Finding Sara

Last week, after receiving a comment from Ed on Domestic Discipline and his belief that my marriage is mentally and physically abusive, I posted my response, titled Prejudice,  here. This email from Ed followed: 

 

Hi,
Thanks for the reply. I checked a few days ago and saw that my post didn’t appear on your blog and it kind of bothered me, considering what I put into it. I know it’s your own publication and you have editorial control over it, but I still think it would be fair to post it so that it doesn’t appear that everyone who reads your blog has the same reaction to it. People need to hear different points of view, right?
 
Your observations about prejudice are insightful. It would make a good blog entry.
 
I feel the same way as you about most of what you said. I’m flabbergasted that you took my note as prejudicial. I guess it technically is, since prejudice literally means judging before [something]. But everyone makes judgments before doing/trying/buying/jumping/experiencing. That’s what we’re supposed to do. You certainly formed a judgment about the DD practice before you did it, or you wouldn’t have bothered doing it. I am going to form a judgment of that practice, too. This is the right thing to do.
 
Based on your response I think what you thought you were responding to was bigotry, not prejudice. It wasn’t. I wouldn’t have put nearly two hours into that letter if I didn’t sincerely care about you from the heart. I mean it. And I don’t mean it in a patronizing “look at what she’s gotten herself into” way, or “I’m sure glad I don’t hang out with anyone like that” way.
 
I feel like my letter was comparable to what you might say to a friend who you just discovered was bulimic. Hopefully you don’t think bulimia is just a lifestyle choice or I’ll have no hope of getting my point across. Now, if I had such a friend and had such a conversation with (say) her, should she just call me prejudiced and ignore what I had to say? Do I just not have a broad enough world view to see bulimia as an acceptable approach to weight loss? After all, she could argue, I’ve never tried it. I’m not being tolerant. I’m being bigoted. Of course not! There is no bigotry against bulimics, no fear of bulimics, only a clear understanding to people who don’t have it that there is a much better way. Likewise, there is no fear of or bigotry against practicers of “domestic discipline”, only a clear understanding to many people who have experience with a much better way.
 
I’m sure the bulimia analogy offended you, and I’m sorry. But I can’t think of a better way to communicate that when higher principles or universal truths are involved, disagreement usually isn’t based on prejudice, bigotry, fear, intolerance, etc. but on people’s understanding of universal truth. Is someone who sees bulimia as unhealthy fearful or intolerant? No, they just know the medical facts. But the bulimic sees it as a lifestyle choice, as legitimate as choosing a hair color or a favorite band.
 
That’s clearly how you see domestic discipline. But I see domestic discipline is an unhealthy way to meet a legitimate need. From what I read on your blog it is clear to me that you have a legitimate need that was previously unmet, and that domestic discipline is satisfying that need. To you, that’s the end of the story. Likewise, the bulimic has a legitimate need and bulimia satisfies it. End of story. But that’s only the end of the story if you look too narrowly and see the bulimic lose weight successfully or see you reduce contention in your marriage, accomplish things you otherwise wouldn’t, and feel the benefits of structure in your life. But with the bulimic an unbiased, caring outsider can take a broader look and see the poor health. Likewise, with domestic discipline an unbiased, caring outsider can take a broader look and see the pain that you hate and the misplaced accountability.
 
I’m not saying Grant is a bad guy or that he has you under his thumb, or that he is controlling all this. I’m saying that there is suffering occurring that is not right, on an absolute scale. By absolute I mean that God does not want His children to be doing or experiencing that suffering. And I’m not referring to anything sexual. That has nothing to do with this.
 
What this boils down to is that I see this as a question of broad truth, not of lifestyle. Medical science can say with absolute truth that bulimia is unhealthy and therefore medically wrong. If a bulimic can heed the medical science and conform their life to it, they will be healthier and happier all around, not just their waist line.
 
Likewise, God can dictate to us what is right and wrong, and He has spoken on the subject of how husbands and wives are to treat each other. We need to learn what He has spoken and conform our lives to it. If we do, we will be healthier and happier on a universal scale. I have experienced this.
 
As you can see, my position here depends ultimately on my knowledge of God. I think to carry this much further we would need to agree that God can provide universal truth, and how He does so. I would be happy to discuss that with you if you are interested.
 
If you’re not interested in going that way, I understand. But I really hope you can see that without bigotry, intolerance, ignorance, or fear it is possible for a reasonable, kind, educated adult to see domestic discipline as a universally inappropriate practice if (and maybe only if) God has spoken on the subject. And I believe He has, so that’s why I feel this way.
 
Sincerely,
Ed

 

I was contemplating whether to respond or ignore, when an Internet friend asked if she could email him back, as they share the same Faith (Mormon is LDS). I was so impressed that I asked permission to post her thoughts:

 

Dear Ed-

 

Sara of “Finding Sara” has become an acquaintance and friend of mine as over the last year I have commented on her blog and we have occasionally instant messaged one another.  She and I do not share a particular religious faith, but we have plenty in common as we are both women in domestic discipline marriages. She related to me a few weeks ago in an instant message that she had received a comment on her blog from an LDS man and she wanted more information about my faith since I am LDS. 

 

By the way, she did not delete your comment from her blog, but posted it as an entirely new entry along with the response that she emailed back to you.  She did not take your comments lightly as you can tell by the time and effort which she put into her response to you about prejudice.  I think she did a beautiful job of addressing the concerns you had about her marriage (and husband) being abusive.

 

And yet, yesterday morning she told me that you had emailed her again expressing more negative reaction to her choice to live in a dd marriage.  I asked if she would forward your second set of comments to me and she said she didn’t mind.  She would not, under normal circumstances, share a private email with me, but as you specifically intoned that God has spoken on the subject of dd, and since you and I apparently have, at least in name, a similar conception of our Heavenly Father, perhaps I would be more able to communicate with you to a point of understanding.

 

That is my only desire in taking the time to write this response to you.  I am in no way expectant or even hopeful that anything I write to you will make you accepting of or kindly disposed toward dd, but perhaps you will be able to unload this burden you have picked up and started carrying around which makes you believe that you need to save Sara from herself, from her husband, and from sort of mental condition (like bulimia).

 

I do not set myself up as a model of LDS womanhood.  I was born and raised in the church, went to Brigham Young University and married a wonderful returned missionary.  We celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary yesterday.  We have four children who are a joy and a blessing to us.  We have never punished them physically except for a very rare “attention-grabbing” single swat when they were younger.  We deal with our kids’ discipline problems these days with logical consequences….(i.e. “You two can’t get along?  Then why don’t you unload the dishwasher together and see if that helps you get along better?)  

 

We attend church weekly, read the scriptures together daily as a family, sit down to meals together, have regular family home evening, family prayer as well as personal prayers and husband/wife prayers.  We pay a full tithe, attend temple regularly and my husband is currently in the bishopric. I am on the Enrichment board and teach Relief Society once a month. Our faith isn’t just a social obligation to us, but a deeply help belief in Jesus Christ’s Atonement and of his restored gospel here on the earth today.

 

My husband is a well respected, very competent in-house attorney/human resource director for the second largest employer here in our area.  He is honest in his dealings with his fellow men and women.  He grows a beautiful garden, keeps up our yard, maintains our vehicles and makes sure that we live within our means and carry no debt.  I support and help him in all of these efforts.  We go out on dates together weekly, hug and kiss constantly around the house and I still get butterflies in my tummy when I smell his cologne or see him wrestling in the yard with our boys.  He is the first person I want to talk to when I hear or see something funny or something sad or something interesting.  When I want to go out with girlfriends, he is the first one to make sure he’s available to watch kids.  If I want to fly halfway across the country to visit a sister, he’s the one encouraging me by finding airline tickets.  We are very happy.

 

Now to the heart of the matter as the preceding was only to let you know that I speak your language.  My husband and I have a domestic discipline relationship which is something that I asked for and instigated.  He did not initially understand my need or desire, but loving me as he does, he listened with his heart and dedicated himself to meeting my needs.  You seem to equate this “need” that I expressed to my husband and that Sara has referred to in her blog to something pathological–although you feign compassion and understanding by use of the word “legitimate” to describe the need.  You have decided that a “normal”, mentally stable, educated, God-fearing woman wouldn’t choose to place herself into the loving hands of her husband.  But some of us do, Ed.

 

My husband does not claim that his right to discipline me (when he thinks it is necessary) comes from God.  He knows that that right came from his wife– given as a gift in token of her faith and trust in him.  Now, just because I have faith in my husband’s ability to actively lead and direct me and our children along on this mortal journey does not take anything away from my faith in a living prophets’ power to guide and direct the church or from my faith in Jesus Christ’s ability to redeem mankind from their lost and fallen state. 

 

Sadly, there are men in the world who claim a right to abusetheir wives by virtue of their superior intelligence, or their larger physical stature or just because they are angry.  Some “Christian” men even claim a biblically supported right to bring their wives into submission by force.  But Sara’s loving Grant and my loving husband are not these kind of men.  Satan loves to create counterfeits.  For instance, he will suggest that sex outside of marriage is as fulfilling and holy as sex inside of a marriage covenant.  I would call it a universal truth that sex outside of marriage is a gateway to all kinds of problems.  In my rich and happy dd world, abuse is only a counterfeit for what I legitimately have and love.

 

Here are some of our LDS beliefs as outlined in the Proclamation on the Family: “By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners.”

 

My husband and I are equals before God and man, but our basic needs and natures are completely different.  Remember “male and female created He them….”  One of my own personal necessities (and it is related to my divinely created feminine nature) is to feel the loving protection and guidance of my husband, and sometimes this involves physical discipline.  I covenanted when I married him to hearken to his counsel as he hearkens to God.  One example of my husband’s protection specifically includes not allowingme to drift off into a sullen black hole where I can marinate on all the stresses and annoyances of life to the exclusion of joy and happiness.  His providence includes keeping us connected on a level that is beyond polite and sometimes not-so-polite roommates.  He doesn’t punish me because he doesn’t have a warm, fresh towel when he hops out of the shower.  He doesn’t punish me because I spend too much at Wal mart.  He doesn’t spank because he’s having a ba d day. 

 

In dd, I always maintain my agency to choose, but just as my Heavenly Father will not spare me the natural consequences of violating eternal laws, my husband does not exempt me from the consequences of the household laws that I had a hand in creating.  It’s powerful, Ed.  It’s spiritual and it’s sexual and it’s a choice that doesn’t conflict with or diminish my faith in God.  There are many “things” in life that you can agree involve enduring some pain as a means to attaining something really worth having.  It’s another one of those universal truths you talk about.  Earning our bread by the sweat of our brow and bringing forth our children in pain come to mind.  On a more secular level, think of the hours of sweat and pain that resulted in all the medals won recently during the Olympics.

 

In your original comments on Saras’ blog you wrote, “If you like spanking for fun, whatever…”  This to me suggests a lack of understanding and tolerance that there are “different strokes for different folks”.  That you can so casually dismiss and minimize what to some of us is a powerful sacrament of marriage between a man and woman (something to which some people actually dedicate their blogs….ahem) is frankly sad. 

 

That your sweet wife doesn’t crave the intimate experience of sitting on your lap in your strong embrace after you’ve “reconnected” with her in discipline way….having you dry her tears and rub her back as her tears change from tears of momentary discomfort (if they ever were about that to begin with) to cleansing tears filled with profound love and respect for this man who serves your home, your children, yourself with every part of his being is okay.  If you have achieved the peace, romance and joy of marriage by a different route, I am happy for you.  But for me and some like me, to have him tuck me up in bed like I am the most precious gift he has ever been given after taking time to reconnect with me…to have him make love to me knowing that it’s yet another part of himself that he reserves for only me….ahhhh.  I am the most blessed of women.

 

And for myself, I love finding ways to make my husbands’ life more pleasant, from making and serving delicious meals and treats, keeping the house clean and organized, keeping up my physical body and appearance to please him.  If I get a sense that there is something I can do to ease his burden or to make him smile, I’ll try to do it.  It’s all connected, Ed.

 

You might be in my congregation, and you don’t even know it.  We don’t go around announcing to people that we are dd.  It’s none of their business for one thing and for another, we wouldn’t wish to endure the same misinformed judgments of abuse and mental illness that you’ve piled on Sara and Grant.  Here’s another universal truth:  sometimes a majority of mere mortals will say that a particular practice is good when it’s not.  And sometimes, a majority of people would agree that something is bad when it is not.  But “by their fruits, ye shall know them….”  We are the couple who have been married quite a long time, but still scrunch up as close to each other in Sunday School class as we possibly can.  We smile at each other regularly as if we are constantly sharing a lovely secret.  Our children are well adjusted and happy because mom and dad are a united team that support and back each other up.  As Sara said, we walk among you. 

 

 You and your wife probably have a similar relationship.  And that some of us reach heaven by one route and other’s by a different path doesn’t mean that we won’t all sit down in heaven together someday.  Some of us gals may be sitting on slightly sore tushes if we’ve been especially feisty that day, but you will recognize us by the big satisfied smiles on our faces and the way we cling adoringly to our dear husbands.  Please, be well and happy, Ed.  Bless you for caring, but don’t worry about us dd gals….at least not about Sara.  She and one other dd friend that I have are some of the best, most nurturing, happy and peaceful women that I know. 

 

Take Care,

A Happy LDS Wife and Mom

 

P.S. You may want to consider offering Grant an apology as he was rather irritated that some LDS man who doesn’t even know him would tell his wife that he is an abuser when he has dedicated himself to providing for his family’s needs and desires.

 

Happy LDS Wife and Mom, what else can I say but thank you! That was powerful and eloquent, and I truly appreciate you sharing your heart!