Top Issues/Tips for Mormon Women after a Faith Crisis

Episode 32

0:20 Natasha Helfer Hello, everybody, and welcome to Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis. This is Natasha Helfer Parker, and I am joined by this amazing couple I get to work with on a weekly basis. And I love them and they're so wonderful and friendly and loving and smart and savvy. And I just, I always say I'd like to move in next door if I could, but I'm in Canada, so there you go. Anyway, Margie and John de Lynn are joining me, so. Hello, everybody.

0:54 John Dehlin Hey, Natasha. Good to be back with you.

0:58 Natasha Helfer Well, it's kind of fun to be the one on this end today.

1:02 Margi Dehlin Yes.

1:03 Natasha Helfer John's usually very good at giving Margie and I tons of nice affirmations, and so it's nice to give it back. All right, so today we're super excited for our topic. We're going to be talking about top issues and tips for Mormon women after a faith crisis or during a faith crisis. And as usual, we kind of are always interested in not only addressing those going through faith crises and transitions, but those who are supporting them. So that means your spouses, your family members, your ward members, people you work with, etc. So there's, I think, a lot of misunderstanding that happens between our communities, and we want to bridge some of those gaps. So. So we're excited for anybody to join us on any part of the spectrum of Mormonism. We want to talk about our mission. So, John, why don't you give us our mission today? You never give the mission.

2:03 John Dehlin All right, I would love to do the mission, and it's fun to have you leading today, Natasha. Our mission can be summarized with the three P's. That's how Margie named it. Positive, practical, and personal tips for Navigating a Mormon Faith Crisis or for those wishing to understand those experiencing a Mormon faith crisis. So we like this podcast to be believer friendly, non believer friendly, affirming and supportive to everyone involved. How's that?

2:36 Natasha Helfer Love it. Love it. And then, Margie, why don't you go ahead and talk a little bit about kind of what our overall message is then? Kind of our overall vision.

2:45 John Dehlin Sure.

2:46 Margi Dehlin So the idea is that amidst this process, it can feel at times overwhelming. There can be loss. But also, you know, we submit that it has this potential to be a huge gift as well, that it is all kind of part of creating a big, beautiful life. So.

3:11 Natasha Helfer Right. Which is a big part of why our logo is yellow and bright and has a seed on it to grow and develop into wonderful things. So I think that's true of all kinds of things. Shifts are usually difficult and hard. We're not creatures that necessarily love change. Even positive change can be really hard and difficult and stressful. And yet it's through those shifts and changes that we get to have new opportunities and new experiences and new territory that we maybe never thought would be possible or even imagined. So that's something that we really like to keep our focus on. A few changes have happened since we first started this project. It was kind of a project of its own. We have since moved it to be under the umbrella of the Open Stories foundation, so that now all donations that come through to this project are tax deductible here in the United States anyway. And it just kind of has a little bit more, I think, structural and administrative support that way as well. And so I'm going to turn the time over to John just a little bit so that you can explain maybe, because maybe there were some people who were donating a certain way and now need to donate another way. So you want to give a few explanations around that?

4:35 John Dehlin Yeah, sure. So if you are donating through the Open Stories foundation, that's great. If you're one of the early donors that donated through kind of the nonprofit donations, all you have to do is switch over. Just go to mormonfaithcrisis.com, click on the Donate button, select whatever monthly donation or annual donation works for you, then email us and say, hey, please cancel my old donation. Email us@mormonfaithcrisismail.com we'll cancel the old one and make sure you're not getting double charged. And if you're new to the gift of the Mormon faith crisis or you're not a donor and you want to see this continue, we're about a fourth of the way there. We've got about 30 donors. We know that hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of people are listening already. So if we can just get. Let's just say another 100 donors will be. And again, donations can be as little as 10 or 20 or 25 bucks a month. We think that this delivers a lot more value than that, given that it's hours and hours and hours of content from experts. But if we can just get another, you know, let's just say 100 donors, we'll be on our way to be able to sort of make this sustainable. The. To be able to pay for the infrastructure and to pay for the time of the participants. So please support us if you can. But thanks to everyone who supported us so far.

6:04 Natasha Helfer Yeah, this idea of sustainability is really important because we want to be able to continue to offer this. We've gotten a lot of really wonderful positive reviews. I think it is really a helpful resource for many in our community. But yeah, it doesn't come as a free product.

6:21 Margi Dehlin Right.

6:22 Natasha Helfer So we need to be able to cover the expenses and so please support us if you can. Like John said, any little bit helps. And you talked about, as you know, you're getting kind of some experts here to support you. So why don't we talk a little bit about what each one of us does. Margie, do you want to get us started with that?

6:42 Margi Dehlin Sure. So I participate in the podcast. I'm also a certified life coach. I focus in life transition work, so I also have that and then I write as well. On my blog you can find all things Margie delyn@beautyinthenow.org and that's me.

7:04 Natasha Helfer Perfect. And John.

7:06 John Dehlin Yeah. I have a PhD in clinical and counseling psychology and I run a podcast called Mormon Stories Podcast and I run a nonprofit called the Open Stories foundation that runs all this stuff or oversees all this stuff. And if you want to reach out to me for my personal coaching, I focus on mixed faith marriages, individual faith crisis stuff, sometimes LGBTQ related religious stuff. You can reach out to me@johndelin.com coaching awesome.

7:39 Natasha Helfer And I am a master's level licensed clinical marriage and family therapist. I am also a certified sex therap therapist through the organization known as aset, which I would say is kind of like another mini master's degree. It's what it felt like getting that certification. And you can find everything that I'm about@Natashaparker.org so I run several podcasts as well. Mormon mental health, Mormon sex info. I run a private practice where you can see me or providers who work for me. And what else do I do? I do a blog. Several things. Anything that I do you can find@Natashaparker.org and would love to have you visit there and see what other resources you might be interested in. All right. So we usually like to start well I guess before we even go there ways. So we did talk about how you can support us financially. But let's talk a little bit about other non financial ways that you can support us. So, so one of the ways that you can do that is just to like our page, like our Facebook page. So that helps us know first of all who's interacting with us and second of all it helps us just spread social media stuff. You can give us a positive review if you enjoy what we're doing. You can do that other on Facebook. You can do that on itunes. You can comment and participate during our, you know, our podcasts that we do. These are interactive, so we ask for you guys to interact with us as we're talking. And you can also share, share with your friends or family members or social media networks, these things that are happening. You can also help us plan events if you're interested in doing anything geographically in your area. All of us have done kind of faith transition retreats or workshops or things of that nature. And if you can have marri stuff, marriage stuff, if you want anything geographically for us to come, you know, at least one of us or several of us, depending on how many people we could get interested in your area, we are willing to travel and host a workshop or a retreat. So let us know if that's something that you're interested in.

9:59 John Dehlin And the email address would be mormonfaithcrisismail.com for that.

10:04 Natasha Helfer Thank you. Yeah. And then anything else as far as before we start with what's the what's working aspect that you want to make sure any announcements or Corinne's writing.

10:16 John Dehlin So thankful for all the amazing work you guys do. Thank you, Corrine. Michelle writes, I'm so excited to be here live. I'm usually at work, so. We're glad you could join us, Michelle.

10:28 Natasha Helfer Yeah, that's awesome. We have Thrive coming up, although it is full. That's sad that we have to announce an event that is full, but it's exciting because maybe we'll have another event like that coming up. And also, do you want to talk about, I mean, I know that in October that I'm doing a workshop in Oklahoma City. Do you want to talk about some of the workshops you have coming up? John and Margie?

10:52 John Dehlin We don't have anything on the slate. I'll just say about Thrive, that the purpose of Thrive is to create material community content for people seeking healing and joy after Mormonism. The Thrive Conference is going to be in Salt Lake City June 7th through 9th. It's sold out. It's at the Maverick center. We've got 300 people pretty much signed up. But we've had such an overwhelming response, we had to turn people away. We're already planning our next Thrive Conference. We hope to have a much larger venue. We hope to make it much more affordable. We've got some donors who are willing to subsidize it so that it can be super cheap. So be looking for Thrive two Bigger and better coming to you soon. I just wanted to make sure we Announce that.

11:37 Natasha Helfer Awesome.

11:38 John Dehlin Oh, and also we finally have up that wonderful webinar you put together on mixed faith marriages. So if any of you want six really good hours of Natasha, with a little bit of my support and some listeners on how to navigate a mixed faith marriage, you can check us out at mormonfaithcrisis.com webinars and on there, you can purchase each of the sessions individually or in aggregate and spread the word. If any of you. It's like half a third the price of one hour of coaching and you get six hours of really quality content. We're just trying out this webinar format, but it's quality stuff. Led by Natasha.

12:24 Margi Dehlin Thanks.

12:25 Natasha Helfer Yeah, and the first part of that is kind of understanding faith transitions in a mixed faith context. The second part is marriage focused, and the third part is parenting focused, which is a lot of the questions we get in mixed marriage type of settings. So I'm really excited to get that out, and hopefully many of you can find that to be a resource on top of the many other things that we're doing here at Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis. All right, so why don't we go ahead and start with the. We like to start with the what's working category of our program, mainly because we want to talk about positive things and share ideas. And we also love it when you all share ideas with us about what's working. These are like, these can be big, momentous things or tiny little daily habits or whatever you can think of as something that is working, working for you at this particular time in your life and helping you have good mental health, good relational health, good spiritual health, whatever it is that you consider benefiting your life. So, Margie, do you want to go first? Absolutely.

13:31 Margi Dehlin So one thing I've always loved is this kind of space and time in the evening when we feel like the kids are mostly cared for and John and I can head into the bedroom and we enjoy a show together. So a show that's really been a refreshing addition, I feel like, is Bless this Mess. And it stars Dax Shepard and Lake Bell, and we love it. It's basically city people that take to the country, they inherit a house and want to all of a sudden try to be farmers. And so. And it is delightful and funny, and so we've just really enjoyed that. So that's kind of the first thing. And then the second thing was I noticed at our local art cinema here in town, this movie called the Biggest Little Farm, and it's a documentary. Similar content, however, like True Story and It takes place an hour outside la. If you're into it all like Michael Pollan. Food, Whole food. Working with nature. How nature informs our experience as human beings. I cried in it. It was beautiful. I mean, just animals working with nature relationships. What'd you think, babe? Did you end up liking.

14:53 John Dehlin Yeah, super interesting. Biggest Little Farm. Really good documentary.

14:57 Margi Dehlin Yeah. And it ended up also being at our mainstream theater, so you can kind of check it out. Hopefully it's hit you mainstream as well. Otherwise you can look for it in a little while and maybe give it a rent and see what you think. But those are two sort of media sources that are making us feel more alive or, you know, laugh or. So that's what's working for me.

15:21 Natasha Helfer Well, we just found. Bless this mess, my daughter and I, and we are peeing our pants because we live here in Kansas. Right. Isn't it so funny? And on top of it, the lady's like a therapist. So the whole.

15:36 Margi Dehlin I love the female character.

15:38 Natasha Helfer My husband, who is from Kansas, he's not laughing as hard as me and Isabella are laughing, but it's hilarious. How funny.

15:48 John Dehlin So do you guys wear Depends. Do you wear Depends when you watch it or how do you deal with that? Just curious.

15:54 Natasha Helfer That's what I got it. That's what I got to start wearing. John, what's working for you these days?

16:01 John Dehlin So what's working for me is exercising with Margie. So I, you know, for the past year or so I had a health club membership and that's worked well for me, but I sometimes get busy and I don't do it. And so Margie has agreed to work out with me three times a week in the morning, where we don't go to a health club, but we just, we kind of do, let's just say 15 or 20 minutes of exercises in our room, like sit ups and push ups and plank and lunges and things like that. And then we go outside and run for 15 or 20 minutes up and down a hill outside our house. And I really like the bonding that it does for us, but also the extra encouragement that I get and the expertise. So I've always said everyone deserves to have a Margi. And it's been really nice to partner with Margie for exercise.

17:00 Natasha Helfer Awesome. All right. I think what's working for me this week is because Memorial Day was yesterday and we actually drove an hour and a half to like a family cemetery and saw some of the graves. And we have, on my husband's side of the family, we have a World War I veteran and a World War II veteran. So it was very interesting. And so we started talking to the kids about kind of like, family history. We haven't done that in a while. I don't know why we haven't done that. I don't know if it's because I'm not as genealogy focused as before, but it was really interesting, especially now that they're more teenagers in my home. Anyway, they were really interested. They were even shushing each other so that they could hear what we were talking about and just kind of wanting to know what our heritage is from, what kinds of countries our ancestors come from, experiences. You know, they asked us even about, like, conversion stories because we don't come from pioneer stock. So, like, how did people become Mormon in our family to begin with? And it was really lovely. So it's just a reminder that kids are actually at some points interested in where they come from. So let's make sure we keep that. That tradition up.

18:16 Margi Dehlin That's great.

18:16 John Dehlin Beautiful.

18:18 Natasha Helfer All right, so I think, moving in to our topic for today. So we thought that, you know, we've been doing a lot of different topics on so many things, but I do think that there are certain things that are more specific to females and to males when going through faith transition. So today we're going to focus on women and some of the things that tend to come up, I think, at least I see a pattern of things that tend to come up for women as they're thinking differently about their faith structure and their background in Mormonism. We will do. The next one we'll do is on men. So we'll do both. Because I think that there's really some interesting things on both sides of that equation. So. So, yeah, so again, interact with us. But one of the first things that I had thought about is there's this huge push in Mormonism towards the motherhood identity and choices about family planning. And I think that we in general encourage. There's a lot of pressure. It's, I think, even more than just encouragement. I think there's pressure to marry early, to have children, and to not wait to have children. So many women that are in my office going through faith transitions are in a position where they've had children at a very early age, many times having put their educational goals or career goals aside, which is a whole nother kind of. That's my number two identity crisis. I think that, you know, one of the tasks of transitioning is kind of reworking our identity. So this is kind of what we're talking about today. For women, motherhood identity. And very tied to that is career or education identity. And all the choices that were made and sometimes people feel like were those choices that really I made or that were made for me or that I would have made differently if I hadn't had that type of pressure or ideas of what it meant to be a righteous woman or a mother or, you know, you also get into all the kinds of thoughts of women who maybe didn't enjoy mothering as much as they thought they would or should because of all the pressure that being such a primary aspect of our identity. So I thought we'd start out with that, with the aspect of motherhood identity and maybe very closely followed with career identity. Any thoughts from either one of you as we get that thought started?

21:03 Margi Dehlin Yeah, one of my kind of initial thoughts is this idea too of almost, you know, that formula. There's kind of an age, there's sort of a formula that, you know, is put up as ideal. And ironically, I feel like it happens right at the same time that a natural process of self exploration would happen. And so what I find a lot of times with coaching clients is this sense of who am I? Like, I don't even, I don't. How do I even go about reclaiming or picking up myself all these years later? And you have this sense that that whole stage and process was usurped. So you do have this, you know, natural role of motherhood, but you also have it at a time when there might be a natural self exploration process, a natural testing out of what do I like, what do I want to pursue for me personally as well as when would I do I want a mother? Is that something, all of that tied to who we are and listening to our voices is kind of, that whole process is, is taken away as it's plugged in. You're given it, you know, and so that's one thing that I reflect on is oftentimes in coaching, you almost go back to pick that up. You know, you go back to sort of a self exploration process that might have happened quite naturally in your 20s had the formula not been so set.

22:44 John Dehlin Can we. I'm really. I would love you, Margie, and then Natasha for you. I'd love each of you to talk about personally, not just in the abstract, theoretical, but like what personally, you know, regarding your identity and your choices, your regrets, your anger, your grieving. What did you have to grapple with regarding motherhood in your faith transition? Do you mind being personal?

23:13 Margi Dehlin Not at all. Just where to start?

23:15 Natasha Helfer I know actually this Reminds me, John, the very first time you interviewed me, the very first time, gosh, that was years ago. And you asked some question about, well, and how does that fit in with your identity as a woman? And I was like, oh, man, that's a whole nother podcast. Mr. Because you were asking me, you know, about my career and being a Mormon woman and all that. And I was like, I felt the same way, Margaret. I didn't even know where to start.

23:48 Margi Dehlin I can start with a couple ideas. I don't know. I would probably have to really process and really go deep. But a couple things that come to mind for me would be, you know, on a level, how I allowed the structure to usurp my voice. And so, and even in our conversations about things, like, I remember when we were first dating and I brought up the idea of working part time.

24:18 John Dehlin Wait, but before we talk about work, I think that's second. I don't mean to cut you off.

24:23 Margi Dehlin Oh, the motherhood.

24:23 John Dehlin But motherhood first in particular. So, like, I remember discussions around number of kids, and this is always difficult because what parents gonna say they regret, you know, one or two of their kids or five of their kids or all of their kids. But we did have some of those talks about how many kids to have.

24:42 Natasha Helfer Mm.

24:42 John Dehlin And just about motherhood specifically.

24:45 Natasha Helfer Yeah.

24:45 John Dehlin And again, I'm sorry for stopping you,

24:47 Margi Dehlin but sticking with motherhood.

24:49 Natasha Helfer Okay.

24:49 Margi Dehlin The first thing that I can think of, and this is something I see with a lot of women, is, you know, I moved from this high achievement structure right, in college. So I loved school. I loved going to school. I loved the whole process of learning. I loved. And I also was competing, right. So. So I was competing nationally. And I really loved competitive running. I loved what it. And so then I felt like I had this kind of large life where so many parts of me were emerging. They were just coming to be coming into fruition. And I was super excited. And what I feel like inevitably happened was, and there are great things about roles, so I want to be balanced here. And I loved my time, honestly. Many choices for women, many ways of being. And I really felt for motherhood in particular, but what it did was because I wasn't. I didn't feel empowered to diversify. Is it shrunk my world to this one thing, Right. And so I became this overachiever in momhood because I had no other realm, Right. It just made my world so small. So. So I really started reading a ton of books, but I feel like it sort of took over my identity and it took A thing that could have been a part of me. And it made all of me for, you know, more than a decade of that intense mothering. And you know, that it just kind of oftentimes requires. So I feel like it kind of usurped all these different aspects. And then of course, all the achievement kind of went into this thing that honestly is meant to be enjoyed, is meant to be, you know, kind of savored. Savored. It's not really healthy to have so much of your self concept connected to your children, for example. And so I honestly that kind of. And I'm not sure how healthy that was for me. And it took a lot of time for me to disentangle all of that later. So that's one thing that comes to me off the bat. And I see that with a lot of women really who are put into that world, they love mothering, but the fact that it is so dominant, it is so defining that you. There's like this inner frustration they have, this inner discontentment, you know, struggle within them because at one point they had all these outlets and now really it's become one.

27:31 John Dehlin If I can just jump in to that. And this is about you. I remember when I met you and you were on a nationally ranked cross country team and really into your studies and literature and writing and academics. And you had this dream of getting a master's degree in literature and maybe teaching at a college. And then I'm like, well, I'm graduating and we're going to get my job. So you either come with or I'm going without you. You know, it was, it was just very Mormon, you know, And I remember, and this is getting personal, but like, I remember coming home from work in Chicago or Dallas and like it seemed like every other day the furniture was rearranged and. Or you were cutting your hair and cutting your hair again and cutting your hair again. And I internalized that as just like, what is wrong with this woman? Who is this woman that I married? Like, she's rearranging the furniture and cutting her hair multiple times. What I don't think, what I think took me way too long to realize was that as important as like breastfeeding and feeding a baby and changing diapers and, you know, doing laundry and all the things you do as a, as a young mother with young kids,

28:56 Natasha Helfer you

28:56 John Dehlin had lost really important parts of you and you were such a. And it's not that you didn't love motherhood, you did, and you took it really seriously. But it, I think the limitations or the narrow scope of motherhood kind of left you maybe feeling undervalued, maybe feeling stir crazy, and really, I think had significant mental health implications for that first five or ten years at least. And I just don't think we went into our marriage with any sensitivity around that. And again, going to number of kids, you had sort of been a very active daughter, almost helping raise some of your younger siblings, and you had felt kind of tired. But I had had four kids in my family, and I'm like, we got to have four kids. You were leaning more towards two. I was like, we got to do four, maybe six. So we kind of settled on four, but it kind of wasn't fully your decision. Now, I don't mean to talk over you, but tell me if those reflections resonate with you.

30:12 Margi Dehlin It definitely. Yeah, it definitely resonates a bit with me. And so. And I even think, I love that you brought up the idea of choices, Natasha. This idea of, you know, people going back and really trying to process, wait, did I choose that? It doesn't. Like, I'm not sure that was an actual choice in that I was conscious of what I was choosing. And I think that's a really true thing as well. This idea that. And I find that takes some grief work, that takes some loss work, especially before we're able to kind of, in this stage now maybe pick up some of those pieces and we can talk about that on the other side. Kind of the good. The good now, that kind of comes from that. But, yeah, I do feel like, you know, trying to navigate my way and that patriarchal kind of coming, you know, being unsure of my voice and then feeling like there were times when I did actually use my voice, but it was usurped. Those are things that are painful that require processing. And now on the other side, I'm clearly very sensitive to, which can cause a dynamic in marriage that also has to kind of become. But what are some things that come out for you, Natasha, and motherhood?

31:32 Natasha Helfer Yeah, I think. Well, and even just the choice conversation, I always try to remind myself and everybody that comes through my doors that it's not like in our 20s, we're super wise and know every single choice we're gonna make, you know, so I try to remember that, you know, as I go back and think about things that, you know, were fairly easily influenced in our 20s. And lots of things are going on developmentally. Right. So I'm just trying to keep that perspective. But things that come up for me around motherhood is I definitely wanted to be A mom. I don't know. That's another thing. I don't know how natural that was versus how much that was just told to me. Right. So that's, I think, where we even start. It's like, was I just naturally mom, like, and loved being a mom, or was that just, you know, I was a pleaser, and I want to do what's right. And so, of course I was going to be a mom. I don't know that I'll totally figure that out. I also was the oldest and definitely parented my siblings in some ways, you know, like, definitely played a role in that. Not inappropriately necessarily, but just, you know, as an older sibling, you kind of play that role sometimes. And. And I wanted to have. Yeah, the four kids. I wanted to have four kids. And I definitely remember a lot of that, you know, that idea that the spirits were waiting for us to bring them down. I did feel that kind of responsibility that I was. If I wasn't going to have children, I was holding somebody back from this experience. So that's kind of a weird thing now to contemplate, right? Like, why was I having, like, guilt for, you know, what potentially could be bajillions of spirits? If that's, you know, that's a true concept. But I. You know, whether I had four or six or two, that doesn't make a huge dent in the billions. But for me, I felt that weight. And then I chose to continue my studies and get myself to a point where I could have a career and stay at home. But that meant that we were married for four years before we chose to have children. So that always felt very like I wasn't doing the right thing and that I wasn't being really righteous or really faithful or trusting in Heavenly Father per se. So I had those feelings. And then when it came to. The last thing I remember about motherhood in particular was when it came to the final decision. And I don't know if this was hormonal or if it was like, you know, you just get used to loving a baby. At least I did that. I was like, let's have five. I wasn't ready to stop. And Andy was like, what? Because he's like, I could barely do the four, you know, and so we did the classic thing that Mormons do, right? Which is we went to the temple, and we sat there and, you know, and I thought for sure I had that whole thing that, of course he's gonna get the right answer. He's gonna get my answer in the temple, right? With me, and we're gonna be fine, and we're gonna have this fifth baby that I had already attached myself to. And, yeah, that ended up being a huge disaster for us because he didn't walk away from that experience anymore excited to have a baby. And I, you know, and so then. And then I think I went into that whole righteous narrative that we have, because if this is what the church is telling us we should do, I'm obviously getting the right answer, Andy, and you must be doing something wrong and getting the wrong answer right. And then in my view, at that time, it felt very much like, in this weird way that I don't really agree with now, I felt like patriarchy, like his being a man, usurped my desire to have my fifth baby. So it was a really weird way to think about negotiation as a couple and to really bring that. Because that's getting my way, isn't what solving patriarchy is about either. Right? I mean, when you're in a couple, you're supposed to negotiate these things as a couple, as a man and a woman, or, you know, if you're in a homosexual relationship, as both, you know, both sexes. So it was really interesting to me to think back on all that. But all the grief and the meaning making I made around that particular issue was at that point devastating to me. You know, there was like this lost spirit that I never got to have. So those were all negatives. The one positive I will say about Mormonism and mothering, especially being in a career as well, is that Mormon. The Mormon space was the only space that really respected my mothering. Okay? So my outside world, especially when. When I started having three or four children, they would all look at me like I was kind of cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, right? And so I never got the. I never got the, like the affirmation or the honor or the respect in my non Mormon world, as far as all the work I was doing as a mother, as I did in the Mormon world, that definitely kind of cheerleaded me in that role in lots of ways. Now that's coming from my personal perspective. I never dealt with infertility. I never dealt with, you know, major miscarriages. I never dealt with lots of other issues. And I felt comfortable in my role of mothering. Although there was always. There's always the mother guilt, right? I was never the right type of mother. I never did enough like we do in all kinds of forms of kind of perfectionist Mormonism. So I didn't hold family home evening enough. I didn't do scripture study enough. I didn't do, you know, I mean, I did, but I always felt subpar. There was always something else I could have been doing and that definitely took a toll on me, mental health wise, for sure.

37:46 Margi Dehlin I so relate to that. I'm so glad you brought that up because I do feel like I was hustling prior to motherhood and what it did was it made me hustle inside. And then you have this kind of, not, not just a religious structure, but a cultural structure as well with regard to kind of what a good mother looks like, what are good children, what are. And I do feel like when your life becomes so one dimensional, it's really natural to start comparing. And that's something that I noticed some comments on our thread talking about is just, you have this idea of what a perfect Mormon mother looks like, talks like what her children are. I think we all can sort of bring that picture up of what. And so even if you are aware of that and conscious of that and even, you know, really trying to fight against that, it's still something that's omnipresent in what you're doing. And I think I really had a perfectionism hustle in this one dimension of my life and it started to eat me alive. It really did it. It definitely compromised my emotional and mental state and my feelings of being a worthy human as I am and what I had to contribute to the world.

39:09 Natasha Helfer Yeah, that goes right along with, yeah, give her a kiss. I want to give her a kiss too. I think that all of our kids struggle too, right? Like who raises perfect kids, right? And so kids struggle whether with grades or mental health issues of their own or attitude, whatever ways. And so then it's very easy in that narrative that you're talking about to blame it on yourself. I didn't hustle enough. Right. And that's why my kid is now struggling in this particular way. If we had only done A, B, C or D, which again, we tend to do in Mormon equational philosophies. We love equations. Although I do want to say this is not something that I think is unique to Mormonism. I think we have our own unique, like, kind of steroid approach to this in Mormonism. But I see lots of my non Mormon friends struggling with a lot of these same things. And what I think we also have to remember is that it's only been a generation or two where we had more choices as women regarding education or not getting married or, you know, even financial stability on your own, etc. And so these are themes that are running millennially deep in so many of us.

40:29 Margi Dehlin I see that too. Yep.

40:30 Natasha Helfer You add the Mormon sprinkle in there and it's even worse.

40:33 Margi Dehlin Yep.

40:35 John Dehlin We're getting so many wonderful comments and we, we posted some questions around Facebook and on Reddit and we've been flooded with really good comments and questions. So we're going to take, we're going to take questions now and comments, but we're also going to reserve time next week to drill more into the amazing comments and questions that people have left all over Facebook as well. So.

41:03 Natasha Helfer Well, Debbie, Holly says, hold on there, Natasha. My kids are perfect.

41:11 John Dehlin Absolutely. Well, good for her. Good for you, Debbie.

41:16 Margi Dehlin Save her, Debbie Saver.

41:18 John Dehlin But the only point I'm making is just that we're going to cover some of your comments and questions now. Please share them live and then if we don't get to yours, we're going to try and get to them next week. But having said that, let's just share some of the comments that have been made. Jaina writes, just jumping on. I love this idea of self exploration. Now is a very late time for that and I can't go back. So Jaina. And Jana also writes, I had haha, eight kids. I would never have had that many. So Jaina, our hearts go out to you. Thank you for being honest and vulnerable. Christy is really liking the idea of savoring and sometimes in the Mormon frenetic, many children lifestyle, savoring is, there isn't time for savoring. I'm not going to say that's true for everyone, but Christie's resonating with that concept. Patricia writes, I always had wanted to be a mom. I wanted a lot of kids. We have seven, two adopted because after five my body had a hard time. My husband and I think my husband I think would not have had as many. Also our two adopted kids are special needs. And then Patricia writes a happy note, now I'm doing more things for myself that I would always put aside. Margie, do you want to read Michelle's comment?

42:36 Margi Dehlin Sure. I realized that being a mother was part of me, not all of me. That is a novel concept to some. So agree.

42:44 John Dehlin And then Corinne's connecting with you.

42:46 Margi Dehlin Yes, I was a furniture rearranger too. Yes, we're in good company. I feel like Corinne, like there are many a woman that you know rearrange furniture and that's a creative outlet.

42:59 John Dehlin Martine sends her love. Hey Martine, Gina writes about hair and furniture. Do you want to share?

43:06 Margi Dehlin Margie was trying to be creative. Hair and furniture was all she had. Love you, Margie Weber Dillon. You know what's funny about that? But actually, twice, two times. When, you know, in those kind of early childbearing years, I cut my hair entirely off. And when I think back to that, like, a pixie cut, and one time it was with natural hair. It was right after my oldest child was born. And then the next time was after Clara was born, and I actually dyed it platinum. So I had a pixie cut twice, once platinum. But I really do, looking back to that, feel like there was some. There's something indicative of, like, a spiritedness, of, like, I'm being put in a box. But, man, I'm. You know, I'm gonna just defy here if I can.

43:55 John Dehlin Or imagine Margie with, like, the Susan Powers crew cut, like, Annie Lennox platinum blonde crew cut.

44:02 Margi Dehlin I feel like it was a little more Mia Farrow, to be honest, but it was awesome. I think the platinum started out a little more biker chicken, moved into kind of a softer me affair.

44:14 John Dehlin Anyway, Lisa writes, the symbolism of Margie cutting off her hair is hurting me. Yeah, she has a tear. I think she's actually being heartfelt.

44:23 Margi Dehlin No, I mean, that is a part that I can connect to and see meaning in now. Right. And that oftentimes happens as you transition as you can go back to your story with kind of the wisdom and perspective you have now and see yourself in these different ways, in a fuller way.

44:43 John Dehlin Patricia's asking Margie if you stopped going to school to raise your kids.

44:48 Margi Dehlin So there's kind of a story with that in that. So we got married my last semester of college, and I went ahead and finished independent study as well as going to, like, a junior college. Wherever we lived that semester took me until my Maya was born. And that was probably four years into our marriage. I graduated with my bachelor's. Really difficult for me to wrap my brain around that for as much as I was. My friends were shocked, absolutely shocked that I left school.

45:27 John Dehlin And I was oblivious. I was just like, you're coming with me. Finish your school elsewhere. If I had one big regret or one of several big regrets, it's that I was just insensitive to how hard it is to, like, finish your education through correspondence or through community colleges. I mean, it was fine. She did it. But it's a totally different animal. You don't have the same time to really absorb and connect and to communicate with students and professors. I wish I had just said, you know what? We're staying at BYU another semester or two and letting you finish my job can wait. But I was just really insecure about providing and I got a good job offer and it just wasn't in my mindset.

46:13 Margi Dehlin Kind of that role conversation.

46:15 John Dehlin Yeah.

46:17 Natasha Helfer This is the system we grew up in. There was nobody saying that you should have done anything different, John, or that you should have done anything different. Margie. Right. This is where we need to really look at the systems we come from. And instead of self blame or partner blame, it's like, yes, we were following a narrative and a script that was really strong, really powerful and it's okay to regret and to consider things, but I think we need to also lay a lot of the responsibility on the system.

46:51 John Dehlin Natasha, we're going to skip some of these comments because they're about the career portion. But if you can jump down to the bottom, there's a comment by Corinne and a comment by Kara that I'd love you to read if you don't mind.

47:01 Natasha Helfer Yeah. Corinne says usurp is such a perfect word to describe what being a Mormon woman is. You feel like your decisions were chosen for you by men who cannot relate or fully understand your experience within the mold. And then Kara says, since leaving, I've struggled with knowing how to make decisions because the LDS church made all my decisions for me. I never wanted kids, but in the back of my mind I knew I would have them because it was what was expected of me by the church. I have felt since leaving, I really don't know who I truly am. I'm almost 30 and don't know how to make decisions. It's so frustrating. I also didn't truly think about a career because I didn't think I would actually work. I knew I needed to go to school just in case. So I don't feel like. So I don't feel I took my career decisions seriously.

47:49 Margi Dehlin Yes.

47:50 John Dehlin So common and so heartbreaking. Kara, thank you. And we're so sorry.

47:55 Natasha Helfer And this is too where I'll say, you know, like, even though at one point I wanted five kids, like now thinking back I'm like, I would have been fine with two or three. Like kids take a lot out of you physically, emotionally, time wise. And that's why I, you know, I wonder like how much of that wanting kids was just kind of me following my own script, you know, that's what you should want. So I have enjoyed mothering and I've hated mothering. I've done a lot of both. But I, as I've gotten older, I recognize the toll it took on me physically and everything. So. Yeah.

48:35 John Dehlin Do you want to read Brittany's comment really quick? She threw one in about schooling.

48:39 Margi Dehlin I can relate to finishing school slowly. I went back and started school online through USU two weeks after my twins were born. It took me 5ish years to do a year and a half worth of school. In a real sense, I didn't even realize I could have done things differently. Yes.

48:56 John Dehlin Thanks, Brittany.

48:56 Margi Dehlin Yep.

48:59 John Dehlin All right, Natasha, should we,

49:02 Margi Dehlin should we

49:03 John Dehlin jump to the career part next?

49:06 Margi Dehlin Yeah.

49:06 Natasha Helfer And this, I think is just so closely tied to it because so much of our. Well, first of all, I don't know that we are encouraged to really consider a professional identity. You know, I think that most Mormon women, although education is, you know, encouraged and going to schools encouraged, it's always kind of like as a backup plan, you know, like, go get as much schooling as you can get done when you stay at home.

49:33 John Dehlin Elementary ed, do a couple years as

49:35 Natasha Helfer elementary ed teacher in case your husband, you know, dies or divorces you or becomes disabled. Right. So that you can provide, if you

49:46 John Dehlin have to, something short and convenient, you

49:49 Natasha Helfer know, do something that, you know, if you're going to work, it won't interfere too much. Elementary education, of course, is a big one because then you're working while the kids are generally in school. Right. And not weekends or summers or things like that.

50:04 John Dehlin Of course, that puts you almost at the poverty level sometimes in terms of the income and benefits you get.

50:08 Natasha Helfer Not always, but it's a female driven. Any female driven career is going to be much less compensated. That's a whole nother social justice issue. Right.

50:18 John Dehlin And so my sisters were taught a woman only by my mom, woman only needs two years of college,

50:27 Natasha Helfer right.

50:27 John Dehlin So just long enough to meet a

50:28 Natasha Helfer man at college, meet a man especially meet somebody professional who's gonna be able to provide for you. Right. Things like that. I mean, there's the age old joke that you go to get your Mrs. Right at college. And again, it wasn't just Mormons that would talk that way. I mean, there's other, you know, Christian or more traditional denominations that talk that way. But the professional identity wasn't ever something that was about you, what you really loved or what you really were passionate about. It was more about in case you need something, what would that something be? And make sure that it's something that fits in line with your main role, which is to be a stay at home mother. Right. As much as possible. And then of course, we only, we really only honor mothers who work if they have to work so single moms, you know, or moms who have, yeah, the man who has a disability or things of that nature, widows, etc. Any other mom. And I definitely felt this pressure, you know, of like, why are you working or why are you taking time away from your home when you don't have to, you know, because I had spouse who happened to have a fairly decent job. Right. So I don't have to work. Although the have to. That's also a whole other level of judgment because these days it's pretty hard to have a middle class kind of run of the mill lifestyle on one income here in the United States. You know, if you want to have just simple pleasures like piano lessons or. I'm not talking about, you know, going on vacation and cruises every year. I'm talking about just having two vehicles and having kids in sports and having, you know, just a little bit extra money to go on a camping vacation. Most families these, these days need two incomes to pull that kind of lifestyle, middle class lifestyle off here in the United States anyway. So those are all, I think, really, really difficult things. And I've heard many women in my office and, and I'll talk about it personally as well. Really struggling, you know, and especially in a faith transition when they're oftentimes thinking, do I want to stay married, do I want to continue what I'm doing. To have zero, zero. As far as, you know, if you're in your 30s or 40s, have zero educational background or professional training, can feel experience. Experience, right. So maybe they did get a degree, but they never got a job to follow up with that. So their resume is nothing, you know, compared to other women who they're competing against can feel, I think, extremely daunting. Daunting, scary. It keeps them feeling trapped. I hear the word trapped so many times. I feel trapped. And then of course, the anger, the anger. Why did anybody tell me? Why didn't anybody show me? Why didn't anybody encourage me? Why didn't anybody support my original ideas and dreams, right. Or goals? So it's just incredibly heartbreaking to sit with that and even me, you know, sure, I'm a career person, but all along the way I sacrificed my career. All along the way I wanted to go to medical school. I have all my pre meds done. I started thinking, is pre, you know, is medical school really the lifestyle that my children would need? How many Mormon men don't go to medical school because of what their Mormon children need? Right. In fact, they go to medical school because of what their Mormon Children need. So I stopped that dream and I thought about counseling because again, I felt like, okay, here's something that I can maybe be flexible around. But I knew I could not be flexible while I was getting my license, which is why I did the four years of getting my license and working full time before having kids because I wanted to be able to stay at home with my kids. So I did that really fast, got my license, got my degree, did the four year full time kind of thing so that I could stay at home feeling guilty the whole time because I was married.

54:54 Margi Dehlin Right.

54:54 Natasha Helfer And then as soon as the kids came way back, you know, gave up all my regular jobs, you know, I would keep my toe in the door, like three clients a week, you know, and then every time I build a practice, we'd move and I'd follow my provider husband. I'd have to start all over again. These days with online stuff that's shifted things dramatically in my field. But it's very hard to pick up and start a new practice. And I do that. I did that like three or four times during the kids being little. And you know, do you think I was prioritizing, writing or research or I was just barely making it, you know, as far as in my profession. So when I think about, you know, my husband's earning capacity and when I think about my earning capacity, it pisses me off, right. Because I actually have just as much earning capacity as he does. But I never dedicated myself the same way he was able to dedicate himself to the career and all the goals that we have. Right. Every time I think about the book that I want to write with you, John, and stuff, I just get. Because a lot of that for me is my mothering that gets in the way of that, not other things, you know, so it's just I think that whether you have a career or whether you don't, whether you have training, whether you don't, whether you did a halfway thing or whether or not it's still there's always something there that there wasn't room to prioritize or have the same experience our male counterparts did because our male counterparts were expected to be parents and fathers and to focus on careers. Now I do think there's issues there for males as well, and I'll save that for when we talk about male issues because I don't think this also has some issues for males as well as far as the messages they got. But for us as women, I think that I see so much pain and heartache and fear and truly Being unprepared for life, which I think is a disaster for our young women to not really have preparation. I don't want to be in a relationship with my husband because I feel like I have to be.

57:14 Margi Dehlin That's right.

57:14 Natasha Helfer I want to be in a relationship with my husband because I kind of want to be. And I say kind of because, you know, that shifts every day. I don't want to feel.

57:24 Margi Dehlin Just keeping it real.

57:26 Natasha Helfer Women feel in my office, like, if I was really to leave, if I was really to think about that decision, what would I do? Yeah, what would I do? And how would that impact our financial assets, our lifestyle? Forget. I mean, it's lots of other things that would impact to divorce, but that oftentimes is the primary thing women are thinking about. And then a lot of these women supported their husbands through medical school and through, you know, lawyer school and through dental school and, you know, and then if they do divorce in their 30s and 40s, and the earning potential of that man goes forward exponentially in ways that their divorce decree, even a good one, will never support her in the time, the effort, and the investment that she put into that marriage financially, because she will only get assets up to that point of their relationship. So the whole system is set up very, very poorly for women who have not been able to pursue their own dreams and careers and earning potentials.

58:33 Margi Dehlin Yes.

Episode 33

0:20 John Dehlin What was it like for you, Margie, as you went through a faith crisis and contemplated career stuff?

0:26 Margi Dehlin Yeah, you know, one thing that came up for me was this. Well, there are a couple things, but one thing that you kind of alluded to earlier, Natasha, as women, I think, you know, come into their own amidst transitioning and kind of go back to this, their developmental kind of years and feel trapped as to what now is available or not available and how to navigate that. It's just this idea of, you know, the reason why I brought up that stage, that in the beginning, this stage of self development, this stage of self exploration, is because what you realize is you just move from one dependent relationship to another as a female, you're shuffled. I was literally, you know, provided for by my parents and then I moved into another dependent relationship, you know, because my parents helped me pay for college. So. So all that self exploration that I loved, they were still supporting me. I wasn't fully supporting myself.

1:28 Natasha Helfer Right.

1:28 Margi Dehlin And then I move into a marriage where. And it always made me feel so dependent. So, you know, that I did not have this time where I was independent, I had my own house, I had a sense of my own identity. What I decorated, like what I was professionally, what I loved, what turned me on, how, how I wanted to walk, my time and having friends and all this lends to your career. It gives to the relationships that you end up inevitably in later. So it's natural that these things reemerge and it's natural that there's this sense of pain and loss around those things. And so not only do I, in talking to women in transition, are they saying, I'm trapped in here. I don't have this resume here, I don't have these experiences. It's also, I have no idea, like, what class to take. I have no. Because I don't even know myself that well. Not only that, but it costs money. So how do I feel great about taking a class? I may hate, but we're going to throw money at it. And you have this whole sort of dependent structure of guilt and being a weight to people and. And that I just think it brings up a lot and it's tough to navigate on that other side. So, you know, that's something that comes up for me because I had those feelings of dependency. When John was transitioning, it kind of flipped and he was like, why don't you work? That's when I was really in the throes of. I felt like I had hit my stride.

3:02 John Dehlin You would get so mad.

3:03 Margi Dehlin Things were really Demanding with the kids. And I'm like, like, what job am I going to work at a doctor's office as a secretary? Like, oh, thanks. Thanks for empowering me, babe. So helpful. You know, where it would be different if it was like, what do you dream about? How can we help you?

3:21 Natasha Helfer How do you.

3:22 Margi Dehlin But by then it was like pressure of a different kind, where I was

3:25 Natasha Helfer like, I feel like if Andy was here, we could really get on them both. Margie.

3:31 Margi Dehlin But my point is that was structural and the structure switched and then you had another structure informing, you know, on the other end. And this is why it's so important for women to take this time to really come into their own. And I love this idea of choices. I don't know if you felt this way, Natasha, but for whatever reason, if it was structural, but I felt it was such a binary. You work or you don't, you work or you're. And now what I love seeing culturally is all these choices for women. That is what I feel like is so beautiful. It's like, pick your flavor, pick what? Do you want to work from home part time? Do you want to. And this idea that you can really curate a life. So to answer your question, the best I had, and this will be the good side, was to pick up all these unclaimed parts of me and to see what moved me and what I wanted to do with those things and what felt honoring to me and how I could go back in time to that woman that I left, who I abandoned, and pick her up and meet her, you know, super emotional. But that's really what it felt like for me was to go back and reclaim her and say, I've got you, I've got you now and I'm not leaving you again. You know,

4:44 John Dehlin if I can. That was beautiful. If I can just reflect on some of my memories of your experience and how I dealt with suboptimally with it. We were in this really special position where after Microsoft, we were able to not have a mortgage for, let's just say, 12 years. We didn't have a mortgage and we didn't have car payments because we basically saved all that money for Microsoft and plotted into a home and had paid for our cars. And I was, in theory, I was like, go back to school, Margie. Come on, just pick a major and go back to school. Get an advanced degree. And there were two things that I wish I had been more sensitive about. One was you saying to me, john, not only do we have four kids, you know, which is a Lot. But we had four kids because you wanted to have four kids. So now that we've got four kids, I take those kids very seriously as my primary responsibility. And so because of that, I do not want to engage in second or third responsibilities that are going to cause me to neglect that commitment that I made. And you would kind of say, man, if we'd only had two kids, maybe we'd be in a very different conversation right now. But you wanted me to have four. And so that was something that I wasn't sensitive to. And then the other one was just, again, you talked about this, the expense and the commitment of an advanced degree or additional training. I was just like, pick something and go. And like you said, it took you years, literally probably a decade or more for you to finally know inside what you wanted to do. And part of that was all the constraints that were added once we got married and had four kids. And then part of it was, like you said, just finding yourself. But I needed. It wasn't until, you know, we moved to Logan in 2004. It wasn't until 2017, 2018, where you really figured out what you wanted to do. And I was glib about it. I was just like, go back to school. I'll support you. I'll stay home. And it just takes. It took you time. Not everyone needs that time, but it took Margie that time. And it's really important to be patient with the partner as they figure that out. And it may take years, and it may even take a decade, and it may take stops and starts. It may take investments that don't pan out. But I feel like I owed that to you to give you that patience, and I'm glad you figured it out.

7:45 Margi Dehlin Mm. And I think every woman is gonna walk this differently, and it's gonna feel. I know women who transition and immediately enroll in school with all. And they find. And that's what I do.

7:56 John Dehlin The thing they always wanted to do.

7:57 Natasha Helfer That's right.

7:57 Margi Dehlin And they know. And it was always burning inside them. And that's the point, is that I think every woman has to walk that. And I just feel like the most womanist thing is to really support and to allow for these choices to emerge within women and to have and to support them, claiming them for themselves. So there are a lot of ways to be a woman in our culture and to, you know, fulfill yourself and to create a life you love so well.

8:28 Natasha Helfer And I think you're both bringing up a point that's just reality, is that we. We set up life most of us in, you know, in our 20s for this to be the lifestyle. So although you may be going through a transition and the husband can be quote, unquote supportive and oh, honey, go do whatever you want to do, who is still going to take care of the four kids? Who is still going to. And this is a problem that we have nationwide. I mean, even with as many women in the workforce as we have, the statistics continue to come back that they are still doing the primary job at home as well.

9:09 Margi Dehlin Yes, they double up.

9:10 John Dehlin It's called second shift in the academic literature.

9:12 Natasha Helfer Right. This is a real problem is that we have not had role model to us generationally at all, egalitarian relationships. And it's actually quite hard to reorganize a job or a lifestyle around egalitarian parenting, egalitarian finances, when maybe you do have the man who became a high powered attorney, in order to continue that type of income, he has to put in 70 hours a week. And that's how you organized your life. Right. And so the woman is doing the 70 hours of the home stuff at home. Well, if all of a sudden she's going to go back to work or try to negotiate her career, he's going to have to shift that. They're going to have to shift together. And those are difficult choices and they don't come easily. Not everybody's transitioning in the same rate. Right. So a lot of women are transitioning and their husbands are not. And they're very confused at all of this hoopla and even can be quite belittling, like, what are you complaining about? I wish I could stay at home with the kids. Right. And kind of like really don't get it from an identity perspective. Right. And so there's just a lot of complications that even though you may be in a space where you're like, yes, I understand, I know what I want. I kind of want to do it differently. It's, you know, you still got. You're still looking at your four kids, you're still looking at your mortgage. Right. You're still looking at everything you've built for the last 15, 20 years. And that doesn't shift easily oftentimes with you. So I just say that to kind of, you know, in a way normalize how hard these changes can be. Even if you're both on the same page, if you're in a marriage, you know, where you want to support this new female identity, it can be very hard to shift. That's how I feel in my marriage. You know, I've Got a husband who kind of gets it, who's supportive. The end of the day, you know, I'm still the one canceling clients majority of time going to get the sick kid because, you know, his work. If we were really going to shift his work life to something that would be more parent friendly, we'd have to shift a lot of things in our life.

11:29 Margi Dehlin Yes, yes. Such a great insight. Should we go to comments? A couple comments.

11:36 John Dehlin So many great comments. And Natasha, feel free to throw, throw in the ones you want to share. Margie, do you want to tackle a couple?

11:43 Margi Dehlin Sure. Cora writes because my family didn't encourage me at school, I didn't realize how important it was to find a passion or a career that would be stable and interesting to me until after I graduated from college. I feel like no one around me really pushed me to figure out what I wanted for my future. Luckily, I married someone who does support me. I'm 27 and just starting to figure myself out.

12:04 John Dehlin Congrats, Cora.

12:06 Natasha Helfer Yeah, I'm gonna read Lisa Sears. She says this is a shelf item for me because I was always taught that staying at home was the most important thing a woman could do. But then some of the recent general authorities wives have careers and it was extremely confusing to and I will say this, one of the things that I was invited to do back when Mitt Romney was running for president, they had a lot of focus groups that the PR department was bringing in, women in particular to meet with them and kind of give them ideas about how Mormon women were perceived. And as I looked around the room, we were all PhD or Master's levels women in that room. There was about six of us. And I brought this up. I said, why did you call six women who have higher level education? And I even asked each woman, did you wait to have children? Did you follow the advice? All of us said we waited. All of us had not followed the advice and yet we were the ones being honored in this space of now getting to sit at the PR office. And I said that is completely offensive to all the women who actually obeyed what you said to do. And yet here we are, the rebels getting this honor from you. I think that that's extremely interesting and complicated for women to see other women who don't follow the rules, in essence have better lifestyles, usually have better accolades, and have more respect in their overall community. That must be very painful. So I appreciated Lisa's vulnerability on that.

13:44 Margi Dehlin Absolutely. So Kristin writes, not too many employers are impressed to see two pages of a resume filled with church Volunteer service as job experience. Thankfully, some employers are understanding of women who are out of the workforce for 15 to 20 years to raise children. But that is the exception to the rule in my life. Yes, agreed.

14:07 Natasha Helfer And even though they may be again understanding you're going to be starting. Not at great pay.

14:14 Margi Dehlin Exactly.

14:15 Natasha Helfer Or benefits usually. Yep, yep.

14:19 Margi Dehlin Do you want to read?

14:23 John Dehlin Marissa writes, it's such a weird space to be in now out of the church. I feel pressure to want a career because it's contrary to what I was taught at church. Like so many of my newfound opinions, I always thought I truly liked being a stay at home mom. But now I don't know. So weird to be learning to think for myself after getting married and having two kids. So empowering though I'm glad I'm figuring it out sooner rather than later. That's a great comment, Marissa or Marisa. And I'm just going to add that so many what so many women discover. Some women are going to just say, hey, I'm good with being a stay at home mom. That's what I love. That's what I want to do. We celebrate that. My mom was a stay at home mom our whole lives pretty much until my parents got divorced. Then she had to work as a secretary in a podiatrist's office. But she loved being a stay at home mom and that worked for her. I think you've been a great stay at home mom too.

15:18 Margi Dehlin It was a skill. I would say I wasn't quite. I wasn't very natural at it in the beginning but as I grew more healthy myself, by the time you came to me with the flip, I was like, wow, I'm super invested here and there are. Our kids were teens and I thought I need to do this in a way that I can feel good about myself with what I've, you know how I've stood by and navigated these times with them and so yeah, I think it's gonna look different for everyone. But I loved, I did love my time with my and the focus I was able to have. There was just another side to it. But I did love that.

15:54 John Dehlin And you're still doing it.

15:55 Margi Dehlin Well.

15:56 Natasha Helfer And back to your point Margie of choices, like there's a lot of secular women out there who are very mindful about making choices around their careers or with their spouse or partner to make sure that one of them or she can stay at home with the children. So lots of women enjoy staying at home with children. And there's a great book out there. I forget what it's called now, but they monetize how much a stay at home parent is worth and it was like over $100,000. When you really think about all the things that typical stay at home parents do for the household and for the childcare and for the meals and the menus and the laundry and you know, cleaning and all of those things. And yet we don't treat it that way in our society again because female work has usually been devalued work and we still see that even in wages. Right? I mean we're still at 70 cents to a dollar as far as women, which is just, it's just amazing to think about that. We do that in our country.

16:56 John Dehlin The other thing I wanted to add about that, and then you guys be looking for other comments to share. Something that I found is that while some women really love and enjoy being a stay at home mom and really natural at it, some women get clinically depressed if that's all they can do and, or they're not as effective as a parent. And part of that is going to be just happiness if all they do is be a stay at home mom. So that was a big light bulb for me. There are many, many women who are better mothers if they are able to work outside the home. They're happier, they're more fulfilled, they're more engaged, they're more skilled. And we've actually seen reports about how especially with women, many times daughters and or children do better if they see their mother working outside the home. So that's not going to be true for everyone. But I just want to make that point that for some women they will actually, you know, we were taught in church a woman's place is in the home. The most glorious thing you'll ever do is raise your kids and you're stealing from your kids or you're robbing your family if you have a career. And I found that sometimes that's false. The opposite is true. You, you will be a better mother to your children, you'll be a better spouse and you'll have better personal mental health and wellbeing development if you have a job while you're mothering.

18:30 Margi Dehlin So true.

18:30 John Dehlin And that's just. I had to say that.

18:32 Natasha Helfer Well, this is. So what's so frustrating about the we're all supposed to fit into the mold, right? Kind of approach that Mormonism takes. Like all women are supposed to be the comforters, right. And all men are supposed to be the leaders and, and there's lots of males that are much more tender in Their personalities and are the comforters, you know, in their home environment. And the mother's more the disciplinarian or the, you know, more kind of let's get going type of personality in the home. And so we do this, I think as well with mothering. It's like we just do this whole umbrella sweeping, brush. Like everybody's going to do better in this particular setting. And not only are you saying that, but you're tying it to righteousness with go that doesn't fit your particular personality or your personal taste or preferences. Now, first of all, there's no real out because you're not supposed to do anything else. And secondly, it's filled with a guilt trip. And yes, the research does show that the biggest group of depressed women are stay at home mothers. Actually have depressed adults are stay at home parents now because there's some dads that are staying at home. And that's true even of people who like aspects of staying at home. It doesn't mean that you have to hate staying at home to be, to have issues with depression because quite frankly, it's quite a thankless job. It's a very repetitive job. It can be an isolating job. And so those are issues as to why they think that's the case. And the research just on having children in general is not great, right? So you want to be miserable, have some kids. That's the reason.

20:16 John Dehlin Oh my gosh. That's a meme. That's a meme. Somebody make that meme. If you want to be miserable, have kids.

20:25 Margi Dehlin We're here just with your daily dose of happiness people. We're just here to lift you up free from us to you.

20:34 Natasha Helfer I think that that makes sense. You know, we're sleeping less, we're stressed, you know, they could be pains in the back. Even though they're lovely, we love them and they're wonderful. They make our lives more complicated. Yeah, but we're not sold that. We're sold false expectations, right? We're sold that this is what's going to be wonderful and righteous and lovely and sacred and your home is going to be this beautiful environment and then it all goes to crap. And you're like, what is going on?

21:05 Margi Dehlin And then not only that, then you not only have that, but it's compounded because then most women I know and the structure sort of is then it's what's wrong with me, like, because I'm not happy, see, because now there's this expectation. So it's now with me, okay, then I'm Wrong. I'm wrong in this structure because I can't be happy with it.

21:26 Natasha Helfer Right.

21:26 Margi Dehlin That's a whole other level. Yeah.

21:28 Natasha Helfer Yeah. So I appreciate you bringing those topics up, John, because we want to be careful. We're not saying everybody should work or that everybody should get a career or that everybody should stay at home or not stay at home. These are really personal decisions. There's a comment here from if I can find it, she says, Kylie Woolard says, I've been very grateful to be a stay at home mom. I have four kids, three of whom are autistic and being at home has given me the flexibility to manage therapies and services for them. However, I cannot wait to go back to work. I find myself constantly struggling with depression from the isolation and responsibility that comes with being a stay at home parent. Good example of the. Yes. And you know, you don't have to. If you're a person who really enjoys and is grateful that you can stay at home with the kids, that doesn't mean that you're not still maybe dealing with issues with depression doesn't mean that you're not dealing with issues of depression if you're a working mom. Right. Or anything like that. So we want to be careful. We're just saying we were given a one way street. This is the way you do it, and if you don't do it this way, there's something kind of wrong with you. And many of us did that one way street and now are dealing with a lot of repercussions that can be really hard to swallow.

22:46 John Dehlin I just have to say we have struck a nerve and I shouldn't be surprised. We've got over 50 live viewers, which is big for this time of day for this podcast. And we've got well over 100 comments already and the comments are streaming for us. So we're loving the comments. If you want to. If you're listening to this or watching it and you really want to get a full sense of the comments and validation and ideas and tips, go to the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis podcast page on Facebook and read these comments. We won't be able to read them all today. We're going to keep reading as many as we can, but. But please keep the comments coming. They're brilliant and they're really important.

23:33 Margi Dehlin Yes. I'll just add, Patricia writes, we're all different for a reason. There should be no molds or boxes. Love that. Kara writes, yes. When expectations aren't reality, you self blame, which can lead to depression.

23:47 Natasha Helfer Yes. Right. So as I'm looking at all the points that we made and we probably have about half an hour left. We had talked about identity as a wife, sexual identity caretaker and gender role identities, spiritual identity, moving away from patriarchal oversight, feminist awakenings and stepping away from what I call the fragile flower identity. That's a lot. And we're not going to cover it in half an hour. So what are your thoughts, John and Marky? Should we kind of go into the white.

24:20 John Dehlin Listen, we're going to continue this next week, so let's not rush through anything.

24:25 Natasha Helfer Right. So I'm just saying. Yeah. What do we want to still cover today? I guess because I've got about half an hour.

24:30 John Dehlin Yeah, yeah, us too. Us too. Let's go ahead and do so we

24:34 Natasha Helfer could talk about wife identity.

24:36 John Dehlin Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's do it.

24:38 Natasha Helfer Because this kind of goes along with all this to be a mother and to be. All this kind of has to do with being a wife.

24:47 Margi Dehlin Yeah.

24:48 John Dehlin I have met women. I have met women who. And this is going to be an extreme example, but they became a mother, left a career, had kids under the understanding that there was a promise that they would find meaning and fulfillment and happiness. And when they didn't find that meaning and fulfillment and happiness like they thought, that sometimes has even triggered its own faith crisis. And I've seen women just walk away from the marriage because they just were miserable. And once they had their faith crisis, they just said, I never would have married this guy. I would have never married when I did. I would have never had these kids. And the most extreme example is just walking away from the marriage altogether, which we don't condemn. I think Natasha and Margie, we all agree that some marriages need to end and so we support everyone who makes the decisions they need to make. But going up from walking away, let's explore all the different ways that women react to that faith crisis as it relates to their spouse.

26:01 Natasha Helfer Marissa says you've got a big number of a lot of stay at home moms tuning in. Nap time.

26:06 Margi Dehlin Nap time.

26:07 John Dehlin Yeah, it's brilliant.

26:08 Natasha Helfer This is a good time. When you said it's the middle of the day, it's like this is.

26:11 Margi Dehlin I still remember that. Soak up a little me time. Yes.

26:16 John Dehlin We're almost up to 60 now. This is awesome.

26:19 Natasha Helfer Thanks for choosing your very precious time to spend with us.

26:24 Margi Dehlin So true.

26:25 Natasha Helfer Precious time.

26:26 John Dehlin They're probably folding laundry and.

26:29 Natasha Helfer That's right. Or hopefully sitting down and eating some chocolate for a minute, a latte or

26:37 Margi Dehlin a coffee or that's what we Wish for all of us.

26:41 Natasha Helfer All right, well, so we talked a little bit about kind of the Mrs. Degree and the importance of, you know, kind of getting married. But I do think that a lot of. And I think it really hit when you were talking, Margie, about going from your father's house to your husband's house. And that's how a lot of us as women kind of just, you know, and I almost remember there being this kind of anxiety that I felt that if I couldn't find a husband, then what was I going to do with my life? Right. There wasn't really any narratives or scripts about what I would do if I was husband less. And for those of you who are giving me a lot of credit for getting my career, quite frankly, I just didn't have a lot of dating success at byu. I'm not so sure that if I would have been married as a sophomore that I wouldn't have run off with the guy as well. Those fools forget my career. So just don't give me a lot of credit. Although I did think about it a little bit more when I was a little bit older. So I'm just saying our identity as wives. And then I think one of the things too that even for women who are quite happy in their relationships currently, we still go back and think, well, what about my age? What about my self development? How much time did I really have to self develop prior to marrying this particular person, even if I still really like him and love him and want to be with him on top of it? One thing I'd like to kind of talk about, since we're talking about transition themes, is the temple aspect of this. So I think I saw a lot of comments on the social media threads that you talked that you kind of started, John, on this idea that as you went to the temple, it really started this identity of wife beneath husband and that I need to obey my husband. Now, I understand that some of that language has changed just very recently, but most of us who are married, you know, covenanted to our husbands, not to God. And then the added complication of the polygamy doctrine in our, you know, in our, in our theology, which some women don't necessarily understand, that we're married in a polygamous ceremony. But even if you don't understand that, there's enough.

29:05 John Dehlin Give us the, give us a 30 second explanation of that. How is the regular Mormon temple endowment wedding ceremony polygamous?

29:13 Natasha Helfer Well, I believe this is still the case. I don't know if this language changed with the recent changes. But my understanding of the language that I was married under was that I said, I give myself to you. Oh, Andrew Parker. And Andrew Parker very kindly said, I receive you, Natasha.

29:34 Margi Dehlin I'll take that. I was receiving.

29:37 Natasha Helfer But he didn't give diddly squat. And I think it's kind of easy to receive a lot. You can only give so much. So I think that there's some real, you know, there's some real language there that is still. And then a lot of people might say it doesn't matter the language so much, but it does matter because we consistently have the issues in temple marriages. And one of the. One of the people that commented was a widow when she was 25, and she talked about how difficult it was for her to find a new husband. She had two children with her first husband. He died. And how difficult it was to find another husband within Mormonism because she would either have to annul, you know, like not. Not be sealed to that first husband in order to be sealed to this new husband, or this new guy would just kind of have to be married to her for time. Right? And what's interesting about that is that any children that you have with the new husband are then sealed to the original, to whoever the woman is sealed to. So this is a huge disaster. I mean, this is a whole. I mean, Carolyn Pearson talks a lot about this. You can look into this through other podcasts.

30:54 John Dehlin The book is the Ghost of Eternal Polygamy. And it's real. It's a real issue not just for believing Mormon women, but for post Mormon women. Polygamy haunts and touches everything, right?

31:07 Natasha Helfer So our identity as females and our wife identity, I think, is different than males and their husband identity as Mormons. And then I think the rage and the anger that comes out even when you're believing. I mean, some women, I think, really talk about how they're very uncomfortable with the temple language from the get go. But even as you're transitioning, it really shifts this whole idea of ownership. Now, granted, ownership is an issue we have in marriages anyway in this whole country, right? The whole, oh, I belong to you, and you belong to me, and everybody belongs, belongs. And then we all get grumpy and upset when we don't act in certain ways that are in accordance with both people. So that's very obedience belonging type ways that we navigate marriages anyway. But, boy, is that amped up in Mormonism, Right? And so as women are transitioning from these beliefs, it kind of shifts a lot of ideas that they have toward their marriages. You don't have to be in a negative marriage, like I said, or be having marital conflict for those ideas and thoughts to really start percolating in a different way.

32:16 John Dehlin Just to go back to how is the Mormon marriage ceremony polygamous in nature? I'm pretty sure it mentions the new and everlasting covenant. And if you look at D and C 132, which is sort of encapsulates the new and everlasting covenant, just read the second half of that document. It's, it's all about polygamy and, and the different rules governing plural marriage. And, and so you know that that contained everything. And it can cause women, it can cause this backlash in women to have this feminist awakening, which can. I don't know, I haven't really felt this, but I imagine if I were a woman married under that system and then having a feminist awakening, I could imagine feeling anger and even resentment towards men just generally because having then awakened to the idea that I was living under an oppressive polygamous patriarchy for so long. And now that. That doesn't mean that everyone who's in a Mormon marriage is in an oppressive marriage. But I think it's pretty hard to not be subjected to a patriarchy if you're in a Mormon marriage. So can you guys talk about that?

33:30 Natasha Helfer Well, there's direct oppression and there's indirect. Right. And I think most of us who are married to decent guys are. We're dealing more with indirect oppression like a lot of things that we've already been talking about with parenting and decision making. And it kind of leans in the direction of the guy at the same. So that's, I think, what a lot of women are angry about. And as far as feminist awakenings, that's a whole nother point that I wanted to talk about because I do think what you're saying is that even though we are mad at the system, well, who's in front of us? Our husbands. Right. And so they get a lot of the, and we're living, we start noticing things in our day to day lives and it doesn't take, like I said, it doesn't take a hugely oppressive or abusive relationship to start noticing how these things are showing up. And so who gets the brunt of that anger is typically the guy that we're with. So yeah, or our fathers, you know, or our uncles or grandfathers or people who are in our day to day life.

34:34 John Dehlin Have you felt resentment or anger about the, you know, patriarchy or feminist awakening?

34:41 Margi Dehlin I think for me, interestingly, what it's done is awakened me to this idea of privilege. Who has the most privilege, who has less privilege? And I'm really sensitive with social issues about even the privilege I have that other people may not have. And so it's allowed for me to kind of move into. I'm trying to move into a space of greater awareness that way. So, yes, and I think that's a natural thing because you're literally looking at someone in the eye and going to bed with someone who enjoys privilege. You don't have. And if you look at historically, women's right to vote or any sort of social change, it always depended on the privileged people to go ahead. And how did women get the right to vote? We relied on people who had the privilege to give us the right to vote to get the right to vote. And so there's a responsibility there that I think can naturally elicit an outrage, a sense of outrage of, you have the privilege, you live with me, you look at me every day like, how do you justify the fact that you're benefiting from something that diminishes me, you know, Or I take the hit for the privilege that you enjoy. And so I do think that's a natural thing. And I think I definitely have felt it at times, and I feel like my pathway strangely, or maybe not so strangely, is in then acknowledging the privilege I have and trying to work for those who don't have even the privilege I do.

36:17 John Dehlin We're getting great comments from our listeners. Kylie writes, even when I was fully believing my husband and I couldn't talk about polygamy without it ending in a fight, I told him if I ever died, he could only get married for time.

36:28 Margi Dehlin And.

36:28 John Dehlin And he couldn't have any kids with his new wife because I was not going to practice polygamy even in the next life. Shelly writes, I can't stand that I married blinded to this, but I had no idea what I was getting into. How do you get over that, Natasha? How do you get over the feminist awakening rage? How do you get over it? Can you.

36:51 Natasha Helfer Yeah, well. And we have been talking a lot about issues, not so much how to get over them.

36:56 John Dehlin Yeah.

36:57 Margi Dehlin So we could do another kind of session, I think, on, like, coping or strategies or on what we're laying out here today as opposed to dropping it and leaving.

37:06 Natasha Helfer Right. Get you all worked up.

37:09 Margi Dehlin That's right.

37:11 Natasha Helfer Feminist rage. I love my feminist rage. Well, I, you know, I mean, we did just do a huge podcast on grief work.

37:22 John Dehlin Yeah. Check that out.

37:23 Natasha Helfer And I do think that that's A lot of what this is, you're having to grieve. Like, we've been talking about past decisions, you know, past narratives, scripts that we were given, a lot of things that we didn't have a lot of control over. Right? And then. And then making room for. Making appropriate room for that anger and that sadness and that grieving process, while at the same time trying not to get stuck there. Right. Because then you can be mad the rest of your life about missed opportunities or. So then it's more shifting into, well, what can I control or what can I do going differently? And one of the things that actually quite a few people in my transitioning who come to see me, who are transitioning have done is that they do. Because somebody, I think in that comment, she said about the marriage aspect, they do second ceremonies. So they actually do like, whole, like, you know, a lot of people do second vows right. At some point in their marriage. And I've seen a lot of transitioning couples do something like that. So it kind of creates this new ritual of we're gonna create our own language, our own vows, our own ceremony to celebrate moving on from here, you know, so that's. Sometimes rituals can help. Healing rituals. We've talked about that in the past, too. I think a lot of it is really getting into, what can I control moving forward. Blaming the system versus blaming yourself and recognizing that this isn't just a Mormon thing. I mean, think about all the women right now in our world, in our current world, who don't even have the privilege of being mad about this kind of stuff. Right? Like, there's still super restrictive cultures, super restrictive religions that are very. That, you know, limit whether a woman can drive, whether or not a woman can get an education, whether or not a woman can make money, whether or not she's got parental rights. Right. So let's try to keep it in perspective that the. Yes. And right. Yes, I have a right to be angry. Yes, it could have been different. I have a right to be angry and sad about that. And in the grand scheme of things, I'm not at the bottom of the totem pole. And there's still things I can do at this point in my life to move forward in different ways so that we really reach out to that empowerment, those aspects of ourselves that it can light a fire, you know, and kind of get us moving in new directions and really stretch in new ways, and that can be really beautiful. That can happen in your 30s, in your 60s, in your 80s.

39:56 Margi Dehlin Yeah. Another. Another byproduct for Me of kind of rage that I have appreciated, I will say and I love this idea of the proactive reclaiming and kind of moving forward in ways that honor and heal you within this paradigm. But I also have found for me that it has bonded me to women and I feel this collective, oh, almost like taking care of you'd be very hard pressed and I would want to be accountable to this in everything to find me criticizing another woman. I am very attentive to the fact that we have been hurt, hurt and oppressed and limited and women pitted against women is a way to do that further. And that's something that I'm very conscious of. I try to be very aware and conscious of that. That is not something that I am willing to do. I would, I just for me personally, it's made me feel a sense of camaraderie and like, I don't know, a togetherness that I didn't have or fully appreciate before. So that's something that's come out of it that I actually really love.

41:15 John Dehlin Natasha, what's one or two more topics we can cover? Anything else you want to say about this or read and then maybe let's pick one or two more topics to take us to the top of the hour.

41:26 Natasha Helfer Sure. Patricia just says that two years ago we did a hand fasting, bowel renewal ceremony. It was lovely. I proposed to to him and he obviously said yes. And then Katie says another vote for the vows. This was so healing for us as a couple. It was so meaningful to finally be able to express mutual promises of love, commitment and support. So that can be, you know, creating new ritual, creating new meaning and then taking with us what, what did work, you know, remembering like I see, you know, like I mentioned in the mothering component that I felt honored as a mother, you know, in my Mormon structure. So I can take some, what was some of the good. A lot of people are like, you know, yeah, maybe even though I met, I married young and you know, did things maybe differently, I did meet my spouse at byu. I know I've heard you two say that. Right. Like Mormonism gave me my spouse. I probably wouldn't have met my spouse in that without that structure. Right. And so I think looking for the things that were beneficial or that we did benefit from. Even though I am angry about my career in many ways at the same time, I understand that I was very privileged in being able to stay with my kids without worrying until they were six months old. That's something that my sister, who's a psychiatrist and did go to medical school, had to go to work way before that. And I saw her struggle with that choice. Right. So there's pros and cons in everything. And so it's important to not get stuck in black and white thinking, which we tend to like as Mormons. So trying to make room for, you know, making lists on both sides of the coin.

43:10 Margi Dehlin Yes, go ahead. Oh, I was going to read it.

43:14 John Dehlin Go ahead.

43:14 Margi Dehlin So Lisa writes, I also read recently why marriages fail after a faith crisis or one partner is active, is that the marriage is based strongly on the Mormon faith. They date young, marry fast, and really don't base their marriage on a true love of that human that you want to share eternity with. And I was gonna say. So I. Let me check in with you too. But some books that I've read on marriages. Am I right that research kind of points to later marriages, up to a certain point, having a greater level of success? Generally speaking, yes. Okay.

43:47 John Dehlin Yeah.

43:48 Natasha Helfer Basically all the rules that we were told are not supported by research.

43:51 Margi Dehlin That's why

43:54 Natasha Helfer people who get married later, who have higher levels of education, have smaller amounts of kids, do better in every aspect of life. Sorry.

44:03 Margi Dehlin Right. So. But look at us go. I mean, look at us. So I don't know. We are doing something hard, folks.

44:12 Natasha Helfer We are doing something.

44:13 Margi Dehlin What I would say to that is, I really love that comment because, you know, let's just take the human brain when it's fully developed, age 26, we're getting married well before that. And not only that, but I think it stands to reason generally that what we value at age 22, it may shift a bit by the time we've had some experiences and explored and we hit 28, 26, 27, 28. And that's true definitely for the rest of our lives. But there is still something about the twenties where we are literally, our brains are developing, we're new to sort of our independence and who we are and making those decisions of marriage at that time, it is precarious.

45:00 Natasha Helfer And remembering that the research on marriage is complex anyway. I mean, a lot of what you just said is true. People, you know, like midlife time, the 35 to 55 timeframe is a time where we're developmentally, we're kind of rethinking a lot about our life anyway. Even if we are believing Mormons or not Mormons at all. And that's when a lot of people make different decisions about their marriages. We are seeing an increase in consensual non monogamy in ways that we haven't seen. I just saw an article about that just in our country. Like 20% of Americans have now at this point stated that at one point have tried consensual non monogamy. So these are ways that people are trying to get creative or think through relationships differently with different expectations that we have in general. So I just want to point out that it's an issue. Regardless, spending 50 to 60 years with one primary partner is going to give you plenty of opportunity to think about that decision on several occasions.

46:08 Margi Dehlin It is so true.

46:09 John Dehlin And I want to do another plug for Esther Perel's work. She has a book called State of Affairs. She has other books. But basically there's this one thing I like to say, which is a faith crisis. Well, first I'll just say Liana writes, I think for me specifically, I left after my husband did. So I'll always be pegged as a woman who wasn't strong enough to keep going after my husband left. This is not the case. Our reasons for leaving are actually different. As a woman, I can't even get credit for my own choice to leave.

46:43 Natasha Helfer Oh, man. Right.

46:46 Margi Dehlin I mean, I feel that. I really do.

46:49 John Dehlin Yeah.

46:50 Natasha Helfer Feminist rage, people. Feminist rage.

46:54 John Dehlin There's so much to unpack there. But it really faith crises can really be challenging on a marriage. And most of the clients I see are mixed faith couples or couples post believing couples who are trying to figure out if they can resuscitate the marriage. And the point that I will repeat again and again, again is this point that Lester Perel makes at the end of one of her famous TED talks, which is everyone's going to have at least three marriages in their lifetime. It'll either be with the same or with different partners. And the idea there is that even if, you know, like you said, Natasha, we probably didn't evolve to be with the same partner for 50 years or 70 years. And so it's an especially with the increasing demands in the 21st century that your partner is your best friend, your lover, your exercise mate, you know, you co parent together, your soulmate, your intellectual stimulator, your best friend, you know, all that stuff. It's so much to expect from one person. And so I just want to let people know, even if you feel after your faith grief crisis like your marriage is dead, that doesn't mean that your marriage has to be over. It could mean that your marriage is over. And you should probably seek out a marriage therapist or a really good marriage experienced marriage coach to help you figure that out. But what this can be Is this incredible opportunity to recreate the marriage, to come up with new terms, a new contract, to see each other with new eyes, to get to know each other in ways you never did before, and then to kind of re up with a new contract and a new understanding, hopefully that isn't based on polygamy or patriarchy, but instead is based on egalitarianism and consent and mutual support and love for each other. And I just want to bear testimony. Margie and I are probably on our fifth marriage. Is that possible? 5, 4, 5, something like that. And it can be more beautiful than any of the previous marriages if you're willing to get the help you need. And we've gotten lots of help. We've paid thousands and thousands of dollars for therapy and coaching. Even Natasha has helped us through some hard spots. And we highly recommend Natasha. But get the help and you just may find that your marriage is better than ever. And personally, I respect Margie more now that she's more independent, she's got more spunk, she's got more self determination, she has more power in the relationship. And it actually is a turn on for me. So I'm more fulfilled in pretty much I'm more fulfilled in every way by my marriage now, 25 years in, than I was in the first 18 years of our marriage. And I lived many years thinking that my marriage was just a huge disappointment. And Margie and I have talked about this, so that's not news to her and she felt the same way. So I just want to give people a plug for believing that things can get way better if they just enter into a second or a third marriage with the new contract and new eyes for each other's growth and development.

50:18 Margi Dehlin I so agree.

50:19 Natasha Helfer Amen.

50:21 Margi Dehlin And don't feel like you've done something wrong or that your relationship is doomed if you're having to burn that baby down, if you literally are lighting flame to something that no longer serves you. And that is the trick of, I think a faith transition is that yes, the faith tower as you knew it falls and sometimes your marriage tower will follow suit. And you know what? Sometimes parenting isn't soon after that. The things that you conceptualized around parenting falls. And so this is part of, I think, being awake to your life, being open to your life and being growth mindset, honestly. And so anyway, if you're amidst that or if you're, you know, thinking about that it, I actually would submit that it is one of the best gifts to be able to create anew something that feels like you right now. Love it.

51:27 Natasha Helfer I would, I would totally agree with all of that. I think when you think about the tasks, the marital tasks in your 20s and 30s versus your 40s and 50s versus your 60s and 70s, the kinds of things you're looking for in a relationship, just even that right there creates three marriages.

51:46 Margi Dehlin Exactly. Yeah. I heard, particularly when you kind of hit your 50s, you know, that the child, when you're kind of in those parenting years, you know, you're really valuing this, the parental skills, the providing skills. But I've really heard it said that once you hit kind of 50s, where there's a lot of empty nest going, you're really looking for a companion. And sometimes the personality that made for a really great mother isn't always a great companion, you know, and so having to really renegotiate and tap into those places in ourselves that maybe have been a bit more dormant or in past years, it's all part of, I think, a wise process. Not a painless process, but a wise one.

52:34 Natasha Helfer Right, yeah. And to recognize too, that if you do decide to call it, you know, a day with your current relationship, that you're still taking half of that relationship with you. So to make sure that you're doing your own personal work. Because the statistics on second and third marriages are actually quite awful. And that's sad because I know a lot of second and third marriages that are actually wonderful, that are really great. So I think they get really bad raps and. But I think the difference is the people who really do their own self work and understand and don't, you know, don't just fall into another marriage trying to, you know, trying to fill a hole that's empty from their first, just trying to get away from pain and sadness and so they immediately get into another relationship. But if you're really willing to do the work and learn from each other, and this is why I always tell couples who are considering divorce and even are pretty sure that they're going to get divorced to do couples work. Because for me, the success isn't you stay married. The success is you understand how you've been married, you understand what part you're playing in that marriage, and then you have a much better chance to either stay married co parent if you're. You co parent. Well, if you're getting a divorce and then if you're going on to new relationships, to not repeat these negative patterns that many times are subconscious and we don't even recognize or think there. Yes, doing good marital work, marriage counseling doesn't necessarily mean you're gonna stay married

54:06 Margi Dehlin at the end of so true.

54:08 John Dehlin Stacy writes, I'm so happy with our marriages now. We are happier and so much closer than we've ever been. Congrats, Stacey.

54:16 Natasha Helfer And Shelley says, this is us. Makes me not feel bad that I got married at 19 because it. At 32 years of marriage now. Oh, shoot. It feels like a new marriage all over again.

54:29 Margi Dehlin Yeah.

54:30 John Dehlin So happy for you, Shelley.

54:33 Natasha Helfer Yep.

54:34 John Dehlin Well, Natasha, how do we. We've only got about seven minutes left. Should we. Is there another topic you want to cover really quick? We want to tell our listeners we're going to come back, hit a good two hours of this next episode, and we're not going to leave this topic until we've covered the main things. So we may even do three days, three, three weeks worth of this topic if we have to. So please don't feel like we're shortchanging it. Natasha, how do you want to end today?

55:01 Natasha Helfer I think this is good. I mean, just to kind of overview. We've talked about motherhood identity, which is huge. Growing up as a woman, Mormonism. We've talked about your career and professional identity. We've talked about your identity as a wife. Right. And all. So that's huge. Three things what we'd like to talk about next time, just to get you thinking, is your sexual identity, you know, and your sexuality as a woman. And the messages we received through Mormonism on that caretaker or other gender role identities that seem to be very prevalent. So this isn't just about parenting. This is about sometimes the identities we take on with a spouse or with elderly parents or siblings when we get into caretaker roles. I'd like to cover spiritual identities, especially from a patriarchal, you know, having been influenced by patriarchy in our spiritual development. And then also what I call the fragile flower identity, which is something I think that we really need to look at really carefully if we're going to truly make a shift in our feminist ways. So we can't go from being a fragile flower in Mormonism to being a fragile flower outside of Mormonism. And that's very difficult. That's probably the hardest thing I've personally struggled with. So those are things that I'd like to talk about.

56:24 John Dehlin And then, Margie, you've had some topics you wanted to cover as well, Right.

56:27 Margi Dehlin I feel like I've gotten to a lot of them today, and many of them will merge really nicely with Natasha's next time, so it'll be great.

56:37 John Dehlin So, ladies and men, hopefully men. I'm loving this. So I'm hoping there are other men that don't just look at women in the title and tune out. I'm loving this. So I hope my male counterparts, my men counterparts are tuning in or will tune in.

56:55 Natasha Helfer I really hope that's the case too, because I think this is how we learn about what each other's experiences are like. And I hope the women will tune into the one we do about male identity as well. And it's not just about spouses either. It's about your siblings, your male friends, your family members, even your own sons and daughters, you know, who have been possibly raised in the faith, etc.

57:20 John Dehlin Jeanette asks, Are you doing a marriage retreat in Utah soon? We should, Natasha. Shouldn't we?

57:25 Natasha Helfer We should.

57:27 John Dehlin Let's plan something.

57:28 Natasha Helfer We need to get it on the calendar.

57:30 John Dehlin Let's plan a marriage retreat. We should do one that isn't just mixed faith marriage. How about just making your marriage better, period?

57:37 Natasha Helfer Yeah. No. Well, we've done that in the past. I think. Usually we do one in the summer, but we did thrive instead this year.

57:44 John Dehlin Well, we've got the fall, so let's think of something. Crystal Escobar Shout out to Crystal. We're going to have Crystal on Mormon Stories soon for a follow up in her book, Want to Be Balanced mom, how to Be a Momtrepreneur. I'm going to get the word wrong, but anyway, we're excited for Crystal. She says, I'm loving all this. Thank you all for doing this work. We all need this so much. So helpful. So glad you joined us, Crystal and everyone who's joined us. We've had a massive listenership today. Angie, you want to read Angie's comment?

58:15 Margi Dehlin Sure. Thank you for covering this topic and providing a safe place to discuss some very difficult issues, especially for women. I am grateful for what you're doing. John, Margie and Natasha.

58:24 John Dehlin Thanks Angie.

58:25 Margi Dehlin Thank you.

58:26 Natasha Helfer Really quick.

58:27 John Dehlin For those

58:29 Natasha Helfer topics around identity for females that we're not covering that you don't hear me talking about, please write in and tell us. Hey, we'd like for you to talk about this too.

58:39 John Dehlin Mormonfaithcrisismail.com if you have valued this content and want to see it continue, please become a monthly donor. We hate to always have to ask for money, but the truth is these professionals need support to be able to justify taking this type of time. And so 10, 15, 20, 100 bucks a month, 50 bucks a month, 25 bucks a month, whatever you can afford. Go to mormonfaithcrisis.com, click on the Donate button. Please become a monthly subscriber. We're about 30% of where we need to be to be able to do this regularly. And remember, you're not just paying for yourself. This is a content repository we're going to leave up on the Internet for people for literally years and decades and generations to come. So your contributions will help a lot of people and you'll pay it forward. So please become a monthly donor subscriber.

59:35 Margi Dehlin And thank you everyone for your comments and for participating today. It was so valuable, so insightful. We love the sharing part of that, the collaboration, the sense for us kind of working together and chewing up a topic.

59:50 Natasha Helfer Yeah, yeah. We're all in this together. And, you know, I think that we saw through the comments all the different types of angst in a similar theme, right? And so we've all. We all have our own stories, we all have our own experiences, and yet these themes are in there regardless of what those look like. So it was really beautiful to see that.

1:00:13 John Dehlin Thanks for leading us today, Natasha. You're a great leader.

1:00:15 Margi Dehlin Oh, fabulous.

1:00:18 Natasha Helfer Thanks, you guys.

1:00:19 Margi Dehlin We appreciate you.

1:00:21 Natasha Helfer I appreciate you, too. And I hope all the loves that you show each other along the way. All right, everybody, have a good day. Take care, everyone.

1:00:34 Margi Dehlin Bye, everyone.

1:00:34 John Dehlin Thanks, everybody. See you next week. Please share this and let people know so that they can enjoy too.

1:00:39 Natasha Helfer You.

Episode 34

0:20 Natasha Helfer Hello, everybody. Welcome to Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis. This is Natasha Helfer Parker, and. And I am joined with the fabulous couple John and Margie Delyn. We are happy to be back. We have been kind of taking a bit of a break. We had a lot of busy things going on this summer, so we were thriving. We were thriving. We attended a great Thrive conference where all of us presented and got to meet some fabulous people. Going through a lot of transitions, challenges, and really wonderful event. So hopefully that will happen again. I think it will. And we're excited to kind of keep going with the topic that we left off with, which are what are the kind of top issues or tips for Mormon women in particular after a faith crisis? We will do a similar type of topic run for men as well after we're done with women. So.

1:23 Margi Dehlin So.

1:23 Natasha Helfer But before we get going, let's just cover kind of some of our things. So our mission. John, you want to start us off on our mission? Usually give that to one of us.

1:32 John Dehlin All right, let's see if I'm remembering right. Our mission is the three Ps, which is we want to provide positive, practical, and personal tips to support people who are both navigating a Mormon faith crisis and or their loved ones. So we try and make this safe for believers and non believers, church attenders, non church attenders, people in the middle. But it's all about being positive, personal, and practical. How's that?

2:06 Natasha Helfer That's great.

2:07 Margi Dehlin Well done.

2:08 Natasha Helfer Very well done. And those three P's, by the way, we give credit to Margie because she just did a wonderful job coming up with those three Ps. So, Margie, why don't you talk a little bit about what we hope our message is here?

2:23 Margi Dehlin Absolutely. So the general message is amidst transitions can feel challenging. They can feel really difficult and painful at times. But we also kind of add with that this message that transitions can bring the opportunity for growth and it can be a huge gift. So this is part of creating a big, beautiful life here. And that is why our logo is sunny and yellow with fresh greenery.

2:58 John Dehlin Right?

2:58 Margi Dehlin A new plant. Begin again.

3:01 Natasha Helfer That's right. That's right. And we are a production of the Open Stories Foundation. You can find us on itunes. You can. You can find us on the website mormonfaithcrisis.com and it is a platform that is dependent upon viewer support. So we ask for donations, which, since now that we are part of the Open Stories foundation, can be tax deductible donations, since it's for a nonprofit and we can't do this really without those of you who are there helping us and supporting us. And many of you do. So thank you. Thank you for that. If you find value in this, we love providing it. We can only provide it if we have, I guess, you know, sustainability. So we don't. We want to continue to be able to provide this resource. We've gotten a lot of great feedback. A lot of people are saying that they are finding it to be a very valuable resource, hopefully something that you can share with your family or your friends or people that you care about, that you're maybe struggling with this transition with, so that you can be better understood or that you can understand somebody better as well. So we just want to kind of ask for your support in that way. And there's wonderful, very easy donate buttons on our pages. John, anything you want to say about all of that? Because you manage that probably more than I do.

4:27 John Dehlin Yeah. Just like you said, we appreciate those who support us. We do have a few supporters. We're quite a ways away from the level of support that would make this financially sustainable, specifically so that the participants who are donating their time, dedicating their time, can be compensated at least minimum wage for their efforts. Not minimum wage, a fair, reasonable wage. We would just like to make a plea for anyone who really drives value. We get messages all the time from people that are saying this. This podcast is saving their marriage, saving their lives, really helping them through a transition. We just want to ask you to please take a minute. Then if you really value this or want to see it continue, either for yourself or for others in future generations, to just go to mormonfaithcrisis.com click on the donate button. 10 bucks a month, 100 bucks a month, whatever you can afford. It will really make a difference in people's lives. So we really appreciate it.

5:30 Natasha Helfer Yeah, we try to provide this on a weekly basis. Even when we take off a few weeks, we have enough content to cover weeks as far as, you know, if our goal is kind of like an hour to a week to offer that. So we are putting out quite a bit of content and we love it when you participate with us. So make sure that you comment, live with us, and, you know, give us your feedback as we go. Just a little bit about each one of us. So I am a marriage and family therapist. I run a private practice and I see people for coaching and therapy services. You can find anything that I'm involved with, either presentation wise or counseling wise@Natashaparker.org I'm also a certified sex therapist. So I offer a lot of services in this transition kind of space of sexuality, faith transitions, that other mental health or parenting concerns or things of that nature as well. Margie and John, why don't you tell us a little about yourselves.

6:31 Margi Dehlin My name is Margie Delyn and I am a life transitions coach and I also write a bit so you can Visit me@beautyinthenow.org you can have all things

6:45 John Dehlin Margie there and she's a wonderful coach, as is Natasha is an amazing marriage therapist and sex therapist. So I'm honored to be on the show with these brilliant, talented women. And yeah, I have a podcast called the Mormon Stories Podcast. It's the longest running and probably maybe most listened to Mormon themed podcast since podcast started. We've been doing that since 2005. I also got a PhD in clinical and counseling psychology along the way and so I do a small amount of coaching. I really focus on mixed faith marriages and individual faith crisis stuff. I've done a lot of LGBT work, but I'm willing to see clients on a limited basis. If you think you might need some support, you can go to johndelin.com coaching and get the information there.

7:43 Natasha Helfer Awesome. All right, so ways that you can also help support us Share this episode on your social media like our Facebook page. Give us a positive review on the Facebook page or on itunes. Those things really make a difference. Comment. Email us, you know, help us plan events. If that's something you're interested in. You can always contact us and let us know what participation you'd like to offer or questions you may have or topics you may want us to cover. All of that. So hopefully you'll feel free to interact with us. So we are going to pick up on this topic that we left off of several weeks ago now. So if we repeat a few things because we don't totally remember what we said, then you'll just have to bear with us. But as we've learned through our Mormon experience, repetition is good. We learn a lot. We hear the same things over and over again. And since we did that on one side of the spectrum, it's good for us to do that on the other side of the spectrum as well.

8:49 John Dehlin Hey Natasha, let's bring in a listener comment. We just got one from April MacArthur Newman. She writes. Yay. My first live gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis episode. I listen to all the Gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis episodes. Thank you so much. This has helped me so much. April, that's so kind. Thank you for reaching Out. We're glad this is useful. Thank you.

9:10 Natasha Helfer That's very nice. It's super nice. I always, you know, I think that I've had to watch this tendency that I oftentimes am very willing to give feedback when I'm unhappy about things. So if I buy a product and I'm like, well, that really stunk, I might reach out to the company and tell them. And I've really, since starting my own practice and my own business, I've realized the importance of positive feedback and that I need to be much better about that. Because we don't want to just let people know when we're upset about something, but when we're really happy and, like, things are going well with the product. So when people reach out and tell us positive things, it just always makes me really appreciative of the time and energy it took for people to write us those things. Because you don't have to tell us it's helpful, but we're so glad it is and it helps us. Motivated. Keep motivated.

10:02 John Dehlin We have a couple more. Ammon writes, I've loved listening to this podcast as I navigate family relationships as I go through my own transition. I love that it focuses on the positive. Thanks for all the great work you do. This is for people who are donating. Another one. Angie writes, I can't thank you all enough for the amazing work that you have done and continue to do. My life has been changed for the better because of the things I'm learning from these podcasts. Thank you. That's Angie. And then Ashley writes, I loved your parenting episodes. So helpful. Thank you. So those are just some nice little comments that when listeners made their donations, they sent some thank yous in. So thanks again to all those listeners and the people who are listening to us now on Facebook Live.

10:47 Margi Dehlin That is wonderful to hear.

10:50 Natasha Helfer Really, really helpful for us to hear. Thank you, everybody. All right, so let's dive in. We've got several things I think that all of us wanted to talk about. So I'll start off with one of mine and then maybe we'll do kind of roundtable approach, whatever. But I'm not exactly sure if I brought this up a whole lot last time, but I think that one of the things that is so prominent for Mormon women is their identity in the realm of sexuality or maybe the absence of an identity in the realm of sexuality. And I don't want to spend a whole necessarily time on this, a whole lot of time, because I do plan, I would like for us to do kind of podcast Just on sexuality in general as one of our topics. So I don't want to spend a whole lot of time, but I think that, you know, in general, Mormon women get the message that a lot of evangelical or Christian women get, which is that they are not sexual agents of themselves. They are having to protect themselves from the sexual energies of men. Dun, dun, dun, you know, that men are going to come at them with their sexual wants and desires and lusts and perversions and horrificness because it's all so awful. And we are to protect ourselves and put up these, you know, boundaries and walls and dress appropriately. I guess I'm not dressed appropriately today. So anyway.

12:20 Margi Dehlin Oh, you sure are.

12:22 John Dehlin Let's reject that.

12:25 Natasha Helfer My porn shoulders. Anyway, so, you know, and so I think so much of our sexual identity as a woman is really much more about the sexual identity of a man and how I'm going to respond or not respond to that identity of a man. And then that doesn't go away when we get married either. You know, even though it's kind of like, oh yeah, green light go when you get married, it's still. Those messages don't go away. It's still sometimes very much focused on what are the man's needs, what's the man's libido, what's the man's. What. What is my role of keeping my man happy? Am I being a caretaker? Am I being a help meet, you know, and when those things turn sexual, very little, I think has to do with my sexual identity, my, my sexual drive, knowing myself sexually, not to mention of course, both men and women in our tradition are, you know, very much discouraged from masturbation and self knowledge of our own sexuality. So this idea that I'm supposed to allow this man to awaken me sexually, figure me out sexually, I'm not supposed to do that for myself. You can just see the conglomerate of issues and why I'm sadly very busy in my practice. I love my work, but I just, I think it's so much unnecessary tragedy, right. Of so many things that were avoidable if we had been taught differently, that we now as adults have to sift through to get to a place of sexual health, sexual autonomy, sexual sharing in ways that feel helpful and good and productive and satisfying.

14:15 John Dehlin So Natasha, would you. I know we absolutely can and will and should do an episode on this sort of the gift of the Mormon Faith crisis as it relates to female sexual awakening and even male sexual awakening. Can you give a teaser, just some bullets of like for women who want to start down the path of awakening and healing. What that even looks like, and what are some pillars of that or avenues that they can start to investigate or ways that they can start to move in that direction so that we give them a few practical tips, not just a description of their experiences thus far. Does that make sense?

15:01 Natasha Helfer Yeah, sure. And I'll actually. I just pulled up my little Thrive conference handy. My handy dandy presentation, because I kind of talked about. I thought a lot about going into that presentation about what does a healing journey look like? You know, I mean, we can all sit around and go, yep, yep, that happened. Yep. I think I was damaged by those messages, but what do I do about it? Where do I go from here? So I do think that, you know, a big part of it is self awareness, which is kind of what we're doing here today, right? Is talking about it, thinking. Even if you're in a space where you're like, oh, yeah, amen, sister. I'm already. I've already thought all those things. Or if it's the first time, you're really kind of thinking, huh, I wonder if I was affected with those kinds of messages. All of that falls under that self awareness category, which is, I think, a really good place to start. We need to know where we come from and that we want something different before we can even start formulating a plan. So that's actually the start of a plan. And then, I think, you know, a big part of it moving from there is giving yourself permission, being intentional about wanting something different, prioritizing it in your life, saying, hey, I do want something different than what I've received. And I think in the realm of sexuality, one of the myths that we have about sex in general is that it just happens naturally. It's just supposed to organically happen and come up and. And most goals aren't like that. I don't just organically get an education or organically become a better parent or organically work on my budget. It's like, if I want improvement in those areas of my life, I have to sit down, I have to come up with a plan, I have to give myself permission, and I have to put energy and intention into those things. And I think a lot of people don't think about sexuality in that way. So that would be another thing, I think knowing what's possible, which is a huge part of sexual education, comprehensive sexual education. So really understanding anatomy, understanding what we know about human sexuality is another piece. And then practicing, you know, specific strategies, putting things into practice, trying things out, hopefully having A partner or if you're single, you know, as you consider having partnered relationships, how are you going to, you know, delve into the practice of sexually thriving in your life? Sometimes that also necessitates deeper work, like intensive therapy, especially if there's been trauma or you need somebody kind of professionally to help you through those things. But those are kind of. Those are my main ideas about how do we move from point A to point B, point D, F, Z. Mm.

17:58 Margi Dehlin Loving it.

17:59 John Dehlin How about you, Margie? Do you have any insight into. And this is gonna sound really personal, but kind of your sexual awakening or things that have been useful or meaningful to you as. Or do you feel like you've had one? What is it?

18:13 Margi Dehlin I feel like Natasha's touched on some of my experiences that way. Just in conceptualizing that, for whatever reason, I really felt that I always looked at sex in relationship to another person as opposed to a relationship with myself.

18:32 John Dehlin When you say another person.

18:35 Margi Dehlin Mm.

18:36 John Dehlin Is there anyone specifically you mean?

18:40 Margi Dehlin No, I was speaking conceptually.

18:42 John Dehlin But you, babe, make it personal. Make it personal.

18:44 Margi Dehlin Yeah. Well, I was speaking in women. So it is conceptual. Right. Every time you're taught about or you. They allude to sort of procreative. It's very relationship oriented, particularly for women. And so then what you're thinking about is I'm. I'm programmed to think of other. Oh, satisfying someone else. Oh, in the procreative process. Being a mom or. But what it. I. What I feel like was missing was actually it is a relationship I should have with myself first and foremost before. Otherwise I'm in relationship and it involves someone else and I can't tell them anything about me. I do not know. I don't have that relationship with myself.

19:26 John Dehlin So to make it personal when. So with our. And you know, we'll get into this another time too, but like with our sexuality, how was it before? How did you look at it before and then how did you look at it after and what's been useful in. With. With our relationship? Yeah, I would say I won't be defensive or hurt.

19:51 Margi Dehlin No, I think that actually wasn't something that you would see a big. Because it's internal work. Right. Just sort of. And I feel like pleasure has always been something that we've been able to navigate pretty well. So that was more conceptual and internal work for me. Realizing I didn't have that. If you're talking pre and post, one thing that I had that is very personal to us that came out of the transition is I really felt like I owned you. Your Sexuality, your relationship with yourself being married. It was like, well, I have a say in your behavior. And so.

20:28 John Dehlin Meaning what?

20:29 Margi Dehlin Masturbation or porn or looking at other like noticing beauty. It was like a shut off valve, like that should be canceled out now that we're married. It's just me. That's the, that is the only outlet that is approved of. And I feel like that's very culture culturally reinforced. I think it's religiously reinforced. And so that was just so I can understand.

20:52 John Dehlin So you're saying that you felt like it was kind of your job to monitor and police any of that type of behavior and kind of a role of a police person or a mother to kind of oversee and monitor and control if there's a problem?

21:12 Margi Dehlin I would probably say it actually was more of an expectation that I had. It was something that I held so that when those things naturally came up, the way my mind processed it was like, oh, it's like a betrayal or cheating doing those things. Because I had that, that sort of relationship and expectation of like I am the only approved model. It all, it starts and ends right here for us. And so that is something that I absolutely had to renegotiate in our marriage.

21:49 John Dehlin And just incidentally, because. Are you okay? Because I felt that expectation and I think this is. Natasha, you can tell us how common that is. This is because I felt that expectation. What I just want, what I did is I felt a lot of shame and I wanted to just not tell you. And so we probably went 17, 18 years where whatever I did privately, I just kept from you. And it was when our marriage was kind of fraying that I opened up about that and I was worried it would end the marriage. But what came out of that was a lot of communication and a lot of focus on finding ways we could meet each other's needs so that we wouldn't have any as much of a desire or a need for external sources. Not that those things were bad. So for me, you letting go of that role of expectations, policeman, mom, which I didn't think you did a lot of policing, but I felt that probably just in terms of the expectation that actually led to a lot of emotional intimacy and improved intimacy on our part. Really quick. Natasha, you like to talk about roles and how no one wants their lover to be their mom or their teacher or don't you have sayings around that?

23:24 Natasha Helfer Yeah, like, are we playing roles that are sexy in our relationship with one another? And I think a lot of times we do get into parenting dynamics and one that you're kind of describing, and I think even what you're talking about, ownership, Margie, I really liked your language on that. I do think that there is something. And it's not just Mormon. It's very much the soulmate kind of idea that we have about romanticized love. And if you listen to. To love songs, it's like, I belong to you and you belong to me. And there's a lot of ownership. And most of us really resist ownership. You know, most of us resist a sense of being controlled by another person. So it sets us up kind of for failure to begin with, that kind of narrative. And we don't have a lot of maturity or skills or education on how to be a sexually autonomous person that then shares themselves sexually with their partner. And I think, you know, even when John was talking about, well, did you feel like you had. It was your job to monitor me, I think it goes. It goes even a step deeper than that. I think you would agree with me, Margie. It's like how we're taught as women, our value is so much about sexuality for men.

24:35 Margi Dehlin Yes.

24:36 Natasha Helfer And our value as far as how we look or how we present or are we sexy enough or sensual enough that it's not so much. We start monitoring as a byproduct. But before we even get to the monitoring piece, there's this deep sense of, I think, betrayal, because so much of what we've been taught about our identity is that if there is anything outside of us that's a direct. That's a direct correlate to how I'm not good enough, I am not enough for you. And therefore these very normal human tendencies, which is that we are attracted to more, more than one person, or that we do want to masturbate on our own. I mean, I was a woman that did masturbate on my own in secret in my marriage, you know, because I felt like, I don't know, what would he do if he found out if I did that, you know, or things like that. Those are things that. First, I think, comes that sense of. You're attacking the very core of what I've been taught my identity is as a woman. That means I'm not enough. And then, yes, the Mormon messages on top of it have put that. Have put that role on women. I can't tell you how many Relief Society lessons I've sat in where that's the lesson. How are you going to monitor the computers in your home women? How are you going to make sure that your husband or your children are not accessing sexual materials. And so we become the police people, the policing energy. And back to your point, John, nobody wants to be married to a police officer in their bedroom. I mean, nothing wrong with being married to an actual police officer. Nobody wants to be.

26:20 Margi Dehlin We appreciate y'. All.

26:21 Natasha Helfer Yes, yes, we need to. Nobody wants to be married to a police officer in your bedroom. Just like nobody wants to be married to a teacher or a parent parent or an authority figure in your bedroom. You want to be a partner, you want to be a lover, you want to be an egalitarian, you know, giver and taker in those roles. So we really have been dramatically set up for so many disastrous kind of narratives, Right. Scripts, stories that we tell about. What does it mean when my husband finds another person attractive? What does it mean if I'm masturbating on my own? What does it mean if I find erotic material stimulating and stress relieving? We have stories about all those things that are very much tied to how we are taught about ourselves as women in the Mormon Church and also men. But we can get to that later. But I think for women too, in sexuality, we're taught that we're not really taught that we're going to struggle with sexuality as a drive on our own. We're taught that we're going to struggle with the drives our partner, male partners are going to have.

27:32 Margi Dehlin Exactly.

27:33 Natasha Helfer It erases women's sexual drive and it erases, of course, lesbian sexual drive or bisexual lesbian drive. And it erases, you know, personal kind of relationship with your sexuality if you're a woman. It just. Those things are non existent. We don't even consider them.

27:52 Margi Dehlin Yes.

27:55 John Dehlin So that's great insight, Natasha. Thank you. Let me ask you both, just because I want to make sure we talk in depth about this just to help women who are interested or curious find the improvement. Because I really do think this is a gift, just this idea that men, you know, all these misperceptions, Natasha, that you're so good talking about, that men want and enjoy sex more than women, that women aren't as interested, that men have higher libidos, that, you know, just all the misperceptions and again, that it's a woman's job to be the gatekeeper to sexuality and then just the basic lack of attentiveness to female orgasms and how, you know, the man gets his needs met, but the woman often ends up unfulfilled or unsatisfied. I think that's a very significant percentage of so many Mormon marriages. 5, 10, 15, 20 years where women, there may be Mormon women who just don't even ever orgasm, or couples that don't think about that or don't care about that, or don't know how to do it. So I see that one of the huge gifts of a Mormon faith crisis is, is the opportunity for female sexual awakening where sex becomes something that you become empowered about and it becomes something that you derive more joy or pleasure from and that it goes from. Sex is the thing we do to please the man to sex is something that pleases both men and women and can be a wonderful thing to explore and enjoy together without as much shame, without as much hang ups and so forth. So Margie, are you comfortable talking about to what extent you feel like you have or haven't had a sexual awakening where sex has become something you've enjoyed more or not or pursued or any of that since the faith crisis?

30:00 Margi Dehlin Sure. I would say my big switch is from sex as a function. Right. It has a function in a relationship. So it was kind of very heady, very sort of purposeful, very duty oriented, like to actually being more of a process that I enjoy. There's a lot more, there's curiosity about myself, curiosity about my partner, as opposed to a lot of expectation that way. And I think, you know, let's just say remember in my coming home keynote, there's. There can be a sexuality tower that falls as well and then we rebuild our sexuality towers. And just like any other tower, I really feel like it's a lifelong, you're always reassessing, changing, adding, you know, and that is the great gift as well. And so I would say I'm definitely mid process, just as I really feel like I will always be, but I feel more in tune with myself and I have more of a relationship with the pleasure aspect and the actual connection aspect of sex than I did before. I feel like before it was much more functional, it was much more duty. Like I have an expectation to sort of in a role to fulfill and this is what that looks like.

31:27 John Dehlin And now, now what is it?

31:30 Margi Dehlin It's more pleasure oriented, more pleasure oriented. It's more curiosity, it's more in the moment. It's like a relationship builder, It's a spiritual, you know, connection as well. So it kind of, I just feel like it's a much more full experience where I'm exploring myself, but I'm also exploring you. And we're exploring each other in a place, place hopefully of safety and curiosity as opposed to one that was purely expectation and duty driven for me.

32:07 John Dehlin What have you experienced or what have you seen, Natasha, with yourself or with the people you work with?

32:15 Natasha Helfer Sorry, I had muted myself. I think that when I think about my own personal journey, some of this started happening for me even prior to faith transition. Although, you know, I see my faith transition so slow, so long, I'm not really sure where. So I'm guessing it was, you know, it was all. It was part of maybe my faith transition also, because I don't think I had a, you know, quick, oh, this. You know, I'm changing my ideas about it very quickly. So I just remember my thoughts about really starting to think about why do I feel guilt and shame when I'm really kind of only having sex with my husband and I'm in a space? And I remember I was Relief Society President when this happened. Sorry to blow anybody's bubble, but I, for the first time, as a Relief Society president, said the F word in my bedroom with my husband. I think I said something like, f me now, right? You know those moments where you're just kind of, like, down and dirty? And I think both of us were like, wow, that was kind of exciting and hot. And I remember feeling guilty about that for, like, a week afterwards. And then I was like, what is this. What is this thing that we have about, like, righteous and unrighteous sex? Even in our own bedrooms, Even with my own husband? Even though both of us liked it, both of us had a positive reaction to that language, that dirty talk, per se, you know, and we had a lot of fun with it. And here I am like, I'm not a good enough Mormon girl, you know, or Mormon wife or, wow, that really was, like. I really had, like, this moment. I remember sitting in my car, I was alone, or maybe my kids were in the back or something. And just having a moment where, like, that is not okay. It is not okay for something. I'm not sure what that is to be imposing itself on me and my husband's sex life. And then from there, it kind of went into fantasy talk and things that I liked thinking about that I would share with him. And he responded well to that. And I just really started saying, you know what? We get to decide if it works for us. Even if we told somebody else, somebody else would consider it pornographic or whatever they would say about our things. It's none of their business, for one. And secondly is, you know, I started, I think, at that moment really understanding by the fruits, you shall know them type of principle. It's not that this particular thing is bad, is Is it helping us or deterring from us? And I remember for a long time because even my fantasy stuff with my husband, you know, it had kind of like mixed fruit, Right. So on the one hand, it helped. Like, my orgasm ability went way up. Our ability to have fun went way up. But then I still had this lingering guilt afterwards. So I was like, well, does that mean that it's not good fruit? And then I started realizing and giving myself permission that that guilt feeling isn't necessarily a good indicator of whether or not it's good for. That's what I've been taught.

35:39 Margi Dehlin That's how I like programming. Yeah.

35:42 Natasha Helfer And that I really need to pay attention to the actual fruit, which is what's really happening in the moment with me and Andy, you know. And so. So I really started letting go of a lot of things just within a few months, you know. And then, of course, that helped me think about my shaming, you know, as primarily, you know, with some of the confessions and things I've been through with bishops interviews and things like that, and rethinking a lot of that. So that was, you know, really before I even moved here to Kansas and before I even met you guys, before I even really started thinking about faith transitions as a concept per se. But I could tell that I was transitioning in my own kind of sexual autonomy within my Mormon construct in of itself, and starting to reject this external authority on me. So that was very helpful. You know, of course, as we've delved into this and we've talked to so many people now, I can see this is a hugely common, hugely common experience. And really, I think, again, sad, because I'm not saying that having fantasy talk or looking at erotic images is right for everybody, but it's not wrong for everybody. Just off the bat, you've got to figure out if that's right for you or not. And we're not really allowed the adult. The adult developmentally appropriate relationship to figure those things out. We are just kind of set, you know, we're told in very kind of adolescent or childlike ways to stay at these childlike parameters with our sexuality, which do not help us as adults.

37:17 Margi Dehlin I so. So hear, hear. Hear, hear. You know, And I think also structurally, even if we kind of go back to the structure that. Or the formula, right. That when you think of. In young women's, we're told, like, the major message is sort of don't bad, stay away, shut down. Like, not good. Right. And then you get married, and oftentimes we're married. Young, with very little experience. And then you get pregnant. So it's not even like you really have an exploration time with your partner. I was pregnant like within a year. And so.

37:57 Natasha Helfer And then just getting to know a whole different person.

38:00 Margi Dehlin Right. And then you're dealing with a role, an additional role. Your body doesn't totally feel like yours. You're sharing kind of. And that in and of itself, people have very hard pregnancies where they're not feeling well. And so I just sort of feel like we're not given that space to really. And that's why my shift around, you know, relationship to sexual. That's where that comes from is I just feel like I was always. My body was always for someone else. It was never for me. And so being able to actually just acknowledge that and say, and particularly with my daughters and my son, being able to say that sexual piece is a part of you, like any other part of you, like your emotional self or like your intellectual self or. And you get to explore that just like you do your ideas or just like you're. And so first and foremost, that sexual relationship, it begins with you. It should begin with you, you know, and what's.

38:58 Natasha Helfer So. What's so frustrating or maybe wonderful is that our instinctual selves know this. So we start self exploring in the womb. They can see like the hand of a fetus or, you know, linger in the genital areas more than they linger on other parts of their body. We self explorers.

39:24 John Dehlin Is that Satan? Is that Satan in the womb?

39:26 Natasha Helfer Basically, Right, exactly right.

39:27 John Dehlin No, I'm just being silly.

39:28 Natasha Helfer Right? And that's what I mean though. That's like we're naturally driven to these, to these ways. So that in our childhood, in our pre adolescence and our adolescence, we should have already been way comfortable with exploring ourselves, you know, And a lot of people don't remember the moment that their parents for the first time slapped their hand away from their penis, which sometimes can happen during diaper change. Or that moment where, you know, you as a toddler were rubbing up against your stuffed animal and got it yanked away and told by a parent, stop it. You know, don't do that. So a lot of people are like, oh no, I never masturbated, or no, I never. But you don't really remember sometimes the ways that from a very early age, most of us were discouraged from self exploration. But if we allow for that natural progress, then you get to adolescence, then you start dating, kissing around a little bit, feeling a few things, starting that kind of, how do I share that with another person, what's that like? And then by the time that you're really ready to be in a committed relationship, even if you've waited, you know, do your values to have, I guess, penetrative sex, you're in a much better position to know what you enjoy and what you like. And yeah, I think one of the worst advice things that we do as Mormons step babies right away, maybe if we allowed for premarital sex. Sure. Then have babies right away. But we don't. And so really allow that partnership to have erotic, erotic exploration time. You know, get to know each other in that space first before. Yes. All the body changes, hormone changes.

41:12 John Dehlin Why would you say that's important for. As a foundation for a marriage to have kind of a couple years of sexy time before you jump into kids. What, what's the payoff later?

41:22 Natasha Helfer Well, we know that the, that. So it's a challenge for anybody who wants to be in a long term relationship to stay sexy time oriented for 50, 60, 70 years, which is kind of what we're doing these days if we get married when we're in our 20s. But we also know there's some really core ingredients to being able to keep that going. And one of those main ingredients is that initial, what we call limerence time. That initial just when you're kind of like really into each other and can't keep your hands off each other type of feeling that many have, you know, when they're first dating. Not everybody has that, but a lot of people do. And even though that stage won't last for 60 years, it's a huge foundation that your mind and your body goes to in reserve to remember that stage is about six to 18 months later long. And if you're already pregnant before that 18 months, you know, takes place, it just kind of robs you of that really important time. Plus you get, you know, you figure out some of your gender roles. You figure out, I mean, those first years of marriage are tough anyway. You're having to share in ways that you haven't shared before. You're having to compromise in ways you haven't compromised before. And hopefully you're having a lot of time to really enjoy that process. Or, and I'll say this too, I think sometimes it's time to get the hell out. It's time to be able to say, you know what, we moved a little too fast and I didn't really know what I was getting myself into. And we've been into this for 18 months and it's been Miserable. And we need to knock this off. We need to just get out. This is not a good marriage. And if you started with a kid right away that becomes a much harder process to do.

43:13 John Dehlin One of the most difficult and painful things I experienced as a, as a coach therapist is that I meet these couples where they were not sexual prior to marriage and then they get married and they have these incredibly incredible high disparity in libido interests or in sexual interests where, let's just say the woman will want to have sex two or three or four times a week and the man maybe once a month or vice versa, or once a year. And this is the sort of thing that causes incredible tension and distress in the marriage that would have really been remedied by just some basic exploration beforehand. So this is going to sound super controversial to the, to the, maybe to some of the believers, you know, who are listening, but for me, I think I would strongly counsel my kids to be sexually active to a committed partner that they were thinking about marrying prior to actual marriage. Not in an unhealthy way, not in an unsafe way, with consent and with love and with education, just for the fact alone that I actually care about marriage and I want to see marriages succeed. There are also women or men who explore sexually and realize that they're same sex attracted, but they would never know that because they never experienced sexuality before. So what happens if you get married and your husband or wife just literally doesn't know that they're gay or lesbian and so then they get married and they've made all these lifelong commitments and then they find out that they're fundamentally sexually compatible or what if there's just not much of a spark or. There's a lot of a spark. You. There's just so many reasons why we need to think differently about sexuality. Not because we don't value marriage, but because we do value marriage. That's just, that's really important stuff.

45:13 Margi Dehlin I love that. And I hear what you're saying underneath that as being like. I almost feel like on some level you feel like, you know, sexual experiences are talked about in a way that makes you feel like you're. Something's being taken away from you, right? As opposed to you're actually gaining something. It could actually be giving you insight, giving you self knowledge, giving you self awareness. And that's what I hear and what you're saying, it can actually give you some tools, some good things to know, some experiences that then you are actually in a place to, you know, navigate intimacy in a much More informed way.

45:55 Natasha Helfer Well, I'm going back to how we're talking about women in particular today, I think going back to even the roles and how we talk about sexual identity when you don't. You know, I remember in all those lists that we made in Young women's. Do you remember those lists, Margie? Like, what are all the attributes you want in your future?

46:13 John Dehlin Righteous priesthood holder Temple.

46:16 Natasha Helfer I never got the sense that we should write on there. He's totally hot and I want him so bad.

46:22 John Dehlin Sexy beast.

46:23 Margi Dehlin Yeah.

46:24 John Dehlin Never. I never saw sexy beast on one of those lids.

46:27 Natasha Helfer He better turn the hell out of the hell on me.

46:31 Margi Dehlin Yeah, that's turns me on.

46:34 Natasha Helfer I want him to make sure he turns me on so good. So I never saw that on there. No, not at all. Yeah. And I think never really saw that

46:43 John Dehlin as a trainer, not even Laurel.

46:46 Natasha Helfer And so. But that.

46:47 John Dehlin I bet you put that on your list, Natasha. I bet you.

46:49 Natasha Helfer Well, I think I have on my subconscious list. I just didn't write it down.

46:55 John Dehlin But, but even as a Mormon, I like we feel some guilt or shame around just even saying that. And it's super important, so we got to shed that shame.

47:05 Natasha Helfer And I think what I'm saying too is that indirectly we do tell men that they're going to have that on the list because we tell them, you're going to have a really hard time keeping it in your pants. You're going to have get married right after you come home from that mission because you're going to, you're going to want to have sex with a woman. Right. And so we are in a sense telling men indirectly that the woman that you're going to look for, fall for is going to be hot or somebody that you're chemically aroused by. Women don't have that message they're looking for. Well, did he return from his mission? Is he nice? Does he take care of me? Could he be a good daddy? Could he be a good provider? Right. And guess what? You can have all of those things on your list. Him not turn you on. And this is one of the most tragic cases that comes through my office again and again and again when the woman tells me, you know what, I'm now in my 40s. This usually happens in their 40s. I'm kind of done with the kids. I'm realizing I love my husband. He's nothing but wonderful to me. And I've never really been aroused by my husband. I am not sexually, nor have I ever been truly sexually attracted to this man that I devoted my whole Life to. And I think that's a tragic Mormon woman story that I see happen way too often. And I think it's because we don't teach women to look for that chemistry or I've even had. I just get so sad. But I've had both men and women, but women more so than men. Tell me I had that guy that turned me on. I had that guy, I turned him away. I married the safe guy. I didn't want to get in trouble. I wanted to be able to get married in the temple. So they stepped away from the sexual chemistry because that sexual chemistry was deemed as bad and dangerous. And that's exactly what you need to be happening to have happening to your body and to your hormones so that you can lay that foundation for. For 70 years sex with a person.

49:14 Margi Dehlin Can I ask a question? Just a quick. Just clarifier. So I feel like I read in my Psychology Today magazine, but I'm not sure that attraction can be. It's resilient, right? It's on a spectrum and it can be built. It's not necessarily an on or off switch. But is that right or not?

49:35 John Dehlin Can it be nurtured and increased?

49:37 Margi Dehlin I'm sure it goes both ways. Like, there's an extent to which probably you can't. But talk about that.

49:43 Natasha Helfer I think that there is definitely a lot of research showing that if you once had attraction and it's kind of waned and you know, kind of, you're going through the roller coaster of life, there's definite ability to recapture, rekindle desire. But if you think about, you know, just pick somebody off the street and I'm going to force myself to have sexual attraction for that person. There are certain types of things that you can't force. You know that there needs to be a certain amount of kind of similarity already with a person. Certain things need to be in place that you're going to experience some level of sexual attraction. So, so oftentimes people are in a friend zone with somebody and feel a lot of attraction from a friend perspective and then make the mistake of thinking, well, this would be a good marital partner because of these principles that I think were taught through the Mormon Church of what we should be looking for. And obviously friendship principles are things we want in a partner, but we need to have that sexual chemistry thing. And what's also super interesting about arousal is that being too close of friends can actually interfere with arousal. Because you need some mystery. You need a little bit of not exactly sure what you're up to for Me to be a little bit excited about you. So if you think about best friends and they tell each other everything, there's no secrets and there's, you know, just know everything it can be, actually contraindicate it to passion.

51:23 Margi Dehlin Yes. Yeah. Esther Perel. That reminds me of Esther Perel a lot.

51:28 John Dehlin Little space really quickly. I just want to end. For those of you who feel like you missed out on the, you know, early sexual, you know, hot and heavy phase that Natasha was talking about, that first year and a half of real intense sexuality, I do want to say that, that I've met many, many Mormon couples that after their faith crisis, even if they're still in a mixed faith marriage, once they both became educated, became committed, started studying and learning, became open to experimentation, maybe worked with Natasha or others, sex therapists started communicating more, built their emotional intimacy. They experienced for the first time this really significant sexual awakening that was kind of like a renaissance for them. You know, we talk about Esther Perel's famous quote that everyone's going to be married at least two or three times, either to the same partner or to different partners. For those of you who have opted in to a new marriage after a faith crisis with your current partner, even if you haven't had that big sexual, you know, explosion sort of past, I have seen many instances where couples came into that and it became this real huge miracle of a gift that they didn't anticipate as a positive side growth of their faith crisis. I just wanted to throw that in.

52:56 Margi Dehlin Yeah. So important.

52:57 Natasha Helfer That's really important. And absolutely there's like lots of hope here. This isn't like, oh, we didn't have this one thing at a particular time and so we're doomed. The other thing I'll say too, just to counter a little bit about what you said, John, although I agree about the advice you gave to your kids or you want to give to your kids, kids. Just because you have good hot sex before marriage or at your beginning of the marriage doesn't mean that you're going to always have hot sex either. Right. So there's plenty of people that come in with sexual function issues or sexual dysfunction or sexual energy depletion, regardless of what their sexual energy started out looking like. So. But it is a good. What I really like about what you're saying is that you need to know if there's a good starting place, you know, good starting place. And even if you decide not to necessarily have, you know, intercourse before you're married, you know, there's a lot of ways to sexual, sexually explore. And I know, having worked with lots of Mormons, that there's the couples that kind of barely made it to the temple. They usually have a lot of fun on their honeymoons. And then there's the couples that kind of, you know, were very, know, more robotic about it or only kissed. And then all of a sudden they're supposed to be naked in front of each other and they didn't really have that natural build up to having sex. And that can really cause some, I think, unfortunate, what I call kind of honeymoon trauma, you know, that sets up a lot of unnecessary stories for them about whether or not they're sexually compatible. So.

54:25 John Dehlin Yes. So get help.

54:26 Natasha Helfer Complicated. Get help.

54:28 John Dehlin Get professional help. You wouldn't go to a brain surgeon for heart surgery. Go to a sex therapist for support in your sexual life.

54:40 Natasha Helfer Yeah. And if you're a woman, understand that both Mormonism and our Christian culture and our American culture has probably messed with your sexual potential at some level.

54:52 Margi Dehlin Yes.

54:54 John Dehlin A couple quick comments. Kendra writes, oh my gosh, you guys totally get it. So, so thanks to Kendra. April writes, I felt that a few years before she said, I felt that a few years before my faith crisis too. I was doing research, I believe, on sexuality to make our intimate life better and felt so guilty. So April's reflecting how we feel guilty even trying to learn about sexuality to be able to improve our sex lives. And then Andrew, hey, shout out to Andrew. He writes, the subordination of a woman's sexuality vis a vis patriarchy was an absolute epiphany for me, a man. It is precisely this awareness that created in me a desire to not be patriarchal in my behavior. The result for Ashley and me has been a brand new falling, a surrender of dysfunctional thinking and a corresponding desire to be egalitarian. And I wonder if egalitarianism is more sexy for the woman. Is there something to that, that less of a subjugated? I mean, of course it maybe depends on your yuck and your yum, as you like to say, Natasha. But just in general, I wonder if a one down, patriarchal, sort of like, I'm the decision maker, I preside if that can be a bit of a buzzkill or sex drive kill. And if a woman has her own empowering and a sexual awakening, if that can actually be a bit of an aphrodisiac, Is that, is there something to that maybe?

56:24 Natasha Helfer Well, like one way I would put it is I love a good submissive role in an egalitarian relationship.

56:31 Margi Dehlin Exactly.

56:33 Natasha Helfer Because then that plays out my wounds in a way that I have a lot of control over. So I love playing a submissive role and I actually like playing a dominant role, but it's in the context of a relationship where I feel like I have an egalitarian role.

56:48 Margi Dehlin I so love the way you say

56:49 Natasha Helfer that difference between what we're playing at and what we're actually doing. If somebody was just like imposing their patriarchy on me in the bedroom, yeah, that would not go well with my vagina.

57:00 Margi Dehlin Does not work well. And there's, there's kind of what you're saying, it's co created. You're both creating that experience and having a say and that's everything.

57:11 John Dehlin Yes, Mary writes. I am so grateful that you are all being so open and honest about the subject. I can now see where I went wrong in my marriage and that won't happen again. Congratulations to you, Mary, and thanks for sharing.

Episode 35

0:20 Natasha Helfer All right, well, Margie, why don't you take over one of the thoughts that you wanted to talk about? Whichever one speaks out to you.

0:28 Margi Dehlin Yeah. So one of the major kind of themes that I've noticed come up for myself as a female, you know, and working through a faith transition is. And my keynote was largely around this topic. My coming home keynote was this idea of, you know, not recognizing, not hearing or connecting with, you know, our inner voices or, you know, that. And so what happens over time is when we're not connecting with that, when we're not really, is we fall to the structure. We're more apt to fall to the formula, to the structure. And, you know, just with a lot of the women in particular that I work with, there's a lot of this. There's a lot of kind of years later, this sense of, you know, who am I? You know, oh, looking back, I can see that I was uncomfortable with this, but I didn't voice it or I didn't say or. And so. And we actually had a couple of comments with regard to this, you know, this idea. Lexi wrote in saying, you know, the most positive thing that has come from my faith crisis is simply the benefit of becoming a more critical thinker. You know, my journey started with Mormonism, but it continued on into other faiths, science and education in general. This idea of cultivating our own ideas, our own thoughts, and being able to truly honor, you know, that experience as well. We had another comment, you know, on. About reclaiming authority. Tammy wrote, you know, reclaiming my authority, it feels so empowering. So anyway, I think there's a lot to be said about what is kind of lost in the structure and losing kind of the value of our own intuition, our own ability to kind of create ourselves, our lives, our dreams. And not only that, but to voice those, to actually allow for them to be heard and. And to ask for those things. And so that's something that I have experienced in something.

2:51 John Dehlin Do you have some examples?

2:53 Natasha Helfer Oh, sure.

2:54 Margi Dehlin So, like. And I think we've gone into them on some other episodes, but, you know, this plays out in self exploration in your 20s and moving from one dependent relationship right into another and being married, so going from. And never really being an independent self that, you know, is exploring what. What might want my dreams to be or what I would. I don't know, just kind of my sense of who I was at the time, it. How many children we had, how I wanted to navigate having a job or being at home or what that would look like. I just feel like, there was. There was a shutdown mode that I feel like I had. I bought into a structure and it was like an overwrite system. It. Yes, it filled in all those gaps. Yes, it filled in. But what happens in a transition is all those plugs, when you go through a transition, they come out of you and you're left with all those holes, those places you didn't explore.

3:54 John Dehlin I've probably talked about this before, but again, just trying to make this personal. I know that, like, when I was done at byu, Margie still had a year or two to go and I got a job offer. And I was really worried about being able to be that single provider income to the family. And so I didn't give a thought about just leaving byu, having Margie come with me and letting her figure out her education through distance ed later. I regret that now. I wish we had stayed and let her finish her degree and pursue a graduate degree if she had wanted to. Because you had wanted. Always wanted to get a master's of English. And I was just like, oh, that's nice that you wanted that, but we've got to go do my career now because. Because we gotta have kids and we gotta get on the Mormon train. And I don't know how a master's degree is gonna help us on the Mormon train. So that's something I feel bad about. And then, of course, you probably wanted two to three kids. I wanted four to six kids. And when you were like, I'm not sure I want a fourth. I'm just like, I'm pretty sure we're having a fourth. You know, is that okay? Like, I. It wasn't like I just stomped all over you, but I. It was basically gonna be my way. I felt like, you know, at least four. And I feel bad about that. Not to mention the fact that you wanted to pursue maybe a teaching career or whatever. Can you talk about the flip side of that? Since our faith crisis, personally, what awakening or empowerment have you experienced and what did that look like?

5:24 Margi Dehlin Yeah, so a lot of this is in my coming home keynote, but I do feel like.

5:27 John Dehlin Which we'll share. Which was Margie's thrive presentation, so we'll share that.

5:31 Margi Dehlin Yeah. But I do feel like you kind of. Once you realize those, you know, amidst transition, you have these crumbled towers that once stood, or you're gonna have to rebuild a little bit. I do feel like I've taken time to kind of, you know, and when we talk about voice, we bring up these big decisions. But you know what? I Mean, listening to your voice, these things can be smaller, everyday things, right? The fact that you don't always have to give food to your kids, all the best things to other people, or, you know, the voice. There are subtle honorings of voice too. Giving yourself, you know, acknowledging that my personality is introverted. I like to actually move slower through my world than John does. And actually giving voice to that is a valid way to live. That was a really huge part to, you know, amidst my transition. Part two is just, you know, really allowing and honoring space for you to get outside a hustle, to get outside a system. And you know what? I don't know if you remember this, but one other area, you know, we were living in D.C. we were about to move. John and I were working at sra, but I, before we moved for a job for John, I had just gotten a job at one of the most prestigious clubs in D.C. and they were going to train me, a health club, to be a personal trainer. They were going to pay for it. And at that time, that was something I was really interested in. So I had a. I had left my education here. We're in a situation where they're willing to pay for me to become a personal trainer and be a personal trainer at this very exclusive club. And I was thrilled. And I never even vocalized to John that I really wanted it. It was like, well, he got the job. So obviously we're moving. And you know, it's like little things like that over time that I just think add up that. And so what you do is you go back and you reclaim that. So becoming a life coach or, you know, know, being able now, can you

7:29 John Dehlin tell that story or just briefly, like, what did you do?

7:32 Margi Dehlin So I think what I realized over time was that there was this space that I naturally inhabited and people were naturally asking questions a lot of me. And. And so I feel like my natural interests over the years for health and relationships and reading all these books that I was storing in my brain and I would use them in my own family life, right? So I definitely put them to use. But it was all in my brain. It was all like living inside of me. And so what I felt like was, well, what would happen if I actually moved into a space where I'm naturally interested, where I've naturally, you know, I feel like not schooled myself, but I have really been proactive about educating myself with a lot of the best kind of the leaders of the field. What would happen if I just kind of shared that in this space? What would happen If I grew my own space of doing that, and it actually honored me, I'm much more of a one on one person versus a huge group person. And so all of this was creating a life that I feel like allowed for me to be fully myself. And it was really honoring to my personality and what I love. And now I have this space here on the podcast and I also have this practice that is deeply honoring to me as a human being. But I also feel like allows me to do something I really love, you know, and I go through this process with other people that. That I feel like is truly beautiful. And honestly, it feels like sacred to be in that space with people where they're sharing all sorts of things. And so that's an example of going back to a wound and then sort of and having it reflect the person I am now. So I didn't get an English master's, did I? I mean, it's not the same dream of two decades ago, right? Because it reflects sort of where I am now and kind of the person I am now.

9:44 John Dehlin So do you feel happier and more whole or stronger or more complete?

9:48 Margi Dehlin I do. I do feel like there was a part of me that was a little more dormant, maybe a little more undeveloped, that took a back seat for many years. And now I feel like that part of me has, you know, now I have plants growing in that place. I've got actually a world that I have created. An aspect of myself that was in the dark, that now lives in the light and is part of me.

10:17 John Dehlin I just have to say, Natasha, I really want to hear from you on this. The weird thing for me is that Margie's empowerment has not been threatening to me. It's actually been. It's not that I didn't respect her before, but I really respect her. What she does as a professional, I respect what she does as a coach, I respect her wisdom, I respect her as kind of a business partner and her nonprofit stuff. And she's happier and stronger, and that is attractive to me. And I think it's better for our marriage for us to be standing strong together versus leaning on each other, but then there's always the risk of falling down or one of us is weaker or one of us is stronger. Sometimes maybe it felt a little bit unequal, but not that I was better, but just. I don't know. But what I can say is, like, right now and over the past seven years, it's just gotten better and better. I feel like our. I'm more attracted to you now. I feel there's more respect and there's more strength in our relationship. The stronger you've gotten. And that's one of the things I love is it's a win, win. Let's just say your marriage is in disarray after a faith crisis. If you as a woman get stronger, it's a win win. Either hopefully it will be something that your husband respects and is attracted to more or you'll become strong and ready for whatever you want to do if your marriage doesn't work out, which may include another relationship, it may include independence, who knows. But I just think a woman benefits by becoming more stronger, more developed either way, regardless of what happens. So it's kind of a win, win, win. So Natasha, forgive, please jump in here.

12:15 Natasha Helfer No, I think it's one of the ways that the Mormon church does the biggest disservice to women is to not allow them to self develop. And I would like to just read a few comments that you're getting Margie, as you're talking. So Cami Beath says, I totally agree, Margie. I couldn't trust myself when I thought I had to fit into a Mormon box. It is so freeing to listen to my own thoughts and give them space and weight in my mind. And April Newman says, I really agree, Margie. I was just telling my husband that, I don't know, I really thought for myself almost my whole life. I got married young, hubby's older than me. I just listened to the structure of church and my thoughts followed, followed or I looked for my husband often for answers. They didn't always sit well, but I just moved on, buried in kids and mom fog. I know there were times I did think for myself but never critically looked on how I really felt. It has been very empowering for me through this faith crisis.

13:10 Margi Dehlin Beautiful.

13:12 Natasha Helfer And I think, you know, to your point, John, feminist ideals help all genders. Everyone helps everybody. And putting pigeonholing people into boxes of what they should or shouldn't be or do because they have a vagina or a penis or something in between, which we don't even talk about is extremely harmful to the human soul and to human relationships. And there's so much, I mean I don't think I need to speak much further. I would agree Margie, with my experience is being very similar. Most of my very tear driven conversations with my husband is explaining, trying to explain like how the yes. And like yes I know you love me and yes I know you support me and yes, I know you're proud of me and my life has still been completely, you know, like, predicated by your job, your career, your identity. And that's been hard for Andy to understand sometimes because he does love me and he is proud of the things I do. And so I think he takes it almost too personal when I bring these things up. Like, but wait a minute. That means that I'm not a good husband. Right. Or that means that I forced you to do things and that was never my intent or. And it wasn't so much that he forced me to do anything. These are decisions that we made together. But it was in the construct of the shoulds of what I should be that my Mormonism gave me that my culture gave me, that I would say even, you know, aspects of American culture gave me, that really didn't allow me to share my voice. And I think, you know, your point, the little title that you've made to your point, is it's silencing our voices. And that's very much how I felt too. Yeah. My life would be very different if I had known how to advocate for my ideas or my career or my thoughts or my choices. Because I, too, just like him, he was also harmed by that. I want to talk about this from the men's perspective because they also have the shoulds of what we're doing. We're both caught in that trap of the shoulds of the gender roles that are imposed upon us. But if we ever divorce, I'll tell you this, his earning potential wasn't hurt by my shoulds, whereas my earning potential definitely was.

15:41 Margi Dehlin Right.

15:42 Natasha Helfer That's a huge difference for women, usually.

15:45 Margi Dehlin Yep. So true.

15:47 John Dehlin Love it.

15:50 Natasha Helfer John, what about one of your points?

15:54 John Dehlin Well, I feel like I shouldn't be giving my perspective here about women, but. But I.

16:00 Natasha Helfer Well, he said that a few times and then I'm like, well, am I not going to give my perspective when we talk about men? I don't think so. So, please. I think you've got three perspectives.

16:11 Margi Dehlin Yeah.

16:12 Natasha Helfer It's good for us to hear from men about things that they see as struggling with or.

16:17 John Dehlin Yeah. So a couple of the things that I see really common with women in a faith crisis, although I will say that these things also occur in men. And I don't want to make it sound like they're gendered. They're gendered. And also I do think sometimes these things are tied more to the believer versus the non believer in a mixed faith marriage. But I'll just list a couple. I do feel like when a faith crisis happens in a couple, I've noticed That more often for women than men, there's this real immediate concern, number one about the eternal family is, is our eternal family destroyed? And accompanying that is a real immediate fear. Is my partner going to cheat on me now that he's had a faith crisis? And I can't say it enough that this isn't necessarily gendered, but I do think those are two really common reactions in a faith crisis. And I'm just curious how have each of you. I would love to hear how each of you have dealt with those fears or concerns in your own relationships or with the people you've coached. So let's start with the fear around eternal family for the women out there who are like, yeah, faith crisis. Now I don't know about, will I see my husband again? Will we be together in heaven? Will we see our kids? How have each of you worked that out? Natasha, I'll start with you on that one.

17:49 Natasha Helfer Well, before I even talk personally, I think that this is really interesting that you just brought up these two topics, which in a sense, part partner, the two things Margie and I talked about, because one of them is really having to do with that mother identity that shoved down our throats, right? And that somehow we're responsible for the caretaking of the entire family structure and getting them to heaven, because after all, you know, you guys aren't that righteous to begin with, so it's on us. And secondly, and then the second part is that sexuality piece, right? That somehow, if we don't have this structure of Mormonism, that's a threat to our sexual ownership of each other, which is really what it is about. Because now we're going to step away from that ownership model. And that's very scary as to what that could maybe bring about. So I think it's interesting that those are the two things you've seen, at least from what it sounds like the believing female partner in some heterosexual marriages struggle with if they have a faith transitioning Spanish. Now, I was the faith transitioner ahead of my husband. I always kind of drug him along with all my social justice issues, all of the issues I was seeing in my practice, all the things that I felt, you know, weren't necessarily sitting well with me, you know, for years. So he's kind of been two steps behind me the whole time. So I kind of felt those things. I didn't feel the infidelity issue as much, but I definitely felt the am I steering my family into space? That, you know, and we hear this oftentimes over the pulpit. What will they say to transitioners is your actions will affect generations to come. If you step away from the church, you will in essence be derailing not only your life, but the life of generations to come. And so it's a very fear driven type of narrative which laughs in the face of agency, which is what we supposedly believe in. But it. And so I definitely have had those moments where even though I felt very much like I was listening to my inner voice, like you talked about Margie, those doubts would come in, you know, anytime we ran across an issue, maybe my kid got a bad grade or my daughter's dealing with depression or something's happening as soon as there's an issue. Because again, we come from equational Mormonism where all good things come from blessings and all bad things come from, you know, sins. Unless of course, you're living the perfect life and then it's a trial. Right. But it's like these weird narratives that we have that I really, even though I didn't necessarily literally believe in them anymore, it was a struggle for me to get away from that idea that I was personally responsible as the mother figure of my family, to not derail the whole system for everybody.

20:39 Margi Dehlin Yep.

20:41 John Dehlin So what is your theology around the afterlife and marriage and united families, Natasha, now that you've gone through a faith crisis and you're still a believer at some level, Right?

20:55 Natasha Helfer Yeah. So I choose to talk about my belief in the format of hope, you know, so I guess I'm an agnostic, hopeful Mormon in the sense of, I mean, I hope there's an afterlife. I hope I get to have relationships with, with loved ones that I choose to be in relationship with after this time. I hope my energy lives on after this life. Those are all things I'm very hopeful for. I hope in the divine being. I hope in a lot of the things that I think are constructed in a Mormon testimony. At the same time, I think as a relational expert, gospel principles that I see come out specifically out of the New Testament and some of the Book of Mormon, that, that's, that's the main testing ground. You know, whether I'm going to see it as literal or symbolic, this life I'm leading here is a testing ground where I get to practice in the forms of relationships with people that I love. So that, that resonates with me in Mormon stories. Right. The Mormon story of coming down and being in a family setting and learning and going through things and if I'm going to. But I think what I've really learned or, you know, what I want to practice more than anything is that the relational aspects always have to win over the doctrinal ones. Always. Otherwise I fail.

22:24 Margi Dehlin Yep.

22:25 John Dehlin What about the theology of a, of a loving God that's going to be dividing loving couples and couples from children depending on their, the ordinances they've received or not, or the, you know, the faithfulness on the moment they died versus a year earlier or 20 years, what they would have done if they hadn't died. Like just this idea of a God that's, that's breaking up marriages and families and not letting people stay together.

22:51 Natasha Helfer I think that's super silly. I mean, I think that we have lots of wonderful Christ like teachings again, that kind of made fun of legalistic ways, pharisaical ways of looking at religious living. That's what Christ was all about. Was kind of like saying, this is kind of stupid what you guys are doing. Why, why are you doing these stupid things with these stupid little rules that you've kind of come up with in your own heads. And to think that we have any idea as to, I mean, I feel like either we're, we're worms afterwards, you know, we turn into dirt, or we have an eternity. I mean the whole concept of eternity is just so mind blowing. No wonder we try to limit it because we can't handle the mind blowingness of it all. We don't have any business, you know, predicting what we think is going to happen, especially in ways that harm us right now.

23:50 Margi Dehlin Yeah.

23:50 Natasha Helfer To live in a way where you think you know what's going to happen in the future that harms your relationships right now I think is a tragedy. And when our leaders encourage for that, I think that's sin they should be called out on. And.

24:06 John Dehlin But what, how could. Let's just say there's a believing Mormon woman, post Mormon, liberal progressive Mormon out there, the woman who's like, wow, well, I've always relied on the brethren to tell me what the doctrine and the theology is. What other choice do I have? What would you say to them, Natasha, if they're like, well, my picture of heaven is based on what I've been told heaven's going to be like?

24:31 Natasha Helfer Yeah. And I think that I used to feel that way too. Until you start really looking at our history and then you're going to have to sit with that discomfort anyway because our leaders have said tons of weird things, things that they've taken back, things that they've decided, oh, now we realize we were biased on. Or so I think that there's, when you look at it from a human developmental space. And even when you look at it, I think from Mormon doctrine, there is this idea of you develop and when you know, when you've learned one concept, you go to the next. That's basically psychology, developmental theories. And even in Mormon doctrine, the idea is, can you become as God, not under God. So if you're gonna become as God, yeah, at some point you're gonna have to stop listening to other people or what other people have to say, even if it's well intentioned, may not be exactly the right answer. So if you want to be the type of member that relies heavily on the authority of priesthood leaders, there may be times or certain types of personalities that need some of that or times in your life where you need some of that versus other times. And when you're ready to move on into something different, then you'll have to sit with that discomfort that that no longer sits well for you. And I think that's why as people who are transitioning, we can't say, oh, it's always bad that you listen to the leaders or people who are like always listening to leaders say it's bad if you don't. Because we all have times when we need more authority in our lives versus less depending on where we're at in a developmental structure. But if your idea is that the priesthood leaders have always said the same thing forever, well then you're kind of in for a sad surprise. If you, you do any type of basic 101 history in Mormonism.

26:30 John Dehlin And I just, I think about, you know, our now in 2019, what Mormon leaders are basically saying is we're not perfect, we make mistakes. You know, they, they, they did polygamy, then they took polygamy away. They kept priesthood from black people and kept black people out of the temples and then they gave it to them. And, and they did the November 2015 policy with LGBT people with or they called same sex marriage an act of apostasy and punished the children of same sex married couples and then they rescinded it. And what the church is now starting to do is just say, hey, you know what? Prophets make mistakes and the church implements policies and then changes them. And what they're basically acknowledging is that prophets and apostles are men and men meaning male in terms of gender or sex type and fallible. And what I love about that is it provides this space for women to say, well, male Mormon patriarchal theology, goddess polygamy. But I like women saying, well, what if women started feeling empowered to create their own Theology, their own interpretations of scripture, what creative things might come about. And I just like the idea of faithful Mormon, progressive and post Mormon women feeling empowered with their spirituality to start deciding for themselves what God is like, male, female, other, what heaven might be like, what their beliefs are going to be about heaven and their families and their own worth, and just really becoming creative and empowered. That seems like a really exciting place for women to be able to go, is taking back their theology and their spirituality and deciding for themselves what they want to believe and don't and what gets them excited and maybe even teaching us men a better vision for spirituality and theology in heaven and afterlife. Because frankly, the male informed version of God and, and of heaven and of theology just isn't appealing to me. So I'd love alternatives. Margie, just really quickly, we did a really extensive Mormon Stories podcast interview, which I highly recommend. Both my one with Natasha on Mormon Stories podcast, where Natasha talks about some very sweet and tender life experiences around youth and sexuality and awakening as an adult. Please check out Natasha Alford Parker's Mormon Stories interview. Also, Margie did one where she talked a lot about her journey. And one of the things that's most memorable to me and many people about my interview with you, Margie, is when you said you're not very interested in beliefs. So can you talk about that other perspective really quick about as a woman, what the role, theology and doctrine about an afterlife, what that plays for you now?

29:36 Margi Dehlin Sure. You know, I feel like, first of all, in all this talk of kind of eternal families, what I do see is this is the first kind of hit at the existential tower, right. Where we're starting to talk about how we want to conceptualize things that we can't really know. Right. It's after we die. It's after. And so this is really, I feel like deep stuff, deeply personal to people. But yeah, I feel like amidst my own transition story, I did shift a bit away from feeling very fixed around what I believe. So and I think the reason why was I started to see that, you know, beliefs don't always inform how we relate to the present moment, how we react to our children, how we respond to our husbands or. And so I want, I needed something that I felt like, helped me live a life that I felt like was more present, moment oriented and beliefs just didn't do that. And an example of that is I can believe in Jesus. I can believe that, you know, Jesus taught love and acceptance. Acceptance, right. But I can still be really, really short with the grocery clerk or treat People badly who are serving me at a restaurant. And so the thing that really helped me, and this is very Eckhart Tolle influenced, but was starting to connect with my own values, with a sense of wanting to connect in the present moment in a really full way, to be as present as I, I can with those I'm with, to really listen to, really try and create space for that. And so, yeah, that's why I think I've moved away from, I think also beliefs.

31:34 John Dehlin Away from what?

31:35 Margi Dehlin From a belief mindset that my identity is tied to what I believe or what I think I know. And I think the other thing is because there's something to beliefs that tend to close a door. You, you feel like you figured something out or you feel like, like you

31:51 John Dehlin get God or you get the afterlife. None of us have any idea if there is a God or if there's an afterlife. One, if there are, or two, what they are. What are we doing for eternity? Does anybody really know? What is God really like if there's an all powerful loving being out there? We don't know.

32:09 Margi Dehlin Yeah. And I completely acknowledge this is a personal process for everyone and what works for you will be different from clearly what I have ended up with. But that's the reason why I prefer curiosity. I really love resonance. The idea of, I like ideas and then I like, I may take some things or not, but I also really love this sense of openness. I'll always be looking, I'll always be taking in new information. And there's a great dose of mystery in there. Things that I can just fully acknowledge, I probably will not know. And so it all falls back to the present moment. That's all I know. Any future I'm dreaming about, anything that I am recalling in my past, it all happens here in this moment, right now. So in that way, it is my most fully empowered place. It's just right here. So that, in short, is my kind of belief. Move away from belief and moving into sort of a different way of, you know, looking at my experience and valuing my life.

33:19 John Dehlin And there's a loss where you lose certainty and you lose this and I believe, manufactured sense of security that you understand God in the afterlife and that can be a loss for people. What I've seen many women do is swap that out for a focus on the present moment where you're wanting to make every day the best day you can make it. You're wanting to have as much joy with yourself, with your spouse, with your kids, with your life, with your career, because if you don't know about the future, all you have is today, then you lose the security of the future. But you gain an increased appreciation for each moment, each day for so many people that really dramatically enriches their lives, especially women. So

34:10 Natasha Helfer a few comments I'll bring up. First of all, Carlene Williams says hi, Natasha. Hi, Carlene. She's here, Wichita with me. Hilary Dalton says post resignation. I'm happily auto erotic. Yeah, I like that term. Neither of my two temple marriages, which ended in divorce, were sexually satisfying. My. My primary focus in life is cultivating my own pleasure and independence. Financial, emotional, sexual, intellectual. Mormonism is miserably stultifying when it comes to teaching its women how to captain their own fates.

34:45 Margi Dehlin Ooh, beautiful.

34:47 Natasha Helfer Yeah, really beautiful. And then April Newman says, president Nelson's talk. This last conference is what finally broke my shelf. After crying for a few hours that I could be with my husband anymore because I was having doubts, I had a paradigm shift and I decided I didn't have to believe it anymore because I felt God would not separate us. And that's the moment I decided he was not a prophet. So, yeah, really powerful stuff. And I think this goes into my next point, which is kind of what we're already talking about, which I think that one thing that we need to think about from a perspective, being women raised as Mormon, is how it's affected our spiritual identity. A lot of what you're talking about right now, John, has to do with that. And I think there's a huge kind of weird paradigm between this idea that we're so spiritual, we don't need things like the priesthood and we're so special and we're kind of placed on these weird pedestals without any power. And yet our roles are very limited, you know, and our voices are very much placed under the authority of men always. You know, even, you know, as a person who's been in the highest level leadership position, you know, in my ward as a relief site president, it was very obvious that I was still very much under male authority, including whether or not I could be in the building by myself. You know, things that just come at a bit of spiritual, I would say stifling, because if my role is to look towards my husband for a blessing or for my husband to have an answer to a prayer about a decision that we're going to make as a family or, you know, need for a certain power that I don't hold myself in order to really truly be spiritually complete, constantly in deficit spiritually and talking with a Dear friend of mine, Lisa Butterworth, about the priesthood and how we've conceptualized the power of God in this very male gendered way is really interesting that even if we were to ever be given the priesthood in her eyes, we would be accepting a, a male given context of what the power of God is about. So even in the most kind of thing, you know, you hear the Catholic nuns and you know, fighting for kind of authority in their, their space, and you have ordained women in our space. And there's lots of ways that women are speaking out in spiritual spaces about these power dynamics. And yet the priesthood, whatever, however it's been conceptualized for people, has really always been. And even if it's given to women, it's given to women by men. And there's something problematic about that context to begin with. So the whole thing is just spiritually stifling. When you think about yourself as a spiritual being, spiritually autonomous, able to have. Mormonism, I think, offered many me a lot of positives. I mean, I did like that Mormonism offered me the thought that I could talk to God on my own, that I could have answers from God on my own. There was some level of personal revelation. Revelation, Right. That that was helpful. And yet it's in this very patriarchal, stifling context that always had me second guessing. Because if my, if my spiritual ideas came into conflict with a man's spiritual ideas, especially a man in higher authority than me, my idea always lost.

38:43 Margi Dehlin Yes.

38:44 Natasha Helfer And how am I supposed to spiritually trust myself in that realm?

38:47 Margi Dehlin Yeah, we're, we're kind of perpetually vulnerable to kind of whoever the patriarch of the moment is in our lives on some level.

38:57 John Dehlin Let me ask you guys really quickly the second part of the point I brought up, which is the fear that a faith crisis will lead to marital infidelity. Natasha, you know what keeps you from cheating on Andy? Assuming that you don't, what keeps couples that you are aware of who have been through a faith crisis, male or female? Do you think there's a correlation between infidelity in a faith crisis and. Talk about that, if you don't mind. And then, Margie, I want to hear your thoughts on the same issue.

39:36 Natasha Helfer I don't know that I have much to say about that. I mean, Mormons have affairs all the time.

39:42 John Dehlin Believing, you're saying, believing orthodox Mormons.

39:45 Natasha Helfer Right. I worked with infidelity throughout my entire career working with all kinds of Mormons. So I think that's kind of one of those false narratives that somehow if you leave the church or if you're doubting in the church, your behavior is somehow gonna become immoral or bad in some way. And so I think, you know, what are the classic slippery slope type of narratives, right? Like, you're gonna start sinning in some way or another. And the way we conceptualize sin, the biggest way we talk about sin is sexual. For some reason in Mormon culture, whether it's poison or affairs or, you know, nobody talks about, oh, my gosh, you're losing your faith. Are you gonna start, like, serving the needy? Yeah. Are you gonna start, like, you know, stealing from your neighbors? Are you gonna start, like, becoming embezzling money from. Yeah. Are you gonna be embezzling money? Are you gonna. Nobody talks about these other ways that people kind of are rotten to other people. Right. So kind of fixated on sexual ideas for some reason. So I don't. I think that there can be a risk for infidelity when there's a faith transition, just because I think that there's a risk for shifts in a relationship that may have dissatisfactions in it, or if you feel like you can't talk to your person, or if you feel like you're not understood by your person, or if you feel lonely or ostracized from your person. But again, there's lots of non transition reasons why people feel those ways and have affairs. And then we also are finding out that people have affairs for really no good reason at all.

41:22 Margi Dehlin Like, really tied to the relationship.

41:26 Natasha Helfer People can be unfaithful and actually report having a really pretty good marriage, you know, with their primary person. So I guess I don't have much to say in that, and I just don't think it's an actual issue.

41:40 John Dehlin Mm. But it's a real fear that is very, very common.

41:44 Natasha Helfer Yes. It's a real fear that I think comes from the slippery slope narrative, which needs to be challenged, because life is a slippery slope.

41:52 Margi Dehlin And I do think it's interesting because there are, you know, we do culturally as well, go to fidelity as the ultimate betrayal. But there are betrayals in marriage that definitely rival, or I would even say, you know, make infidelity not as. I just feel like what, you know, well, like patriarchy. I feel like patriarchy actually has. It can be deeply betraying to a spouse, to a female in relationship. Right. This idea that your thoughts don't matter, your needs don't matter. So I'm canceling you out because I have the authority. Like, there are just. There are a lot of ways to betray a partner in relationship, and I just I agree with Natasha that we tend to focus on the sexual one. And I do think it's, you know, largely cultural, also religious. But I would also suggest that women are being betrayed in their marriages within a patriarchy, you know, system, you know, oftentimes and kind of take that as well. So it's just. Yeah. I don't know.

43:05 John Dehlin Also just emotional. Kind of emotional disconnect can. Can feel very betraying, just.

43:11 Margi Dehlin Oh, right.

43:12 John Dehlin Like a lack of emotional intimacy. Contempt of neglect. Right, yeah. Even physical neglect if there's a partner that has no concern about the physical needs of the other or that it over invests in. In laws or in children at the expense of the partner, or that over invests in work at the expense of the partner. Like oftentimes church service at the expense of the partner. Right.

43:36 Margi Dehlin Or, you know, that job thing. Right. Where the man gets a job and a move is made and the family or the wife didn't want to move or. I mean, I just. I feel like, you know, we should look at a full spirit spectrum of healthy relationship in ways that we can show up for one another and more deeply understand what emotional intimacy looks like beyond just the scope of the sexual side is important.

44:06 Natasha Helfer What angers me so much every time I hear them talking about pornography over the pulpit, for example, is that it's a missed opportunity to talk about things that really matter, like domestic violence. We think that we have good statistics on that as Mormons. We do not, especially in a patriarchal system. And domestic violence isn't always just about being beaten black and blue either. It's financial control, it's emotional abuse, it's abuse over the children, it's threatening, it's coercion, it's sexual coercion. And we talk about these silly problems versus. I don't want to say silly problems. I know that the betrayal of pornography can be very hurtful for people that felt like that wasn't part of their sexual contract together. So I'm not. I'm just saying we're not focusing on. Here's this pulpit that you have to talk to millions of people who see you as an authority. And we're talking about, you know, whether or not we're looking at nudie photos versus whether or not we're beating our children or whether or not your wife has control to your financial accounts. And it just boggles my mind when we lose those kinds of opportunities.

45:17 Margi Dehlin Yes, very well said.

45:21 John Dehlin Love it. Okay, what else, Natasha? What else do we. Are we wanting to cover today?

45:28 Natasha Helfer Well, did either one of you have anything you wanted to say about my spiritual identity piece?

45:31 Margi Dehlin I did. Are we done?

45:33 Natasha Helfer Okay. Because John brought it back to Sacks. I'm just saying.

45:41 Margi Dehlin I really loved, first of all, I loved that point and it made me think too, you know, as we talk about your former point, that just the role of women in kind of caretaking the eternal family, taking responsibility for other people's choices, bringing this sort of whole family into heaven, ushering everyone in and sort of the ownership of, you know, our partners. It's our partners decisions. Taking feedback from patriarchy to sort of that is always has a second guessing, you know, our spiritual journey. It just occurred to me how enmeshed it all is. How, you know, there really is a lack of differentiation and like you said, autonomy. But it's this huge distraction in weight that women carry that. That keeps them separate from themselves. It keeps them from this sort of empowered space of really living, largely living in a way that feels full and authentic. Because we're constantly either taking feedback from patriarchy about how we're not doing it right when we disagree or when we may not resonate with what's being said, or we do not even have this to consider ourselves because now we have children and we are too worried about managing their choices and their decisions. So we all make it. And then if they don't, then we are absolutely then feeling weighted down by the guilt associated with the fact that we've got two children that now won't make it. And what decision, you know, what, you know, how our virtue lapsed or how our spiritual practice was not up to par despite to make this because we have been reinforced that we're accountable. It always comes back, of course, to us. So, you know, that's something that came up for me as you were speaking was just, you know, there are so many ways that we are enmeshed and kind of codependent on others as women within the structure that it takes a while, I feel like, to disentangle all that and kind of come back to ourselves and to allow for, you know, a sense of space and autonomy around ourselves to heal, but also to really negotiate all those things from a place of intention and awareness, like you said. So loved your point.

48:12 Natasha Helfer I'm going to bring in a few comments from people who wrote in and we're going to maybe do a slight tangent, but I see this as part of our spiritual identity when they talk about polygamy or even abusive marriages and things like that. So Jenny says, I was being abused by my husband, controlled and abused by my Church leaders and saw Joseph Smith as the original abuser. My leaders had problems with me running our business and encouraged me to quit and stay at home with kids again. This is like the constant meddling I hear from ecclesiastical leaders about how women should be running their lives and whether or not they fit into that stay at home mom parameter that bugs me every time. And she says, I was disciplined for asking for a divorce, lost my temple recommend, while my husband received no discipline for watching porn or going to strip clubs, kept his callings. So I know that's not necessarily indicative of how every ward works as far as how they were disciplined. And yet I do think that there's quite a. A large overreach of ecclesiastical leaders either meddling in decisions of divorce, meddling in decisions about the financial autonomy of the woman in particular, and whether or not, you know, those choices then fall into disciplinary proceedings of even temple worship, which just is very, very disheartening. How many times I've heard those stories. As far as polygamy, like Ashley says, polygamy in the afterlife, and the way they dance around it like the elephant in the room, we women just weren't important enough for them to ever ease our discomfort over it. The first time I learned about it, I was 18, and I went to my BYU Bishop in full, ugly tears. He laughed at me and said, what are you gonna do if it's true? Leave the church? It took me eight months to not think about it every day. But every time I heard of a spouse dying and the living spouse getting remarried, it brought all of that hurt back to the surface because we were always taught they would all three be together. And Lexi says, as a woman and mother, learning that Joseph Smith had taken so many wives, and particularly minors, was extremely upsetting. The fact that he had exploited them and their families by telling them they would receive exaltation or by saying he was commanded by an angel with a flaming sword was disgusting. Members often talk about how when Joseph Smith had the first vision, he was only 14 and so full of faith for such a young age and incredible young man. And yet apologists claim 14 is very mature when it comes to the young women he married. It just boggles my mind. So I bring these up because I do think this is very much tied to spiritual identity. As a Mormon woman, you know, the roles that we're expected to play, how we're supposed to make sense of our history, how we're supposed to make sense of things that still have not been addressed. We still very much live under a polygamist construct for the afterlife and in our temples and our wedding ceremonies, the changes that they made in the temple for women, albeit I think, very positive, did nothing to address the polygamy question. And that continues to be, I think, something that really, I know I felt, I felt like there was something spiritually wrong with me that I couldn't be more accepting of that concept. For a long time. I felt that, that somehow I wasn't mature enough, spiritual enough, enlightened enough, whatever, enough to be able to get the polygamy narrative.

51:56 John Dehlin Yeah, and I love Carolyn Pearson's book, the Ghost of Eternal Polygamy. Everyone should read that book. Carolyn Pearson is a faithful, believing, active Mormon feminist woman, but I interviewed her on Mormon Stories podcast and also you can just buy her book and read it. But it talks about how polygamy, whether it's the, you know, pedophilia, you know, instances that are covered up in the church, the sexual abuse instances that are in the church for children or for adult women, assault kind of things, patriarchy, polygamy is very much still with us. Our inability to. Our desire in Mormon church leadership these days of, of protecting abusers at the expense of the abused, of feeling like the needs of women and children are somehow less important than the need to protect the church, to protect the institution, or to protect male abusers is still very much haunting us, along with our culture of secrecy and of self protection and of paranoia. All of that has its roots in polygamy. And if you think that for those of you who buy the line that polygamy isn't doctrinal anymore and that we don't really have anything to do with it anymore, I think you're missing a really important aspect of where and how Mormonism needs to heal. I'll also add that Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants is still canonized. And we have Mormon prophets today who are entering into polygamous marriages with new female spouses after their current spouses have died after their previous spouses passed away. You know, Elder Oaks is in a polygamous celestial marriage. Russell M. Nelson's in a polygamous celestial marriage. You know, and there are others. And so, and please understand, because I

53:57 Natasha Helfer think sometimes some women still don't understand. A woman cannot do that. A woman cannot be sealed to more than one husband while she's alive.

54:05 John Dehlin Yes. And all that around the cancellation of sealings and how the man can divorce one woman and automatically be sealed to subsequent women without any need of a cancellation or of approval. But women if they divorce their first husband and want to be sealed to a new man, they have to grovel and ask their previous husband for permission and go through the sealing cancellation process, which is just really ugly and disturbing. And the church is hesitant to grant sealing cancellations for women who don't have some man ready and lined up to marry in the temple. So it's almost like the church would prefer that a woman stay sealed to a man who she no longer wants to be sealed to, because in heaven, it's better that she be sealed to some man than no man at all. Whereas there are women who just don't feel that way. And that's. There's a lot of heartbreak around how the church. The disparity between how the church handles sealing cancellations and temple marriage with men versus women. It's really a problem.

55:11 Natasha Helfer Yeah. This is a whole podcast and of itself, what you have done, I think, with, like I said, Carolyn Pearson. I know I've done some on this issue as well. And it affects women and affects our sexuality, it affects our spiritual identity, it affects our. Our ability to fully commit. I can't tell you how many times I've talked to women, just in marital counseling, where she's like, you know, I feel a little bit walled off from this man that I feel like at some point I'm going to have to share with another woman. Imagine living your life, the here and now, the present moment, with that kind of story, that narrative playing in the back of your head. I know I felt that way. Andy felt it was appropriate to make jokes about that during the first part of our marriage.

55:58 Margi Dehlin Yeah.

55:59 Natasha Helfer That we would. Yeah. Someday you're gonna have to share me. Hahaha. Those things had profound impacts on our current marriage that we had to talk about and heal from years later.

56:13 Margi Dehlin Yeah.

56:14 Natasha Helfer So that. That is something that is currently harming all of our women and our girls. Yeah.

Episode 36

0:19 Margi Dehlin Do you know, one thing I wish I had brought up during our first kind of segment around kind of sexuality and was the role of garments for me in that part of the journey.

0:33 Natasha Helfer I think that's a huge thing. So go for it. Because that has to do with spirituality, sexuality, women.

0:39 John Dehlin Natasha, how. When were you planning on wrapping up? Were you planning on going another hour or were you planning on.

0:44 Natasha Helfer I'm free until 3, so I have 45 minutes.

0:47 John Dehlin Okay, cool. All right, let's. Yeah. Because there's some more issues. So we'll have a third hour of this episode. Go ahead, Margie. Let's talk garments.

0:54 Margi Dehlin Yeah. So, you know, I wore garments always kind of had a mixed relationship that. Well, not really mixed. So I did wear garments, but it was kind of reluctant and I kind of had them bought certain types so that I could wear shorts that I wanted to or so I could amend the situation accordingly. But the real shift for me actually was when I stopped wearing garments because I feel like inadvertently what happened was I started seeing my body again and I didn't realize psychologically how much shame I felt around my body. Always feeling like I was covering, always covering. The. Just the idea of shopping for underwear for myself was a whole self like, exploratory experience. What fabric do I like? What's my style? What color? What. It unleashed this whole process for me of. And feeling like. I don't know, I just feel like it was deeply symbolic of me coming back to my own body, coming back to my own sensuality in feeling. Being able to feel parts of my body and the way underwear actually felt. I never felt comfortable with like layers and layers of clothing. So that actually in and of itself was something that wasn't particularly honoring for me to begin with. But also, you know, I just feel like it sleeping next to someone not fully covered at all times is a fundamentally different intimacy experience for me. And I really did not understand that until the garments came off. I love feeling John's skin at night. Like I do feel like there it is a turn on to actually be able to feel someone just in that intimate, close way. And those were insights I just. I never. I never would have guessed until I actually took the garments off. Not to mention exploring with clothing. Right. In a new way and like shoulders or what parts of my body do I actually appreciate seeing that may have been covered for all those years that now I. It just a fundamentally, it was truly awakening to take off my. My garments and deeply symbolic to me as coming back to myself, coming back to my body, coming Back to me without covering, without. And yeah, it was really something that I really. It was just really valuable and intimate, honestly.

3:52 Natasha Helfer Yeah. Thank you for sharing all that.

3:55 Margi Dehlin How about you? How was it for you?

3:58 Natasha Helfer Well, I think I have a. Yes. And on the garment thing, I'm one that really likes symbolism. I really find a lot of value in symbolism. I think it's beautiful. My experience going to the temple for the first time was fairly positive. I know that's not always the case for women in the church. I had a profoundly spiritual experience in the. Help me out here.

4:28 John Dehlin No, initiatories.

4:29 Natasha Helfer Washington.

4:30 Margi Dehlin Oh. Huh.

4:31 Natasha Helfer Yeah, initiatories, where they teach you about the garment and they put the garment on, and it was back when they still, you know, touched you, which, again, I know for some women, that's horrific. For me, it was extremely beautiful, powerful to have. First of all, to be in the presence of women who were laying their hands on me and touching me appropriately. Nobody think, you know, so it's not like I don't want it. I felt it was appropriate the way they touched me and blessed my body in preparation for marriage and the next phase of my life, I found. I found that profoundly beautiful and sacred and just. I don't know, There was something very, very healing in that moment and space for me, like matriarchal feeling. You know, these matriarchs, these mothers, these. We're gonna, you know, kinda like you see in other cultures, right, where they wash the bride or they prepare her, like Indian brides or things like that. And I felt kind of like that, like, oh, we have something like this where I can get to, you know, have these women anoint me and prepare me for this moment in my life. My garments came off when I realized that I had been married into a polygamous marriage without my consent. And that was like, one of the very few times in my life where I went like that.

5:56 John Dehlin For believers who don't understand that. What do you mean? There are probably plenty of believers that would say I didn't. What are you talking about? We didn't enter into polygamous marriage.

6:05 Natasha Helfer Yeah, that's what I thought too. And that's kind of what we've been talking about, is that as I started understanding the history of polygamy and that it's still in our doctrine and that it's still what seemed to be in the afterlife, and that the marriage ceremony is still what it always has been. And in particular, the words that stood out to me that I didn't pay attention to on our wedding day because you're on your wedding day, you're just kind of like, whatever. A lot of things go over your head. But I believe Andy said something like, I think I said, I give myself to you. And Andy said, I receive you. And it's this. It's the wedding ceremony of polygamy, and that's still in our temple. And I felt like I had to see.

6:51 John Dehlin The man owns the woman, basically, in some way. The man owns the woman.

6:54 Natasha Helfer Well, sure. Like, I can give myself only once, but he can receive many times, as many times as he'd like. Right.

7:03 John Dehlin And theologically, that is how.

7:06 Natasha Helfer And that's how it is. And that's. And then when I started finding out, you know, when I had my first client, who was widowed at 25 and had two kids and had to make the disaster decision of whether she would annul that relationship with her prior husband and marry and get sealed with her new husband, who would now take ownership of her children with her, I was just like, what are we doing? Like, these are things I never knew. Now, I knew about polygamy from the time I was a teenager, and I can't tell you how many bishops I went and asked about it, and they never were able to give me any answer that was at all helpful. Just like, oh, that'll be figured out in the next life, or, oh, that's not something you need to worry about. Or, oh, you know. But it wasn't until I started seeing how the rubber meets the road with my clients, and when I realized what I had said in my own marriage, without my consent, I feel like I was placed into a space where I did not have consent. I didn't know what I was getting myself into. That was the last day I wore my garments. So I didn't have a negative relationship with my garments up until then, but I took them off. And then, to your point, I noticed some things. I noticed that I felt sexier. I felt more sensual. I noticed that I. I liked having lacy underwear that, you know, in our culture seems to make you feel sexy. Right. Or that I liked wearing. Yeah, to your point, clothing that I felt was modest, but that didn't feel like I had to, you know, like, go through all these hoopa. My laws, to try to figure it out. And that I did feel more free and that I did feel more in touch with my body and that I liked how I looked better. And to your point, the being naked together as a couple is so profound. And I just did an interview for Mormon Sex info with Barry McCarthy who's a wonderful sex therapist and researcher in our country. He's older, and he said, don't forget that part of sex is the afterglow. Don't forget part of sex is laying naked with each other afterwards. And I remember so many times where Andy and I were just like, okay, that was nice. Let's get our garments back on. What an interruption of something that was so special for us. Unnecessary, unnecessary tragedy again. But I don't think I would have known those things or realized them until I was in a position to take them off, which is how a lot of this is and why. I think that why the communication between believers and transitioners is so difficult, because as a believer, I had a good relationship with my garments. I would have been the one that's saying, what's the big deal? Or they're protective or they're not. I loved that I never had to pull my underwear out of my butt. Right. Like I do sometimes with regular underwear. So there were things that I was like, this is. This isn't so bad. And it's symbolic. It's nice. Right. And as a transitioner, then it has different meaning. Or it has. I'm open to new ideas, wasn't open to before. And so that's, I think, sometimes where it's hard to bridge those divides between people, you know, who feel this way about it or people who feel that way about it. Different experiences in the moment with those things.

10:46 Margi Dehlin Yeah. I would be curious for our listeners if they wanted to share any of their experiences around if they have stopped wearing garments or. Or any types of reflections that they've had around that process for them. I do feel like it's quite personal and it can be.

11:10 Natasha Helfer And I would say, coming back to the women's issue, I mean, I know both men and women wear garments, but I do think it's a higher cost for women in our society. Women wear different clothing in our society than men. I think it's easier for men. And I think that there's even different sexual messaging around women, how we feel about our bodies and told to feel about our bodies that garments interferes with. So it's just. Yeah, we're both expected to, but it comes at a different cost.

11:36 Margi Dehlin Yes. Yep.

11:39 Natasha Helfer Yeah. All right. John, do you have another point you want to touch on before we.

11:45 John Dehlin Yeah. A couple comments. Tamara writes, removing my garments was so scary for me, and I had been deep into my faith crisis. Thanks, Tamara, for sharing. Hilary writes, yes, Natasha, I had very similar experiences in the initiatories. So I think Other people love those thought they're beautiful. Penny writes, margie, thanks for sharing about the garments. So people are grateful that we're talking about this. And Penny also writes, I felt the same way too about the polygamy narrative. Carolyn Pearson's book is amazing. It helped me so much and her interview with John was awesome. So another Penny adds a vote for the the book the Ghost of Eternal Polygamy and Carolyn Pearson's interview and her work. Hillary writes, it's one thing what Joseph Smith did regarding polygamy, that he concealed it from Emma was the deal breaker for me. And yep, that's a, that's a challenge for a lot of people. Hillary also writes, I would rather my second husband had betrayed our vows via adultery than then his preferred method concealed his serialized white collar crimes practice over two decades. He ended up in federal prison. We were left destitute and shouldering the shame of his actions within the small community which we lived at the time. That's heartbreaking, Hillary. And it just goes to the fact that in Mormonism sometimes we have an over emphasis on sexual purity of men and women and an under emphasis on rape and assault or financial crimes or fraud and other sorts of very important, you know, ethical and moral issues. So. And then Tamara writes, my second marriage was a mixed faith marriage. In the beginning I wore the garments and he was accepting. He would joke that he married Laura Ingalls from Little House on the Prairie. Since then, I've removed my garments and wear more comfortable undies. I still tend to wear more supportive items because the body confidence is just not there. Natasha, what do you have to say to Tamara about body confidence?

14:00 Margi Dehlin I feel like

14:03 Natasha Helfer that's its own episode. Right. But, but I mean, I don't think that this is a Mormon issue. I think women have been put into battle with their bodies from a very early age from all kinds of media sources, all kinds of cultural messages. Even when you think about how we talk to young girls and I've started watching myself and how difficult it is for me to shift this language. So easy for me to say to my nieces, you look so pretty. You look so cute. What a nice outfit. Oh, look at your hair. Wow. Wow, right? Versus with my boy nephews, you know, I'm like, what are you doing? Show me your dinosaur. What's that toy? You know? Oh, you're so strong. Look at you run. You know, it's like, wow, you know, just catching my own bias in that with as educated as I am about it. Right. So it's, I think Women have been put into battle with their bodies from a very early age and objectified and, you know, put into our value is in our body and how we look and how we present. I know men get some of those messages too. It's not 100% gendered, but I do think the emphasis on women has been monumentally bigger. So I say whatever helps you with that, and if that includes supportive undies, go for it. That's great. I wear supportive undies too, sometimes, especially on what I'm wearing.

15:35 John Dehlin Another thank you, Natasha. And of course, a huge thanks to Tamara and all our listeners for their vulnerability. One of the things that I've noticed with women who experience a faith crisis is we talk about validity Mormons and utility Mormons. In that David Christian episode from the New York City Mormon Stories workshop from a long time ago, David was kind enough to introduce us to that concept. There's some people who care about whether or not the church is true. There are other people who don't. And generally, if I had to stereotype, it's often men that care more about the truth claims than the women I found, although there are exceptions. And there are women that care more about just whether the church is helpful or good or useful. And I think I've noticed a lot of women who cling to a comfort in the church because it provides them with support, it provides them with friendships, it provides them with community, it provides them with a sense of meaning and purpose and just the structure. Visiting teachers or women to talk to, whatever it is, it's this incredible structure that helps them get through life. It helps them find friends to raise the kids, and just to get all the support you need. If it's true that it takes a village to raise a child, especially if you're gonna raise six or eight children like some of us do in Mormonism, then a religion is gonna be really helpful for that. So a faith crisis can threaten that for many women. And so we've got a couple comments that came in from our listeners that talk about some of the ways that religion provided security. And then my question to both of you is, how can women find the security or the friendships of the community without religion or without Mormon orthodoxy? And so I'll just read a couple of these comments and you guys can talk about it. So Patricia writes, losing all of my friends, except for one who at first kept telling me the church is still true. She does not say that now, but I do not see her much. So Patricia writes about how she's lost friends. Other people have Written something similar. Rachel writes, like Patricia, I've lost many friends, many friends. But the beautiful thing is that is the rebirth I felt socially. So she's giving the answer to Patricia's challenge. She says, I've been feeling deeper connections than those friends that stayed. I've been able to reach out to people I never would have before. I've become more comfortable with who I am and why I stand tall. The faith crisis weeded out so many people out of my life who were not true friends and allowed me to see a new life. It allowed me to forge new friendships and to solidify others. What do you guys think about this idea of how many women feel like a loss in faith in the church or mixed faith marriage or leaving the church just takes away all the structure, friendships and community that they need to be healthy and happy and to raise healthy, happy kids.

18:53 Natasha Helfer Well, I can definitely speak to that. As a military brat growing up, that was a huge benefit to our family, right? Was every time we moved, there was a ready made ward family ready to befriend us, support us, be part of our lives. I know, I've spoken with lots of faith transitioners that will say that's what they miss the most, right? Is the community. How often do we both. How often do we all hear that, right? John and Margie, I'm sure you hear that all the time. There's something very empowering about going to a community where you don't. Sometimes it's nice to have a community. You don't get to choose so age and race and culture and socioeconomic status and you're kind of put in there with a bunch of people that you kind of have to make it work. And there's something that I think we all are edified by that in ward communities, not so much in Utah, where the diversity is less, you know, because your ward is like a three block. But in a lot of other places, like in my ward, I know there's quite a bit of diversity and all those things I just mentioned. And you know, your kids get opportunities to serve and you get opportunities to serve and there's like a lot of volunteering and camaraderie and potlucks and it just, you know, I think that all of the studies that we're seeing these days about connection and even about addiction and it's like people need good connection and we're struggling in that as a society anyway, you know, with so much, so many of us being more transient, we don't stay in the same village anymore, you know, Like I used to, 102 years ago. You don't have as many people. Some people, you know, in the busiest of cities feel the loneliest even though they're, you know, around tons of people every day. So I do think that there is something that's true. When you talk about the validity structure, a lot of people are like, who cares what Joseph Smith did 100 years ago? Or that doesn't impact my life. What impacts my life right now is that I have a place that I can find a babysitter on Friday night from the young women's list. Right. Or I can take my kids to primary. Or my kids just made friends with people they wouldn't have made friends with when we moved in this summer.

21:18 John Dehlin Right.

21:19 Natasha Helfer Or. Or I make friends. Sometimes it's hard as adults to make friends, you know, and it's nothing like Relief Society or priesthood meetings to be able to meet other people that are. That you kind of connect with. All of a sudden you're going out to dinner and having a double date, you know, on Friday night with a couple you met at the ward. And super, super good reasons. Unfortunately, there are some real costs to the community aspect. And I would say right now it's. I mean, it's hard for me to say this about my own church, but I would say it's dangerous to be in our community if you have a gay kid. And you don't always know if you have a gay kid. You know, the things that are coming over the pulpit and the language that's being used is so vitriolic and abusive that there are people in our communities that are killing themselves. So, you know, communities have pros and cons to them. I would say the sexual shaming that's happening through bishops interviews and interview questions and masturbation, which is a normal developmental activity, still being called out as a sin is something that all of our youth are affected by, damaged by the purity rhetoric, the modesty rhetoric. I mean, we are not helping our children have positive sex positive kind of environments when we put them in those spaces. So I think there are wonderful things about our ward families. I think that there are a few things that are really problematic, and I understand why. There are a lot of people who feel like it's, you know, do we stay in the church because it offers our kids this great structure, or do we take the kids out because the church is going to hurt the kids? It's usually not as black and white as that. I mean, it's usually much more gray than good or bad. Like Any community is, and yet it's things that we need to be talking about. And I do think women in particular, especially Mormon women who've been very socialized to be family mama dragons, are going to be thinking about the structure of the church environment and whether they see that as a positive or a negative in their family's life, and that that will probably impact their decisions on how to either leave, stay, or do something in between.

23:54 Margi Dehlin Yeah, yeah. Beautifully said. So beautifully said. I have thought often back to the excommunication time when, you know, it was clear so much of what John was doing revolved around your master's with the LGBTQ study that you did, or was that for your PhD, your findings that way and your activism and advocacy, and we had no idea we had an LGBTQ child, but we did. And, you know, just really, really thinking back to that, I don't know, it's very. It's a. It's a tender thing to kind of. To realize. So I love your points that way, and I honestly feel like we could do an entire episode on this particular question. Structure, community. With regard to the structure question, I always think about, you know, this idea of going back to family values, creating, you know, remember our podcast on creating family culture? You. You can create. You. You can create structures that you notice that you have lost and that you really valued. You can kind of move in eventually to create a new Sabbath, what that would look like for you, either individually or if you're married or have a partner as a couple or even as a family and have your family participate, that these. These times of rebuilding and looking at loss are some of the most, you know, vital and important, I think, in your process and in your sense of empowerment with. With regard to your stories. So that's what I would say with structure as far as, like, community, that's a little more complicated. And I think it takes time, and I think there's a lot of loss that can be felt within that. All I can say is within time, oftentimes you'll notice a space is cleared and you feel like you have very few people left, that the filtering process has left you feeling quite, you know, void of relationship. But in time, as you pursue your own identity, your own values, you'll end up meeting people you know, and hopefully, you know, joining groups that you're interested in, whether that's book groups, writing groups, meditation groups, waka, you know, whatever that can be. As you start kind of coming back to yourself and what you value and what you love, you can naturally recreate a community of sorts. It will be different. It will look different, it will feel different. It won't have that mass appeal. But, you know, for me, it's been one of the most beautiful things. Our book group, we moved to Salt Lake and we were talking about how we, you know, didn't have a sense of real personal relationships with people. We saw couples that we had this sense of really knowing and really had this opportunity to show up for or to know those more intimate things. And we earlier this year started a group where we. We read books and we get together about once a month. Ish. And it's been deeply satisfying. Really a beautiful thing to have this sense of shared place with, you know, four other couples, I think. And so creating those. Creating slowly rebuilding those places where you can feel a sense of conn. And feel a sense of showing up, opportunities to show up for other people. I feel like the richness and depth we've been able to achieve within our relationships and they are fewer because we don't have 200 people. Right. But it's been a really, really beautiful thing. What would you say?

28:00 John Dehlin Yeah, I think. Yeah, the friendships, especially now, I just want to make a plug for all the different ways to find community in 2019 that didn't exist in 2001 when we went through our faith crisis. You can go to mormonspectrum.com map and you can find local communities literally all over the world where you can make friends and find community. WACA women of a certain age. Please check out the WCA email Kim turneracasaturnermail.com and find out about what it takes to get into wca. WCA stands for Women of a Certain Age. W O C A. And it's this support group for post Mormon women all over the Wasatch Front and even around the United States where women are Both older than 40 and under 40 are now forming community, having book clubs and playgroups and dinner groups and parties and get togethers. WAKA is amazing. Wacca has these spinoffs. One is called moca Men of a Certain Age, which are men around, you know, Wasatch Front who are getting together. There's Coca. Couples of a Certain Age. There are these couples events that are now happening in St. George and Park City and other. So, you know, there's never been a better time to find community for women. For men all over the world. The Mormon Spectrum group provides community through meetup groups, through Facebook groups, through all sorts of different groups. And it's just really powerful. The good thing is with Mormon spectrum is if you can't find a community in your area, you can create one. So you create a Facebook group, just like Leah and Cody Young did in Columbus, Ohio. They create a Facebook group, a support group for progressive and post Mormons in Columbus. And before they know it, they have 100 people in it. And they. And by allowing me to advertise it, by advertising it on the Mormon spectrum map, they're able to find a huge community now that they didn't have before. So there's no reason to fear and feel like you can't have better friendships, better community, and even just the ex Mormon Reddit or the Mormon Stories podcast Facebook community or Thoughtful Transitions Facebook community or the Waters of Mormon Facebook community for believing, you know, Mormons that are more progressive or the Mormon enlightenment group that Sean and Crystal Escobar started. There are so many cool Facebook groups now and the thrive community, we've created these thrive communities now and we're going to be doing more workshops and retreats and events there. There's just so many cool opportunities for community. I hope everybody will take advantage of those resources and realize that, you know, stay in the church if it works for you, enjoy the church community if it works for you. But if it doesn't, there's so much out there now. I want to make sure people know that.

31:06 Margi Dehlin Yeah,

31:09 John Dehlin there are some comments coming in that are Penny is asking Natasha, do you still attend your ward? She writes, I'm concerned about not being able to answer the temple recommend questions and how well we will be accepted in our ward if we no longer attend the temple or wear garments. So, Natasha, I get the sense that you're in the middle space of not being totally out, but not being fully orthodox. How do you navigate ward relationships? Not attending the temple or attending the temple, not always wearing your garments and in the ward community,

31:50 Natasha Helfer well, that's complicated. And I would love to do a podcast just on temple recommend questions. I think put that on our list.

31:57 Margi Dehlin Great idea.

32:00 Natasha Helfer I think. You know, I stopped attending temple recommend questions a long time ago or temple recommend interviews a long time ago when I started doing advocacy work. Because I knew just from my work experience when they stopped referring people to me and things of that nature due to certain stances I was taking that I may not get my temple recommend just because of things I believed or was standing up for. And I never wanted to be in a position where they were going to turn me away. So that was my own personal decision, to stop attending the temple. Before really I wanted to, or before just Because I felt like they weren't going to let me anyway, so that was that. But I have a lot of ideas about how to answer Temple remnant.

32:44 John Dehlin By the way, Carolyn Pearson says the same thing. She's an active, devout Mormon who just says, I don't go to the temple.

32:50 Natasha Helfer Yeah.

32:51 John Dehlin So her tithing, her temple, that's just. That's not part of her Mormonism. But she, you know, and I'm sure she pays tithing in her own way, but. And I'm sure she wears what she wants to wear. You can be an empowered, progressive Mormon and still stay in the church, but not go to the temple and. And not dress like everybody else. And not necessarily, you know, maybe drink coffee or maybe have a beer every once in a while or a glass of wine. Natasha, I'm inspired by your mom, who was able to drink a beer or a glass of wine and attend the temple, and she had bishops and stake presidents that were okay with that or drink coffee. I think that there are a lot of ways to be a Mormon and to engage Mormonism. And I just think sometimes we limit ourselves in what we're able to do because there are interpretations of the word of wisdom that allow for drinking beer or allow for drinking a glass of wine or not attending the temple or paying partial tithing or whatever you want to do. And there are many people that feel empowered enough to do that.

33:55 Natasha Helfer Yeah, I would agree. And I would say right now my relationship with my ward is awkward because I don't attend enough. I don't attend enough. And I think that's on me. I think that if I was attending more regularly, I mean, it was awkward before when I was attending regularly all the time and always had a comment that nobody wanted to hear, but they still loved me. And, you know, I mean, I was still very. I felt very comfortable in that space of just kind of. I was having that. Just. That's the role I played. Right. I always had the one comment that kind of everybody was probably like, oh, there she goes again. But now, you know, if I only attend once a month or once every other month, then it's that awkwardness that I think you'd feel any place where you don't attend regularly. You know, everybody's like, oh, hi, or how are we supposed to engage with you? Are we supposed to pretend that nothing's changed? Or do we ask you how you're doing? Or, you know, so I get it that I may get complicated on them. It's not so much them on me because I'm not Participating and the way that you're kind of expected to in that environment. So I think, to your point, Carolyn Pearson, who attends all the time, her ward seems very comfortable with her.

35:11 John Dehlin She is in Oakland, California, which is in the Bay Area. They're very LGBT affirming. And I think she feels safe there, basically.

35:19 Natasha Helfer Right. So I think some of that is. So, yes, I still attend periodically, sporadically, however you want to say that. Probably enough to keep me active. Right. I don't know how you said it's once a month, John, or something that you have to tend to be active. So somewhere along those lines. But no, it's not. It's not super warm. And although, I mean, people are very friendly, but it's just I don't have, you know, like deep relationships with them outside of that space necessarily at this point in my life. So my, my kiddo does. My kiddo is very involved and I love that he loves it and is loving it. We're taking him to EFY this summer and he's going with a friend. He's very excited. So we're supporting him and his current Mormon journey. And that's a big part of why I go. I don't know what I'm going to do when my kids aren't involved in the decision making. So that'll be a whole nother level of my faith transition anyway. But that's a different point. So let's do a podcast on that. I wanted to just kind of, because I know we're coming to the close. I have one more point I'd like to cover, but before that, Margie, is there another thing you wanted to. I'm trying to look at your list maybe quickly.

36:40 Margi Dehlin Just. I feel like I've mentioned this on other podcasts, but I did feel like I, I would mention it here is, you know, as we've talked about our role as women within the church and how we come to see ourselves value or not value ourselves. I do feel like that perfectionism hustle comes in here where we all have this idea of who we were supposed to be within the structure, within the formula, what that looks like, like. And you know, also really feeling a lot of responsibility with regard to our children and if they're, you know, measuring up as well and, you know, living that formula just as well. And so it can be just, it can be a lot. And so a couple comments came in that I loved around transitioning and how that perfectionism kind of flip to a self love or more of a self acceptance. And that's A journey I've had as well, where you really can separate, you know, this sense of why you do what you do, if you're doing that for a sense of value to prove your worth, or if you're doing it honestly because you love it, because you really enjoy participating, or if it's your values, if really it's a, you know, you're living in connection with your own values and it's something that's really intentional. Right. And honoring to yourself. Those are really different spaces, I think. So Courtney wrote, I'm going to be really simple and basic, but this really covers all of it in some form for me. One, I never felt I was good enough or that I fit in. Two, now I do. I have a complete sense of who I am, and I'm building stronger relationships in my life with that newfound self love and empowerment. I have found more joy, meaning, and divine purpose being a woman outside the church than I ever did while I was active. And then the second quote is kind of falls into sort of the voice thing, but also self love and self acceptance. So Christy writes, I have a voice. I have thoughts and opinions. I love my body and my sexuality. I accept life as it is. Thank you, secular Buddhism. And have found new and more meaningful purpose in life. I am much more loving and accepting and understanding of everyone. So that is a shift, I think that can be, well, an experience of sort of perfectionism and that hustling and that constant, you know, work to be enough to do enough to do all the things that we're required to. And it can be one of those shifts that's deeply fulfilling for people to move to, one of self acceptance, self love, self empowerment, and self honoring for who you are, as opposed always tied to what you do.

39:48 Natasha Helfer I think every time we think about perfectionism, we should just have the do the hustle.

39:59 John Dehlin Do the hustle. Hate the hustle.

40:02 Natasha Helfer That way we can practice getting away from it.

40:05 John Dehlin Kill the hustle.

40:06 Margi Dehlin We're hustling away.

40:08 John Dehlin Run away from the hustle.

40:16 Margi Dehlin Thank you. Yes. Right.

40:19 John Dehlin We need more disco. We need more disco in our lives. Well, that's one of the things, the good things we should not have gotten rid of.

40:29 Margi Dehlin How about the disco suits the union.

40:31 John Dehlin Yeah, the bell bottoms, polyester.

40:34 Natasha Helfer I want to see the two of you dress up like that this Halloween.

40:38 Margi Dehlin That would be awesome. That would be fun for karaoke, even.

40:43 John Dehlin I've not worn a Halloween suit in a long time.

40:48 Margi Dehlin It may be time.

40:50 Natasha Helfer It may be time for sure. All right, John, any last thoughts you want to share from your list

40:58 John Dehlin a couple I'll just read a couple comments from our listeners. Lexi writes on Critical thinking the most positive thing that has come from my faith crisis is simply the benefit of becoming a more critical thinker. My journey started with Mormonism, but it continued on into other faiths, science and education in general. Tim oh, you already did.

41:19 Margi Dehlin Yeah, I did these.

41:20 John Dehlin Oh my gosh, how did I miss that?

41:23 Margi Dehlin She got a shout out twice.

41:25 John Dehlin That's how I'll read from Martine. Martine is a dear friend of mine. She writes, what have I gained ownership over my mind and body? When I dared ask myself a pivotal question, what if it isn't true? I realized the mental stress generated by constantly twisting myself into a pretzel to make square facts fit into fictional round holes just evaporated. The last time I attended the temple was March 2010, when in a moment of pure revelation in the world room of the Salt Lake Temple, I saw how the ghost of polygamy was in every part of the endowment and I literally ran out as soon as I made it to the Celestial room. I was physically ill that I had not seen it from 1974 to 2010. But what did I know at 19 in a convert of four years in Belgium, I'll add, and even later, when I faithfully participated in temple work, Remember, it was called that before it was changed to temple worship. So I love that. From Martin. We love Martin. Let's see. Reagan writes, the positive is now I'm actually taking steps to get an education where I can have a career I've always wanted and not be financial dependent on a man. Love that Reagan. Patricia writes, I spend more time with my husband and children and do not have the guilt the church gave me about not being good enough or feeling bad about not doing or accepting callings I do not have time for. I love having an actual two day weekend. Love that feedback from Patricia. Again, we're focusing on the positive aspects of a faith crisis from the woman perspective. And then Ann writes, polyandry was my tipping point. The marital agony created this from this revelation must have been horrible for wives and husbands. No loving God would ever reveal such a narcissistic path to exaltation and then never reveal its history in four years of seminary lessons. And then she writes too, my faith crisis has blessed me with a realistic view of the fragility of life. There may not be a heaven. I may not be reunited with loved ones. So I better love hard and big and appreciate what I have now, because tomorrow it may be all Gone. What a beautiful gift that I am so grateful for.

43:47 Margi Dehlin Nice.

43:48 Natasha Helfer Beautiful.

43:49 John Dehlin Oh, go ahead.

43:51 Margi Dehlin Oh, I was just gonna say.

43:52 Natasha Helfer I'll do one more.

43:54 John Dehlin I grew up in an abusive home. I have been sexually assaulted. I have educated myself on these issues, the way predators think and work. I have children to protect and educate. When I read about Helen Kimball, Helen Mark Kimball, it was classic sexual predator behavior from Tarina's standpoint, right then I knew there was no way God would use a man who was a sexual predator. He was not a prophet. I was devastated. Benefits. I no longer have to ignore my feelings. I of gospel teaching being wrong. I can fully embrace my feminist heart. I can fully love my LGBTQ friends without guilt. I can think for myself, which is equal parts terrifying and exhilarating. So grateful to all these wonderful comments that add so much color and perspective. Back to you, Natasha.

44:42 Margi Dehlin Yes. Give us your last really good comments.

44:46 Natasha Helfer Really good comments. So the last point I want to make, and I hope it's not, not, I hope that it's a positive point and not a Debbie Downer point, because we're ending on some really positive comments. It's just this idea I've been playing around with my head and I hope that maybe even listeners can write in and share some of their thoughts to maybe put better language. I don't feel like I have great language on this yet, but this is what I'm noticing in myself and in a lot of the women that I work with. We came from a fragile flower identity, meaning we were put on that pedestal. I talk about we were perfect. We're special. We're not to be, you know, tainted or stepped upon. And in a large way, we've been, as women, I think, expected to play a role of accepting protection. Protection. And I saw this sometimes play out in ways that wasn't necessarily very helpful, even in, like, my parents marriage, in my own marriage, where I felt like I had a lot of justification for being pissed off a lot of the time, especially at my husband. He didn't do his own teaching right. Or he didn't do his priesthood roles right. Or he didn't gather our family and pray with us. Or so I was constantly kind of micromanaging my husband in a way that I felt very justified and very, like, special and like it's my duty and my job to be this, you know, again, police person and really kind of becoming a mother to my husband, which wasn't very sexy of me. Right. And which he resisted and didn't like and kind of, you know, driving this Wedge. But I felt very like that's my role, and I'm. I have a right to that role. And then I feel like I went through this feminist rage moment right, where I realized a lot of things. And then, of course, I'm even doubly mad at my husband. You've oppressed me. Everybody has oppressed me. And I go through that rage moment. A lot of things that we've been talking about today, which are real and valid and legitimate for anger to be a part of. And now I'm kind of in this space where I'm like, okay, I need to watch that. I don't take my fragile identity from over here and, you know, and through the anger of my feminist rage, and now stay over here and still in that. In that space of, like, I'm a woman and I've been oppressed, and I can't listen to any man or anybody who has any opinion, my experience or my things, because I feel like if I do that, I'm still playing the role of having to continually be protected. And I don't want to fucking be protected anymore. I want to be my own person. I want to deal with men and women in my own brain and my own ideas and my own anxieties and my own things that I sit with that I don't like. And if you don't. If I don't like something that you're saying to me, I can respond to you in a way that doesn't put me either like this or like this, where I can just be. And I can sit with who you are. And I think there's something that, as women, this is particularly challenging for us because we've never been taught to be autonomous. And I think we think sometimes we're autonomous when we're still kind of in rage mode. And I don't think that's autonomy, and I don't think that if we get past the rage mode, but we still feel entitled to something because we're women, that we're also necessarily in a healing space. And that's the bitch of this whole thing, because I feel like. I feel like I should be able to sit in a space of entitlement for a minute because I have been oppressed and because I have been in this space. But if I really want egalitarianism, if I really want what I'm preaching, I can't be entitled. And that means that egalitarianism means I let go of being special as a woman.

49:03 Margi Dehlin Yeah.

49:03 Natasha Helfer So I don't know if any of that Makes sense.

49:05 Margi Dehlin Does.

49:06 John Dehlin Love it.

49:06 Margi Dehlin It does. Yeah.

49:08 John Dehlin Preach. Preach.

49:10 Natasha Helfer That's what I've been thinking about.

49:12 John Dehlin Can we attend your church, Natasha? What's your church? Church of Natasha. Will you start a church?

49:19 Natasha Helfer I will not start a church.

49:21 John Dehlin No. Come on.

49:24 Margi Dehlin That structure is familiar.

49:26 John Dehlin I want a matriarchal blessing.

49:30 Natasha Helfer Well, that can be done.

49:33 Margi Dehlin True. Yeah. That was deeply thoughtful. Deeply thoughtful.

49:39 Natasha Helfer It's hard to talk about because I don't want to dishonor the journey of the rage. And I don't want to dishonor the part where we need to feel entitled for a minute. Uh huh.

49:53 Margi Dehlin Yeah.

49:53 Natasha Helfer And yet I think I need to get to a space where if I want my voice to be equal with my husband, my husband's voice needs to be equal with mine. And I have. It's hard to look inward that deep to see if I'm really offering that or not. Yeah.

50:12 Margi Dehlin Yep.

50:16 John Dehlin All right.

50:17 Natasha Helfer Well, all right.

50:20 Margi Dehlin Whoo.

50:21 John Dehlin We did the. We did the woman thing. Now we're done talking about women's issues on Mormon Faith Crisis podcast forever. We've covered them all. Check that box.

50:31 Margi Dehlin We've covered them all.

50:33 Natasha Helfer We've been fully comprehensive. I'm sure

50:38 John Dehlin I'm being sarcastic. I'm totally joking. We have a lot of, you know, we have a lot of things to cover in future episodes.

50:46 Natasha Helfer We have scratched the surface, but we

50:48 John Dehlin did a good five hours and I think hopefully women going through a faith crisis will have a lot to kind of help them and support them. And we're just so grateful for you, Natasha, you, Margie, and all of our listeners. Thank you and all of our listeners who provided cool stories and comments for these past five hours. And a huge thanks to Cody Layton and the Open Stories foundation for his audio video production. Thanks to the Open Stories Foundation. Thanks to everyone who leaves a positive comment or review on our Facebook page. The gift of the Mormon Faith Crisis. Thanks to everyone who gives us a positive review on itunes and thanks to everyone who donates at mormonfaithcrisis.com because your donations help us make this podcast sustainable. And so we appreciate all those people that make this possible.

51:41 Margi Dehlin Absolutely. Thanks for listening, everyone.

51:44 Natasha Helfer Thank you. And just really quickly because it's just coming in here at the last minute with Hilary Dalton talk talking about abortion rights. And she says that women debating the issue and women writing the law regarding abortion rights. She thinks that it should be women debating the issue and women writing the law regarding abortion rights, which I totally agree with. So that's, you know, women's body is a woman's body. At the same time, there's plenty of women who. I don't know that, you know, given what we've talked about today, there's plenty of women in our church in particular who are not. Would not agree with things that I would agree about in regards to abortion. So let's not assume that if all women were in charge, that somehow the laws would look different, because that's patriarchy, and we need to lamb blast patriarchy. So I want to be very clear that my last thought was, we start here, we go through the rage piece, we get things egalitarian, and then we don't start another fragile flower thing with abortion rights. We're nowhere near over here, nowhere near over that. So we're still in this kind of, like, rage piece that needs to happen. Same way. That's. That's a whole nother topic. But I just want to be very clear that I'm not saying every issue at every time needs equal say. It's at a certain point in the journey.

53:09 Margi Dehlin Yes.

53:10 Natasha Helfer That you're in as a woman where you can look inside and say, okay, am I really healed myself? Not trying to say that every topic or every situation should have equal space, especially at this point where patriarchy is still very much alive and well. So I just want to be very clear about that.

53:27 Margi Dehlin That's right.

53:28 John Dehlin Hillary says, I agree, but I think having women as the leaders and decision makers makes sense around abortion rights.

53:35 Natasha Helfer Agreed, Agreed.

53:38 Margi Dehlin Yeah.

53:38 Natasha Helfer Even if it's women I disagree with. Yes, absolutely. There was a woman who. It was a woman who just wrote the law in. I forget it was Alabama or Georgia or whatever. So seeing a woman do that was extremely difficult for me. I'm just saying we have a lot of battling amongst each other issues that patriarchy has affected us, and that's really sad work to do. So. All right, love you guys.

54:08 John Dehlin Thank you, Natasha.

54:09 Margi Dehlin Great conversation.

54:11 John Dehlin Thank you, Margie. Love you, Margie.

54:13 Natasha Helfer We will talk next week.

54:15 John Dehlin All right, we'll see you guys next week for another episode of the Gifts of the Mormon Faith Crisis.

54:20 Natasha Helfer All right, take care, everybody.

54:22 John Dehlin Thank you.

54:23 Natasha Helfer By.