The Marriage and the Wound
Mixed-Orientation Marriages, Institutional Pressure, and Grief
Guiding Text
Teaching Section
Mixed-Orientation Marriages, Grief, and the Wound That Was Not Your Fault
Lesson Plan
Acknowledge the gravity of this session. For many participants, the mixed-orientation marriage is the central wound of their lives—the place where institutional theology, personal obedience, and devastating consequences converged. State clearly: this session will be painful. Pain is not the goal, but it is the cost of honesty. Licensed therapists must be present for this session.
Present the history of institutional counsel toward heterosexual marriage as a 'cure' or management strategy for homosexuality. Spencer W. Kimball's The Miracle of Forgiveness (1969) explicitly recommended marriage as a remedy for homosexual feelings. Dallin H. Oaks stated in 2006 that persons with same-sex attraction 'should not be counseled to marry.' But for decades before that reversal, thousands of Latter-day Saints entered marriages on the explicit counsel of bishops, stake presidents, and general authorities who promised that marriage would 'fix' them. Present Dehlin et al. (2015): among 1,612 Latter-day Saints who attempted sexual orientation change, marriage was one of the most common methods attempted. The dissolution rate for mixed-orientation marriages among respondents was significantly higher than the general LDS population.
Teach the concept of disenfranchised grief (Doka, 1989, 2002): grief that is not socially recognized, publicly mourned, or validated by the community. The dissolution of a mixed-orientation marriage produces grief that is disenfranchised on multiple levels. The person grieves the loss of the marriage, but cannot fully mourn it because the institution treats the marriage's failure as the person's failure. The person grieves the years lost to a life built on a false foundation, but cannot publicly name what was false without implicating the institution that laid the foundation. The person grieves the harm done to a spouse they genuinely loved, but cannot process that guilt without confronting the system that told them marriage was the righteous path. And the person may grieve a version of themselves that never existed—the heterosexual self they performed for years or decades.
This is the moment in the teaching where theology does its most important work. Read Mosiah 24:14: 'And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions.' Teach that the children born of a mixed-orientation marriage are not casualties of a mistake. They are not collateral damage. They are human beings who exist because a gay parent loved enough to try to do what the institution demanded, and in the midst of that obedience—however misdirected—God brought forth life. The children are proof that God wastes nothing. They are the Abrahamic covenant made flesh through a crooked path. The mixed-orientation marriage may have been built on an unsound foundation. But the children who came from it stand on their own foundation, which is the love of two parents, one of whom was breaking under the weight of an impossible command.
Name that this session requires courage. Invite participants to enter the discussion prepared to hold space for one another, knowing that the stories shared in this room may be the first time some participants have spoken these truths aloud.
Detailed Lesson Content
In 1969, Spencer W. Kimball, then an apostle and later the President of the Church, published The Miracle of Forgiveness—a book that would shape Latter-day Saint moral theology for half a century. In it, Kimball addressed homosexuality explicitly and repeatedly. He compared it to bestiality. He called it 'ugly,' 'repugnant,' and a sin 'next to murder' in seriousness. And he prescribed a cure: heterosexual marriage. Kimball wrote that 'marriage is the proper and prescribed remedy' for homosexual feelings, and he counseled gay members to marry opposite-sex spouses as an act of faith and obedience.
He was not alone. For decades, bishops and stake presidents across the Church counseled gay members to marry. The promise was remarkably consistent: if you exercise sufficient faith, if you are obedient enough, if you marry in the temple and fulfill your covenants, the attraction will fade. God will honor your sacrifice. The institution treated heterosexual marriage not as a complex human relationship requiring genuine mutual attraction and emotional availability, but as a spiritual mechanism—a kind of ecclesiastical therapy in which the marriage itself would cure the person's homosexuality.
It did not work. It could not work, because sexual orientation is not a behavior that can be redirected by willpower or spiritual effort. It is a fundamental dimension of the self. Dehlin et al. (2015) studied 1,612 current or former Latter-day Saints who had attempted sexual orientation change. Among men, a minimum of 73% reported having attempted change, usually through multiple methods—including marriage—over an average of many years. The results were stark: the vast majority reported no meaningful change in sexual orientation. What did change was their mental health, which deteriorated under the strain of living a life built on an impossible foundation.
Many of you in this room know this story from the inside. You married because a man you trusted—a bishop, a stake president, perhaps a general authority—told you it was the right thing to do. You married because you believed that God would honor your obedience. You married because you loved your spouse, genuinely, even if you could not love them in the way a marriage requires. You married because the alternative—being alone, being excluded from the celestial kingdom, being a permanent outsider in a community built on eternal families—was too terrifying to contemplate. And for some of you, the marriage lasted years. Even decades. You built a home. You raised children. You sat in sacrament meeting every Sunday and performed the role of the faithful Latter-day Saint husband, and the performance cost you something that cannot be calculated.
When the marriage ended—or when you realized it needed to end—you encountered a form of grief that the clinical literature calls 'disenfranchised grief.' This term, coined by Kenneth Doka in 1989, refers to grief that is not recognized, validated, or supported by the grieving person's social environment. Your grief was disenfranchised on multiple levels simultaneously. You grieved the marriage, but the institution treated its failure as your failure—your lack of faith, your moral weakness—rather than the predictable collapse of a structure that should never have been built. You grieved the years, but you could not publicly mourn lost decades without implicating the authority figures who counseled you to build your life on that foundation. You grieved the harm to your spouse—a person you genuinely loved and who genuinely loved you—but you could not process that guilt without confronting the system that created the conditions for it.
And then there are the children. I want to speak about the children with extraordinary care, because this is where the wound and the gift become indistinguishable. Your children exist because you tried. They exist because you loved enough to enter a marriage the institution demanded, and in the midst of that obedience—however misdirected, however costly—God brought forth life. Your children are not mistakes. They are not the unfortunate byproduct of an institutional error. They are human beings, made in the image of God, and they are here because a gay parent gave everything they had to do what they believed was right. Mosiah 24:14 describes God easing the burdens of people who are 'in bondage'—people whose suffering was not chosen but imposed. The verse ends with a promise: 'that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter.' Your children are witnesses. They are the proof that God can bring something holy out of a broken system.
Recommended Videos
Josh and Lolly Weed, 'Turning the Post Upside Down' (2018 blog post and subsequent media interviews)
Josh Weed, a Latter-day Saint in a high-profile mixed-orientation marriage, publicly announced his divorce after 15 years, explaining that the marriage could not provide what either spouse deserved. One of the most widely read firsthand accounts of MOM dissolution in the Latter-day Saint context. Available via search: 'Josh Weed Turning the Post Upside Down.'
Read Blog Post →'Mormon No More' (2022, Hulu documentary series, episodes 1–2)
Follows two married Latter-day Saint women as their mixed-orientation marriages dissolve. Deeply relevant to this session's themes of grief, loss, and institutional culpability.
Watch on Hulu →David Kessler, 'Finding Meaning in Grief' (author talk, various formats, 20–40 minutes)
Kessler, co-author with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, discusses the 'sixth stage of grief'—finding meaning. Directly applicable to the reframing work this session undertakes.
Listen to Podcast →Additional Reading
- Dehlin, J. P., et al. (2015). Sexual orientation change efforts among current or former LDS church members. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 62(1), 15–28.
- Doka, K. J. (Ed.). (2002). Disenfranchised Grief: New Directions, Challenges, and Strategies for Practice. Research Press.
- Pearson, C. L. (1986). Goodbye, I Love You. Random House. [The pioneering memoir by a Latter-day Saint woman whose gay husband left the marriage and later died of AIDS. Still one of the most compassionate treatments of MOM in the LDS context.]
- Worden, J. W. (2018). Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy (5th ed.). Springer. [Clinical guide to grief therapy, including the four tasks of mourning used in this session's therapeutic methodology.]
Academic Framework
Research on mixed-orientation marriages (MOMs) within high-demand religious contexts shows that these unions are frequently entered under institutional pressure, with both partners operating under the belief that faith, prayer, and obedience will be sufficient to overcome or redirect sexual orientation (Dehlin et al., 2015). Studies consistently find that MOMs entered under these conditions have significantly higher rates of dissolution, and that both partners—the LGBTQ+ spouse and the straight spouse—experience elevated rates of depression, anxiety, and grief (Hernandez et al., 2014).
The grief associated with MOM dissolution is compound: grief for the marriage, grief for the imagined future, grief for the harm caused to the other spouse, and grief for the years spent in concealment. Importantly, there is also disenfranchised grief—grief that the religious community does not recognize or validate, because the community often frames the dissolution as a moral failure rather than the inevitable consequence of an untenable institutional prescription.
Theological Reflection
The Dear Forrest letter makes a critical theological move: it refuses to frame the children born from these marriages as byproducts of a mistake. 'They are the fruit of a life lived with courage, even when that courage was born of pain.' This reframing is essential. God's capacity to bring beauty from any soil does not validate the system that planted the wrong seed—but it does honor the harvest. The children, the love that was genuine even within an impossible structure, the lessons learned—these are real and sacred.
Mosiah 24:14: 'And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter.' The Lord does not always remove the burden immediately. But He promises to make it bearable, and He promises that the bearing of it will become a witness—a qualification for future ministry.
Discussion Prompts
- If you entered a mixed-orientation marriage, what were the messages—explicit or implicit—that led you to believe it was the right or only option? Who delivered those messages?
- What are you grieving? Is there grief you have not been given permission to feel?
- The letter says that 'blessings arrive through crooked paths, and that the decisions your eternal opportunities spring from are never wasted.' Can you identify blessings that came through the crooked path of your experience?
Integration Exercise
Letter writing: Participants are invited to write a letter—to their former spouse, to their younger self, to the bishop who counseled them to marry, or to their children. The letter is not for sending. It is for processing. It is for putting into language what has lived only in silence. Participants may share excerpts if they wish, but there is no expectation.
Therapeutic Methodology
Primary Modality: Grief Therapy (Worden's Task Model). This session addresses compound and disenfranchised grief. Clinicians should apply Worden's four tasks of mourning adapted for MOM dissolution: (1) accepting the reality of the loss—not just the marriage but the imagined future and the institutional promise that sustained it; (2) processing the pain—including guilt toward the former spouse, shame about 'wasted years,' and anger at the institutional messaging that precipitated the marriage; (3) adjusting to a world without the former identity—the identity of the 'faithful heterosexual' that was performed; and (4) finding an enduring connection with what was lost while embarking on a new life. Task 4 is where the theological reframing of children as blessings rather than byproducts becomes clinically essential.
Secondary Modality: EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). For participants with acute trauma responses related to the marriage—flashbacks to wedding day vows made under duress, intrusive memories of sexual encounters experienced as violating, or persistent guilt responses—EMDR can be effective in reprocessing these memories. Clinicians should identify target memories collaboratively and use bilateral stimulation to reduce the emotional charge associated with specific traumatic moments. EMDR is particularly appropriate here because the trauma is often pre-verbal or body-stored; participants may not have full narrative access to why certain memories carry such intense affect.
Ethical Note: This session must be facilitated by a licensed therapist. The material is inherently destabilizing, and participants may experience acute grief, anger, or dissociation. Co-facilitation is strongly recommended. Participants should be informed in advance of the session's content and given the option to sit out without judgment.