Welcome and Episode Introduction

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories. I am your host for today, John Dehlin. And I'm joined today by the wonderful Jen Camp. Hey, Jen.

Guest [00:00:11] Hi, everybody.

John Dehlin [00:00:12] Thanks for joining us.

Guest [00:00:13] Yeah, you're so welcome.

John Dehlin [00:00:14] This is an important topic today.

Guest [00:00:16] Yeah, I am very excited for this Mormon story.

John Dehlin [00:00:19] Yeah. Today we are going to be talking about kind of a bit of a serious topic, but one that I think is really prevalent probably in the human condition, but I would also say very prevalent within Mormonism. We are going to be talking about growing up in a narcissistic Mormon family system, and it's a sensitive issue. Those of you who've been following Mormon stories for a while will know that I did get a degree in clinical counseling psychology. I don't say that to brag or to flex, but only just to acknowledge that I've studied some of this a little bit. I'm, I'm in no way an expert on personality disorders, which narcissism kind of qualifies for. But I, I know just enough to know that we have to be careful. And so before we kind of announce today's guests and bring them on, I'm going to just provide a few little disclaimers and then I'll allow our, our guests to add their own disclaimers. But my understanding of kind of the DSM or the Diagnostic Statistics Manual within the field of mental health is that there's kind of standard diagnoses like, you know, depression or anxiety, trauma, those sorts of things. Back in the old DSM, those were called Axis 1 diagnoses. And then. And they got rid of the, those classifications with the new dsm. But there's a whole other class of diagnoses that are often referred to as personality disorders. And unlike traditional mental health disorders like anxiety and depression, personality disorders are tricky because they're kind of just the personality that the person develops by the time they're an adult. And, you know, they're, they're difficult. Very, very difficult to treat. They're very resistant to treatment, although there are treatments. But if you, if you, if you don't know anything about what I'm talking about, some of the classic personality disorders are, are things like borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder. Those are, those are three of the ones. There's also an OCD personality disorder, obsessive compulsive personality disorder, which is different from ocd. We could go into lots of different types of personality disorders. But the point is, I wanted to start with the disclaimer saying that one of the tricky things about talking about personality disorders is they're overused in common vernacular. You know, I, I have a friend who's a psychiatrist who said to me the other day, just about the narcissistic personality disorder classification, he made the joke that like everyone's ex spouse ever it, you know, has been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder. And that's not to invalidate real instances of that. But you know, just like calling people who are very meticulous ocd, using the term narcissism loosely is not, you know, generally a very helpful thing. And so I want to provide that disclaimer. I also want to provide another disclaimer which is that, you know, we will be talking about these sorts of features and sort of a narcissistic family system. In no way are we implying that I or even our guests necessarily have obtained a formal diagnosis. So whenever you do talk about mental health diagnoses, you want to be careful not to be casual about that because you really don't know whether someone meets criteria for a personality disorder or any diagnosis until they've sat with a licensed mental health professional who goes through the criteria and, and makes the diagnosis. And, and so, so that's not what we're going to be talking about here. Um, we're going to be talking about our guests perceptions around what they have identified to be what they think is traits of an individual or individuals and, or a system. And I just wanted to provide that disclaimer. And then the final disclaimer I want to offer is that whenever we can, we want to try and be, be tougher on systems than we are in individuals. And what's, what's difficult is when we talk about a narcissistic family system, there's usually one family member that meets, would meet the criteria for something like narcissism. And then there's an enabler and then a family system that evolves around that. Having said that, our goal today is not to throw anyone under the bus per se. And so all of that instead to talk about how family systems, particularly within high demand religions like Mormonism, can be particularly problematic. And so it's difficult, but all we can do is say with our intentions, it's not to sort of diagnose anyone or to blame anyone or to shame anyone. And at the same time, if we don't talk about this type of stuff, we don't learn, people don't feel validated and we don't learn lessons that then we can use to make sure that we don't, we don't behave in certain ways or that we don't create family systems that kind of perpetuate the harm across multiple generations. And for all those reasons, we're trying to kind of navigate a difficult topic. I'll also say that we're going to be talking about death by suicide today, at least one instance of that. And so we always want to provide that sort of disclaimer as well. And that's a lot. That's a, that's, you know, that's a really long disclaimer, Hun Jen.

Guest [00:06:00] Yeah, yeah, it is, but it's important.

John Dehlin [00:06:02] I think it is. Yeah. So those are all the disclaimers that I thought. And we're not going to be, we're not going to be using the names of the people that we're talking about within the family system as best as we can, other than the first names of our guests. So that's a, that's also an extra attempt to just protect the, you know, to the extent that we can protect the privacy and to not, like, cause unnecessary harm to the people involved. So that's my disclaimer. And without any further ado, Ari and Adam, welcome to Mormon Stories Podcast.

Guest [00:06:47] Wow.

Ari [00:06:47] Thank you. No, that was exactly what needed to be said because, like you said, I'm not a professional in diagnosing, and I'm not diagnosing anybody. It was really a conclusion that I was reluctant to come too. And, and I'm not here to speak badly about anybody. I'm just here to, I guess, hopefully be a parachute to maybe somebody who might be in free fall like I was. And I just want to help. I don't want to hurt anybody. And so that's why I'm leaving out my last name. And, and I'm not naming the family members involved because I needed several parachutes to save me, and I just want to be one of those for somebody else.

John Dehlin [00:07:52] Beautiful. Thank you, Ari. And we feel that, and I've sensed that intent, and that's why we're wanting to do this and, and feel strongly about it. And this is going to be an emotional one.

Guest [00:08:09] No one will ever cry on Mormon stories without me. I will always be right there with them.

John Dehlin [00:08:15] And I'm not a crier. I've never really been a crier, so I, I have to just kind of, like, be at peace with that. But, but I love, I, I believe it's important to, like, people apologize for sharing their emotions, and I never want that. I love, I love it when People are able to be vulnerable and authentic and show their emotions. Even though I'm not a crier.

Ari [00:08:34] It's okay. You don't have to cry. Your eyes might get dry, but it's okay.

Ari and Adam's Family Background Overview

John Dehlin [00:08:42] Okay, so a little bit about how it's going to be structured. So today we're going to be talking about Ari and Ari's family of origin.

Ari [00:08:52] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:08:53] And that's going to be the primary focus. And the title is growing up. Like, like we maybe be began with growing up in a narcissistic Mormon family system with Ari. We, we've, we've already decided to bring her husband on Adam. Not because we're going to be also digging in deep with Adam's story per se, although we also like to provide the disclaimer that Adam has a story that's equally worthy of being told, but because we want to keep the focus on the main topic at hand. The main role for Adam, as I understand it, is going to be kind of providing support to Ari's story for today. But we didn't mean no disrespect by that. Is that okay?

Adam [00:09:37] No, yeah. I'm here to support her and what she went through and what my perspective is or what I've seen her go through.

Ari [00:09:44] And he's very eye catching.

John Dehlin [00:09:47] He's hot. He's hot.

Adam [00:09:50] He's eye candy.

Ari [00:09:51] So, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:09:52] Trophy husband.

Ari [00:09:53] Okay.

Guest [00:09:53] Just the.

Ari [00:09:54] Yes. The words that come through my head a lot is whatever takes the focus off her face. Whatever takes the focus off her anyway.

John Dehlin [00:10:04] All right, well, you know, it's nice to be eye candy, you know, I guess.

Ari [00:10:09] And he has a lot. He like. No, just. People describe Adam as a quiet strength. And when more than several people have said that when Adam talks, you listen. And so he, he's a man of very few words, but when he talks, it's important. So, so when he speaks, I mean, not to put any, like, pressure on when he says that he must seek, but he just, he does, he chooses his world very carefully and he says them very good about that.

John Dehlin [00:10:39] Well, welcome Adam and welcome Ari. Okay, well, Ari, maybe if it's all right, let's just dive in.

Ari's Early Life and Mormon Upbringing

Ari [00:10:48] Where.

John Dehlin [00:10:50] Well, if there's any other setup you want to provide. Okay. Where does your, where does your Mormon story begin?

Ari [00:10:56] Oh, goodness. Well, that's the hard part because I, I, it began. I am a dad. I, I was born under the covenant. You know, you're in Utah. I was born in Utah. But we quickly moved to. Well, yeah, what those in understand is the mission field. We moved to Another state. And so I spent the first 11 years of my life in the mission field, which those of you who don't know what that is, it's just not Utah.

John Dehlin [00:11:35] It's what Mormons call everywhere outside of

Ari [00:11:37] Utah, it's just not Utah. And so, and I grew up, you know, I, I am the third child of several. Lots, I mean, lots of children. And no, I had a, I would say a pretty normal 1980s, 1990s childhood and Mormon, Mormon world, you know. And you know, I don't have a lot to particularly add. I mean my, we had calling, my parents had high callings and stuff and we were just kind of the, we went to church, we always went to church. And you know, I remember one time not wanting to go to church. I never fought to go to church. I remember it was a fast Sunday. This is a kind of a funny story, but it was a fast Sunday and I didn't want to go to church. I baked sick. But I was so indoctrinated, Even at probably 8 years old, 7 or 8 years old, that I still fasted. I was home alone and I still fasted.

John Dehlin [00:12:50] It was a fast Sunday.

Ari [00:12:52] That was a child. But okay, but I will say that I ate a chocolate chip. I remember like I ate a chocolate chip. And so that was how like I did, did, I was very, very. You did what you were told. And, and it was not as a bad thing. It just, that's how it was. And I, you know, we just kind of, I, that's. And we moved to Utah when I was about 11.

John Dehlin [00:13:22] There are traditional kind of Mormon behaviors that Mormon families are supposed to do. Usually, let's just see, the father was, works outside the home and he's the primary breadwinner. The mom is usually a stay at home mom. And was that the case in your family of origin?

Ari [00:13:38] Yes, it was my dad, yeah, he did, it was different. I mean my mom, we didn't have a lot of money. My dad, he worked as a car stereo salesman for the first little bit and he went to school, he went back to school when I was younger. And so my mom, she ran an in home daycare and so she, while she was home, she still worked. And so we had that kind of a thing. But yeah, it was very much. And that was always the goal that my, my mom would be home with us and my dad would, would be the breadwinner.

John Dehlin [00:14:14] Okay. And then there's the typical kind of markers that at least Mormons try and live up to, which is like daily scripture study, daily Family prayer. You know, regular church attendance. No coffee, no tea, you know, no swearing. You know, how did. How did your family match up to all that?

Ari [00:14:35] All of that? Okay, like, we didn't. I mean, we had always had family prayer. We had no. No coffee. My dad did like Mountain Dew. He did like Mountain Dew, and he still does. But as far as I know, the last I heard. But. And he. Yeah, we didn't. And we didn't swear. We even had family swear words. Like. So my mom operated on the premise of even if things like shut up and dumb and but and fart, even if those words were bad. Like, those words were our personal family swear words. And so it was making it so that if we couldn't even say those words, we would never say the other words. So we had our own words.

John Dehlin [00:15:28] What were they? I don't want to say them.

Ari [00:15:31] That's so silly.

John Dehlin [00:15:32] Okay, no, that's even more the reason to say them.

Ari [00:15:36] I can't. I can't. It's so embarrassing.

John Dehlin [00:15:38] Okay, okay. No, Like, Mormons say fetch and frick and.

Ari [00:15:44] No, I just can't. It brings up a lot. Those words. I just. Traumatizing is one thing. I just was like, no, that's what the word is. And because I didn't want my kids to go out in public like I did and call poop something so strange. And your kids look at you like, what are you saying? Like, that's poop. That is poop. And you're going to call it what

John Dehlin [00:16:07] it is my family called urine tinkle. So that's an example. I don't know if that's an example

Ari [00:16:13] of, like, kind of. But okay, it's a funny story. But I just. It's a funny story that I don't want to cast a shadow over. Okay. So I guess from what I understand, my elder brother, you know, went. Oh, gosh. When he was little, he went to the bathroom and looked in there and he said e. And so that's what poop was called. Was. It's fine. But I really, like, in my mind, I spelled it like a full word. Like, I really thought it was a word. Eew. Like, I thought it was one word. I never looked at it as, like, ew. Yuck. It was oo yuck. But it's a funny, cute story. But that kept us to. Sorry. You can take that out if you'd like.

John Dehlin [00:16:56] No, that's good. Okay, so let's see. Is there anything about your life prior to, let's just say your adolescent years, your family life, that you want to maybe mention?

Ari [00:17:13] No, I mean, it was. It was just what it was. My world was very small, and that's what it was. I mean, I wouldn't say that I had. I mean, I had. When you grow up, the way you grow up, it's the way you grow up. And I don't know if that makes sense. Like, I didn't see anything odd. It was just. I was. It was just the way it was. And it was. It wasn't like we lived a perfect family system. It was just that we. Like, it was the family system. And so I didn't notice that my family was particularly different until I got a little bit older.

John Dehlin [00:17:58] Okay, so as far as you were concerned up through your adolescence, you're just growing up in a normal family.

Ari [00:18:06] Yeah, I didn't. I mean, I knew growing outside of Utah, I knew growing up outside of Utah, I was. And I guess I haven't talked about. This is. I. I was one of very few Mormons, actually. And so I live. I was taught to live my religion as an example to others being in the mission field. So I was the only. No, maybe there was another. There was another boy who was in my ward. He was in my elementary school class. But, I mean, I grew up in a melting pot. I mean, I had, you know, African American classmates. I had people from all walks of life and religions. And there was a boy across the street who was Jewish. And I honestly, I actually grew up celebrating differences, which is kind of strange, with the caveat, actually, that they would eventually become Mormon because, you know, that's kind of the way it was. We were. We were the chosen. You know, they knew they had some information, but not all the information.

John Dehlin [00:19:11] You were the chosen what?

Ari [00:19:13] We were the chosen church.

John Dehlin [00:19:15] We were the chosen God's chosen people.

Ari [00:19:17] God's chosen people. We had all the answers. They didn't. And so, in a way, even though I grew up with differences, I just looked at them in a sad way, I guess. Like, I remember having a conversation with my friend across the street. His name was Adam. Not, anyway, different Adam, but he. We were downstairs and it was so interesting because I asked. I grew up, you know, I don't know if you grew up in the 80s when people ask, do you believe in dinosaurs? Like, the question was, do you believe in dinosaurs? And I remember asking him, do you believe in dinosaurs? And he was like, yes, there are dinosaurs. But I grew up in a very. Like, there was no way to explain dinosaurs. So they did not exist. But I remember the conversation. I had with him because I knew he was Jewish. And I asked him, I said, do you believe your church is the true church? And he said, yes. But I still felt so sad for him. I'm like, oh, my gosh. How do you not know? You're going to know one day. I remember that conversation where I was. And I still felt sorry for all these people, even though it was just a weird dichotomy.

John Dehlin [00:20:38] Sure.

Ari [00:20:39] Growing up that way.

John Dehlin [00:20:40] Okay, well, what I pulled up. I went to Psychology Today and I pulled up an article called the 12 rules of a Dysfunctional Narcissistic Family. And I thought I would read them just as a way to kind of help the audience start thinking about whether they've experienced a family like this, but also to kind of introduce some of the concepts that I'm guessing we're going to be dealing with today.

Ari [00:21:09] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:21:09] And then as they. As they come up, we. We can kind of go, oh, yeah, that's the thing we mentioned. What do you think about that?

Ari [00:21:16] I think that's great. My. My realization of narcissism kind of came as I. Recently now, but it didn't manifest itself probably until after. Till we were engaged. So that's kind of the timeline there.

John Dehlin [00:21:32] Okay.

Ari [00:21:32] So, yeah, you can introduce it. So people know to listen for.

John Dehlin [00:21:36] Okay.

Ari [00:21:36] To listen for.

John Dehlin [00:21:37] Okay. Yeah, I'll just read them. And there's. There's quite a bit, but I'm just gonna. I'm gonna go ahead and take the time to read it because there's a bit of an educational function that I want today's episode to kind of COVID So number one is acceptance is conditional. So it's kind of like, I don't know, conditional love. Maybe complying with the family narrative in the value system is the way you get love. Submission is required. So you got to submit to the dominant person's narcissistic person's authority. Someone's got to be blamed for problems. It's dangerous to be vulnerable. You got to take sides. If there's sides, there's never enough love and respect to go around. Jen's naughty feelings are wrong. Competition, not cooperation, rules the day. It's very competitive. Appearances are more important than substance. Rage is normalized. Denial is rampant, and there is no safety.

Ari [00:22:42] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:22:43] So all those things did that. You were also not. You were also nodding your head yes. Okay.

Ari [00:22:48] All of those things.

Adam [00:22:49] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:22:49] Okay. So I thought I'd introduce those concepts. Maybe people in the audience, some. Maybe listeners or viewers in the audience are also nodding their heads. I didn't grow up in a narcissistic family. So, like, I mean, the tricky thing about this is there's always going to be some conditional love in a family and there's always going to be parents wanting some obedience. And you know, sometimes it's going to feel emotionally. So, I mean, it's tricky because we're all going to identify some of these elements to some degree in our family. But those are the criteria that Psychology Today lists. So having said that, is there any, is there any jumping off point you want to kind of start with now that I've read those, or do you want to just keep going with your Mormon story? Because there's kind of the typical adolescent stuff.

Ari [00:23:35] Yeah, so, no, that I would like to. Yeah, that's so, yeah, my. All of, all of that was. And so, yeah, jumping ahead, I think I would. A good starting point would be my. Our engagement.

High School, Seminary, and Early Faith

John Dehlin [00:23:47] Okay, so you did those, did you do the seminary thing? Early morning seminary?

Ari [00:23:50] I, we were in Utah by the time I started seminary, so it was part of the, part of the schedule.

John Dehlin [00:23:58] So it was release time seminary in, in a Utah high school.

Ari [00:24:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:24:02] Is that right? And do you want to say anything about just your high school years, you know, your faith, your experiences?

Ari [00:24:10] My high school years were fine.

John Dehlin [00:24:13] Like, were you pretty orthodox as a. I was.

Ari [00:24:17] I mean, here's the thing. Like, I was, I, I was very. I was a believer. I was a believer and. But I, I was a normal. As a typical kid, I was typical. You know, I, I even, you know, my parents, it was. The rules seemed to always change based on, you know, what appearance they wanted to, to show. But I, I wore sleeveless things. I did, you know, and I.

John Dehlin [00:24:42] Were you athletic?

Ari [00:24:43] I was. So I had.

John Dehlin [00:24:44] Was that part of it, like runner kind of thing?

Ari [00:24:46] Yeah, I, I ran, Yeah, I ran in high school and I ran track and cross country there and then. Yeah, it was pretty typical. But yeah, there were some things where it was very controlling. It was very controlling. My mom would say, don't hold hands with boys because next step was a kiss. It was just very purity. Culture was very dominant.

John Dehlin [00:25:19] So what were the rules and. Or the expectations regarding clothing for you?

Ari [00:25:24] It was so blurred for me because I was allowed to wear sleeveless things and shorts and things like that. But then I would. It just this little thing. I mean, it. That wasn't, that was actually not even a problem. It was just more having a boyfriend. And you know, she would always jump to conclusions that I was doing things that I wasn't, you know, and it Was just a very hostile environment when I would have a boyfriend.

John Dehlin [00:25:55] Yeah.

Ari [00:25:56] And it just controlling, a lot of controlling.

John Dehlin [00:25:58] I remember as a Mormon parent, even as a progressive or even non believing Mormon parent, having been raised with the law of chastity and kind of a abstinence mentality, being super afraid for my daughters specifically for some weird reason about them dating boys. So. I mean, I, I get that.

Ari [00:26:19] Yeah, yeah. No, that's, that's how it was. And I feel bad. He's just quite over here. He probably has a lot more to add.

John Dehlin [00:26:25] Did you guys date in high school?

Ari [00:26:27] No, he didn't. We dated. No, we did not. We. We met right after high school.

John Dehlin [00:26:30] Okay.

Ari [00:26:31] Right after my high school. But no, it was really just. Yeah. The law of chastity. And. And also the whole. My dad would say things about belly buttons and things and not showing too much, you know, because here he was a. He was a therapist, a social worker. And he worked with a lot of people in the prison systems and stuff. And I remember him saying that he had client. He was. He liked belly buttons. And I needed a cover. Like he used a lot of fear like that we needed to be covered so that we could control the minds of. So men wouldn't act. That was a lot. What I was told. Just a lot of fear. And so I remember walking around like, oh, I gotta cover this because some man's gonna see me and he's gonna rape me cause he sees my belly. But I really do. I remember being scared to walk in public and.

John Dehlin [00:27:29] Any other family stories in high school that would help illustrate the narcissistic. The narcissistic family system.

Ari [00:27:38] Yeah, well, really just that as I started to grow up, like when I was little, we were a family, like an extended family. I had aunts and I had uncles and I had a happy extended family. And as the years went on, suddenly they were gone. Like we couldn't talk to them anymore. Like that was pretty. Like one day we're with this aunt. No, we don't talk to her anymore. We don't talk to Dannette anymore or this person. And it was constant. It was very gossipy and talking bad about people. And I grew up not like being able to feel safe around certain people. And my mom was very gossipy about people in the ward. And that is also a characteristic of narcissistic narcissists. And I. And so I would, I saw the world through her lens. If she didn't like somebody, I couldn't like that person. If that person was out you know, but then the rules would always change. Oh, now she didn't like that person. Now. Now she likes that person. And it was really all dependent on her worldview. And so that was more of how I grew up, was, we are good and they're bad, and look how bad they are. Look how they raised their children. Look how they. And it was always reinforced that our family was the best family. And so that was something that was really hard because I would go to family gatherings and I didn't feel like I could talk to anybody because I was like, I know what you've done. I know what kind of a person. I know you hurt my mom's feelings. And. Same thing in the ward. It was just constant gossip and constant. A narcissist, as I have come to understand, is always a victim and a hero. And my mom was always the victim and the hero. Somebody was always hurting her feelings. And we were always taught and told to gather around her. And that was the constant. If I can. If that makes sense.

John Dehlin [00:30:00] Yeah. Okay.

Ari [00:30:02] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:30:04] So you graduate from high school, and what happens next?

Ari [00:30:11] So I graduated and I got a scholarship to run at a university. One school, Division One. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:30:20] That's a big deal.

Ari [00:30:21] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:30:23] Margi ran for a D1 school.

Ari [00:30:24] Yeah. And so. And then. But that first year, this guy came along. So that was, you know. So we met my freshman year in college, and he was. As if he was a super senior. He was there for one extra year, so. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:30:50] Adam, do you want to just say briefly anything about your background? Just kind of. Just so we, you know, kind of.

Adam [00:30:56] No, I. I mean, I grew up in Utah. Typical Mormon family. But we weren't super by the book. It was just. My dad worked on Sundays a lot. My mom didn't want to go without my dad, so we didn't. We went. We. We were never inactive, but it was just. Yeah. I grew up here in Utah along the. You know, in Davis county and basic Mormon family, I guess. I mean, nothing.

John Dehlin [00:31:21] You know, not super orthodox.

Adam [00:31:23] No.

John Dehlin [00:31:23] But not totally out either.

Adam [00:31:25] Yeah, we'd be considered the Jack Mormon family, you know, not the Molly Mormon. That's what we call them here in Davis County. So that's what I would be.

John Dehlin [00:31:34] And do Jack Mormons still attend church?

Adam [00:31:36] I guess. I don't know. We did, but kind of.

Ari [00:31:39] So.

John Dehlin [00:31:40] Okay. Okay. So nothing really stand out or noteworthy about your story as it kind of feeds into Aries? Just to the.

Adam [00:31:52] No.

John Dehlin [00:31:53] You didn't serve. Did you do seminary? Did you serve a mission?

Adam [00:31:55] I was actually. I almost Got kicked out of seminary because I didn't go. So.

John Dehlin [00:31:59] Okay, we're into seminary.

Adam [00:32:01] What's that?

John Dehlin [00:32:01] You weren't into seminary?

Adam [00:32:03] No, I mean, I. I went, but it was too early, and then I just stopped going. Okay. But I didn't serve a mission. No, I had. I had a scholarship to run track.

John Dehlin [00:32:10] Oh, you were under two?

Adam [00:32:11] Yeah, I. I couldn't. It was just a weird situation. It was either go on a mission, lose my scholarship, or give my scholarship in that. So I chose my scholarship. There was a credit that I missed and I had to go that year. I had to go and get my scholarship, basically, is what it was. So I went. And then throughout college. Yeah, I didn't. I just decided not to go after that.

John Dehlin [00:32:40] So was it a faith thing? Did you not believe it particularly or just you weren't kind of into it?

Adam [00:32:46] Well, looking back, it was a little bit of both. I don't, you know, is. I just went along with what I was taught. I was just, you know, I never thought I wouldn't believe it. I always thought it was just. My mom would always say if there was things we didn't like or it was like, weird. She would always just say, well, it does good things. It was, you know, the feelings I get there and that kind of thing. So I always went back to that. You know, the good things that were. Were taught and that, you know, I always go back to that if I any. Had any doubt about it. So, you know, I mean, going through. Through college, I. I was always not going to mission hurt me with the dating scene, even in Utah. Just. I had many girls just say, I can't date you anymore because it's a remission. But that's where that feeds into her story a little that way. So.

John Dehlin [00:33:40] Okay.

Adam [00:33:40] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:33:42] What. What event?

Adam [00:33:44] I was 800.

John Dehlin [00:33:45] You were in 800? Yeah. That's a hard event.

Adam [00:33:47] That's what we're both for.

John Dehlin [00:33:49] You Both did the 800?

Adam [00:33:50] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:33:50] Was that your main event? I hear the 800 is really hard in terms of like how painful it is to run it.

Adam [00:33:57] The 800 and 400 meter hurdles are the worst as far as pain goes.

John Dehlin [00:34:01] Is that right?

Ari [00:34:02] Yeah, that's what we hear. But that's all we. Except for we were sprinters, but we've.

Adam [00:34:07] We've run almost everything from the 100 to the marathon.

Ari [00:34:09] Yeah.

Adam [00:34:09] So we can kind of.

Ari [00:34:10] Yeah, we can kind of. Yeah, we've run it, actually. You're right.

John Dehlin [00:34:13] In high school they use you for lots of different events.

Ari [00:34:15] Yeah. In high school we Were both sprinters in high school.

Adam [00:34:17] And when you get to the college, you have to be really fast and they kind of move you to the middle distance if you're not.

Ari [00:34:22] Yeah, super. Yep. And we did cross country and stuff.

John Dehlin [00:34:26] Do you want to say where you went to college or do you not want to say where you went to college?

Ari [00:34:28] I'd rather not. That's okay.

John Dehlin [00:34:30] Yep, Good. Boundaries are good. Okay, so you guys met. Is that the next part of the story?

First Relationship and Path to Marriage

Ari [00:34:35] Yeah, we met.

John Dehlin [00:34:36] You're a freshman.

Ari [00:34:37] I was a freshman. And so I'm a young freshman too.

John Dehlin [00:34:42] Like 18 or 17.

Ari [00:34:44] I was our first date. I was like 10 days. 18.

John Dehlin [00:34:49] Okay.

Adam [00:34:49] Yeah.

Ari [00:34:51] So. But he didn't know that. I mean, he just saw an incoming freshman. I mean, wait a second. I'm not speaking for you. He wasn't going after freshmen, that I know well.

Adam [00:35:00] And I had a rule I wasn't going to that first year or that last year. I was. I mean, I wasn't going to date. I was just going to run track and graduate and go on my way because I didn't want. I just didn't want to date a freshman. But she was cute enough that I really wanted to ask her out. And I didn't know she was 18. That week she told me on our date that she just turned 18. I thought, this isn't going to go anywhere because she just turned 18.

Ari [00:35:31] And I wasn't looking to get married either. I had just graduated from. I mean, this was like I was now ready. I was starting to just become myself, you know, outside of the context of my family. That was my catapult. And then, so. But I met him and we just kind of. We started dating. And the thing is, like, it was the second. Probably the second day, I think, at least if not the first day where he told me he didn't serve a mission. So it wasn't. I mean, I think he probably wanted to. I mean, get it out of the way. Like, hey, this full disclosure, I didn't serve a mission.

John Dehlin [00:36:11] What did that mean to you when you first heard it? As someone raised orthodox Mom, I honestly, like, I. Well, how were you taught to view it?

Ari [00:36:21] I was taught you had to serve a mission and you had to marry a virtuant missionary. But I guess I didn't care. Like, I don't know, like, it was just something in me. I was like, I didn't care. It didn't bother me. It wasn't a deal breaker for me. And we were just, you know, that this wasn't I just don't remember it being a deal breaker for me, but I was taught otherwise.

John Dehlin [00:36:48] Okay, so for you, it wasn't like a mandatory checklist item?

Ari [00:36:54] It wasn't. And here I dated a non member in high school. Oh, I did. And I guess maybe that was my parents. Never. And that's the thing. When I dated that non member, it was always the goal was to get him to be baptized and serve a mission. They were okay with me dating him because that was the eventual. If I was going to marry him.

John Dehlin [00:37:19] It's a form of missionary work.

Ari [00:37:20] Yeah, it was. And he didn't want to, you know, and so the relationship kind of ended a little bit on those terms. But I think there was a little bit of a disconnect with me because when I started dating him, I was like, well, at least he's a member, you know, so it didn't bother me because I was, you know, And. And yeah, to be honest, the. The non member that I dated was actually. He was a lot better is in terms of. He didn't push me to do, you know, bad things. Bad things. He was a. He was actually very, very good. So.

John Dehlin [00:38:00] Okay.

Ari [00:38:01] Yeah. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:38:03] So where does. Where do things start getting tense? Had you been taught, had you gone into college with some sort of, like, timeline for when you would potentially get engaged or married to him or in general? In general?

Ari [00:38:18] No.

John Dehlin [00:38:19] Okay.

Ari [00:38:19] Like, I wasn't looking to get married soon. Like, that just wasn't on my radar.

John Dehlin [00:38:25] You act like that's some weird thing, but that's, like, very common in Utah, isn't it?

Ari [00:38:30] I had goals. I wanted to run. I was in college to run.

John Dehlin [00:38:34] Okay.

Ari [00:38:35] Like, I didn't care. I didn't even know what I was gonna study in college. Like, to be completely honest, like, I'm like, I'm here to run. This is like, I wasn't. I had unfinished business. So that's where I. That's why I was there.

John Dehlin [00:38:47] Okay.

Ari [00:38:48] And so. But things kind of got, like, when they got. When things got serious between the two of us, that's when things went bad between. With my relationship with my parents, because now it was, oh, she really. She's gonna marry this guy who didn't serve a mission. And so it went bad fast. It just went bad fast.

Recognizing Patterns of Control and Manipulation

John Dehlin [00:39:19] Let me ask a clarifying question. So, you know, when you talked about, like, your upbringing, you're not telling a bunch of horror stories. You're basically saying, you know, there was a concern about modesty, a lot of chastity stuff that both your mom and dad had it. And I think that could be almost every Mormon family I've ever interviewed. You know, you talked a bit about losing some family relations and kind of like gossip, but again, someone could say that's every Mormon family ever. So I'm. You know, I'm wondering if, like, a. If an alien was, like, observing your family through your marriage, through the. The engagement and the marriage, if they would look at it and say, whoa, what an awful, horrible, horrific family. Or is it more that you just were used to a really toxic, unhealthy environment? And so when you talk about it, it's just like. Yeah, just, you know, because the way you're describing it so far, and this isn't me doubting you, it's just a clarifying question. The way you're describing it. Up until the engagement, it sounded like just kind of. I don't want to say every Mormon family ever, but you know what I'm saying.

Ari [00:40:30] Yeah, No, I appreciate the question. Because it's hard to talk about the bad things that happened. Like, I don't like to. And I skip over those parts. I don't know. Like, we were like. But we weren't. And that's so hard because, like, I don't want to jump back into my timeline, but there was abuse in my family, and it's hard. Yeah. I mean, my parents fought a lot. Parents fight. Okay. My. My mom was physically abusive to us, and she called us names. I never knew when she was going to rage. I walked on eggshells. You know, I. I just tried so hard not to get on her bad side and. But that was normal life for me. If you. I. Our sibling, we were pitted against each other. We did not form bonds with each other. My older brother and I are 15 months apart. He was told bad things about me. I was told bad things about him. We did not form bonds. You know, it's all in this. And I guess I'm just. I'm shutting it out, and I'm trying not to, you know, and this is other people's stories, too. You know, walking in on my mom holding my brother up and hitting him and just living in fear. And trying to rescue my little brothers and. Always thinking it was me and I was a bad girl and I just needed to be better and trying so hard to be good and earn favor with her so I wouldn't be the next one. And then trying to talk to my dad, trying to tell him what was happening, and him always just saying that I needed to be better and that she Was maybe just having a hard day, but she was good. And look at the good things she was doing for us. Or that she would always stop him at the door before he got home and tell him how bad we were before we got. Before he could. We could even tell him. And we were, you know, she. She was very hard and we just. The narrative was told about us to him and we were rendered voiceless. So I don't know what to say. It just was hard. It was a typical Mormon upbringing with a lot of heart and I don't know what other. That was my upbringing. Sorry. Now you asked for it.

John Dehlin [00:45:01] Thank you. And I'm so sorry. And like on the one hand, I don't want to pry and. And we don't want to hurt anyone or shame anyone. On the other hand, if we don't. I guess if we don't talk about some of these things, we don't really connect with what we're talking about or help educate.

Ari [00:45:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:45:25] If it's okay. Really quick. And thank you for being so vulnerable and I'm sorry this is so hard.

Ari [00:45:29] I'm here. That's why I'm here to figure out how to do it.

John Dehlin [00:45:33] Yeah, no, that was. That was powerful. The fact that it. That you waited so long to share some of that stuff shows you're. I think to me you're really trying hard to be kind. As kind as you can.

Ari [00:45:45] Yeah. Because I'm not a perfect mom either.

John Dehlin [00:45:47] Right? Yeah.

Ari [00:45:49] And. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:45:51] Yeah. I'm gonna just read the traits that, that the Mayo Clinic list for. For a narcissistic personality disorder, which is going to be similar to the traits of a narcissistic family system. But I'm just going to go and read them just so that people can connect with them. So it's having an exaggerated sense of self importance. Having a sense of entitlement requiring constant excessive admiration. Expect to be recognized as superior even if you haven't had achievements to warrant it. Exaggerating achievements and talents. Being preoccupied with fantasies of success or power or brilliance or beauty or being the perfect mate. Believe they're superior and can only associate with equally special people. Monopolize conversations and belittle or look down on people they perceive as inferior. Express. Expect special favors and unquestioning compliance with the expectations. Taking advantage of others to get what they want. Have an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of others. That's one thing that's often associated with narcissism. Being envious of others and believe others envy them. Behave in arrogant or haughty manner, Coming across as conceited, boastful and pretentious. And then insist on having the best of everything. And then it also talks about having trouble handling anything they perceive as criticism. So becoming angry or impatient when they don't receive special treatment. Having significant interpersonal problems and feeling slighted. Easily reacting with rage or contempt or trying to belittle other people to make themselves feel superior. Having difficulty regulating emotions and behavior. Major problems dealing with stress and change. Feeling depressed and moody when they fall short of perfection. And having secret feelings of insecurity, shame, vulnerability and humiliation. So those are some of the traits.

Understanding Narcissism in Family Systems

Ari [00:47:58] That's a lot.

John Dehlin [00:47:59] Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So if that was just useful, I just wanted to make sure. And kind of list those.

Ari [00:48:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:48:10] Okay.

Ari [00:48:11] Yeah. And this is hard because narcissism exists on a spectrum, okay. And that's very important to acknowledge is that everybody has these traits, okay. And in the way I equate it is, okay, I have a lot of children, but I have. Narcissism begins at birth, okay? From what I can understand is it's the ego. It is the ego. And you eventually need to develop outside where you don't see that the world exists to serve you, okay? And so eventually you need to grow and say, I am a person in a great big world, but when you start from childhood, you. Your parents exist, your whole world exists to serve you. And as you develop, you start to develop out of that. But narcissists never develop out of that. The world always exists to serve them. And that's where you have, you know, the narcissistic supply that your children become your supply. And it's all to feed your personal ego. And so I don't know if I. But that's how I have seen it. And I live with a lot of little narcissists because I have a lot of little children. But the goal is that they will eventually grow out of that and not be adults, not be toddlers in adult bodies, you know, wanting to control every little part around them. And I. That's how I describe it. Grew up with the toddler wanting to control everything.

John Dehlin [00:50:03] It lists the causes of narcissism, potentially genetics, neurobiology, and then environment. And under an environment, it sort of talks about two possibilities. One is neglect, like extreme neglect. And the other is kind of like excessive adoration and then excessive criticism. So it can be either excessive adoration or excessive criticism, slash neglect. And so either one of those things aren't good. You kind of have to find that middle ground of feedback and love, but not excessive adoration, not excessive criticism. And that's. I think every parent is trying to find that balance.

Ari [00:50:44] Yeah, I think everybody is. And we're walking a. You do walk a tight line trying to distinguish, but there are extremes on that spectrum. And so I can't tell you where it came from in this situation, because that's just her story to share. And so. But yeah. Okay.

John Dehlin [00:51:15] And so you're saying it really started to become pronounced for you. I mean, it sounds like it was pronounced all along, but the way you kind of described it at the beginning, Rubber really started to meet the road when you guys started talking about engagement.

Ari [00:51:30] Right.

John Dehlin [00:51:30] How do you want to start up? Pick it up. Pick up.

Ari [00:51:32] That. That was just. It was. I can't remember when it was communicated to me that. That he wasn't good enough, but it just was. And then suddenly it was just that. It was not condoned. I mean, that's the wrong word. It was not allowed. It was not allowed. I couldn't. I could not marry him because of covenants that were made in the temple that my mom made in the temple, particularly the law of consecration. You give your time, talents, and all of those things. And she could not. It was against everything that she had covenanted to. To allow her daughter to marry a man who didn't. Didn't devote his time, talents, and all of those things. She could not do it. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:52:37] Like a. Like a breaking point. It's just like, this is too much.

Ari [00:52:40] Like, she just wouldn't allow it.

Marrying Outside the Covenant and Family Conflict

John Dehlin [00:52:42] Had you had older siblings that had married outside the covenant?

Ari [00:52:45] No, no, no. I. My older sister and I got married the same year.

John Dehlin [00:52:50] Okay.

Ari [00:52:51] And no, we were the first two to get married, and I had a brother on a mission at the time, and. But it was just absolutely. I just could not. And it was just. It was just this control, control, control. And, you know, he. Even if you want to talk. He went and asked for my hand in marriage, which.

John Dehlin [00:53:12] Do you want to tell that story?

Ari [00:53:13] Would you like to tell that story? I was so. It was priest's cell phone. And I remember just. Where is he? He's not coming back. I thought they couldn't.

Adam [00:53:22] We went to his father's office with.

John Dehlin [00:53:26] Wait, wait, I'm going to pause you before you tell this story. Did you feel disapproval before him?

Adam [00:53:31] I knew that, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:53:32] You want to talk about that? How you experienced the disapproval before we talked?

Adam [00:53:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:53:36] I didn't mean to interrupt. I just wanted to give you a chance to give a little Background?

Adam [00:53:40] No. Well, that year, yeah. I thought when I first met her family, they were really friendly, really nice. I could sense there was that conventional Mormon family. And I just remember thinking it was weird if I can go back to my college brain there. It was a little odd, but I found it also kind of engaging. They were very nice. She had little brothers running around. Their family was really nice. Her dad was really super nice. And as we started to date and progress throughout the dating, I didn't get any pushback. I felt accepted, I felt brought in. They invited me over for Sunday dinners as we dated throughout the year. So it was very inviting. Once we started to kind of go into talking about marriage, there was a little bit of hesitation, a little bit of. I could feel a pushback in her conversations that we had just from her family. And then when I, yeah, I went to ask her dad, it was on their terms. It had to be. It was scheduled at his office with him and her mom. It was a. I think I was in there for three or four hours and it was just a grueling back and forth of. And they were wanting me to go on a mission. It was, you need to go on a mission. And it was just a constant back. I can. It's kind of an out of body of experience. It was just.

John Dehlin [00:55:11] So you're. At what age at this point?

Adam [00:55:13] I'm 23.

John Dehlin [00:55:14] 23.

Adam [00:55:15] And my thing was I'm already 23. I'm. I've got. I've got a career right after college. I know what I'm going into.

John Dehlin [00:55:22] What was that going to be?

Adam [00:55:23] I was going to the police corps. I was already accepted and it was a training for six months and then I was going to be placed into a police, you know, in the state I could be, you know, I was guaranteed a job, you know, and I'm. And for me out of college, that was big for me right then. So I knew what I was going to do. And I said, I'm already too old and you can go until you're 26. And it was just constant, you know, you need to go. And they shared stories about her mom's dream about something about having extra kids and that. And I don't know how that applies, but they just kept saying really deep stories that as a young man, I was just. I don't know why you're sharing this with me, but they were sharing these stories and her dad was, you know, just. He said that I could be his top advisor on a mission. He would put me as he says you'd be a great leader on the mission field. I guess it was just trying to stroke my ego at the time and that. And just. He had words for it. And I don't understand all the words because I didn't serve a mission, but he used acronyms and stuff like that. I didn't understand at the time. He. But they were just really wanting me to go. And once I finally said no, it was a completely different feel. They were just completely. It was a switch. And it was. You could just tell that it was. And I will say, her dad was more understanding than I think, the mom. He was the one I could go and talk to. I could never go talk to her, but I could go talk to him. And he even said, we're trying to work on some things here a little bit when he mentioned that, alluding that

John Dehlin [00:57:18] maybe he was acknowledging that she was being a little extreme.

Adam [00:57:21] Yeah. He says, we're trying to work with her a little. And he said her name. And we're trying to work on some things there. This is when we were engaged at the time, after this conversation. This was a few weeks later, a month later, after we had been engaged. He says, we're trying to work on some things there in that. And he didn't go into detail, but

Ari [00:57:43] I had to hide the engagement.

John Dehlin [00:57:46] So you had to hide the eng.

Ari [00:57:48] I had to hide. I couldn't tell anybody.

John Dehlin [00:57:52] Oh, the. Your parents asked you to not tell anyone?

Ari [00:57:56] I couldn't tell my parents.

John Dehlin [00:57:57] Oh. Before he asked.

Ari [00:57:59] So he asked me. And then he went and talked to them.

John Dehlin [00:58:01] Okay.

Ari [00:58:02] So I had to hide it. I had to hide it from them. From them. I couldn't wear my ring. I couldn't do anything. I hid it. But I did. I wasn't. It wasn't going to happen. Like, they were not allowing it. And. And so. And I. Here's. I remember. So I. I was sorry. My brain blocked out that. I am sorry.

John Dehlin [00:58:33] I can say one thing while you're thinking, like, I'm trying to make sense of this, like, as a parent now, of course I don't care if my kids partner submissions, but. But I'm, you know, if I'm projecting myself back as a believing Mormon or as a practicing Mormon. It's hard for me to imagine if my kids came to me, if they. If they had courted someone long enough to kind of know they wanted to marry him. I can't imagine saying, even bringing that up. Like, it's more like, hey, are you guys friends? How do you get along? What are Your plans, How do you think about, you know, your future? I can imagine that type of conversation, but not like go on a mission, you know, when the guy's asking. So like, that does feel pretty extreme to me. And then I'm trying to make sense of it. And you know, I do know that within Mormonism there's, there are these sorts of families that my family was never like this, but it was like they want, they like have this picture wall and they like want every kid, every male to serve a mission. And then they want every, every daughter to marry a return missionary. And then they want all the kids to, to be temple married. And like, that's like this badge of honor. And then of course, they would never. No empty chairs. And they would never want any kid to ever leave the church. And you know, if you're, if it's a really harsh family, then they kind of have their wall of glory and like, that's a really important part of their ego. And I'm wondering if that was kind of the profile of your parents, in particular your mom. And if you, Adam, were just kind of messing up their wall of glory or their bragging rights of like, we were good parents. We were good Mormon parents.

Adam [01:00:24] No. Yeah, that's totally how it was. And later, I mean, later on to find out that they were telling people in the community that I was not even active or I was not even a member. There are people who believe that I wasn't even a member of that. We're finding out. Oh, you married the non member. I was. And she called my bishop when we were dating to find out about my family and that, and she. There was something about us being inactive. He said they're not. I don't know how he put it, but my dad worked a lot of Sundays, so we didn't go. We weren't 100% active. I think. I don't even know how that came up. We had to have a conversation with my bishop about that because he apologized. He said, I didn't mean to, to come off like you guys were inactive. And I don't know why he entertained the conversation with her, but she came back at Ariana says they're not even active members and, and, and that.

John Dehlin [01:01:25] So, yeah, so like, I can't imagine calling the bishop of my child's fiance to, to get info about their family.

Ari [01:01:40] This is part of the smear they're trying to smear.

John Dehlin [01:01:42] I'm trying to gather dirt. So Jen, I want to sanity check with you because I wasn't raised in Utah. I was raised Orthodox Mormon, but sometimes outside of Utah can be different than inside of Utah. Maybe.

Ari [01:01:56] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:01:57] Did you know families like this, Is this like an extreme story for you? Is this a typical story for you? You're Utah experience?

Guest [01:02:05] Yeah, my experience, I guess I'll say two different kind of things, but when I was a believing member and a mom, there definitely is like a perfection thing within the LDS church that like, you know, there's the checklist, you know, did you get baptized? Did you get your medallion in young women's? Did you, you know, did you go out, go on a mission? Are you not dating till you're 16? You know, there's definitely a checklist of like, are you being perfect in these things? And I know that, you know, I've actually apologized to my daughters now and we've had some good heart to hearts because I did, I did ask them to be perfect in those things. You know, as a mom, you know, I remember in a large group where my daughter was kind of the center of attention saying she was perfect. Like, she's never done anything to make me worry about her. And I knew that they had been brought up feeling that pressure to like be, be perfect. And so it's deconstructing now from the mainstream LDS faith. There's a lot of I'm sorry, as I've had to say, you know, and a lot of I wish I would have, you know, been better. I wish I would have known better and done better, you know, but now I'm trying to, now that I know better, do better. And I think that there's definitely that perfection that you're told to, you know, have your family look like or check the boxes of. But then there's a whole other level in some families where there is a wall. Like there's an actual wall in their house where you only get your picture on it when you go on a mission or you get married in the temple. Um, or if you don't want a mission and get married in the temple, maybe you're still not on there. You know, they don't. You don't get to be on the wall, you know, and even like, you're

Ari [01:04:30] not parents have a wall. They do, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:04:33] Like I just brought up the wall randomly.

Guest [01:04:34] No, it's like when I went to get my patriarchal blessing, it like the. I was sitting in the patriarch's front room while he took my daughter into a separate room to ask her questions before she got her blessing. And his wife sat on there and there's pictures all over of their kids, you know, in the room. And so we're talking about her children, and she. She told me about each one of them. And then she got to the one that was older but not married yet, and she started like, explaining to me, like, why she's not. Why she's not married. But, you know, her patriarchal blessing says she will. I don't know, she just was like, giving excuses and like, making it like a big deal that she hadn't checked off all these things like, that all her other kids had checked off. And, like, that's why she just had a little picture, like on the side

John Dehlin [01:05:31] table, but not on the wall.

Guest [01:05:33] Right. So, like, it's just hard for him. It's just hard because there. There is a certain, like, perfection society that I think I brought my girls up in, you know, that I am trying so much better not to do anymore. But then there's the extra. The families that are at. There's this extra that something else is some. Some kind of outward thing they have to have. And I. I don't. I didn't have that. That outward need, but I. That was very. I saw it very often. Sorry. That was a lot explanation about that.

John Dehlin [01:06:15] Did you grow up in that type of family?

Guest [01:06:17] No.

John Dehlin [01:06:17] Okay.

Ari [01:06:18] Okay.

John Dehlin [01:06:19] Or you were going to say something about the wall.

Ari [01:06:21] No, I would just say that there was. There was one. You know, that's just what it is. There's the mission wall, there's a map, and then there's there who served a mission, and aligned to who served a mission, there's a wall. But that's just what that is. But it's interesting that when you brought up your patriarchal blessing, that reminded me of something that my mom did while we. While I was engaged. So essentially, I mean, this was a traumatic event that I'm going to recount was just. I. There was a day you just never knew when she was going to drop, when she was going to rage or she was going to do discard. One day I was driving in a car, a car with her, and it was actually. I had gotten my eyes checked and I was getting some glasses and we were walking out to the parking lot. And I was walking after her. Yeah, I was walking after her because she was walking ahead of me, and she said. I called up to her, I said, mom and wait up. And she turned around, she said, don't call me mother. And it was like, okay. And she just would rage out of nowhere. And I had to get in the car with her. And then she we were driving down the road and she stopped and she told me to get out of the car. And I didn't know what to do. I mean, she would just rage. And I got out of the car and I had nothing. I had nothing. And my mom had just dropped me off and told me to get out of the car. And I walked to the university and called his mom collect because I had nowhere to go. And it was just like kind of one of those things. This just happened. I don't know what to do. I have nowhere to go. And he drove down and he picked me up and he took me back. And here is how good I was. I mean, good. I didn't want to stay with him. I ended up staying with an uncle. I could have very well had sex with my fiance or whatever. I wasn't going to. I was going to get married in the temple. I went and I stayed with an uncle. And the narrative I found out later was that she told people I ran away. And I didn't, I didn't run away, but forever people believe that I ran away. I didn't run away, but. And I'm tight. I bring up the patriarchal blessing. This is where this I'm getting at is. I was at either. I can't remember if it's my uncle's house or if I was. If it was sent to his parents house. But there's a. My patriarchal blessing was sent in the mail while I was away. And there was a note basically that was typed, it was from the church office building, addressed to me. And there was a letter included in it, typed, saying. And it was written as if it was me and I didn't write a letter. And it said that I needed a copy of my patriarchal blessing because I didn't have one. And it was signed my name in red ink at the bottom, signature my name. I didn't do anything like that. And so I called my mom and I said, do you know anything about this? And she said oh no, I don't. And she just said she didn't know anything about it. And I said. And she said, well, what does your patriarchal blessing say? And she said mine says that I need to heed to the counsel of my parents. She said what does yours say? And I said, and it said the same thing. And she said interesting. But she, she forged my name to. In a letter to the church office building to get my patriarchal blessings sent to me so she could use it against me.

Weaponizing Religious Teachings Against Family Members

John Dehlin [01:10:28] Like if she could find it saying, obey your Parents. And she would use that as a club.

Ari [01:10:33] She used that. She weaponized my blessing to get me to heed to the counsel of my parents. And. But that was, you know, that whole engagement, and they fought me till the very end. Yeah, go ahead.

John Dehlin [01:10:51] So she was just desperate for this marriage.

Ari [01:10:53] Not desperate. She told me about women leaving their husbands at the altar and my wedding day, you know, and here's another thing. My wedding pictures. I went to my house to get my wedding dress, and I had a friend curl my hair for the pictures. And my mom never communicated. The thing is, they don't communicate what they want. She never communicated to me that she wanted to do my hair. And I went. And she got mad. She got so full of rage. And she went to hit me, and she missed. And she. She fell down, and she pretended like she was dead on the floor. She. And I came to her rescue. I said, mom, what's. Because she looked like she had hurt herself, and it was my fault. And then she looked up several seconds later and she said, I've been fasting for you. And she said it was my fault that she fell down because she was fasting for me not to marry him, and it was my fault. And it was this constant that. And she refused to give me a ride to get my pictures taken. I didn't have a car. And here. I mean, I'm in this. I mean, this is a lot. You know, I was in this war zone of, you know, I had a younger sister out the back door. I had an older sister here, and they were all raging against me. And I. I had a brother here that was. She had built her army against me. I had nowhere to go. I walked out the back, and I had. Younger sister. She hit me. And I remember walking up the street holding my wedding dress. I had nowhere to go. I didn't have a right to get my own wedding pictures taken. I was holding my wedding dress. And she sped up in the car, and she slammed the brakes and she said, get in. You look like an idiot. And then. I mean, you don't fight back. You just do. And so I just rode in that car with her to get my wedding pictures taken. And I was crying, and the people were so nice. And I didn't tell them why. You don't tell them why. It was my fault. I had hurt my mom. I was bad for getting married. I didn't say a word. But they took me outside. My wedding pictures are outside from a distance because they couldn't do up close. But my mom and dad came in,

John Dehlin [01:14:07] couldn't do up close.

Ari [01:14:08] I couldn't do up close pictures. I was, I just, I was crying. In my wedding picture, I'm looking down at flowers from a distance. They couldn't do any up close pictures of me. But my parents came in the middle of that session. And my mom does what she does. She. She told them her narrative. I don't know what she told them. Yeah, but she built her army against me. There was nowhere safe in that town. She had already told her story that I was running, I was a runaway, I was all of these things, and I was marrying, you know, and he was bad in his parents, and it was just. You can feel it when this Mary campaign is on. You have nowhere to go and you have no defenses and you believe yourself that you're bad. You know, that was the first discard, I guess.

Smear Campaigns and Narcissistic Tactics

John Dehlin [01:15:07] And that gathering an army sort of idea, that is a classic narcissistic trait. Is that right?

Ari [01:15:14] Yeah. So it's called a smear campaign clinically. But I remember feeling like there was an army against me. Like it was everywhere. People knew things and people would say things and. And so those were my words for it. Before I even knew that there were. Was an actual word for it. I would say she's gathered her army. I don't, I don't know. That was my word for it.

John Dehlin [01:15:44] And, you know, there will always be like skeptics who are watching or thinking, well, are you probably were misbehaved, you know, you were probably a really hard kid or whatever. The only thing I can say to that, well, I want to hear, maybe that's why it's good Adam's here. But like, like, I, I know the personality type that runs at a Division 1 NCAA level, generally speaking. And it's a perfectionistic. It's generally a perfectionistic personality type because it's not easy to, to run Division 1. And it's, you know, it's like gymnastics and track and ballet, especially with girl, you know, they've got this. If you fit that personality type, it would not be the personality type of like this really big troublemaker. And, and all I can say is I've. I've met you a few times and you've never come across that way to me.

Ari [01:16:38] So I wasn't a troublemaker. I. But I. You go ahead, you tell me. I don't know.

Adam [01:16:45] No. Well, my first not. She was very, very good. I mean, just good personality. Just. I mean, she was very. Just didn't partake in anything. Like, I could just Alcohol, drugs, nothing. I mean, she was straight as an arrow. I mean, I felt like I couldn't even be in the same. I was wondering why she would like me because I didn't. I wasn't like a bad guy. But I mean, I. In college, I. I drank, you know, a handful of times. I wasn't bad or anything, but I did the typical thing. And in high school, I did the typical thing, you know, and I had my day, but I wasn't. But she was just so good. Like, to a T, like, very good. Not rebellious at all.

Ari [01:17:32] My parents would contend that they would. And I'm going to be honest with that, because even though I did. When you are controlled, your only recourse, and this is how narcissistic families work, is you either totally reflect back to them, what they're putting out there, what they want you to be, or you rebel and you're deemed a scapegoat. Or you are just kind of a gray rock and you kind of fly under the radar and learn how to hide things. But those characteristics are interchangeable and people within the system play them at different times. Okay? But every one of them, every one of us trying. You try to be the favorite child, everybody wants to be the favorite child and earn favor with their. With their family. And it's no different than the church you're trying to learn, earn favor with God. You're trying to mirror, reflect back those things. But it's an impossible thing if you want to differentiate, if you want to have a sense of self, it's impossible. And so even just the little things for me to try to have a sense of self and differentiate, that's what would cause a drop. And then I would be deemed a scapegoat. And then I would always try to climb my way back. I was never a very good gray rock because I always had a guilty conscience. So, like, I was always. I wanted to be transparent. I was always, like, wanted approval. And so I didn't hide things, as I always wanted approval.

John Dehlin [01:19:15] And so I guess I can imagine a scenario where a kid would act out in response to abuse and that maybe that's a reasonable. Yeah, especially for a young. A teenager. I guess if a teenager feels mistreated, they very, very well might be. Yeah. Be a difficult child. But in reaction to abuse.

Ari [01:19:39] Yeah, that's the thing. And the thing is, like, it's. Again, you have adults and you have children, okay. And so we have teenagers. And like, I need to be the adult in the situation, okay. So it's like Was I. I was very developmentally appropriate, if I want to say that.

John Dehlin [01:20:02] Yeah.

Ari [01:20:04] And so it goes back to blaming the child. It's. Children are going to rebel in very high demand situations or they're not. Like, you've really only get a couple of character characters out of that and then you can blame them all they want, but it's really just children wanting to differentiate.

John Dehlin [01:20:22] At the end of the day, abuse is abuse.

Guest [01:20:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:20:24] Right.

Ari [01:20:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:20:25] And it doesn't matter how a kid behaves, a parent should never be abusive.

Ari [01:20:29] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:20:30] The only other thing that comes across my mind is like, well, they must have thought Adam was just a horse, horrible human being. Like, let's just say my child wanted to marry someone really dangerous. Then I could see myself really opposing it. Right.

Ari [01:20:47] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:20:48] But the only. How long you guys been married now?

Ari [01:20:50] Like 20, almost 21 years.

John Dehlin [01:20:52] And just, just my sense of Adam right now is not a dangerous guy. Like a mild mannered, kind, kind of nice guy.

Ari [01:21:01] Yeah. I haven't met a single person who has said an ill word about him ever. Like, ever. I haven't.

Adam [01:21:07] I just hide it really well.

Ari [01:21:08] No, but he. I have not.

John Dehlin [01:21:11] So. So, so the idea that your parents were like terrified that you were marrying a monster, that.

Guest [01:21:17] No, no.

Ari [01:21:19] It was simply that he didn't serve a mission.

John Dehlin [01:21:21] Yeah, that was it.

Ari [01:21:22] That was.

John Dehlin [01:21:23] And mostly that it was. I would even say that it was breaking the appearance, the social appearance that your parents had perfectly raised the perfect Mormon children. Right.

Ari [01:21:35] I broke the mold early on. I broke the mold. Like, I didn't.

John Dehlin [01:21:42] Jen, you wanted to, I think, add something.

Guest [01:21:45] Well, no, I was just like, I was just gonna say that it seems

Ari [01:21:49] like,

Guest [01:21:52] yeah, Adam's not. Obviously, Adam's not bad. It's just, it seems to me that the appearance of it is what matters. And it seems to be whatever is going to serve that is what is going to happen or what they're going to try to make happen. I don't know if that makes sense.

Ari [01:22:15] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:22:17] Okay. Please don't. And I'm gonna get comments from viewers like, stop doubting your story. Stop. You know, But I'm trying to reflect the types of questions that people might think so that you have a chance to kind of address it.

Ari [01:22:28] I get a little worried because it's like, I don't want to jump ahead, but like, it gets worse. Like, it gets worse. Like this is just. It gets so much worse.

John Dehlin [01:22:38] Okay. Okay.

Ari [01:22:38] And so I don't want to say stay tuned and think, like, I don't know what to say. Like, it gets worse.

John Dehlin [01:22:44] Okay. All right, well, I'm so sorry. So where do we, like Jen says, where do we go from here?

The Wedding and Early Marriage

Ari [01:22:53] Well, we got married. That was the happy ending to a terrible, terrible thing. It happened. I stood. I mean, I remember this is again, my wedding day is probably one of the worst days of my life. I got ready. I dressed myself in my aunt's bathroom. Nobody helped me. I got myself dressed in my own hair inside my aunt's bathroom. And then I went and I sat down on the couch and we were going to be late. I told my dad, I said, we're going to be late. And he said, we'll go when we're ready. So I sat there, I sat there on the couch and waited. And I just did what I was supposed to do. But I don't want to jump back too much. But when I went through the temple, and this is part of just the Mormon stories, it's kind of when I went through the temple, it was not a good experience at all. It was to the. We went, when we got there in the parking lot. Well, that's, this is the wedding. Okay. But when I went through, when I went to the temple, you know, you, you make your, your covenants and things and the law of consecration, my, my mom was next to me. She stood up and she glared at me. She just glared at me. That was why she couldn't. She was making covenants and I was breaking covenants. My first time in the temple, I did not like that place at all. It did not feel safe to me. And I felt like again there was something wrong with me. I don't like this place. But when we got married, she felt

John Dehlin [01:24:57] like your marrying a non returned missionary was somehow violating her temple covenant with God.

Ari [01:25:04] I am merely in a narcissistic family system. You are merely a reflection of that person. And so by extension it's her. I am her. I'm not her daughter. I am her. And so there was no differentiation. If I wasn't doing what I was told, it was going to reflect badly on her. And so that's how that. So she couldn't, you know, and. Yeah, and so when I, when the day of our wedding and I was late, almost late, we just barely got there, walked out of the car and we saw his dad and he was wearing a blue shirt because those were our colors. He was wearing his blue dress shirt and, and my dad said. The only person who wears a colored shirt in the temple is Satan. Because I guess in the temple videos or temple, I never Seen a live one, but he said the only one. That's what he said on my wedding day walking into the temple and. Nice. No, nothing was said about I was getting married. Nothing did.

Guest [01:26:32] Did your mom say, like, you look beautiful. We're so proud for you for being here. Ari.

Ari [01:26:40] No. Oh, my heart is just breaking. Not once. That's hard. Not once. She was so concerned about my wedding dress. It was the middle of July. End of July. It was the end of. Sorry. I know our. I know our anniversary. I promise. It was the end of July and my mom wanted me to. She said my wedding dress. If I was going to wear my wedding dress in the temple, it needed to be all the way down to my wrist, all the way up to, you know, and it was the middle of July. I mean, I didn't want to. So I had a short sleeve dress. That was the one thing that I didn't have a single say in anything in my wedding. Not a single say. But I wanted a short sleeve wedding dress. That's it. So I fought for that. But the women in the temple actually commented about how modest my wedding dress was because I only just had to wear a jacket over it. Where other girls, they have to put, like inserts and things to make them, but they just had to put a jacket on mine. But my mom fought, you know, I. But that was the one thing I got, was my wedding dress was short sleeves. No. She never once said anything. Didn't help me do my hair. Even though she fought on my wedding picture day, she didn't offer I was a problem.

John Dehlin [01:28:16] I'm so sorry.

Ari [01:28:18] Yeah, I can't look at those pictures. I know where they are. I don't look at them.

Guest [01:28:27] It just seems so weird to me that her, like, getting married in the temple is a checkoff. You know what I mean? It's a check mark. It's not like in the LDS religion. Like, I'm just like. I don't know. I guess I'm just feeling like even in an lds, like, strict family would be. That would be like a celebration day, you know, it would be like a. We're so proud of you. Even though he didn't serve a mission, we're so proud that you're here at the temple making covenants together. And like, that would still be. Even if they disagreed with Adam earlier, they would still be ex. Celebrating that day, I guess, in some way with her. So it's kind of breaking my heart that it's like, still a problem or like. And then the comment about his Dad, I don't know. It's just. But the. The most thing that I'm sad for is just, I guess the missed opportunities to connect with her daughter on that day. No matter, because it's a special day. She's there at the temple. She answered all the questions. They both did. You know, it's.

Ari [01:29:50] We can. I don't have premarital sex.

Guest [01:29:52] Yeah.

Ari [01:29:53] We made it. We didn't do anything.

Guest [01:29:57] Yeah, that's hard. I'm sorry.

Ari [01:29:59] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:30:00] You say this is just the beginning, so we've got a lot to cover. No, it's beautiful. Tragic. And it's. It's beautiful that you're being so vulnerable and honest. It's tragic that that's the way your relationship started out.

Ari [01:30:14] Mm. Yeah. So. But the thing about. Do you have anything to say about that? The wedding day. How is it for you? Are you okay? Or do you wanna.

Adam [01:30:25] No, it was just looking back, it was. It's tainted and it was stressful. It wasn't fun. And my. My family, there was contention there, and there's always been. I was very content. Our wedding day was. There was contention, the whole thing.

John Dehlin [01:30:41] So your family between.

Adam [01:30:44] You could just feel the contention. There was there. There was no, like, warm feelings. My mom had it out on the phone with her mom because it came down to that. It was a couple weeks before we were getting married and there was some planning or something going on, and her mom was. I don't remember the context of it, but my mom, I just know walking into her room, she was screaming and yelling on the phone at her mom about something and just. It was like talking to a wall. Just. She wasn't. It was just very. So from that point on, it was just not. And any family gatherings we've had since then, they've been cordial, but it's just been. They were never warm to my family like they were to. As I would see other families come into their family, marriage wise, they were very more open and warm. Well, at least in public, they weren't to my family, so. I don't know.

John Dehlin [01:31:42] That's hard. Just a difference of treatment.

Ari [01:31:45] Yeah.

Adam [01:31:47] And.

John Dehlin [01:31:47] Well.

Adam [01:31:47] And I can see, I'm maybe thinking like you, the questions that people might ask. Her age wasn't a factor, and that's one of the things I asked her. I thought her parents would have a problem with that because she was younger and I had that deep conversations with them and her. Because that's one thing as a senior and dating a freshman, I thought I, you know, wanted to have that Conversation. And I did have in the back of my mind that because I had had problems with girls before about not serving a mission, I had a girl flat out tell me it was the picture on the wall, it was all that she says, my grandma going back generations had married returned missionaries. I can't marry you, so this can't go any further. And we had gone dating for half the year. My, My sophomore year of college or my other girl. This other girl. Yeah. And she just said, I can't. I've had that conversation with my grandparents and my mom and I can't go any further with you because you're not a returned missionary. So when we started date, I had that conversation with her and her and I. So I guess I was, I felt like we were on a good path because I felt like it wasn't going to be a problem. And then when it came to, it was a problem. So not the age, not the age,

Ari [01:33:02] but the mission that was never brought up. I was. And it's just like that's the number one red flag there. But they didn't say a word.

Adam [01:33:10] I think in their mind they wanted. They were doing missionary work to get me to go on a mission. And their end goal was to do

Ari [01:33:19] that and influence your generation.

Adam [01:33:21] And when I told them no, it was okay.

John Dehlin [01:33:26] So coordination or stuff.

Ari [01:33:27] Yeah, yeah, we were told that. I was told he would never be able to bless our children. And just because he didn't, you know, it just affects, you know, and all of these things. And it was basically a mixed faith marriage is what we were doing, which, you know, wasn't the case, but. Yeah, but we got married and things were okay. But the thing is, again, I always wanted to earn favor. Even with the abuse. I was going to prove to my parents and my siblings because I had younger ones. I knew that he was talked bad about, I knew I was talked bad about, but I was going to prove them wrong. That even though he didn't serve a mission, we were going to be that Mormon family that, you know, we could still do the thing. And so I spent the next 20 years trying to prove to my family that I wasn't what they said I was. You know, my sons were going to serve missions, we were going to go to church, we were going to do the thing. We were going to be that family. And this is where I have to say, say I did damage to my children trying to be her because you just want to earn a favor. It sucks being the scapegoat. It sucks. And I didn't embrace that. I wanted to be a good sister. I wanted to be a good daughter, I wanted to be a good mom, I wanted to be a good wife. I wanted to be what I was supposed to be. And so I did it. I did it and I have a lot of apologizing to do and I have, you know, and I molded him but he liked his hair long. Didn't change that. But I, I am not innocent in the mother I was. I'm not innocent because I did it too.

Building a Family and Navigating In-Law Dynamics

John Dehlin [01:35:54] Are you comfortable sharing how many kids you guys have ended up having?

Ari [01:35:57] Yes, it's fine. We have nine. We have nine children. I did nine biological children. Singlets. No twins. We have nine kids.

John Dehlin [01:36:11] Was part of that. Being the model size of a model Mormon family.

Ari [01:36:18] I must be multiplied and replenished the earth and I love my. Okay, go ahead.

Adam [01:36:24] No. Okay.

Ari [01:36:25] I'm sorry. I feel like I talk too much and he has such a good take on a lot of things. But like yes, I did and I was, I did graduate from college and I ran all four years. We didn't have, we actually, we didn't have kids right away and that was a problem a little bit. You know, because we were told that, you know, I was told that if I was going to get married then I needed to be ready to have children. But I couldn't because I had a scholarship. There is no way I could. So I. We were three years before we started having kids. But I grew up. That's another part is I, I grew up with that whole you need to have children early and often you, you know, my mom, you know, thankfully I didn't have problems with that because I knew my mom had thoughts on that, you know, early in the church. I know that there were some things said, I don't know when but that people were more valiant in the pre existence and so got more blessings. That is something that was taught earlier on and my mom said that she was more valiant in the pre existence and that's why she had so many children. Thankfully I had children and I didn't get slapped with the non valiant into the pre existence at least.

John Dehlin [01:37:56] So for your mom, quantity of children correlated with valiance, righteousness both in this life and in the previous life.

Ari [01:38:06] Yeah, yeah. She told me once about a dream she had because she had a friend who could not have children was barren and she said that she had a dream that her friend didn't wasn't as valiant in the pre existence and so I grew up with that and then she would say Things like point out people. Oh, there's being very. They're married, but they're not having children now. So they're being selfish because they're. They're putting off having children. You're not supposed to put off having children. But I had to. We had to put off having children. And then I started. I worked too. The first couple years of having kids, I taught school. And that was really hard for me because my place was in the home and I needed to have children. And so I did it. I did everything I could to be at home with my kids, even though we kept having them. And it's almost impossible to provide for a family on one income. So it was really hard.

Guest [01:39:28] I'm having a really hard time with this. I guess what I'm having a hard time is with a woman explaining or telling another woman or women in general.

Ari [01:40:04] That her value is based. Her value, not even on this earth, but her value from her heavenly Father in this context is based on

Guest [01:40:21] the number of children she has or if she even can have that

Ari [01:40:27] and. What that says or what that would

Guest [01:40:38] say to you and also to any other woman that is in your family

Ari [01:40:51] that maybe,

Guest [01:40:54] maybe possibly struggled with that or will in the future. So to say that, like to be so strict in the religion and then

Adam [01:41:07] also

Guest [01:41:10] she's saying that that comes from their heavenly father.

Ari [01:41:14] Like, that's.

Guest [01:41:18] That's hard.

Ari [01:41:19] That's hard that. It was hard to, you know, that I. I believed that that was my purpose and that. And I. And also there was no contention when I was having children. My mom loved me when I was having children. We had that bond that we didn't have before I was having children. And so I have to sit with that because it's one of those and moments, I guess, where I love each and every one of my children so much and could not even imagine a single one of them not being here. And I know that I did what I was told I did. And so it doesn't mean that having children was a bad choice. It was the choice that I made, and I'm so grateful for it. And I just. I have. But I also have to acknowledge it was my conditioning and that I really craved acceptance from my mom and I craved connection with her. And we connected in my childbearing years. We connected. So that's one of those things that I just have to. You know, I was molded and I was becoming her. I have almost as many children as her in the same girl to boy ratio. You know, I have a lot of brothers I have a lot of sons.

John Dehlin [01:43:08] So your mom had more kids than you did, and you had nine. Wow.

Ari [01:43:13] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:43:14] And so I'm just curious, Adam, how many kids, how many siblings did you have growing up?

Adam [01:43:21] I. I grew up with two. I was oldest of three.

John Dehlin [01:43:23] So this nine thing wasn't your idea?

Adam [01:43:25] No, no, no,

Guest [01:43:30] no.

Ari [01:43:31] It's okay. I'm fine. Like, I don't have anything to hide. I'm fine. I was becoming her. I was. I have to acknowledge that I was becoming it. I was doing what I was told, doing what I was supposed to do. I was reflecting. But in the church, it's just. You just. You do. You go and do. You go and do. And. And I did. And I didn't have any. I was doing it. So I guess I can't. You know, it's not a bad thing. It's what I did. And I was wanting to be that because that's. I earned favor with my mom of doing that. I earned favor with God for doing this. It was. It was what I did. So. Yeah.

Guest [01:44:33] How did they treat. Did they treat Adam any different during

Ari [01:44:36] those, like, years where you were having,

Guest [01:44:41] like, children and where you found favor? Did they allow Adam to have some favor during that time?

Ari [01:44:46] They've always been really good to Adam since we married to our faces. Okay. So.

Adam [01:44:52] Well, in that first couple years, they weren't really coming down. They didn't visit until we had our firstborn. Then they started to kind of come. I mean, we were always. We didn't live too far away our first couple years, but we weren't super close to them like we were during having children. Once we started having. We got. Yeah, we got.

Ari [01:45:15] That's what they do. It's what. From what I've read, it's when the daughter starts to have children. It's when they kind of make their way back in. And it was one of those things. And I often explain I was more of an adult at 18 than I was at 25 to 30, because I got back in that mother daughter role again. I assimilated back into child mode, and that's kind of how that happened. And I think they treated him okay. But they also, as far as blessings and things. Oh, my gosh. Like, those were so stressful, like, baby blessings and things, because he. It was put in my head that because he didn't serve a mission, he couldn't. He didn't know the verbiage. He didn't know how to say the blessings. And honestly, those days were our worst. We got in the Biggest fights. And you can attest to this right on baby blessing days because I was so scared of not looking the part.

John Dehlin [01:46:24] And that, that does fit the pattern a bit because the baby blessing is a public. Generally it's a public event. And so they would. I mean, it also makes sense that, like, once you got married, like, okay, well, they fought. They fought because you were messing up the appearance of the plan. So you had horrible fights up until the actual wedding day. Well, then the marriage. Marriage happens and it's like, okay, well, we did what we could to have the perfect appearance. Then they're treating you okay. But, but this idea of the baby blessings fits the pattern of kind of this real over obsession with public image.

Ari [01:47:06] Yeah. And it fits it for me because I wanted that image. I was not going to give them the satisfaction that they were right. Okay. So we. And so I think a couple times we try to rehearse it with him, you know, and that caused more stress for him. I was like, we got, you know, they can't. And I don't think I communicated it to him that they can't know.

Adam [01:47:42] I think he did. And I think it was always, it was always known that there was. I had to be more spiritual in that way to show them. And there was always that level of, we have to show them that, you know, that I'm good enough to. Or in the lds.

Ari [01:48:03] So he didn't like wearing white shirts. That was a problem. He didn't like wearing white shirts. And he would fight me on that a lot. Wear the white shirt. But there were a couple of times when my dad corrected him during the blessing. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:48:28] Oh, and again, the shirt. The shirt thing about Satan and. And the shirts, that's also an appearance. Yeah, that's an appearance thing. Yeah. And then your dad correcting.

Ari [01:48:38] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:48:39] The blessing is an appearance thing. So it's just a real fascination with appearance, which fits the description of a narcissistic pattern. You're saying something, Jen?

Guest [01:48:46] I was just saying I've never heard someone correct someone in a baby blessing.

Ari [01:48:50] Oh, no, you haven't, have you?

John Dehlin [01:48:52] Oh, wow.

Ari [01:48:53] Several times.

John Dehlin [01:48:56] I mean, unless you like. I mean, if you were to say like dear Satan at the beginning or something. But I mean, you start saying heavenly Father. Right. Like, it's hard to mess that up. I'm. I guess I was just saying, like, it's like the baby, but I'm trying to wonder why they were so stressed about. But even the baptismal thing, it's. You learn it like the first Week of your mission and then you kind of have it. So the fact that they didn't feel like he could kind of like figure that part out, I mean, I guess they were just worried about it. But I guess for those who don't know about the baptismal, it's like so and so having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen. Baptize them. Right.

Ari [01:49:35] And then the confirmation prayer has a little bit more of how you need to start out or. I don't know.

Guest [01:49:41] Yeah, I guess what I'm saying is like, even, like people have messed up, but no one's. I haven't heard someone correct them, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ari [01:49:52] He said it. He, he would whisper to him. Do you remember that?

Adam [01:49:57] The first couple, I mean, after the first couple, I guess we had a lot of practice.

Ari [01:50:01] If we only had three kids, it would be every time.

Adam [01:50:03] I think the most stressful one was the first, first blessing, which it would be anyway. Yeah, but just the level of that. Yeah, but there was always that in the back of our minds and always with her. Yeah. It had to be a certain way and a certain image. And I think that might be fair to say with any blessing as well. But it was again, that next level of stress because, I mean, of course my parents wanted it to look good as well, the parents. But it was not like the level of stress put on us. That had to be a certain way, in a certain image is the hyper concern.

Ari [01:50:41] I guess I'm just more saying that I was that way, that I had taken that on. I'm not trying to throw, because this is like, this is probably, you know, the. I was becoming that way and I was concerned about how my children looked, how my husband looked, if we look the part okay. So I was becoming that okay and stuff. And so that's more me throwing myself under the bus is what I'm doing. And I, you know, I was very, you know, guilty and shamey about, you know, we need to go to church, we need to do this. We need to look the part, we need to act the part. And I, you know, was just. And this is just, this is what people do. It's not, you know, and this is, you know, it's just all part of a high demand system is you are high demand. Religion is you go and you do and you, you just, you are molded to be them and you are earning favor. In other words, you're wanting to be that favorite child, you know, and and that's kind of.

John Dehlin [01:52:05] And what you're saying is you pass it on to your. You start passing it on, replicating the system.

Ari [01:52:10] Yes. The way it is. It just happens. It's by design.

John Dehlin [01:52:14] Yeah.

Guest [01:52:15] Yeah.

Ari [01:52:16] Well.

Guest [01:52:16] And you're saying, like, that was the years that you felt you had, like, the favoritism, like you were.

Ari [01:52:22] You were.

Guest [01:52:22] You're starting to feel like you were finally okay, you know, and doing what you're fitting the mold that she wanted you to fit.

Ari [01:52:31] And we were the favorite family, too. I had. I did it. I climbed the ladder. We were the favorite family.

John Dehlin [01:52:39] Oh, so you were succeeding in the hustle.

Ari [01:52:41] I did. They loved our family. They were over. We were over. I earned favor.

John Dehlin [01:52:49] So it's not all bad. It doesn't always feel bad. Sometimes it feels good.

Ari [01:52:53] Felt so good to be loved, you know, it does. It felt so good. You know, we went there and my kids loved it, and they miss it now, but I'm not trying to jump ahead, but they loved it. And it wasn't. You know, the thing is, if it was all bad, I wouldn't have stayed. You know, if the church is all bad, I wouldn't have stayed. You know, and that's something with narcissism is the love bombing. That's another term. It's just they can love as hard as they can hate. And they loved us and. And so much so that I forgot about the abuse for the most part, because I was.

Adam [01:53:45] I was favored when I forgot about the whole build up to our marriage because they were so good to. I mean, it was. They were. It was a very good relationship. Very. You know, they just so. I mean, I can't take away the good things they did for us, though. It was very. I mean, very good.

John Dehlin [01:54:03] That just would make it disorienting.

Ari [01:54:05] Yeah, it was very hard because I would have moments. Yeah. And I don't want to. I would have my moments when I would start to remember things. And my dad being a therapist, my only therapist, there were times I would call him and I would try to talk to him, and then he would like. I would have my moments for sure. And then. And I go quiet. But I was always redirected to look at all of the good things, look at all of the things we've done. We've always been so supportive of Adam. We've always loved your kids. But this happened. And I want to forgive you, but I want to acknowledge that this happened. And my dad would say things like he would be concerned about Adam, about. Well, we've told Adam we love him, we show him. And I was like, adam's okay, but I'm not okay. Are you not concerned about me? I'm not okay. But it was never addressed with me. Nothing that was done was ever addressed. Nothing. They just did not talk to me about it. It was always, look at what we're doing for you. And I would forgive. I forgive so much. And I still, you know, it's not even about that. You'll learn as you go. In my story. Story, it's narcissism. Isn't. The abuse wasn't the worst of it. It's. It wasn't. It just isn't.

John Dehlin [01:55:35] What do you mean?

Ari [01:55:37] Lies. I. They lie. And that's how my world just crashed down this past year. They lie. It's less about I can forgive being hit. I can forgive even being emotionally, you know, spiritually abused. But lying, you don't lie. And narcissists lie. I don't know how much I jump ahead.

Marriage, Faith Transition, and Growing Tensions

John Dehlin [01:56:15] Well, let's just follow the story. So you have nine. Nine kids and you're back top ranked. Is the favorite couple. And how does your story progress? Where do you. I mean, I'm sure that you could talk for days, but where do you want the story to go next?

Ari [01:56:32] Yeah, I don't want to talk.

John Dehlin [01:56:33] No, I'm just saying.

Ari [01:56:35] No, I don't want to. But it's really just. We lived. If you could compare Book of Morton stuff. We lived. You lived a good life with favor. Yeah, we did. Went to church. You know, we did have those. I mean, like couples do. You know, when I would try to mold him to be, he would, you know, we have our. A lot of our contention as a couple was probably church related, not doctrinal, but me just trying to be that and forcing the kids to go and forcing the kids to be this way. And Adam would say, you're going to make them not want to go.

John Dehlin [01:57:22] And I'm going to also guess that the way your parents viewed Adam from the start maybe colored how you viewed him over time, where you kind of felt like you had married someone lesser than you maybe should have.

Guest [01:57:38] It's true.

Ari [01:57:39] It's true. Like, it really, really is. You are given up. My parents gave me a lens to see and how it was playing out. How they said it would play out. It was playing out. Okay. So like they said, he, you know, that would. That if he wasn't as active. Not that he was very active actually, but because he wasn't like.

John Dehlin [01:58:11] Or him.

Ari [01:58:12] Yeah. Then he wasn't on the same page as I was. And so that would be difficult and I would have to string him along. That's actually true. That happened. And that's. But the thing is, it's not a bad thing, okay? As I, as my story, our story unfolds, that was actually a very good thing as it played out because I, having grown up in a family with two extremely devout people, there was no room to differentiate. But because I had him and he had differentiated, he had a sense of self and he wasn't about to be molded by me. Our kids didn't have that. They could. He would say, you know, don't be as hard on them. And so they had a buffer with him. And so what's bad was actually good and very healthy for our children to have that.

John Dehlin [01:59:27] So what's the next part of the story that you feel like is really

Ari [01:59:30] critical to the now? Fast forward to the part that gets hard. So. Well, a year ago I had. Well, it was actually January. No. Anyway, end of 2020, I had a younger brother who announced that he was getting a divorce. And I loved his wife. Loved, loved, loved her. She was so sweet to my children. She shared a birthday with one of my daughters. They danced in my kitchen. My children loved her because she was sweet. Not the over the top, but just good, you know. And they, throughout their marriage, they had some fertility problems. And I was aware of that. And from what I could understand, what I knew that they were just going through this stuff to be able to have children. And then suddenly there was a divorce and I got a phone call from my mom saying that this sister in law had a faith crisis, that she was no longer wearing her garments and that, you know, just all of those things that, you know, she was wearing things and just yoga clothes. And I knew that this sister, she actually worked for an athletic apparel company and had given us a lot of really cute things. And anyway, but it was communicated to me that she was going on the dark side, okay. And I remember saying to my mom, I said, well, this is not a time to shun her. This is a time to love her. Like, I just, I had developed in my thinking enough to where as the time went on that I did not feel right about that and that my brother, I mean, they ended up divorcing over her faith crisis. From what I was told, from what I was told in and that. And I don't know about her faith crisis, but I was just told that she just, it had to do with fertility and questioning her patriarchal Blessing that said that she would be able to bear children. And so that was one of. And I. We were told to not essentially block her because she was not okay. She was not an okay person. And I did not feel right about that.

John Dehlin [02:02:43] Can I ask a clarifying question? So from what I pieced together, it's possible that the sister in law was. Had been told in her patriarchal blessing that she would have kids, but they had fertility problems. And that caused her to. That maybe was part of an impetus to a faith crisis.

Ari [02:03:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:03:05] That then once she started having a faith crisis, then became a. So she's not having all the kids that the mother in law wants from her perspective that your mother. Her mother in law would have wanted. And now she's questioning her faith. And then, man, a divorce, that's. Talk about the wall of shame instead of the wall of glory. A temple marriage. Getting divorced for someone, for parents who value that wall of glory more than anything, that's. That's bad news for everyone involved.

Ari [02:03:36] Yes. And so I started.

John Dehlin [02:03:38] And then you're being made to demonize that sister in law and cut them off. Okay.

Ari [02:03:44] We were told to block her. We were told to block her phone number. We were told to unfriend her. We were told to all of those things. And I didn't do any of those things because I did not feel right about it. And I. That's when I started to question a lot of things, like why that doesn't. She's a good person. This is not okay. And so then I remember sitting across from Adam and I wasn't questioning church things, but I just didn't like that. And I asked him if I left the church, if he would leave me. And I don't. And he said no. It was like immediate. Do you remember that? And then he. I remember him being really uncomfortable and he asked me the same question back. And I had to think about it. Like, I was like, I don't know. And then because I was so indoctrinated that this was the way. The way to heaven, the way to eternal families. Yeah. So. But that's when I had to do some inward reflection a little bit. But we're jump. I'm sorry. We skipped over my sister. And that was my fault.

Adam [02:05:25] It's fine.

Ari [02:05:27] And I don't know how to do that because that happened before all of this.

John Dehlin [02:05:30] That's fine. Jump back.

Ari [02:05:31] Okay. Sorry.

John Dehlin [02:05:33] I mean, that's a story and that's an important one. We can go back to the chronology. That's fine.

A Sister's Struggles and Tragic Loss

Ari [02:05:38] Okay. In 2006, my older sister, she died by suicide. She was 27 months older than me. But she, this is another thing we were told. She came out, she came out to live with my parents one summer because she was, she was really struggling. She had three kids in three years and she was really struggling.

Adam [02:06:19] And

Ari [02:06:22] from what I was told, my parents went out there where she was, where she lived and brought her for a baby blessing. And her husband said that he didn't know what to do, that she was having such a hard time. And he asked for help from my parents. And so my mom brought my sister and her three kids back to their house. But suddenly there was a narrative that my brother in law was abusive. My mom told us that it was all his fault, that she was sad and that it wasn't postpartum depression. It wasn't the fact she had three kids in three years. It wasn't the fact that her oldest son was autistic. It was her husband was abusive. And that was what my mother told us. And she gave me eyes to see him. And I couldn't help my sister. That was not, you know, I tried, you know, I, she never told me anything about abuse. She never ever did. She never ever did. She was always asking me about her kids and parenting. I had, my two oldest were. I only had two kids at the time and they were same ages, but we talked about motherhood and she had a lot of questions. She was struggling with that aspect of life. But she went, she, she, eventually she killed herself. And I have learned since that a lot of the stories that my mom told were not true. And, and I have to, you know, that's a really hard part is, you know, I, you know, we were told that she had attempted suicide one time before. We were told that my mom had. Didn't tell my brother in law about it. And she said that they were going to take care of it and just pay the ambulance bill, pay the doctor bill and that they just paid it and that they were protecting my sister from him.

John Dehlin [02:09:06] So they were aware of a suicide attempt by your sister and they chose not to tell her husband?

Ari [02:09:14] Yeah, they didn't tell him because they, they blamed him. They, they were operating on the. We are protecting her from him. And it wasn't until this last summer when I connected with him. I, I'm, I'm the only one of my siblings who's had a relationship with him and my sister's kids. But we were just talking and he brought up how he found out. He said I had to Find out that my wife attempted suicide by getting a bill in the mail. And so that was not true. He got a bill in the mail after my sister died. And so yeah, but again, as the years went on, my mom still talks, she blames him and has blamed him publicly in many ways, essentially accusing him of murdering my sister. And it didn't, it's not even true. But

John Dehlin [02:10:29] so yeah, that fits that, that trait of having to have someone to blame.

Ari [02:10:36] Yeah, it does. Where if my sister was had postpartum depression or was having a difficult time being a mother, again, that's the, we are merely extensions of her. So if my sister was broken, that meant my mom was broken and my mom was not broken, my sister was broken, that meant the system was broken. Our family was not broken. Only an outsider could be broken. And so that's how that worked out. And it's so hard because I mean, my sister went for help and she got the opposite and she died. And this is not to blame anybody, but I was there a year ago and so I know what she felt like. And so you go to the people you think are gonna help you and they don't help you, they kill you.

John Dehlin [02:11:48] So

Ari [02:11:50] now fast forward to a year ago. I, I started to have some questions with regard to why we needed to block this sister in law. I didn't. And so I started to just kind of. I'm so sorry, I jumped way forward.

John Dehlin [02:12:16] Can I just summarize one thing?

Ari [02:12:17] Yes, please.

John Dehlin [02:12:17] Again, again, your brother in law continues to fit the pattern of a scapegoat. But also as in the death by suicide is clearly a failure of the glory wall, a failure of the perfect Mormon family. Here you start it by marrying a non returned missionary, your brother is not able to have kids and then gets divorced. Oh, and that's out of order because then previous to that, your sister dies by suicide. Like it's just all, it's all instances of the perfect Mormon family perception being violated.

Ari [02:13:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:13:05] And that's when all the drama comes and that's when all the pain follows. And it's, it's the price that's paid for an obsession with appearance.

Ari [02:13:17] Exactly. That's exactly what it is. Yeah. So you can't control everybody, you can't control the narrative as much as you want to, you just can't. And that's what they are, that's what they do.

John Dehlin [02:13:33] And there's this idea with Buddhism. Buddhism starts with the idea that life is suffering. And it's not that life is only suffering, it's that Suffering is inextricably connected to life. That's the reality. And attachment is, is wanting reality to be something other than it is. And that's the definition of suffering. Suffering is wanting life to be any other way than it really is. And so if the, the desire to create this perfect family, it's just a recipe for suffering for the parents, for all the kids, for all the in laws, all the grandchildren, it's just like pure suffering. And I've seen this in my extended family where some of the most miserable people aren't the ones who lose their faith in the church or even leave the church. It's the ones who stayed in the church, were super devoted in the church. And then the more perfect Mormon dream doesn't work out. And so that that facade fractures. People are set up for failure and disappointment and the attachment associated with striving for the perfect Mormon dream just creates suffering for everyone.

Ari [02:14:52] Yeah, Yeah.

Guest [02:14:54] I think my heart right now is, I don't know, I talk about my heart a lot but just like,

Ari [02:15:05] I'm

Guest [02:15:05] just thinking of like you, you guys, your sister's husband,

Ari [02:15:14] your brother's wife, ex

Guest [02:15:17] wife

Ari [02:15:20] and

Guest [02:15:24] like we're taught to like grieve with those that grieve and like what's the saying?

John Dehlin [02:15:35] Mourn with those who mourn.

Guest [02:15:36] Thank you.

Ari [02:15:36] Mourn with those that mourn.

Guest [02:15:37] And we're taught all these lessons growing

Ari [02:15:40] up in the LDS faith of like embracing people and loving people. And I'm thinking of the scapegoats within

Guest [02:15:51] this family and how like even your brother in law losing his wife and

Ari [02:16:04] then having that on top of it,

Guest [02:16:06] like having that scapegoat on top of it.

Ari [02:16:08] And then I'm thinking of your sister in law and. How devastating because I know how just I felt during my faith crisis alone and having that shattering feeling and then having on top of it.

Guest [02:16:38] Like not being able to have children and then having on top of that

Ari [02:16:44] a husband that says you're not enough and leaving and instead of being embraced and loved.

Guest [02:17:00] And even worthy of trying. I don't know, I, I guess I'm

Ari [02:17:09] like my heart is a little bit going to those people and you that

Guest [02:17:16] were the,

Ari [02:17:19] where the scapegoats were the,

Guest [02:17:21] you know, when they're hurting then have a smear campaign on top of it

Ari [02:17:27] and maybe what their stories are. So I'm glad I get to hear

Guest [02:17:32] yours today because I'm sure that they have a story too that is

Ari [02:17:40] really hard. And even though it's hard, I'm glad

Guest [02:17:45] that you're here telling it, because I

Ari [02:17:48] think it's really important for

Guest [02:17:53] people who

Ari [02:17:53] need to connect with that and kind of hear that.

Guest [02:17:56] So thank you for being here and

Ari [02:17:58] telling this, even though it's hard. Thank you. It's. Yeah, it was, it was really, you know, just really hard to. All of that was, you know, but the thing is, yeah, I, I, and I went through that and that's in. The thing is, and I will talk about that in a second, but I want to touch on to. Just like my mom told me things about my brother in law, she reinforced it. And just like when you had, and I had questions, I had questions. A lot of things didn't make sense. And with my sister in law, a lot of things didn't make sense and I would ask questions, but I was never allowed to have my own thoughts. It was always redirected to her. And it's just like the church, you have questions but you're always redirected to the source. Redirected to church talks. Whatever the church says is. Whatever my mom said was. And so I am not innocent in a. The, the killing of my sister, the suicide. Suicide of my sister because I believed my mom and I believed. And I'm not innocent in even part of the smear campaign against my brother in law because I had no real reason to not believe my mother. I didn't. Why would my mom lie to me? And so I assisted in that smear campaign. I assisted in it. And those are called in narcissistic families, flying monkeys is what they're called. They only exist to serve the source. And I was a flying monkey. I was. Return and report. What can you find out? Return and report. And I was actually, I was good friends with my brother in law's wife when he got married. And I was the only one who was close to my sibling, to my sister's kids. And, and even though I tried, I still had her eyes on, if that makes sense. And so I was never safe for them, but I didn't know it. And I was always trying to redirect them to my family. Just like the church. You're like, we're good, we're good people. And I was always trying to redirect my children, my nieces and nephews and say, we're good, come on, we're good. Look at all the good things. We're good people, don't be afraid of us. But the thing is they knew. They knew they were caught by a parachute. They were caught by. They were at this point already outsiders, aunts and uncles Already outsiders who had caught my brother in law and wrapped them up and said, okay, this is a thing. Let me tell you what's going on here. It's kind of like the ex Mormon group, there's my ex family group who catches those outsiders. And I was an insider, I was, I tried to toe the line. I was nuanced in my family. I was like, we can have it all. I can, you know, we can be one big happy family. And eventually I was kicked out. Eventually it happened. So you can't have it both ways in a family like that.

John Dehlin [02:21:33] I think it's really special that you're acknowledging that you played a part. Like I, I've, I've been a witness to these dynamics and oftentimes the kids involved are victims in a sense because there are going to be some who really try and hustle and play the game and they're going to be more successful and there's going to be others that just don't want to play the game or they try and they fail. And then, and it's easy for those who don't try to play the game or who fail to have resentment for the ones who are successful. And it divides, it divides the family members in really, really dark, toxic ways. And it's easy to hate the one that's succeeding because you kind of, you kind of blame them for being the goody goody or being two faced or being, you know, being a suck up or whatever it is. But the truth is everybody's suffering. Even the person, well nobody's safe. And even the person that's perceived as winning the favor is probably losing.

Ari [02:22:46] Yeah, you're never safe in these systems. You're it. Only for me it took days, maybe, maybe a week. I don't know before I was, I felt from fell from grace. It was just like it happened so fast. And you know, if we hop back into the timeline of, with my, you know, my first, the first divorce that kind of, you know, I started to deconstruct just a little bit. I started to wonder if certain things and this was in pandemic, we weren't going to church anyway. But I started to see shoulders and I was like, why is it so? Why can't we show our shoulders? Like it was so silly and I started to just kind of. Adam was privy to a lot of these rants of mine like I can't show my shoulders, why can't I? He'd always say, but you can. I'm like, no, I can't here the nuanced husband is like, but you can. Like, no, but I can't. I can't. You don't. I can't. They'll know. They will know if. If I don't wear my garments, they will know I'm asking questions. They will know. And. And that. So that was. You know, I was starting to just kind of peel away some layers a little bit here and there. But I wasn't questioning doctrine. I was just questioning like, why are we doing this? Why are we divorcing people? Because they don't believe the same as we do. Why are we doing. Why can't we. Why can't we do these little things? They don't matter. These things don't matter. If there's a loving God, why does he care about that so much? Like I said, that was really the only thing that I had on my shelf as I knew it. And I didn't even know what to call it. But then a couple months later, another brother announced a divorce. And he'd only been married to his wife a year.

Family Fallout, Divorce, and Estrangement

John Dehlin [02:24:54] This is a new one.

Ari [02:24:55] A new one, A new brother. And at this point, I was like, holy moly. Like, even though I really didn't get involved in that other one, it mentally and spiritually and everything, it threw me for a loop. Okay. And so I was like, I'm just gonna say I'm so sorry to my brother and say, I'm so sorry. That must be so hard. And I did. In the family group text. He did it in family, announced his divorce in the family group text and sorry, my tongue is like a million times bigger than a normal tongue should be. But I. But I texted him that. And then I just remember, you know, see, now I am his only older sister. Our other sister is not with us, and I have had to assume that role of older sister. And that's been really hard for me because that's just been really hard for me. But I. I had this thought, you know, I went for a run and I thought, you're his older sister. You need to listen to him. And so I texted him and I said, if you need me to listen to you, I'll listen to you. If we need to talk, I'm here. And so we did. And he told me just about a very difficult marriage. I felt like he was very honest in telling me things. He told me about specific things that I don't. I'm not going to go into because that was not my marriage. But he told me about some things and he admitted to some things that he had done. But as I listened to him and I hear I didn't say anything other than that seems very hard. I had this thought and now I can't explain where it comes from, what it was, but I had this thought, there's more to the story that you need to be opened up to. And whatever it was, it was. And I, I remember Adam was there because we were at a park and I. He asked me how it went, the conversation. I said, I think there's more to the story. And. But the thing is, I had no intentions of finding the more to the story. Like it was none of my business and it was just kind of one of these things like that was strange. And so like an hour or so later I get a text from my sister in law, this one, you know, with this particular brother. And she almost verbatim those words were, would you be open to hearing my story? And I didn't even have her name in my phone. This is how we weren't close. She stayed at my house a couple of times, but we were so far apart in age and they had only been married a year that I. I didn't have her name in my phone and I had to scroll up to the top to see who it was because I had another text message from her. And it was just the date said, you know, she had thanked me for letting me stay, letting her stay at my home. And then I thought, okay, that's her. I know who this is. And I. So that just to give context, I wasn't involved in their life. And I had to say yes. I had to say yes because however it worked, I had to say yes. And so I did. And I ended up talking to her a few days later. And again, I just listened to her. And it was just that. More to the story and the thing, the difference between the two conversations was she was very honest in the part she played in the marriage where my brother was more blamey about her. And anyway, there was more to the story and there was abuse in this marriage and I just listened and I was so sad for the two of them. I loved them both. And I just remember being so sad for my brother while I was listening here. And then my. And then at the end of the conversation, she. She asked me a question that I was not prepared to answer. She said she asked me if my dad was abusive. And I was. I knew at that moment that it was. I was. I had to either acknowledge her or make her feel crazy. I had to, I had to acknowledge the abuse in My. That I endured as a child and I never had before to a person of consequence. All I said was, no, but my mom was very hard. That's all I said. And I knew, like, at that second, I could feel the universe shift. However that worked, it's like, this is going to change everything. I said it out loud and I didn't know what to do. It's almost like when you grow up in that type of a system, there is fear. So much fear. I kind of explain it as the very air you breathe has ears. I was afraid that my mom would find out that I said it out loud. And I also knew that I needed to act. That once I said it, I needed to act. I needed to help. And so I drove down that very night. I drove to the town my parents live in and I. And I. It was like at 4am I got him up in the morning and I said, I have to go. I have to help. We're hurting people. This has to stop. And I didn't want anybody else to get hurt. And so I drove down and I met my dad at a trail and I said, I just need to walk and I need to talk with you and I need you to listen. This was not the first time I opened up to my dad about abuse, but this was the time I was going to make him listen. And so I. I told him what I had heard and that I was so sad. And I wanted to help. And I loved my brothers and I just wanted us to. We needed help. We needed to fix this. And then I opened up about the abuse and things that my mom did, just, you know, very little. And I was so scared. But he acknowledged it. He acknowledged that things were hard and he just, you know. But then he blamed himself and he said it was because he wasn't a good enough provider. And he said that my mom had lived a stressful life because he didn't make enough money and all of those things. And I just said, you know, and I tried anyway. I just. It was such a. That conversation was, you know. But then he reassured me. He said, you need to forgive your mom and you need to look at all of the good things she's doing. And I'll take care of it. I'll take care of your brothers. I'll take care of it. And so again, I thought I did my part, I did my part and I left very. Things are going to be okay. Our family's going to get better. And I was so happy.

Guest [02:33:39] But

Ari [02:33:42] it didn't take but a few Days for it to all start to crumble. I say I went for help, and I left the target on my back. So sorry. It's kind of hard to talk about, you know, So I. I just remember, you know, I was just kind of going about my day. It was Mother's Day, Remember? It was Mother's Day last year. I mean, I'm a writer. I wrote a Mother's Day article, and it was just so funny. Funny article and stuff. And it came, and it was just, I don't like Mother's Day and whatever. And I remember a lady messaging me, and actually, it kind of triggered her a little bit. And she said that she had an abusive mother. And I didn't talk about that, but again, I opened up to this lady. I said, I know. I said, I get to a second person of consequence. And my story was getting louder, and I was starting to see life the way it really was. So that Mother's Day, I. We didn't go to church, But I knew I was having a really hard time because I didn't want to acknowledge her, my mom. I just was having a hard day. And my dad texted me and he said, why don't. But I did. I did end up texting my mom, happy Mother's Day. And I actually got on the family zoom call, and I said, happy Mother's Day. And it was really hard for me, but my dad texted me and said, why don't you acknowledge your mother on Mother's Day? And I was like, what? You know that I'm having a hard time. I didn't say that. I didn't talk back to him. I. I ended up texting my mom again. Another happy Mother's Day. Because I was like, I. I need to do this. I need to earn favor back. So I did three acknowledgments that day, and then I. The next day. But I felt like, what happened? Why. Why am I getting called out? And I remember calling my sister and saying, what did you do for Mother's Day? Did you do something? And she said, no. I just said, happy Mother's Day. And then I broke down and I told her what happened. I thought she was safe. I told her what happened. I was just this, you know, I. You know, and. And told her about, you know, what I had learned with my brother and our brother. And then it was after that when things started to just come at me. I had brother. They were blocking me. They were telling people not to listen to me, that I was. I was attacking my parents. I was saying, Things. I was spreading lies. I was doing all of these things that I wasn't doing. I hadn't done anything. But suddenly I was on the block her. Block her. Don't talk to her. She is not safe. Don't talk to her. She's saying things. And I didn't know what to do. And so there was actually, you know, a Facebook message that was put out where my mom says something about circling the wagons. It's one of those Mormon things. You circle the wagons. And she equated it to, we needed to support my brothers. They were under attack, and we needed to circle the wagons. And that's like Mormon pioneer stuff. Like when the Native Americans, they would circle the wagons to defend from army, from enemy people. And it was telling me that I needed to be one of them, that I was not supporting my brothers. So the smear campaign was happening. It was in full force, and I didn't know what to do. That was really a dark, dark time for me because, like my older sister, I went to my dad for help, and I left with the opposite. I. And I. It got really dark because I had nowhere to go. I had nowhere. All of my. I mean, they call it poisoning the well as another night narcissistic term is where they make. They exhaust all your lifelines. I didn't have my dad. I didn't have my mom. I didn't have my siblings. I had nowhere to go. But then I ended up. He was out of town, and I was dark. It was dark. I was where my sister was. I remember walking with my baby down the street, and I just wanted the road to end because I had nowhere to go. And it was all my fault. I did this. It was all because I. But I knew. I didn't lie. But I couldn't fix it. I said too much. I couldn't fix it. And so. But I went to an aunt that lived nearby. I felt like for some reason she would be safe. I didn't know she was an outsider, too. She was like, you know, I started to look to the outsiders, the other discarded family members that I was estranged from. I'm one of them now. And then I learned about a lot of lies. My older brother, who's been out for a long time, also discarded. But I didn't. I didn't like him because I was bred. I was. I couldn't like him. And I. You know, and there were a lot of things. We were told that he had stolen money, that he had done a lot of things, and none of it was True. And as I started to deconstruct my family, you know, I was in this world of what is true. My whole life was a lie. The people that I hated, I hated for no reason. And I was being hated for no reason, you know, and so it was as simple as, if they can lie, I can show my shoulders if they can lie. You know, it was just all of those things that was it. I was like, I am not them. And it was, I don't want to go to their heaven. That was it. They are temple going people hold high callings. But I did not want to go to their heaven. And so I started to step back and I was having that faith crisis of just, I don't want to go to church. It wasn't that I didn't believe in it. It was like, I don't need to follow your rules. I can show my shoulders. And isn't that silly? You know, But I remember. So Adam ended up saying something to his mom about that I was having a faith crisis. And she asked if it was about church history. And I wasn't. It wasn't about church history. And that topic seemed to just keep coming up. She brought up, she's like, did she read the CES letter? And I was like, I didn't. This is how. I didn't even know what CES stood for, let alone what the CES letter was. And because I was so indoctrinated, I was not going to read that thing. Like, I was. It was church approved. Church approved is all I would read. And then a friend of mine, like, I, he. He's an author. He wrote the book. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. Stronger Than the Dark. His name's Corey Reese. He's an ultra runner, and he talks about his faith crisis. And I read that book as just kind of my only outside. It was my rebellious. I'm gonna like, because I knew that book was there and I knew he had left the church. But I put it on that do not read list because it was faith shaking. But I read that book and it resonated with me a lot. And then so he said, he started with the essays. That's all he said. And here's an interesting story about this man was when I. When he announced that he was leading the church, I messaged him. I told him to read the Book of Mormon again. I did. I did. And I chastised him. I was like, you know, what's wrong with you? Why would you leave this thing? And so I end up apologizing to him and everything. But I read the essays, and this time without the apologetic mind, because I had read some, and I was, like, you know, very apologetic myself. But I read them without the apologetic mind, and I read them all. And I got to the Book of Abraham, and we were in the. We were driving, and I just remember feeling like I was falling into the bottom of the car. Like, I was like, this is not okay. This is not true. This is not true. You can't change words. You can't say, translation means one thing and it doesn't mean another thing. And. And you can't. Like, this is not okay. I was not taught this again. I felt. I started to feel betrayed. Like, they lied. This is a lie. This is not what I was taught. And then I gave myself permission to read the CES letter, and I read it, and one day I ingested the whole thing, and I. It was. That was the end for me. And as I read that, I, you know, I saw Jeremy Runnels as a person like me who went to a family member with questions and was essentially excommunicated for asking questions and speaking out. And I saw myself in that. And the whole. There is even a branch in the church that talks about that, how there's a branch, kind of a smear campaign where they can dig up dirt about people. And it happened to him, and it happened to my family. I was excommunicated from my family for speaking out against abuse and asking questions, and he was excommunicated from the church for doing the same thing. And so I was reading my life story as I was reading that, and that's when I started to learn more, and I started to see that the Mormon Church was a cult, and my family was a cult within that cult. And that's kind of where I started to make a lot of connections and started to just learn and unlearn.

John Dehlin [02:46:33] So, yeah, I was gonna. I was gonna ask about that. Whether, to what extent. I mean, with the, you know, not allowed to criticize your mom or the church, and then when you do criticize, you kind of break the unpardonable rule, and then everybody gossiping, everybody making up stories and judging you unfairly and then ultimately kicking you out. There's some parallels there.

Ari [02:47:10] Yeah, a lot of parallels were there. And. And the thing is, as I learned, read about Joseph Smith, and I learned about the beginnings of the church, and I learned about him, I started reading no man knows My History. I'm still not done with it. I don't have a lot of time, but I got through a lot of it. But I started to learn about this thing and I'm in therapy, Adam. Thankfully, Adam got me in because as a daughter of a therapist I was terrified to seek my any help. We were conditioned to believe that only people who didn't. My dad said that anyone who. A woman who doesn't have a. A woman who doesn't have a supportive husband needs therapy. And so, and that he was supposed to be my therapist and he couldn't be my therapist so he, I wore him down. So he finally got me into therapy. He had to make the appointment because I was terrified. But I. This therapist, she was hearing my story and she told me I needed to look up narcissistic families. And so, and I was extremely hesitant. I did not like the word narcissism. It was used. My mom called my brother in law a narcissist. And in my mind I knew that my mom was very similar to what she was saying this brother in law was. But I wasn't ready to admit it. I would say it a couple times to Adam, but I rejected labels and I was taught to reject labels too. I was taught my dad didn't even like the word depression. My mom didn't like the word depression. We didn't call anything that. And so for a therapist to tell me that I needed to research narcissism and narcissistic families, it took me a long time because I was like, I know what I'm experiencing, but I'm not going to name it anything. But as it started to get worse and as you know, the smear campaign thickened, I said I need to learn, I need to learn what this is so I can better defend myself. So yeah, I started to learn about Joseph Smith and just the things that the grandiose sense, the sense of self, the you know, the huge, you know, bigger than life Persona. But you know, and he's a martyr, he died a martyr, you know, those types of things. And that is something key in narcissism is martyrdom is there either the victim or the hero, you know, they're never the villain in the story. And so

John Dehlin [02:50:29] I just have to say like I kind of want to. This may be off putting or offensive to believers, but I kind of want to read the list of narcissistic traits again with Joseph Smith in mind and just see if any of them check out based on what we know about them. I'll go quick. An exaggerated sense of self importance, sense of entitlement, and require constant excessive admiration. I'm thinking of his time in Nauvoo where he's mayor and chief judge and prophet and head of the legion. The songs we sing to him. Expect to be recognized as superior, even without achievements that warrant it. I mean, if the stuff he said were true, it was warranted. The question was, is the stuff he said true? Exaggerate achievements and talents. I mean, that's the first vision, right? That's all of the scriptures he claimed to quote, translate. Be preoccupied with fantasies about success, power, brilliance, beauty. Believe they are superior and can only associate with equally special people, monopolize conversations and belittle or look down on people as they perceive inferior. I mean, the whole church was set up as the one true church in God's chosen people, which leaves everybody else as inferior, superior people. Everyone else is inferior. I mean, that's how I grew up. Mormons are better than everybody else. That's how I think a narcissistic family system operates.

Ari [02:52:10] That's how that works. Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:52:12] Take advantage of others to give what they want. Martin Harris, first witnesses, like long list of people have an inability or unwillingness to recognize the needs and feelings of other others. There's a question about, you know, was there proper concern for the people that were getting hurt? Be envious of others and believe others envy them. Be being arrogant or haughty, conceited, boastful, pretentious. Insist on having the best of everything and then becoming angry when you don't get special treatment. Having interpersonal problems, feeling slighted, reacting with anger, difficulty regulating emotion. Insecurity, secret insecurity. Okay, well, I mean, I don't know enough about Joseph Smith, but. But it is a common question to ask whether he would meet criteria for narcissistic personality disorder. Yeah, I'm not going to diagnose him. Yeah, I wouldn't either, and you wouldn't either. But, you know, people can now kind of have those in mind to think about it.

Parallels Between Family Dysfunction and Church Structure

Ari [02:53:21] Yeah, and I'm not even here to diagnose my mom. It's more just looking at the system and how it worked and how it functioned and how the church also functions on that same premise. On that same, you know, you have. Within the organization itself, okay, you have a prophet who is the seer. Okay. And if you. We hear the word seer, but we don't realize it's see. Er, Seer is seer. A prophet is the one who sees for everybody else. And you're only. You see through the prophet's eyes.

Guest [02:54:01] Okay.

Ari [02:54:01] And then you have. You have your, you know, kind of your enablers, the apologists, you know, all those things. You have the favorite child. You have those. The really, really faithful, faithful members. And then, you know, you have those, you know, who just kind of require kind of the nuance. And then you have the ones who are like, wait a second, you know, I got some questions here. You know, and those end up being your scapegoats. And that isn't even. That's embedded in the Mormon doctrine, in just the Book of Mormon itself. Okay. You think of Nephi, Lehi. That family is a narcissistic family. You've got Lehi, who is the family seer. You've got Sariah, who is the enabling wife, who just goes along, you know, and then you've got Nephi, who's the favorite child. I will go and do. You've got Sam, who's just kind of there, the gray rock. And you've got Laman and Lambuel, who are the scapegoats. And whether you believe the Book of Mormon is true or not, that is the family model. You can say that, you know, that family is the first family of the Book of Mormonism. That is a dysfunctional family. That is not the way families should be.

John Dehlin [02:55:41] And Nephi is like, I being great in stature, having. Being favored of my fair and fair parents from my young years. Like, he's. He's kind of shown some narcissistic traits, right?

Ari [02:55:51] Yeah.

Adam [02:55:51] As well.

John Dehlin [02:55:52] Carrying, maybe. Carrying on.

Ari [02:55:54] Yeah. So, yeah. But the thing is, when. When somebody leaves the church, it's par for the course. It's like you're layman, you're Lemuel, we know this story, you know, and so it doesn't. It doesn't ruffle. A lot of these true believers are like, well, you're just. You're just doing that. But that is not healthy in the family system. You need to allow for differentiation people, you know, you need to allow people to be individuals and, you know. Yeah, it's hard. There's so much. My mind is. Is going so many different places.

John Dehlin [02:56:37] Well, I mean, those who know, those who have tried to piece together how the Book of Mormon was created, will know that one of the main sources of the Book of Mormon story is Joseph Smith's own personal family biography.

Ari [02:56:54] Exactly.

John Dehlin [02:56:55] And so it's not just that Lehi's family fits the model of a narcissistic family. It's that Lehi's family was modeled after Joseph Smith's. It's basically Joseph Smith's biography.

Ari [02:57:07] Exactly.

John Dehlin [02:57:07] It's Joseph Smith's family. And so it starts with Joseph Smith's family, probably starts with his parents. He becomes the favored son. He replicates that into the Book of Mormon, but then he replicates it into a church structure that then we all. We all become victims of, because then not only does the church replicate the narcissistic family system, but then that becomes the model of interpersonal relationships for individual families across multiple generations.

Ari [02:57:41] Right? It does. And it's the abuse cycle. It's not the. Is the pride cycle. It's the abuse cycle. And, and it's just. Yeah. And as I read little bit of no Man Knows My History, I started to. Things started to make sense. And, you know, that he did project his own family into that story. And he took the whole. It's as I see it, a fan fiction of different, you know, you have this from the Book of Hebrews. He brought that in. And then you have just the whole. The times, you know, the speculation, you know, speculative things from the times and what they thought, Native Americans, how they came here and all of those Mountain builder myth. The mountain builder myth and all of those things. And the thing about narcissists is they are high, high, high on speculative thought. So much on drawing conclusions based on a limited amount of information. And it always serves to fit their. Mold their own narrative. It always, you know, it always, you know, you say this happened and this happened, so this must have happened. You know, I, you know, as an example with my. Our son, oldest son who didn't serve was, you know, I was trying to. I didn't want my parents to tell my young, My sons that they needed to serve mission. So I set kind of a boundary there. When A while back. But there was like a conversation where I, I told my dad that he was not to push my son to go on a mission. And in another conversation, we talked about how we spent a lot on club soccer. He drew those two. He's mushed those together. And we weren't going to let him go on a mission because we spent too much on club soccer. So it's just like they're high on speculative thoughts. They're high on drawing conclusions to fit their narrative. I hope that makes sense. But that's just a common theme, and that's what, you know, Joseph Smith was very speculative in what he perceived, you know, they all were at the time. Oh, and then he put that all into the story and stuff.

John Dehlin [03:00:10] I'm thinking about the LDS discussion series that we've been doing and how Mike noted how bold it was for Joseph Smith to write himself into the Book of Mormon, where he's like, and behold, there shall be a seer who shall come forth, and he'll share the name of his own father, and he shall be called Joseph, whatever it is. Right. I mean, that takes a lot. I mean, unless it's true, that takes a lot of. You have to think a lot of yourself to. You're going to not only make up scripture, but you're going to write yourself into the scripture prophesy about yourself posthumously. And then I'm also thinking of the quote that was mentioned, I think, in our episode last week with the Growing up in Polygamy, where Joseph Smith says, even Jesus couldn't do it. I did. You know, even Jesus couldn't keep a church together, but I did.

Guest [03:01:03] It's in the church history book.

John Dehlin [03:01:06] Yeah, yeah.

Guest [03:01:07] He says, yeah, it's like Jesus couldn't even do it, but I did.

John Dehlin [03:01:11] Yeah.

Guest [03:01:12] Yeah.

Ari [03:01:13] That's a hard.

Guest [03:01:14] That's a hard one. Yeah. To look past.

Ari [03:01:16] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's. It's just, you know, and I. Sorry. Sometimes people don't tell you how hard it is to talk in podcasts and not get tired.

John Dehlin [03:01:31] Are you tired?

Ari [03:01:32] Not getting tired of hearing yourself talk and getting tired. They don't warn you ahead of time

John Dehlin [03:01:37] that this is exhausting. You exhausted, Jen?

Guest [03:01:43] No, but I want to hear Ari's story so bad.

John Dehlin [03:01:49] So you have this big faith crisis that's just going to be another shoe to drop for you. I mean, not only now have you criticized your mom and been flagged as dangerous, and now the. Now all your siblings are attacking you and siding with her, and you're the enemy. Now you're going to lose your faith crisis. Sorry. Now you're going to have a faith crisis and lose your faith.

Ari [03:02:14] It happened all in the same time. It was all at the same time. Just. I lost my faith and my family at the same exact time. I lost everything. I just. And it was so hard because the thing is, it needed to happen in this order. It really did. As awful as it was, there was no way I was going to leave the church ever. Like, I was trying to earn favor, even though I had some questions, I was in it. But because I lost my family, it gave me permission to ask questions about other things because I didn't have them hanging over my head. I didn't have that. I knew I was gone. I was dead to them. I was done. They were done with me. And so I needed it to happen. In that order. And it did. And thankfully I knew because I had asked Adam if he would leave me. I knew I wouldn't lose him. I knew I still had my husband and that part was going to be okay, you know? But I remember, I don't think I did it right. I just did it. But I said, it's not true. I was as bold to say, this is not true. It's not true to my kids, even.

John Dehlin [03:03:56] What's not true?

Ari [03:03:57] The church, they knew they were there for the whole family stuff. And it was really hard on us. And I wish I could have hidden it from them, but it was so detrimental that there was no hiding from my kids, that mom is not okay and we are not seeing the family anymore. And, yeah, that was hard.

John Dehlin [03:04:19] You cut yourself off.

Ari [03:04:20] I cut myself off from my family, yes and no. The thing. What happened was. And it's hard. There's so many little parts to my story. So essentially, when I. When I started to learn things that were not true, what my mom had said, I confronted her. And then she lied to me about things I never did. And that's when I knew this was bigger than me.

Gaslighting, Smear Campaigns, and Being Cut Off

John Dehlin [03:04:55] Is gaslighting a term that's appropriate here?

Ari [03:04:58] Yes, it's very much. And gaslighting is another one of those terms that's thrown around a lot.

John Dehlin [03:05:02] You said lying. I mean, you've been physically abused. You know, like people ganging up against you. There's psychological abuse. You said the lying was the hardest part. Does that go hand in hand with gaslighting for you?

Ari [03:05:17] Gaslighting is a difficult thing to define. Because I read something actually recently, because people have been throwing that word around a lot. Gaslighting does not mean when somebody disagrees with you, they're not gaslighting you. You're really just having a disagreement. But gaslighting is when they distort your reality and they throw you off balance and they throw it on you and say, you know, it's just a whole reality distorting thing, and that's what that is. And it's hard for me to define. I'm still trying to figure that out. That's why I have a hard time using terms, because I still don't quite understand what. What the terms mean. But I know what I experienced and I know. So maybe if somebody's watching, they can define it better than me.

John Dehlin [03:06:07] Yeah. And I'm not trying to inject that, but I do want to say that if they're telling you things that happened that didn't happen or they're telling you that things didn't happen that you know, happened?

Ari [03:06:20] Yeah. Is that what that is?

John Dehlin [03:06:22] I mean that the way I would think of that is potentially trying to distort your reality.

Ari [03:06:28] Yeah. So that's what that was. And so as you know, she had these made up stories in her head that like, so it's interesting, they put you like, it's like this happened, but this didn't happen. For instance, she told me that I, she had run a race for me one time because I know her and my dad did something. Anyway, I had them run a race for me so I could get into another race. Anyway, and she has some race photos from the race and I remember her showing me the race photos and I remember that being that. But she told me, she said, remember when I ran that race for you, you looked at that picture and you said, look at yourself. And she told me that I told her that she needed to lose £50.

Adam [03:07:25] What?

Ari [03:07:27] And they project their own insecurities onto their children. That never happened. I would have never said that to a single person, let alone my own mother. And so what they do is they put you in, you're there. But that didn't happen. And so it does distort your reality because you're like, I remember that, but that didn't happen. You know, and, and I equate it to Even like my 4 year old, he'll be, they think they can read minds. They do. And I laugh because it's funny when my 4 year old does it, but it's not funny when an adult does it. You know, he'll say, you're, you're mad at me or you think I'm this or you're whatever. No, I don't, you don't know what I'm thinking. But narcissists, they project their insecurities onto people and they believe it. And she did that to me and it throws you way off balance. And when I confronted her, I was angry. I was very angry because I had gotten home from a run and I was terrified. I was terrified because she had taken my dad from me, she had taken my siblings from me and I was not going to let her have my children. And I said those things to her on the phone call and then I, and, and I was scared because it wasn't that she was going to abuse my children, it was that she was, was going to love, bond them to death and then she was going to turn them against me. And I knew it, I knew it was going to happen. They kill people of kindness. The church slowly kills people with kindness. It's the light, the world. It's the look at all of the good things we're doing. We're this good system. And then they get you in, and then you're stuck. And then you see the world the way they are, conditioning you to see it.

John Dehlin [03:09:36] There's only one way to see the world.

Ari [03:09:37] Yes. Through the seer's eyes. And with my own siblings, she turned them against me because she has. She gave them a set of eyes to see me with. And they will only see me the way she sees me. And I know how that works, because I only saw my older brother the way she saw him until I removed those eyes, until I took it off and I saw him with my own eyes. But I had to put a stop to it. And I said, you do not get to have my children. And then one thing led to another, and the smear campaign got worse. And I had a brother who returned home from a mission, and I couldn't go to it because I couldn't be around them. It was not safe for me. And he started saying things to me like, that I lied about something. And then. And he told me that I was spreading lies about my mom, saying that she was abusive and things about my brothers. And I didn't know where that was coming from. And I said, what are you saying? Because I haven't at that point. And I only talked to Adam, I talked to my dad, and I talked to my younger sister. Those are the only three people I had talked to about this. And then he said, check your Facebook Messenger. Like, what? What do you mean, check my Facebook Messenger? And then he had yelled at me a lot, that conversation, and had blamed me for a lot of things in his childhood that I had done. I don't know. I didn't see him very much. I'm a lot older than he is. But then my dad hopped on the phone and he said he read this message, and I talked about it earlier. He read this message that I had sent to a woman after I had written that Mother's Day article. And just where I said, yes, I grew up in an abusive household, too, and the cycle's hard to break. My dad read that message to me, and he said, did you. Are these your words? And I said, yes, I wrote that. How did you get it? I didn't deny it. I said, yeah, those are my words. And at that point, I couldn't remember the conversation I had with this woman. It was so inconsequential to Me, honestly, I couldn't remember. And then he told me. He said, searching for that is fruitless. He said, you don't need to find where I got it, but are you sorry for what you said? You know, and I was not going to let him do that. I said, I want to know who said that and how you got that message. And so I actually reached out to this lady. I said, I'm sorry, why did you share that with my family? Like, I was operating on the assumption that she shared this with my family, because my dad had said something to the effect that my mom was getting these. Had gotten a. A letter from somebody, that she had gotten a letter saying this stuff. And so I was thinking that this lady wrote a letter to my family and all of this stuff, and she said, I'm sorry, I don't know your family. I didn't do anything. I'm like, how did they get that message? And again, I had a thought, and again, I can't explain it, but the words in my head said, check your Facebook activity. And I did. I didn't know what that even meant. I hadn't been on Facebook in a long time. And I checked it, and I saw all of these IP addresses, these logins into my account. And then again, the words are, check those IP addresses. I didn't know you could check IP addresses. I copied and pasted the IP addresses, one after one, into the search thing, and it pinged in the town my parents live in several times a day for several days. I screenshotted it, and I sent it to my dad. I said, she got into my Facebook account and she shared that message. And he texted back. He said, what are you gonna get? What are you gonna do, turn me in? And he took the blame for it. I know it wasn't him, but he took the blame for it. And I. From then, I had this conversation. But he knew right after he texted that he called me. It's like he had admitted to a crime.

John Dehlin [03:14:32] Is that illegal?

Ari [03:14:33] Yeah, it's. Well, to get into somebody's Facebook account. I mean, I even looked it up. It's not legal to get into somebody else's Facebook account. Whether it is or whether it isn't, it's not. Right?

John Dehlin [03:14:43] Yeah.

Ari [03:14:44] Okay. And so. And the thing is, like, again, he blamed me because of the things that I said. He's like, does that. Does that negate your apology for apologizing for the things you said? And I said, but the things I said were true. She was abusive. And even he acknowledged it in our Walk. And then he blamed me for him having access to my Facebook account because a year and a half earlier, I had gotten into an argument with my older brother, something that they encouraged. My parents encouraged it. And they told me how my brother was jealous of me and that I was right and he was wrong and again, pitting us against each other. And my mom asked for my Facebook password because she wanted to read the conversation to see. To help me. And so she. I did give her my password, like, a year and a half earlier. She held onto that, and then she got in. But my. So she didn't hack into it, but she did get into my Facebook account, and she took that message and shared it without context to my siblings. And therefore, that fueled her smear campaign against me. And so I told my dad, I said, this is not a father daughter conversation. What you did was wrong. And I said, this is not okay. And I told him how much I missed him. And I told him I missed a lot of things about him. He was my first running partner. He was my dad. I idolized my dad. He was my only safe place. And I told him. Sorry. I told him how much I missed him. And he said, you don't miss me. You miss that version of me. And then I told him. I said. I said, you were lying. You lie. Why do you lie? Why are you lying? Because I learned about my older brother, and I talked about that. And he said. He said everybody lies. And then he told me about a. An article I had written about my sister dying, you know, when she was taken, you know, by life flight after she. Anyway. And I had written that it was a helicopter. And he said. He said it actually was an airplane. You said it was a helicopter. And I said, I'm sorry. That wasn't a lie. Thanks for the clarification. I won't say it again. But it was just one of those scenes again, gaslighting, trying to throw me off balance and trying to call me a liar. I'm not a liar. I don't lie. This is not okay. And I said, I can't have my children around people who do this. And I didn't want to say that because I didn't want to keep my children away, but it was not safe to. It wasn't safe. They were going to poison my children. This was not okay. And he said, that's your choice. And he said, I have life jackets in my boat that belong to you. Do you want me to mail them to you? That was the last thing he said to me. That's the discard.

John Dehlin [03:18:42] And you're saying he cut you off as his child?

Ari [03:18:47] Mm. But he can say that I cut him off, but I had to protect my children. So.

Adam [03:18:58] But after that conversation, he's texting me, do you want to take the boat out next weekend? It was just like, very weird to have that, you know, to text me right after this conversation a day or so after, you know, and I just like, did you not just have this conversation? And then I had to kind of confront him in a phone call, and I just told him kind of the same thing that just he, she wants a dad. She wants to be with you. And that. And the conversation went okay. Then I was cut off from that all of a sudden because they blocked her a month or two before me or a month. I mean, a while. Then they blocked me from everything, phone, everything. I was then cut off because then I started to. I wasn't what they wanted me to be.

Ari [03:19:46] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:19:46] And I've seen families split their own children from their spouses and keep the in law in. In the family and actually encouraging divorce to cut off the blood relative.

Ari [03:20:06] You know, that's called. When you say pitting against each other, the narcissistic term is triangulation. He was trying. Is you get them alone and you try to feed them your narrative so they will. They will go against that other person. And that's what my dad was doing, was triangulating. And so. But the church does that as well. The church triangulates, you know, and, you know, and cults do that. You know, if you can get somebody isolated by themselves, you can. You can feed them, you know, but you can feed them what you want to feed them. If you can get them alone, you. And villainize other things. It's all. It's what it is. It's triangulation. So my dad was trying to do

John Dehlin [03:21:01] that to him because up until now, the predominant. I don't want to say villain. That's a really bad word, but the predominant villain in the narrative in my mind, has been your mom. But your dad's. Your account of your dad's behavior. I mean, it's not your mom cutting you off. It's your dad. Now, of course, there's the idea that your mom's the puppeteer, your dad's the marionette or the puppet, but your dad's not sounding super great right now either. And maybe that's. He's also a bad actor, or maybe he's a victim in a bad system.

Adam [03:21:40] We've been trying to figure that out. We don't. Because it's. He's been so good to us.

Ari [03:21:46] It's been very hard, very hard for to have that to be. Because yeah, if you say she's a puppeteer. But the thing about in narcissistic systems, they, the enabler eventually also gets molded and they become that they, you know, you have the same, you know, it's. They are them, they are a copy. He sees the world the way she sees the world. It's. No, it's like in the church, you have that same thing. It's there, you've got the prophet. But everybody is only allowed to see things through a seer's eyes. And you reinforce them. The longer you're in, you're brainwashed. My dad, he sees me with my mom's eyes. And it's just like I only saw people outside of the church with the set of eyes that I had. I felt bad for the kids that I grew up with. I had on those eyes until I took them off. Until, you know, you're brainwashed. And all of my siblings, you can say in the church, yeah, I'm thinking for myself. But you aren't, you really aren't because you are redirected to the source. You are only allowed to read church approved sources. And in my mom, in my family, you're only allowed to listen to my mom. She knows everything. She was there, you listened to her. And always redirected to the seer's point of view. And it's in the church, you can't think for yourself because you're not allowed to. And you wouldn't even if you wanted to. Everything else is bad. You know, I wanted to have a relationship with my sister's kids and my sister's husband, but that was an outside source and his narrative didn't fit my, my mom's narrative. And it was such a disconnect. It was so hard for me. And it was easier to either stay quiet or agree. And you're only offered a couple of options. You stay quiet or you agree or you're loud and you're kicked out. And that's what happened to me and my family. That makes sense.

John Dehlin [03:24:27] What was that like for you?

Ari [03:24:28] It's so hard because, you know, I lost a sister, but this has been far worse because I miss them so much. As much as I tried for 20 years, I tried to prove to them I'm good. I'm not who she says I am. I'm good. I'm a good sister. I take my brothers on Runs. I have them at my house. But the thing is, even those have been tainted by her. She has made me out to be. I've heard things that I did that I didn't do. And I tried. I tried so hard. I miss them. My kids miss their grandparents. They miss. They miss their uncles. I miss all of them. It happened so fast. I mean, I'm just a year out. And I did end up seeing my dad a couple months ago because my oldest missed him so much. And he invited him to a soccer game. And I took the time off to go to that soccer game because I just wanted to. And I didn't know. He told me just as I was

Adam [03:25:54] leaving, when it was out of town. It's like a three, four hour drive, so it was like far away.

Ari [03:25:59] But he told me just as I was leaving that they were invited, but I wanted to go, but they were just supposed to go the first half. And I just thought, okay, I'll just miss the first half. And I was not even planning on seeing them. But I walked right past my dad, and he didn't see me, but I walked right past my dad. I hadn't seen him in a year, and I missed him so much. It was like I had seen my older sister again. I hadn't seen her. It was like I called across to him. I said, dad. That's all I said. I said, dad. And he turned to me and he goes, we don't want any trouble. And I said, what? I don't want any trouble. I'm here to watch my son play soccer. And he said he invited us. And I said, okay. And then I said, can I talk to you? So I went and I walked toward him and I said, the things mom said about me aren't true. You've been lied to. I said, you've been lied to. And he said, no, you're the liar. And he turned it on me and said that I. He said, I don't know what world you're living in. I'm like, what? And then I had a younger brother come from behind, and he was coming after me in the parking lot. He was coming after me like he was going to hit me.

John Dehlin [03:27:43] Like an apologist, basically.

Ari [03:27:45] Mm. He was gonna hit me. And my dad had. I had to tell him not to hit me. My dad had to tell him not to hit me. Instead, he flipped me off. He was a return. He's a returned missionary. Newly returned mission returned missionary. And he called me a liar. Said, no, you're the liar. And it was just like they. And my mom just slid into the passenger seat of the car, sat there like this. She had built her army. They were going to defend her at all costs. At all costs. And all I had, I. My reality was distorted because they threw different things in there that weren't true, like half truths and whatever. And I was just like, what are you saying? Like I was trying to catch my ground and it was so, so awful. And then my dad stood in front of his car and he said, we're done with you. And then he got in the car and he drove off. So it's been really hard. And as I've learned about the church, that's what it is. It's one big narcissistic family. And you know, learning about Joseph Smith, there was a lot of things there. And I just saw my mother. I saw my mother. And I just could not be part of a system that covered up lies with goodness and then kicked people out who would talk. Bring up the lies. I call it frosting on poop. You just slather it with frosting. Look at all the good things. The love bombing. Look at all the good things we do. And don't look under. Don't. You know who was it Packer, who said he didn't like historians or something like that?

John Dehlin [03:29:46] He said, I'll not. All things that are true are useful.

Ari [03:29:48] Yeah. Something to the effect of that. It's like, no, you gotta address the underbelly.

John Dehlin [03:29:54] And he said, oh, he said, he said, historians have a problem. I think they have a, like an over exaggerated affection for the truth or something like that. Yeah, I'm misquoting him. But that's the idea. It's an obsession with the truth, you know, an unhealthy obsession.

Ari [03:30:11] Yeah, but you have to address those things. You have to. You can't just cover it up. You can't. And it's not, it's not even necessarily about the abuse. Like I said, it's about the lies. The church may do a lot of things in bad form, systematically. Right. Like, you know, blacks in the priesthood. That's a. That's awful. That's a terrible thing. And you can tie that to the times and all of those things. Things, there's a lot of things, women's rights and all of those things that you can say, well, that's just the times and whatever like that. But if it's not what it says it is, no matter of policy change is going to fix that. You know, my parents can maybe look a little bit more nuanced and be really, you know, accepting of my husband, accepting of my children, and look good and do all of these things. But no amount of frosting is going to hide the fact that it's toxic and it's full of lies. It's not real cake. And if the church claims that it is the only way to heaven too, you know, all of that. I don't know if that makes sense.

John Dehlin [03:31:46] Kind of does, unfortunately.

Guest [03:31:48] Kind of does. Sad.

Ari [03:31:50] It's sad, but it does. And the church could do so many good things, and my parents could do so many good things. They have such good. There's so much good in the church. But you can't hold people's families hostage based on goodness. And you can't take people's money. You know, you can't do all of those things and say, I don't know, if it's not what it is, then what is it?

John Dehlin [03:32:19] You know, if it's not what it claims to be, it has to be a fraud.

Ari [03:32:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:32:26] Gordon B. Hinckley said it himself. It's either everything Joseph claimed it was, or it's the greatest fraud ever perpetrated. It's the greatest fraud ever perpetrated. All the relationships and lives that have been damaged are done under the auspices of fraud.

Ari [03:32:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:32:45] I mean, progressive Mormons and believing Mormons hate that type of language. I posted on Facebook this weekend, I was trying to just gather some thoughts about Joseph Smith, like, challenges with Joseph Smith. And the very first one I wrote was the Book of Mormon was. Was written by a known criminal. And, like, my Mormon brain is like, that's the worst thing you could ever say. How could you ever say that? And it's absolutely factual.

Adam [03:33:16] He.

John Dehlin [03:33:16] He broke the law. His treasure digging was a violation of the law. That's a fact.

Adam [03:33:22] Now.

John Dehlin [03:33:22] People were like, well, Martin Luther King Jr. You know, he was a criminal because he got thrown in jail for violating the Civil Rights Act. Organi was a criminal because he violated the laws of India. I'm like, yeah, I guess that's technically true, but different thing.

Ari [03:33:37] You know, they try to compare things.

John Dehlin [03:33:40] That's gaslighting.

Ari [03:33:41] Right.

John Dehlin [03:33:42] I mean, but the point is, like, it's hard to say these words, like narcissist. Narcissism is such a strong word, and fraud is such a strong word. And criminal and sexual predator, they're such

Ari [03:33:55] awful, horrendous words, and I don't like them. I don't like them at all. I just want to describe what happened. What happened?

John Dehlin [03:34:04] Yeah.

Ari [03:34:05] And that's why, like, when I Talk to my dad and, and I had a conversation before the discard. I, I established a timeline and I said this happened, this happened, this happened. And because this happened, this happened. There's cause and effect. This wouldn't happen if this didn't happen. And he's like, oh, I didn't understand the timeline. Yes, understand the timeline, you know, and it's very important to establish a timeline. And that's what I loved about no man Knows my history because it establishes a timeline and it establishes, you know, what happened at the time, what was going on and what other people were doing. And it wasn't unique to Mormonism to do these things that he was doing. It was a thing at the time, you know. And so, yeah, labels are really, really hard. But you know, it's also, and I don't want to tangent too much but just like critical thought has been like. I don't think I had a whole lot of critical thinking skills before I started to deconstruct this, you know. And I remember reading in the beginnings of no Man Knows My History about Joseph Smith's childhood and you know, that story, the, about him, you know, getting the cut out of his leg, you know, because, you know, when he had the, I don't know what it was, but he had to have a surgery in his leg. Yeah, the infection, that's what it was. And I grew up with that story that he wouldn't, he was like 8 or 10 years old. Around that age. He wouldn't take alcohol, he wouldn't drink alcohol. And that glorified him as someone who wouldn't drink alcohol.

John Dehlin [03:36:06] Be the word wisdom. And he was so courageous and strong that he didn't need the, you know, antiseptic or is that the word?

Ari [03:36:13] The, the, the anesthesia, whatever it is. And I believed that so much. I was like, you know, he is, you know, he was wonderful from the beginning. But as I read old Mando's Way history and it kind of talks about how he just was very, he was crying a lot. He didn't, he was kind of, you know, that it wasn't about rejecting anesthesia. It was about being kind of in a lot of pain. You know, just. He and I have an 8 year old, we have an 8 year old who has some dental work and he, you know, age appropriate. He screamed like crazy and we had to tie him down just to get a tooth taken out. And the doctor tried to give him Kool Aid with some of that anesthesia in it just to numb it. He rejected the Kool Aid, you know, it was very age appropriate. And when I read that, I was like, I have a son rejected Kool Aid. I could go on and say, even my son even knew at a young age that Kool Aid was bad for him, you know, and he was, you know, very. No, it's age appropriate to be out of sorts when you're in pain at that age. And so when I read that, I was like, oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. He was also a human. And that happened and that. And, you know, and just reading about the, you know, the pages lost was also one of those things.

John Dehlin [03:37:49] 116 pages.

Ari [03:37:50] Yeah. Where you kind of throw. Who is her name now? Martin Harris's wife, under the bus, Lucy Harris. We were taught that she was evil, just kind of bad. She was bad. She was thwarting the Lord's efforts. And when you start to think, oh, maybe she was actually quite a smart woman, you know, all of those things. I started to kind of think about it in humanistic terms and stuff. Was just kind of one of those. I did. I developed that part of my brain, and I'm very proud of it.

John Dehlin [03:38:22] Critical thinking for the win.

Ari [03:38:24] Yes.

Adam's Reflections and Support for Ari

John Dehlin [03:38:25] Adam, is there anything you want to. I mean, you've. You've sat very supportive and faithful in this interview. Yeah. Is there anything you want to share, just from your perspective as kind of a witness to all this? Not necessarily to pile on the testimony, so to speak, but maybe how it's been for Ari, based on your witness, but then how it's been for you to see her. Because. Because I'll just say this, that when we studied LGBT suicide deaths by suicide, and when we researched what were the possible contributing factors to LGBT death by suicide, we found out that family rejection was the number one contributor to death by suicide. And, you know, Ari, you're not telling us you're lgbt, but you're telling us you've been highly rejected by your family, so that can't be easy for you and, Adam, I'm guessing it hasn't been fun for you to watch.

Adam [03:39:31] No, it's been very. It's been difficult this last year to see it. I mean, it's. It's an up and down, you know, every day, and it's hard because I can't. You feel like you can't control it, do anything. So you're trying to help, but you don't know how to help. And from an outside perspective, I just. It was so weird or strange to see a family go from what it was to, like, all of a sudden Just nothing. And I'm thinking, how can a family just all of a sudden nothing in, like, a short amount of time cut off somebody for something like this? I think of my kids, if. If this were something like, similar, I'd do everything in my power to be trying to mend it or do whatever I could to be in part of their life, and they're not doing anything. And they'll say it's because she's put these boundaries or cut them off, but that's not. That's not true. I don't. So it's like, I just. I don't know how to do that. But it's been hard. I wish, you know, only to support and help and. But it's just. I don't know how to do that. And, you know, how long will this go on? Will this ever be a relationship again? We're thinking about our kids and that, and how will they. A future of, you know, with these family members, how will this be and how will we navigate that and everything. And so it's just things you don't think about. And then you start to think about it and you're like, I don't know. It's just.

Ari [03:41:14] Yeah. Yeah. And it's interesting because I parallel draw the parallel to the church where it's like, what if they go back? What if they miss it and want to go back?

John Dehlin [03:41:32] Kids.

Ari [03:41:32] Yeah. And then it's the same thing with my family. What if they go back? And I have to see that as a reality. What if they go back to these toxic systems? What if it's comfortable for them? What if they. And I, you know, I just can't control them. But it is a fear. It is a fear that they're going to be. Again, if they go back to my family, are they going to be poisoned against me? If they go back to the church, are they going to be poisoned against me? You know, it's just going back into those things, because when you go into those systems, you're in or you're out, and it's a big fear for me. So, thankfully, we're doing okay right now. The kids. That's been a good story.

Adam [03:42:23] She's been very open and honest, and our kids are just. They know they. They can see through the BS also, I think. And I think our kids have level heads, and I think our oldest struggled the most because he had such a connection to her brothers. He was basically one of the brothers. I mean, he was so close in age.

Ari [03:42:43] I'm three years apart from my youngest One.

Adam [03:42:45] So it's been really hard for him. But I think even him seeing some of the things that have happened and being open front and honest. And then also he was very much in the church and had signs up on the walls and everything and you know, church related. But now he's even just. We've let him do his thing and read and make his decision. I think it's the only best thing we could do. And she's just been open and honest. I think it's the best thing she can do for herself is just share it, be open and honest and, and just not hide it.

Ari [03:43:22] I didn't. And I, I didn't know what to do because I saw the damage it was causing and I didn't want it anymore. And I. But yeah, he was, I mean he had, he had pictures and he was very in. And that was a really hard thing to tell him that I didn't believe in this anymore. And I remember when I was standing, I was standing in the kitchen and my oldest son and he, he looked at me like I was layman. And Lemuel, he looked at me like, you're one of them now, you know, and I have had to earn that back. He just, I remember the look in his face. You're one of them. But he's been on his own path because I have been buried. And he likes Norse mythology and he's Icelandic and he's been reading some of those things and he's like, these stories have been told from the beginning of time. He's like, it's just. They've been told. So that's been his road to deconstruct. And we've got a son who I would say is probably more on the atheist realm where he likes science and he likes. And that's okay too. And I would never in a million years have thought that I would be okay with it. You know, our last Sunday, I got so angry at the. He's 15 now, but he was 14 then because we went to church one day after the pandemic and not after, but when things started to open up and he didn't want to go. And I guilt and ashamed the crap out of him. I did. I said, why don't you want to go back to church? You should want to go back to church. We haven't been back to church for so long. And I was a terror that morning. I know I was. And I remember we, well, we all went, we all went that day. And I, I remember walking into the church and just feeling Dark, because I just. I. I didn't. I couldn't be there yet. I had forced my family to be here, and I knew what it took to get my family to be here, but I couldn't. I just. I couldn't. And so I took the younger three across the street to the park and I just cried. I sat there on the bench and I cried, watched my children play, and I wanted my whole family there with me. Like, this is where we need to be. And the next week, I read the CES letter. We never went back. Never went back. But it's been great. The kids are doing really well. There is a happy side to this story.

Guest [03:46:26] So.

Ari [03:46:27] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:46:32] Well, that's hard stuff. And I will say we had some talks before doing this interview, because for me, as important as I know this topic is, and as. As much as I. I am always looking for interesting, new, compelling stories, I'm never excited to do anything to contribute to the erosion of family ties or the breaking of family ties, because we try to be on Mormon stories all about bringing families together, reuniting families. And so I was afraid you'll know.

Ari [03:47:12] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:47:12] And this was. I don't know. I was worried. You were thinking, this is condescending, because I was worried for you that this might even further damage these relationships. But your reaction was kind of. It was kind of jarring to me.

Ari [03:47:29] Yeah. So I'm trying to remember. But I. Yeah, I just said I'm

John Dehlin [03:47:34] worried, you know, it'll. It'll make your relationship worse.

Ari [03:47:37] It can't get worse. That's the thing. I'm dead to them. There's no. As much as. I mean, I love to be the eternal optimist, I love to say, yeah, this is going to work out. But I confronted lies. This is like somebody who is excommunicated. And my only way back is to totally forget everything and feed back into that. Oh, you're wonderful. Everything's great, and I'm so grateful for you. And you did everything right and nothing wrong.

John Dehlin [03:48:14] You gaslight yourself, basically.

Ari [03:48:15] If I gaslit myself back into the system, I would be back in the system. The same thing with people who leave the church. If they pledge allegiance to the prophet, if they sustain and believe and they're back in, they're welcomed back in. But I'm not going to do that because I'm not going to lie. And. And it's sad. It's really sad. And my. I don't have. It's been really hard to decide why I want to come here. It's Not. I have everything to lose and more now again, like, if they see this, I could be in danger. Like, I don't know what that means. And I don't know. You don't know. And I'm not talking to them. This is not for them. This is not even for me. This has been hard. Like, I have a headache. This is not for me. When I was in my darkest days, I wasn't going to survive this. And I had people throw me lifelines and there were people said, read this, watch this, listen to this, you need to. And I, I did. And I'm here because people gave me a lifeline. And I guess I want somebody to. I want to be a lifeline to somebody, you know, and lessen the blow. Like I was in free fall a year ago in total free fall with no, no end in sight, except for extremely hard landing that I wouldn't survive. And. And I'm. I'm so sorry if this makes my family. Paints my family in a picture that is not. If anybody sees this and knows my family. That's not my intent either. My intent is to help. My intent is to see this happens in Mormonism because you have to fit a mold and it's an impossible mold to fit. And the only way in is to stay in. And the only way out is you're not going to get out without a fight, without. It's gonna hurt. There's. This just is. There's no easy way out of this. And I just want to be there for somebody who maybe might have experienced something similar.

Resources, Healing, and Final Thoughts

John Dehlin [03:51:21] There's a book that comes to mind that Margi likes to recommend. She counts as one of her favorite books just from her own personal life experiences. It's called Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. How to Heal from Distant Rejecting or Self Involved Parents. We're going to include that in the show notes. Are there any other resources that you have studied or become aware of that might be useful to people?

Ari [03:51:50] The book Educated by Sarah Westover.

John Dehlin [03:51:52] Tara.

Guest [03:51:53] Tara.

John Dehlin [03:51:54] Oh, it's fine.

Ari [03:51:55] Sorry. Yes. That was a lifeline to me because it was my life, even down to the two brothers who. I have two brothers who will talk to me and who believed me. And I may not have lived in a mountain like her. As I see it, for me, my mother was her. My mom was her dad and my dad was her mom. Her mom was a healer and they couldn't see doctors. My dad was a therapist. And we couldn't seek mental health, we couldn't seek help. It was. It paralleled my it was, it helped me. That was me.

John Dehlin [03:52:47] We'll include. I also interviewed Tara twice on Mormon Stories. So we'll include those inter interviews in the show notes as well. There are probably other. Maybe those who are watching the live stream either on YouTube or on Facebook or who come after. You can make some posts of resources you recommend because there are probably some really good books and resources written about dealing with narcissists, codependency, narcissistic parents. But we'll start with the. With the ones.

Ari [03:53:20] Yeah. I wish I had more advice because I just, I. I didn't make it out very well. Well, I was eventually just kind of tossed out.

John Dehlin [03:53:32] So. Any final words you want to offer to people who are in the situation? Just to kind of wrap things up a little bit. Either of you, both of you, you want to go for no. You want to go first?

Adam [03:53:46] Well, from an outside perspective, just be supportive as much as you can. Don't be judgmental. Just be supportive and let them. You can help, but you can't fix it. I don't know if that makes any sense. You just have to be there for them. That's what I've been trying to do. It's a learning process.

Ari [03:54:10] Just look for the lifelines. That's I'd say. And know that it's not. You're not alone. And there's life after this and I'm getting there. I'm getting there and because it gets pretty dark and just look for those lifelines. Try to find them.

John Dehlin [03:54:31] Can you name a few lifelines that have been important for you? Anything coming to mind? Not to put you on the spot.

Ari [03:54:42] Those people you think aren't safe probably are. You know, that's with me was look at the outsiders. You know, you may think that ex Mormons are bad people, generally speaking. I have not found that to be the case. Don't be afraid to talk to them. Look to the outsiders and that's where you'll be. You'll get caught. They'll catch you and they'll help you land a little bit softer. But then start to be yourself and try to rebuild who you are.

John Dehlin [03:55:22] That's good wisdom because ultimately there's this idea of reparenting. If you didn't get the parents you wanted or needed, there are coaches or therapists that can help you learn to become your own parent, so to speak, and to break that dependency of their esteem and their affection and develop self confidence in your own perception of yourself to feel you're okay and you don't need your parents. Validation to feel like you're okay.

Ari [03:55:58] Exactly. And that's. I guess that's what I was wanting to say is more don't even. You need to look inward. Look outward and inward. I guess if. I don't know if I made a lot of sense, but it was more trust yourself. That's what I've had to do because I don't want another guru telling me what I need to be doing. I. I need to trust myself. So trust yourself that you can get out

John Dehlin [03:56:32] and learn to identify the traits of unhealthy organizations or relationships. I'm thinking about Luna Lindsay Corbin's book Recovering Agency or the Bite Model with Stephen Hassan. But, like, there's a lot of parallels between narcissistic people and cults or unhealthy organizations. And if we don't learn the traits and the patterns, we'll just go from the frying pan into the fire.

Ari [03:57:00] You can't ask questions. If you can't. If you're redirected to one source, then that's the problem.

John Dehlin [03:57:07] You can't criticize, you know, if there's only one way. If. If you have to conform to. To be loved. Yeah. Yeah.

Ari [03:57:17] Yep.

John Dehlin [03:57:18] Well, Ari and Adam, this is a really courageous and harrowing but inspiring story. So I can't. We can't thank you both enough for being willing to do it. Hope you're okay.

Ari [03:57:31] Yeah, I'm okay.

John Dehlin [03:57:33] You have a vulnerability.

Ari [03:57:34] Hangover a little bit, but it's okay. Be okay.

John Dehlin [03:57:39] Well, thank you.

Adam [03:57:40] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:57:41] Jen, any final words?

Guest [03:57:44] No. I think the only one that keeps going through my mind, probably because I've seen the play like 10 times in the last two weeks, is that into the woods, that musical. And it. In one of the songs, the girl says, nice is different than good. And that's just kind of playing in my mind, you know, nice is different than good.

Ari [03:58:11] Like, look for good, look for the good.

Guest [03:58:17] Whether you're deconstructing or where. Like, I don't know, in families where. Or, like, I don't know, in those families that look, you know, that are super nice. You know, I always hear that from people. Oh, they're so nice. They're so.

Ari [03:58:40] They're so nice.

Guest [03:58:41] You know, everything looks perfect. You know, nice is different than good. And so,

Ari [03:58:50] I don't know,

Guest [03:58:54] just maybe, maybe. I don't know. This is the other thing I always say, Just pause.

Ari [03:59:00] Just pause and

Guest [03:59:03] take a minute to really see, really see the person that people are saying all those things about.

Ari [03:59:13] Or maybe, you know, pause and maybe think about it. From either their perspective or another angle.

Guest [03:59:26] Or maybe just pause and look at,

Ari [03:59:31] you know, that person in your family

Guest [03:59:33] that is questioning or like in the.

Ari [03:59:39] Or ex Mormon or, you know, that layman in Lemuel.

Guest [03:59:43] In your family, you maybe just pause

Ari [03:59:47] for a minute and look for the good. You know, try and look at them

Guest [03:59:54] the way Jesus would. You know, if you. If you're in. You know, if you're believing.

Ari [04:00:03] That's what I would say.

Guest [04:00:04] Nice is different than good. And maybe just pause.

Ari [04:00:11] Thank you. Yeah, I think so.

John Dehlin [04:00:14] Beautiful. Thanks, Jen.

Guest [04:00:16] Thank you.

John Dehlin [04:00:19] Thanks, Ari and Adam, thank you for sharing something. I know it's going to help people. I know it's not easy to do this, so thank you.

Ari [04:00:29] I hope so. So thank you.

John Dehlin [04:00:32] Thanks, Jen.

Guest [04:00:33] You're welcome.

John Dehlin [04:00:38] All right, everyone, thanks for your support. Be kind to each other, love each other. Let's all learn to do better and recognize harmful systems and let's try and all improve our relationships one with another. And I say these things Mormon stories. Amen. Thanks, everybody. You all take care of.

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