were all the things that defined me as a Mormon it's a natural reaction to then feel like you want to express yourself in non-mormon ways as almost a way to claim psychological Independence yeah you go to the double ear piercing you go to the tattoo you go to the beer you go to the marijuana whatever as a way to sort of declare independence does that make sense psychological Independence absolutely to break the conditioning right yeah yeah and like I'm I just recently I've started a new job and everyone's like where'd you go to school BYU and I like I want to find something that I can wear on my sleeve or like or not aware that would just indicate like oh like I mean I don't know Mormon missionary haircut here like we both look very very yes I need something that would indicate that like oh Nick went to BYU but like he's not one of those yeah yeah and I don't know what that is yet oh exactly exactly like a big tattoo right here would say like oh he's nope you but I'm not racist sexist or homophobic exactly I'm not judgmental I don't think I'm better than you yeah I think I everyone even members are are trying to find ways to do that as well like I feel like there's it's just a statement to be like I am my own person but I'm also not all of those negative things that are so heavily associated with the church so so what okay so Nick why didn't you start a men's group well I mean Chelsea's doing all the women's stuff what about the men you're just blowing off the men I am blowing off the men uh no I think we're just too uh pretty like Charles craves that community and belonging and sharing and empathizing where for me I'm like oh I need a new project to work on and and I'll be in the garage tinkering with something so I think personality differences and it's not your interest yeah it's it's yeah I just hasn't been I know some of our meetups um like the Thomas worth and McConkey we had uh spouses and anyone who wanted to come so like I feel like it's okay to like for me right now planning meetups with men and women is a good thing but the sounding board of like online is what I'm trying to navigate maybe we're big enough that it wouldn't be a problem anymore I don't know yeah but I know some women in the group have tried starting men's groups but they have all just kind of like just the engagement isn't there from what from what I've heard there's something about women's groups that have inertia momentum critical mass because Waka started men groups too and and they're they're they're they're doing okay I don't want to speak out yeah but I don't get the sense that the men's groups swell yeah like the women's groups for some reason which just shows how important these women's groups are you know because because we need networks we need communities like one of the things the church does so well is community and people that's because people need Community they thirst for it and so we as Progressive and postmormons have to create it shout out to Faith again shout out to you know Thrive shout out to Oasis shout out to Facebook ex-mormon Reddit like all these places that create Community are sacred they're saving lives they're they're saving marriages they're healing people with anxiety and depression and feelings of isolation and Brokenness so just kudos to you guys for being a part of the solution yeah thanks yeah now that yeah it's been Charles and honestly seeing how well women's groups Thrive is just one more Testament that there should be much more women's voices in the church and and female Bishops and stake presidents and that they would be so much better at creating that Community imagine yeah definitely yeah so what else about your story do you guys want to make sure and tell you know is there anything else about your story so I guess you did leave the church Chelsea yes I yeah it still feels weird to say that is that new oh it was absolutely devastating and I know I disappointed a lot of people and people come out um I I just made a post and just said very like frankly like this isn't working for me and I um and stepping away I'm distancing myself and my family um and I try to be very thoughtful and very tactful like I've never wanted to I know what it's like to be forced into a faith transition so to speak and I know how uncomfortable that is and I never want to do that because I know some families um timing is important and some families maybe aren't able to fully transition and I know that can cause a lot of pain so I never want to be like a catalyst of like you've got to follow and like you've got to leave that's just not something I wanna tout but I basically just wanted to do what Nick has given me the gift and I know other people have given the gift to Nick of just humanizing what that Journey looks like because um it is so much more thoughtful and and intentional than anything that the church ever describes it being and that there's Beauty on the outside I remember coming to your Thrive event uh when was that two years ago before kovid a year yeah yeah um and I felt it felt like home it just felt like just seeing and I saw a few couple friends like it just felt so good that there is beauty outside of the church and I um I feel like that message just needs to keep getting reshared like there is beauty outside let's dive into that so like we're conditioned to think and feel that you can't have a good marriage outside the church you can't be a good parent outside the church you can't raise healthy kids outside the church if you leave the church you'll become a alcoholic a drug addict you'll become sexually irresponsible you'll become a prostitute or you know a sex worker whatever like you can and just you can't be happy there's no meaning you'll be alone there'll be no purpose in life like that's how we're all conditioned how has it been for you guys individually and as a couple oh I would I mean as much as we just painted the intro to our marriage to be rough and just an uphill battle um it I don't know going through a faith transition and I'm sure there's other influences that have contributed to this but just deconstructing together and going through this journey has been so phenomenal for our marriage so anyone who's sitting there thinking why how I'm just like I said earlier we all the expectations have gone out the window and is that good oh absolutely like I see all of the expectations okay sorry all of the Mormon expectations that a good family supposedly look like this and this and this is like a marriage should be like this or a spouse should be doing this or this type of role like re-evaluating like what works for our family what works with our dynamic between our personalities like Nick has just offered to potentially be like a stay-at-home dad for a few years if I wanted to go back to school like just the dynamic like we're much more flexible and less rigid and um also more quick to say I was wrong like going through a faith transition is the most humbling thing I just feel like I had so much certainty and now I'm like wow I was wrong about a lot of really big things like what else am I wrong about it's just this humility has blessed our relationship and our family of um looking for ways to improve and to like Nick said earlier like pivot just learn new information and pivot and there's just this liberation of pivoting and of not having to feel like you need to do mental gymnastics or wrestle with things that the cognitive dissonance that things that make you feel uncomfortable yeah but if we could be one data point for someone who's like Faith crisis oh no our marriage is going to fall apart like I we could be one data point that it has been like it was rough and it was something we really have had to work through but uh it's been phenomenal it's better for your marriage oh yeah yeah in so many ways so I mean not initially but yeah once again it was hard to work through you have to put the time in and you have to like communication we see so many people you see so many people especially in your group that like communication is just lacking in there it's just a really hard thing yeah and any shifting beliefs especially when you signed up to do the you know one way it's just really difficult but I mean there's also this added beauty of like Nick uh you're not you don't like labels atheists but it does not believe that there is I wouldn't bet money on it yeah and I'm still sorting through that I would like to believe that but I don't know where I stand but there's this added layer of beauty of taking off those Mormon God lenses and just seeing the world very differently like you know like I'll just look at my little baby's toes and they're just so chubby and cute and I'll just start crying because I'm like wow the fact that I got here out of all the people that could have been me and all the people that could have been him like we're here and I don't know how long we'll have together and I don't know if we'll ever see each other like at the end of this but like there's just this beauty um and it can sound really scary but it's also like yeah it's new Beauty how do you describe the beauty there's a lot of meaning like Nick has become a huge environmentalist because you know uh just the world this Earth is what we have and uh he has um like stopped eating meat and not saying you need to do all of these things to be an environmentalist but he has made changes in his life very substantial large changes um to better uh or lessen his carbon footprint and to help the Earth and I've seen that as he's transitioned away from the church that this has been really important to him and I think that's a beautiful change to really the weight in what is here and now is so big and so like amazing thanks yeah I think I think yeah being in the church uh general authorities weren't talking about like climate or things like that and so I'm like oh well it must not matter there must be some way that second coming is just going to fix all that um so yeah in a lot of ways uh this has just enabled us to become our own people uh rather than relying on the church to tell us what we should be interested in or not and yeah or spend our time thinking about and just be more curious about how other people operate and live and anyway I'm just realizing how wrong we are all the time about lots of things and we're always going to be wrong about lots of things so anyway so so both of you were kind of uber Mormons before getting married and one of the things I've sometimes seen is like the really hardcore Uber Mormons really have a hard time when they lose the structure and they can get lost you can get lost and alcohol drugs sexual exploration just identity stuff it can be so devastating that you were super strong with the armor and with the protection with the skeleton of the church but then when it's all gone some people just turn into a blob of of uh meaninglessness or or lack of structure too much Freedom kind of like you cut the string on the kite yeah the kite falls to the ground it seems like you guys have avoided that sort of total collapse and I'm just wondering how that happened given how Uber Mormon you both were yeah well so far we've avoided that because we're follow up in the air no I think a lot of that has been exposure to other people who've gone through this path before so uh like that Faith again group um there were a couple of Facebook groups just the resources of people like your therapists or things that have been helpful for them and their reconstruction you know books or what resources have been useful therapists books groups yeah groups yeah yeah and just the details though I'll give details um ones you can let's see uh so thoughtful faith is still around I know that they're not meeting up in person but they'll change soon is that the water's a Mormon group sorry did I say faithful so sorry I meant Faith again Faith again yep that was important a thoughtful faith is another one that was involved in uh for several years Facebook group now it's called Waters of Mormon yeah it's a group for people trying to stay in the church yeah it's become a little bit more people staying in where when it was named the thoughtful faith I it seemed to play a little bit more toward those who are kind of struggling at the fringes and potentially on their way out I started that group yeah congrats and thank you very much yeah yeah but only because I didn't fit the mission and and I've kind of stopped participating in that group so much but but I so I'm sure the landscape has shifted Chelsea's group is this for a lot of people well I'll say one resource symmetry solutions that has been huge we started a group of therapists they specialize in faith transitions Sex Therapy Natasha silver Parker started it right and with a group of other women and I Dennis Janice spanglers in there we went to um Sunstone that was one of the first things of then you get exposed to a bunch of different um authors and historians and therapists and so that's where we got exposed to symmetry Solutions and so Janice Spangler is who I have connected with and she has amazing resources on like Richard Rohr and his the Reconstruction of the second half of life that's been really helpful we interviewed her yesterday yeah talked about that she's fantastic and she actually invited me to a zoom Sundays or Sunday sacrament meeting thing with Gina Colvin and she like blessed the sacrament and I did not know how much I needed to see that yeah and it was just such a gift it was just like this this network of just connecting with people who can provide opportunities for you to see and be exposed to new people and new ideas and meditation um and there's lots of Retreats uh with who um like I went to a retreat womb sisters um anyway and it's all about just uh divine feminine and trying to get reconnected to yourself and your beliefs and however that translates whether that's in the church or not that was kind of helpful um I'm trying to think what else yeah any other books or podcasts podcasts um Mormon stories if you've heard of Performing stories has been great um I've actually been branching out so I mean Glenn and Doyle Untamed is always one that will Top the charts yeah and um Renee Brown I've been loving Jedediah Jenkins um he's an author and he talks about what it was like he was an Evangelical but the parallels like I'm loving learning from other religions and people who grew up and other sects of like Christianity and how that has impacted their lives um so sorry excuse me but yeah Jedediah Jenkins is someone I'm loving right now and he just released his second book um talking all about like the ego and your identity that's something I'm super interested in and realizing like how where do I stop or start and the church starts and stops you know like I don't know I don't know who I am and that's something I'm trying to explore so um because the church was so much of our identities and I mean you look at us our sense of humor we're still very Mormon I think we'll always be pretty Mormon um and we'll own that but yeah yeah but yeah how however wherever you find that Community I think that was very important for both of us just to seek out and find other people who have been through this before it's it's so easy to just slip into rage anger and which are good things and I'm still oh totally we both went through uh yeah stages of grief but to like help move through those feelings and other people like their wisdom and experience yeah I feel I can help do that yep um just exposure to people who've been through it and how they've landed you know and like in this Facebook group of the faith Journey meetups like there will be women who will share their templates of the emails that they sent their parents so that other people can use what they would like from the email like just like these little gifts along the way of people who can help make it slightly more comforting you know and uh so and just like the the best coffee shops in town or where to start and like you know just like people who could just like hand hold because the church is really good about hand-holding and beliefs like just having a few hands to hold as you find your own is really helpful so yeah all right well this has been super amazing I'm so grateful Chelsea and Nick that you guys are willing to tell your story and I'm grateful for all you've done to help create Community um for people who need it uh and I'm glad to know you're so close and maybe we can partner and do some events or support each other because I'm always just trying to find ways to help people and you guys are too so let's let's collaborate if ever there's a way we can help each other awesome yeah having us I'll give you just kind of a chance to give a final closing statement of encouragement or support or of belief or conviction or whatever you want to say closing statements yeah I don't know hope you can give people hope yeah just for me there is so much more than what you might if you can currently find yourself on the Good Ship Zion thinking I can't jump because I will lose everything I have I absolutely was in that boat and felt that same way and felt there was nothing Beyond Mormonism and everything I need is in this boat and why would I even if there is a tiny little crack why would I focus on that when I have everything that I need and uh I I would just say yeah I don't know there's just so so much more Beauty um and complexity and value and love and community on other boats in the sea in the sea itself wherever you might find yourself that uh if you find yourself thinking I can't leave this because I would lose out on XYZ uh my testimony is that there is so much more in the world and uh yeah so much to gain yeah so much to gain for sure mine would just be that there are people here that are interested in helping you if you're listening to this and if you've made it even through any of it um thank you but also that we're here for you and there are people who are cheering you on and who think that you are amazing and smart and thoughtful and to question your beliefs is a Really Brave and courageous thing to do so yeah and if someone wants to join your group they have to be a woman be a woman non-binary uh and just search the term Faith Journey meetups and I will add you okay so yeah all right thanks John well thanks again so much for coming you guys are great keep up the good work stay in touch shout out to uh Tyler and um Carolee Alden who let me know about you guys and uh appreciate that yeah thanks so much to everyone who supports uh Mormon stories in the open stories Foundation unfortunately only like one out of a thousand of our listeners actually support So if you find Value in this

Channel: Mormon Stories Podcast

Views: 119,161

Keywords: lds, mormon

Id: 17DcnU3VQLw

Length: 209min 30sec (12570 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 04 2021