Introducing the Episode and Meg's Story

John Dehlin [00:00:01] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. It is September 10, 2024, and we are covering a really, really important topic today. We're covering divorce within a Mormon context. And we're going to ask the question, can there be a healthy Mormon ex Mormon divorce? Is that even possible? Is it worth striving for? And joining us today to talk about not only her experience getting a divorce as a Mormon ex Mormon, but also she is also counseled, at least some people, as sort of a divorce coach. And she's working towards her certification as a licensed therapist in Utah. Her. Her name is Meg or Megan Campbell. Is that right?

Meg Campbell [00:00:54] Yes, correct.

John Dehlin [00:00:55] You go by Meg or Megan. Which do you prefer?

Meg Campbell [00:00:57] Usually Meg.

John Dehlin [00:00:58] Okay. Thanks for joining us, Meg.

Meg Campbell [00:00:59] Yes, thank you for having me. I'm excited.

John Dehlin [00:01:02] Yeah. And if that weren't awesome enough, we also have Margi with us as co host.

Meg Campbell [00:01:08] Hey, Margi.

Margi Dehlin [00:01:09] Yes, hello.

John Dehlin [00:01:10] Glad to have you.

Margi Dehlin [00:01:11] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:01:12] And we have a third co host today. We're tripling up on you.

Meg Campbell [00:01:17] I love it.

John Dehlin [00:01:17] But Julia Sanders is joining us remotely. Hey, Julia.

Julia [00:01:22] Hi, everyone.

John Dehlin [00:01:24] And the reason why Julia is joining us is because, you know, Julia is a part of the Mormon Stories team, but she's recently been through a divorce. And as we were sort of getting ready today, she, I, I just thought she would add value. And Julia, you were, you, you consented, right?

Julia [00:01:43] Yeah, I did. Yeah. I'm excited for this conversation.

John Dehlin [00:01:47] Yeah. So, and those of you who know my story know that my parents were divorced when I was in middle school, and, you know, they were devout temple married Mormons. And my dad's been married five times, my mom's been married three. So I know a little bit about divorce as the kid of multiple divorces. And then finally, just to make this relevant, we see a lot of divorces in the progressive and post Mormon space. Now, people like to blame, you know, divorce more. Sometimes faithful orthodox Mormons like to blame divorce on people losing their faith or leaving the church. And maybe we can address that at some point today, but we see that as bunk.

John Dehlin [00:02:31] Now, sometimes people who probably shouldn't have got married or didn't in the first place or didn't get good training on how to have healthy relationships, you know, they get divorced, but I don't think that's any podcast fault or even losing the faith's fault or maybe even the Mormon church's fault. I think divorce is just a reality of life. And of course, when people make major changes, that's going to Potentially upset the marriage contract. But regardless, we. I have been seeing a lot of divorces, even with close friends and some family. And so we want to cover it on Mormon stories. So that's what today's about.

John Dehlin [00:03:13] We like to give everyone a chance to kind of state an intention. So, Meg, if you want, do you want to maybe share with us why you were wanting to do this episode?

Meg's Mormon Upbringing and Faith Foundation

Meg Campbell [00:03:23] Yes, absolutely. I'm very excited to be here and I. It's so funny. Would have never. Right. Ten years ago seeing myself as somebody just really advocating for both doing and viewing divorce differently.

Margi Dehlin [00:03:42] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [00:03:42] But after I've worked in education for a long time, I've seen a lot of divorce of students and families. And then kind of at that crossroads of, you know, working as a teacher for so many years, witnessing divorce of, you know, friends, families I work with, and then my own divorce, I became really invested in doing divorce differently than I'd seen it the majority of my adult years. I really wanted a child centered divorce. I wanted to believe my kids would be okay and that divorce wasn't necessarily this life defining failure, but maybe a new beginning.

Meg Campbell [00:04:32] And I've just since become really passionate about just discussing divorce more openly and hopefully supporting others, like reframe it a little bit. And that's not to say I have some people who are like, you're so pro divorce. And I feel like I'm not pro divorce, but if that's where your family's at, I'm very pro handling it with grace and with gratitude and with emotional intelligence and. Right. Setting up all family members to both heal and thrive. And it's not inevitably this really negative, bad, just failure. So I'm excited about that reframe talk about it.

Margi Dehlin [00:05:15] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:05:16] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, as. As the child of a divorce, I started Mormon stories with the intention of eliminating divorce as it relates to religion. And I learned pretty quickly that divorce shouldn't be stigmatized, that there is such thing as a healthier good divorce, and that the goal shouldn't be to prevent divorce. It should be to have marriages be as healthy as they can be. And if there needs to be a divorce or if it's healthy for there to be a divorce, that the divorce be as healthy as it can be. And so we have to be able to walk that line of being pro marriage.

Meg Campbell [00:05:55] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:05:56] But also pro other options if that's just what's healthiest for the people.

Meg Campbell [00:06:02] Yes, agreed. You said that so well.

John Dehlin [00:06:03] Is that right?

Meg Campbell [00:06:04] Yes, absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:06:06] Yeah. So that's kind of where we. That's where we're going to begin. And so this is going to be a little bit different in that we're not going to spend a lot of time on Meg's early years or adolescent years. We're going to kind of jump right to the marriage and then start talking about how the divorce happened. And then, you know, the focus of today is going to be on, on, you know, the conflict, the divorce, and then the resolution and then maybe any tips? Is that okay?

Meg Campbell [00:06:33] Yes, that sounds great.

John Dehlin [00:06:34] Okay. But we should have a tiny bit of background, so I'll just ask a few kind of rapid fire questions, if that's okay.

Meg Campbell [00:06:41] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:06:41] And Julie, you jump in whenever you want. So. So were you and your husband sort of both born in the church, you kind of raised in the church?

Meg Campbell [00:06:51] Yes. Both grew up Mormon, raised in the church? Yes.

John Dehlin [00:06:55] Okay, so anything really crucial to your story about, let's just say either of your childhoods or your adolescent, early adult years that end up playing important, really important factors in the conflict and the divorce that you want to state either about you or your husband?

Meg Campbell [00:07:15] I think this one actually applies a little bit to both of us in the sense that we were both raised Mormon, both just believed in the sense that we were told to believe and didn't question. But we were never, neither of us were just very like, I never just loved the church. I never loved. It was like this box I was always trying to fit in with but wasn't ever comfortable in. So I just felt like I knew this was this should. I should be doing this. And I feel like that's relevant. I feel like somehow how hard I tried to make it work, only to then realize I don't believe it at all.

Meg Campbell [00:08:00] I think there's got to be some correlation to how angry I was. Same with my husband. Like, I think there was a lot of resentment, feelings of being deceived. I think it'd be one thing if I was like, I loved that path. I appreciate it. And I've right, gotten to a place where I can appreciate a lot about it, but I never felt very comfortable in that space. Just that there was something I was missing, something I was doing wrong. So I always tried, right, to be a good, faithful Mormon, but it never felt comfortable or I never felt like I belonged there. But I tried so hard to make it work. And I think that would be the piece that later came back to make me at least pretty resentful.

Julia [00:08:47] And Meg, did you. Oh, sorry, Meg, did you say you and your husband, your ex husband, felt that way or was it Just you?

Meg Campbell [00:08:53] No, both of us. Him, probably even more. He always pushed back. Growing up, he even. He didn't serve a mission, which was a big deal in Utah where he graduated, graduated high school and chose not to go on a mission. So when we started dating at I was 20 years old, he would have been happy to probably just kind of fall away, become inactive. But I was adamant, like we had to turn it around at some point. Like he, we had to get married in a temple and he conceded, but I was definitely more like, we need a temple marriage. So he was always more comfortable. Yeah. Pushing back a little bit.

John Dehlin [00:09:35] On the one hand, I can. You know, there's some people that want to like blame divorce on the people. Like you weren't faithful enough or you didn't try hard enough. Just like they like to blame, you know, people who lose their faith, they never believed in the first place, or they didn't try hard enough, or they never had a testimony. And I can hear some of those people who are watching thinking, oh, okay, well, he didn't serve a mission and both of you didn't feel super comfortable as Mormons always. So there it is. That's why the divorce happened. But the truth is, I think most Mormons inside, if they're honest, aren't always feeling great about everything. I know, I know as devout as I was and I checked all the boxes, things never felt quite right to me. So I just want to say I don't think that discredits you guys.

Meg Campbell [00:10:19] Thank you. And I think it just adds another layer of just that kind of perma. Dissonance. Right. Like I'm trying so hard to check all the boxes and it's going to fall into place one day and it will make sense. And yeah, in hindsight I'm like, oh, I can see why that. Yeah, didn't happen for me. But it did. I feel like through adolescence especially, like it came at the expense of some self esteem. Right. Like I just, I wasn't a knower, but tried just so hard to have faith and do. Do the things that I was supposed to and. Right. Didn't question.

Margi Dehlin [00:11:00] Do you want to share a little bit more about that? You were saying I wasn't a knower. Do you want to kind of share the story behind that?

Meg Campbell [00:11:07] Oh, sure. Really quickly. Yes. So just in the various. I think the church has moved away from worthiness interviews from what I've heard, but I definitely participated in those growing up. And just the various questions, I remember, I handful of times I would try to just like I'm going to be honest, like, I'm just, I'm curious. And when I would get asked about what's the question? Do you believe Joseph Smith was a prophet or have a testimony of Joseph Smith? I can't even remember. But things like that where I would just answer honestly, like, I'm not sure, I don't know.

Meg Campbell [00:11:43] And my perception at the time was I was missing something. Right. Like, why are you reading your scriptures every day? Are you doing this? Are you? So I just felt I was left to kind of blame it on myself and was often quoted a scripture from DNC somewhere that I can't remember now that basically to some it's given to know and to some it's given to just believe in their.

John Dehlin [00:12:15] On others who know.

Meg Campbell [00:12:16] On others who know.

Margi Dehlin [00:12:17] That's right.

Meg Campbell [00:12:17] Right. And that was so. And I would have. Right. Leaders point out, well, like, look, you have, you have so and so. You have so and so. Who's so faithful? You have so and so's testimony to carry you. And I tried to convince myself that was enough. But yes, I think that's where like the self esteem piece comes in because it's like, you're a daughter of God, but you're not a knower. That's right.

Margi Dehlin [00:12:41] Why don't I get to know?

Meg Campbell [00:12:42] Why don't I get to know? I would, yeah. Having my own kids now, I'm like, but I would never. Just make sure one third of them knew. Right. Or two thirds and. And then you have to just trust your brother and sister. It's okay.

Margi Dehlin [00:12:56] Right?

John Dehlin [00:12:57] Yeah. I'm just in just because I, I relate so much to your story. Like I, I remember, you know, going to the MTC and then going out in the mission field, having wanted to know the whole time, did the seminary thing, did byu and I never got the confirmation. So I just remember the moment I just, I was about to go teach my first discussion for real in Guatemala and I'm just like, well, I'm just going to say I know because I still. And so to the world I would have viewed, I would have been perceived as a knower. But in my heart I just decided to say that I knew and I didn't know.

John Dehlin [00:13:35] And sometimes I think that people that we view now as being weaker, let's just say as teens or even on the mission or whatever, are actually just the most honest of us who just couldn't lie and say they knew when they didn't know. I think there's a lot of people like that and they're viewed as the weaker missionaries or the less faithful ones that don't go. But really, in some ways they have the most integrity because they don't go on the mission because they don't want to lie.

Meg Campbell [00:14:03] Right, right. The day I.

Margi Dehlin [00:14:05] Right.

Meg Campbell [00:14:05] That would have been my former husband. He's like, I didn't know. How was I going to go serve a mission when I've never been a knower. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:14:13] I think it's interesting because, you know, you were here growing up. I was in Florida and I was also not a knower, as it turns out. But, but just the different framings we receive about when we don't know and we're honest about. I, I don't know because I was very honest as a teen saying I don't know. And my reframe was so related but different. Where it was like, well, you won't have a testimony of belief. Not everyone has a testimony of belief. So your testimony doesn't reside in belief. Your testimony may reside in the living of it.

John Dehlin [00:14:48] The fruits, right?

Margi Dehlin [00:14:50] So then that was my knowing where I was like, okay, all right. So my knowing is.

Meg Campbell [00:14:56] But then. And I still remember sitting in fast and testimony meetings just being so confused because people would get up and know things and I'm like, so do we value knowing but we also value. Right.

Margi Dehlin [00:15:07] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [00:15:07] So I'm like, what is it?

John Dehlin [00:15:10] So, and then is it really how we act? It actually is the most important of all. We just, we just dropped into a full on epistemology discussion right here on Mormon stories.

Women's Roles, Marriage Expectations, and Church Culture

Margi Dehlin [00:15:21] I have a question around roles because I think this is interesting with, with women in divorce and then becoming single moms. Right. That it can feel very precarious. How, how growing up, teen years, what would you say about how you related to the role of a woman in the church? Did you take it super seriously? What did you absorb? What did you take in?

Meg Campbell [00:15:46] Yeah, that's a good question. I think there was always an understanding of you're going to be a wife and mom. And I didn't spend a lot of time on that. Like I had more, you know, short term present goals. I was involved in, you know, some athletic pursuits that I enjoyed. I liked school, I was excited for college. But that was always kind of this overarching thing. Like, but you know, the point, right? The point is wife and mother. And yeah, that was always there. And so yeah, it is interesting though because as I learned later about like stages of identity development, I was like, that's something that kind of sets. I feel like Mormon girls and Guys. Right. Both just up for a foreclosed identity. Right. There wasn't room for lots of exploration because that was. You had your, your end purpose.

Margi Dehlin [00:16:56] Right.

Meg Campbell [00:16:57] For you.

Margi Dehlin [00:16:58] So for you, did you think about a career, for example, that you would have or were. Did you kind of have the assumption of, nope, I'll most likely have children, be at home, you know, be married.

Meg Campbell [00:17:13] Yep, that the latter. And I would say, and I enjoy what I studied, but I definitely. I've calling it like I picked a mom major. Right. Which again I've loved. But teaching, you can be with kids, the same schedule as kids, you have summers off you. It was definitely decided around that ultimate plan and purpose of like wife and mom. And teaching was really compatible with that.

John Dehlin [00:17:44] Yeah. Okay. What in terms of like dating and your opportunities to meet lots of different types of people and to date lots of different people before you chose your husband. How was that for you? Were you discouraged from dating like many Utah Mormon teens are?

Meg Campbell [00:18:07] I don't remember necessarily being discouraged from dating. I definitely can recognize whatever my own self esteem stuff was. I really sought external validation, I think especially from boyfriends. I had a single boyfriend through most of high school that was just kind of this all important relationship for me and definitely was.

Meg Campbell [00:18:36] I mean, I don't know that there are any high school relationships that are just super healthy, but so it was not that I wouldn't call it super healthy. And then come college, I, oh, this is, this is a funny story. I was actually at like 18, 19.

Meg Campbell [00:18:56] I had gone to Utah State and yes, I love Utah State. And I found myself engaged. I honestly, it's like this dream when I. And this is not. This is an engagement I called off. So this is not the divorce we're going to talk about. Maybe this, there's some, you know, unifying theme there that I was not gonna be successful at being married. But I was so young and found somebody quite a bit older who returned missionary, just ready to get married. And again, he knew, he knew that we were supposed to get married. And again I was like, well, I know I'm not a knower, so I should probably just. This is a pickle of a situation

Margi Dehlin [00:19:44] if I'm not a knower.

John Dehlin [00:19:45] Right.

Meg Campbell [00:19:45] But then I like default to like, what could go wrong? We're gonna get married in the temple, we're going to write. I'll have checked this final important box. And again, I was just young. The closer it got, the more uncomfortable I got. And that's a total tangent. We don't need to get into luckily I was. I did call that off before we got married and that was just massively relieving. But I remember it being huge exercise and almost just mini crisis of. I'm like, why won't. Why can't I get answers? Why can't I never get an answer to prayers? Right. I had no solid decision making model and I would just keep praying and waiting for impressions or waiting for.

Meg Campbell [00:20:36] And then try. Right. Reading all the talks from general authorities I could find. But yeah, I called that one off and that was definitely a good move. But then fast forward another, you know, four years. My former husband and I had been dating for about two and again, we. It was one of those things. It's so funny to think back on and try to remember even discussions around it, but we were both kind of just. This was the next step. All my college roommates were married off. Right. I was living on my own, still up there, trying to decide what I was gonna do. It's just so crazy to me that 23 and unmarried in Utah is like, Spencer.

Meg Campbell [00:21:25] Yeah. Yeah. And so we really were at this point of after dating two years, like, I guess you get married, right. And everybody's asking why you aren't married yet. And so we did. We got married in the Logan Temple.

Margi Dehlin [00:21:43] Okay. Do you remember, do you remember at that point, you know, what drew you to your husband or what you had been taught to value what you were looking for within Mormonism?

Meg Campbell [00:21:59] Yes. Well, already he was not a return missionary, so strike against him. It really was. Yeah, that was. But he, he was willing to go back to church and I was super on the fence in college when I was right out of my childhood home. I had roommates that would, you know, be supportive in us going, but left to myself, I just always felt like, what is wrong with me? I am not good at this. Like, I was just not good at being a good Mormon. But I had so was just so conflicted over it because I wanted to. Right. I wanted to receive these blessings and to be this, you know, just good Mormon.

Margi Dehlin [00:22:48] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [00:22:49] And so when we reached this point of it's just time to get married, it's like, this is it. This is going to be my. We're going to go to the tent. This is where my, you know, good Mormon life starts. And that was my thinking around it. I think he was. And that was just. We were not good communicators, but we had also both grown up with temple. Marriage is kind of all you need, right? All our temple or the temple prep classes where they're like, as long as, you know, Heavenly Father's central. Right. Your relationship is what we were taught. Relationship with him is central. And then your spouse is secondary and you have a temple marriage. Like, you're set.

John Dehlin [00:23:34] And there's a special quote I think it is, that's like any two faithful Mormons can make a marriage work if they follow the gospel, Right?

Meg Campbell [00:23:41] Absolutely. And we had definitely been. So we just had very not well managed expectations, I think. I really just thought, I'm like, okay, I have made it. We are getting married in the temple now. It's going to be smooth sailing.

John Dehlin [00:24:02] And can I just note that, like, with the church having $250 billion in wealth, they could come up with a curriculum where they teach young couples before they get married. Like, here's healthy communication skills, here's healthy boundaries, here's healthy, you know, mental health individually and you know, they can provide. And here's how to find out compatibility. Here's a sexual health and how to have healthy sex lives. Like, they could develop. And I know there's like a marriage prep class, but my sense is that's more gospel centered than it is, like professional mental health centered. Absolutely.

Courtship, Marriage Prep, and Wedding in the Church

Meg Campbell [00:24:41] That was my experience. And Right. Instead, on the other extreme, I feel I was. We were gifted things, like very unhelpful books. Like, one of them was very. I'm like, this is just more like guilt and somehow shame inducing. Even though between husband and wife.

Julia [00:24:59] I knew you were going to say that.

Margi Dehlin [00:25:01] Are you familiar with it, Julia?

Julia [00:25:03] Yeah. I minored in marriage and family relations at byu, Idaho. And that book, even just flipping through it as an ex Mormon, like, it's so bad. Can you talk about some of that, Meg?

Meg Campbell [00:25:12] I did not get through tons of it because it felt so icky. It felt like.

Margi Dehlin [00:25:20] Yes.

Meg Campbell [00:25:20] And I'm like, I just felt like the church was just constant mixed messages. I'm like, wait, we're married? All this stuff is allowed now? Except. Nope. Still feel really bad about some stuff.

John Dehlin [00:25:31] You're talking about sex.

Meg Campbell [00:25:32] Yes. It was all about between husband and wife sex stuff. And so those were. Which is just so interesting. Like, those were gifts. Those were like bridal shower gifts. They're like, enjoy. And yes.

Margi Dehlin [00:25:45] Giving you the best.

John Dehlin [00:25:46] Like John Gottman, you know, or like Esther Perel experts set you up for.

Meg Campbell [00:25:54] And we weren't. Right. It wasn't till years later where we're on the brink of divorce that a therapist recommends a book like that. Right. Like, that's what we. Where we needed to start. And I, I Mean, right now already I feel like I have conversations and hopefully I'm setting some groundwork with my own kids of just communication and healthy relationships and. Right. Like how to repair and how all these things that I just did not have. Yeah, right. A lot of experience with. And so I for sure got married thinking, thank goodness temple marriage is gonna help everything.

Margi Dehlin [00:26:38] It's gonna fix, it's gonna redeem me.

Meg Campbell [00:26:40] Yes, exactly.

Margi Dehlin [00:26:42] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:26:43] Achievement, you know, level achieved.

Margi Dehlin [00:26:45] Right, right.

Meg Campbell [00:26:46] Yes, exactly.

John Dehlin [00:26:47] Leveling up.

Margi Dehlin [00:26:47] And honestly, that is young women's. Yeah. I do feel like that is the pinnacle.

Meg Campbell [00:26:53] Right.

Margi Dehlin [00:26:53] And of young women's, like, you can add a couple, add children, a sprinkle, but really young women's is all the temple. It's like, just get yourself to the temple, get yourself married, get yourself chosen real quickly.

John Dehlin [00:27:06] Find your worthy priesthood holder.

Meg Campbell [00:27:08] Right. And be worthy. I grew up with. I think they've probably stopped this too. But those postcards of like, I had them on my mirror like that, like, of licked cupcakes and chewed gum. Those.

John Dehlin [00:27:18] Those things that don't have sex before marriage.

Meg Campbell [00:27:20] Right. Just the reminders or you'll be damaged goods. Yeah, right.

Julia [00:27:25] Wait, May. Can I ask another question? Yeah. So you talk about this knowing I just. I wonder, and maybe you've already answered this, but with your. With being engaged before, in your. Your. Who becomes your husband later, did you pray and ask specifically if these men were right for you to marry? And if you did, like, did you feel like they say, a burning in your bosom if it's right, or a stupor of thought if it's wrong? I know for me, like, before you answer, like, if they said if they. Sometimes I was told that if you don't feel a stupor of thought, like, if it's. If you don't see. If you don't get the answer no, then the answer could be yes, even though it doesn't feel like that. Like, what was your experience with that?

Meg Campbell [00:28:01] Yes. No. That's so familiar. Familiar. And I felt like I lived forever in this limbo land of not being. Being able to decide. Also, I felt like I was kind of in this perma. Stupor of thought. So I was like, what is wrong with me? And then you scramble to be like, I'm going to read my scriptures. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to get an answer. And with the first engagement I called off, I feel like I was very close to almost talking myself into. Well, I don't have any confirmation, but I Don't feel like I'm in a stupor of thought. And so maybe I just need to move forward. Forward and see what happens. Right. Because I also found some sort of. There was some talk or something about how.

Margi Dehlin [00:28:45] Which.

Meg Campbell [00:28:46] Not that I disagree with.

Margi Dehlin [00:28:47] Right.

Meg Campbell [00:28:47] Indecision. You can't stay there forever. So I probably did move forward and it was with like the dress fittings and getting pictures scheduled and like every step closer, it became more clear that I'm like, hey, I can't do this. Then the next time I was older. And I think that contributed to me thinking about it less because it was just time. And I did every major decision I tried to pray about. I can't say I ever felt like I received answers. And I always. I think that's like, interesting too. Right. Just even attribution theory. All these times growing up where I would say prayers, like, I just didn't get answered. I attributed that to just not being noticed. But I was like, what if I had found my keys even. Right. One of those five times I prayed about it or.

Margi Dehlin [00:29:50] Right.

John Dehlin [00:29:50] Right.

Meg Campbell [00:29:51] How that might have changed. Yeah. I don't feel. I feel like I prayed all the time and just never experienced what. You know, I heard other people testify about receiving any answer.

John Dehlin [00:30:02] I really to that too. Okay. So there's this spectrum. I'm gonna. I'm gonna make this up. And it's way more complex than the way I'm gonna make it up. But there's on the one hand, totally Twitter painted, totally in love. Marrying your best friend, like, church isn't even involved. This is. This is your one and only true person. And you knew it from almost the start. That's one extreme. The other is like dead inside, not attracted at all to them. Totally just robot going through the motions. But probably would have never married this person if you weren't under the influence of being pressured to marry someone. And this is, you know, probably might be hard to answer, but where were you? How would you describe where you were along that manufactured, contrived continuum I just offered you?

Meg Campbell [00:30:47] We were probably definitely closer to the like happy Twitter painted. And we were really good friends. We were really happy. I think my former husband would probably say the temple marriage, it was downhill from there. Like, we were happier those two years dating when we were more inactive than when I tried to force a return

Margi Dehlin [00:31:15] to being conformity and really on the track of interesting.

Meg Campbell [00:31:21] Yeah. So we were definitely. But I also think we weren't in a place where we would have talked about getting married if I wasn't Feeling just old and like, it was time to get married. So we've joked about it since. But yeah, he will tease that since that temple returned to the temple. Temple marriage, it was downhill from there.

John Dehlin [00:31:47] Interesting.

Julia [00:31:47] Wait, can I ask.

John Dehlin [00:31:48] Yeah, please go, Julie.

Julia [00:31:49] Oh, I just. And please don't answer any questions that you don't want to. So whenever you said that you were dating for two years, that kind of surprised me because you often in Mormonism, you date for, you know, they say short. I guess they say long dating, short engagement. But, like, and. But dating for two years because in Mormonism you have to stay abstinent and like. So I was just wondering if that was hard for you to date for two years or like, what was that like for those. For that time?

Margi Dehlin [00:32:13] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [00:32:14] And this is such a. It's funny and really, just culturally, I'm like, this is so backwards. But we had. When I say we were inactive, we were practically living together, but quietly. Right. Like, I knew this was embarrassing. I knew this wasn't okay. I really worried that I'm like, we can't even. When he would suggest he's like, we can just get married civilly. I was like, oh, no. I have. I felt like a grandparent that if it's possible to die of disappointment, like, I would cause that. Like, that was very. I'm the oldest grandchild, by the way. But that was like, very real pressure for me at the time. And so, yes, it was a whole process. He moved out.

Margi Dehlin [00:33:04] We.

Meg Campbell [00:33:04] That's part of like, the second half of the year was waiting 10 months to be able to get married. So there were definitely.

John Dehlin [00:33:13] Because you confessed at some point. Do you want to talk about that?

Meg Campbell [00:33:19] I can. I have a. And this. I didn't even. Which I want to speak about. I'm glad it's changing. But yes, our experiences, because we were in different. He was still, I think, assigned to a home ward. I was in a student ward. So our experiences with, like, the whole repentance process were very different. And mine was horrible. Absolutely horrible. His, I felt like, was very reasonable.

Julia [00:33:48] It was like, who was in what ward.

Meg Campbell [00:33:51] So my former husband was still in a home ward. I was in a student ward.

Julia [00:33:54] Okay. So like, family ward versus student ward. And yours was horrible.

Meg Campbell [00:33:57] Mine was horrible. I had to have weekly meetings to share more and more details because I wasn't. And if I questioned right, like, why is this necessary? Like, I wasn't showing godly sorrow.

Julia [00:34:12] You did question.

Meg Campbell [00:34:14] I did. I asked why the details and why they're repeated meetings. And it Was. I love that I wasn't showing godly sorrow. And so I was. I was given readings, like assignments, Miracle forgiveness. Oh, my gosh. Of soul symbols and sacraments.

John Dehlin [00:34:30] Talk that he gave it. Byu. Were those help keep going?

Meg Campbell [00:34:34] Oh, it was not. It was awful. It was like one of the darkest, I feel like darkest seasons of my life. And this I can see now. This bishop was very out of line, but he would comment, hopefully I don't die before we meet again.

John Dehlin [00:34:52] Finish your repentance. Because if you die or you complete your repentance, then what?

Meg Campbell [00:34:57] I don't know. Spirit prison.

Julia [00:34:59] Wait, wait. He said he hoped you didn't die before your next meeting with him.

Meg Campbell [00:35:03] Yes, before I finished the process. Yeah, it was. And so.

Margi Dehlin [00:35:09] And this.

Meg Campbell [00:35:09] We've unpacked this a little bit, my former husband and I. That. No wonder. It was just this horrible experience trying to return to church, return to the temple, get married in the temple. And so that was a bit traumatic at the time. Just the level of just those con. It was another super icky, icky thing, those conversations. But I didn't know or didn't know. I could try to know differently. Yeah. Like, for me and my background and what I just still believed was that's kind of the mouthpiece of God in my space right now. And so, yeah, that was awful.

Margi Dehlin [00:35:57] I'm sorry.

Meg Campbell [00:35:58] But so, yeah, we spent 10 months not living together, and then we're able to get married in the temple.

John Dehlin [00:36:05] And that was punitive. Basically your bishop saying you had sex, so you have to repent. So wait 10 months and then you can have a temple marriage. Is that right?

Meg Campbell [00:36:15] Yes. Which we were told 10 months was, like, generous because I think it's supposed to be a year.

John Dehlin [00:36:22] Can I ask you a discount for good?

Meg Campbell [00:36:24] Yeah. Because we were headed in the right direction.

Early Marriage Life and Sexual Expectations

Julia [00:36:29] Wait, can I ask another question? So, like, sometimes when a couple is sexually active, the bishop pressures them to get married even though they weren't planning on it. Did you experience that at all?

Meg Campbell [00:36:38] No, I did not. I feel like it was definitely me reaching a point of I need to turn my life around, which was so unnecessary. Like, we were, like I said, just good friends. We were going to school. We were happy. Like, things were good.

Julia [00:37:00] Right.

Meg Campbell [00:37:01] But I definitely was feeling old. Right. Like, I needed to get at age, what, 20, 23.

Julia [00:37:08] Three.

Meg Campbell [00:37:10] Yeah. So, well, I would have been 22. We got married when I was 20.

Julia [00:37:14] Oh, my gosh, that's so young after.

Meg Campbell [00:37:16] But yeah, that explains the two years

Margi Dehlin [00:37:18] was part of the, you know, when you were Talking about, you know, this idea of being redeemed through getting married was part of it. This experience that you had of the 10 months feeling so dark and that, you know, there wasn't this fit.

Meg Campbell [00:37:37] Right.

Margi Dehlin [00:37:38] That you had, like, dear. Seriously made. I don't know. I don't know, like, hurt your salvation potential. And it was a way to restore yourself. Like, was that part of it?

Meg Campbell [00:37:49] Oh, for sure, for sure. And I think that just my expectation that this temple marriage was going to

Margi Dehlin [00:37:56] be

Meg Campbell [00:37:58] some mark of worthiness, because I did just feel so. And that drives me crazy now. Right. But just this sense of so unworthy you've made, like, done these really. Just being reminded that, like, sexual sins are second to murder, like, being called practically a murderer. It's like, that is. So, yeah, for most people just trying to do their best and then being, you know, somebody suggesting you've essentially almost murdered somebody, it's that serious. So I definitely had this, I think, expectation that a temple marriage was gonna. Everything would feel better and everything would feel lighter and everything would feel okay. And then somehow the temple marriage, like, depressed me more.

Meg Campbell [00:38:48] More like the temple part, all of that depressed. So I got more depressed. And I think part of that was it didn't just miraculously, like, fix everything. Y. Right. I didn't feel better. This was like, what was supposed to be. Like, we've made it. We're set.

Meg Campbell [00:39:03] And it didn't. And I think that's probably where, like, my former husband would be. Like, that made it worse. Right? Going back to church made everything worse.

Margi Dehlin [00:39:15] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [00:39:16] Was our experience.

John Dehlin [00:39:18] Yeah. So, like, I mean, I'm getting the vibe, just to summarize that, like, you were actually in a very healthy, happy place as a couple living together, getting to know each other and not having the church in your life. And weirdly, the church all of a sudden gives you all this guilt and shame and stress and pressure and. And it's almost like initiates the beginning of. Of the spoiling of a relationship.

Meg Campbell [00:39:45] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:39:46] And I'm wondering if you feel like maybe without all of that, you actually might have. Might still be married, or do you feel like there were still irreconcilable differences in spite of all that?

Meg Campbell [00:39:56] No, I think that's hard to say.

John Dehlin [00:39:58] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [00:39:58] I think. Right. We've kind of reached a place where it's the easiest, like, A to B point to connect is we probably wouldn't have gotten married without that pressure of it being our next step toward. Right. Eternal salvation.

Meg Campbell [00:40:15] So. But I'm also in a place where. Where I Think I shared already with you both that I wouldn't do anything differently. I feel like it's just because of our kids and where we're at now. I'm so grateful everything worked out just as it did. I wouldn't change a thing. But being totally honest, I think both of us are just kind of reached a place where I'm like, yeah, I don't know that we would have gotten married. And I also want. Right. I want that for my kids to be able to grow up and have that exploration phase versus that foreclosed identity. Right. Like, so many important, like, really important things to consider when or if they ever decide to get married. It'll look so different. I really hope. Right. That framework looks so different for them.

John Dehlin [00:41:08] Okay.

Meg Campbell [00:41:09] So

John Dehlin [00:41:12] I guess one of the dynamics many have to deal with is, like, having sex for the first time on their wedding night. And I guess y' all already knew there was some fundamental compatibility there. So I guess that I'm assuming that made your wedding night less of a potential disaster.

Meg Campbell [00:41:32] Yes. Except.

John Dehlin [00:41:34] Although, maybe not.

Meg Campbell [00:41:35] No, I. I remember sobbing because it wasn't our first.

Margi Dehlin [00:41:42] Oh, no.

Meg Campbell [00:41:43] Oh, right. So now I'd done. I just was so ill equipped to, like, hold or handle any of this. And my poor then husband, he's like, what is happening? Right. It's like, no surprise now for that. His perception was right. Like, going back to church ruined everything because I still. And again, it's the mismanaged expectations. I thought, like, that would fix everything. But that guilt doesn't just disappear. Right. It's so conditioned. Like, that conditioning runs so deep. And so, yes, it should have been great, but I still felt so guilty that we'd done it backwards. Right. That we hadn't. Yeah. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:42:30] Because when you're back on track.

Meg Campbell [00:42:33] Right. Yes.

Margi Dehlin [00:42:34] Then what you're. What track means is the ideal again. Then you're back in touch with what the ideal was, what it is like for everyone else. And so now you're measuring and is that right?

Meg Campbell [00:42:47] Sensitive to. Like, I fell short.

Margi Dehlin [00:42:50] And you're like. And here I am again.

Meg Campbell [00:42:52] Yeah, not good enough. Not a fit. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a good question.

John Dehlin [00:43:00] Dang. Dang. So all this, again, this. This stuff even spoiled your. Your wedding night. And spoil the beginning because now you're feeling shame and guilt for mistakes of the past.

Meg Campbell [00:43:12] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:43:12] Not a great way to start.

Meg Campbell [00:43:13] It was not. You're not off to a great start.

John Dehlin [00:43:17] Yeah. Okay. All right. So you get married, and let's talk about what your agreement was. Let's just Say there's such thing as a marital contract, whether that's explicitly discussed or not, whether it's said or just implied. But like, you mentioned the church curriculum, the marriage prep class, saying that it's God in the church first, and then your marriage, what, Second, and then your individual health and well being third.

Meg Campbell [00:43:45] I guess so, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:43:46] I don't know. So, like, if y'.

Margi Dehlin [00:43:49] All.

John Dehlin [00:43:49] If what was the marriage contract, as you can best remember, again, either implied or explicit as to your relationship with God in the church and how that would frame your marriage.

Meg Campbell [00:44:01] And I would say it was definitely implied because we just didn't have the tools to communicate more explicitly or. Well, but there was resentment really early on because of us just being in different places with our relationship with the church. Like I mentioned, I think my husband was ready to like, hey, there you go. We checked that temple marriage box. Can we go back to how things were, where we would, like, adventure on Sundays, or he was just content to return to being inactive. And again, we just hadn't communicated about this. So we were already set up for problems because I was like, oh, no, no, no.

Meg Campbell [00:44:42] We're. We're like regular temple attendance, and we are saying yes to callings now, and we are going to church regularly. Like, that was. In my mind, this was my, like, pivotal, like, turning point where I was getting back on track.

Meg Campbell [00:44:59] And he was more just doing the temple marriage for me. Right. And for, you know, the reasons I felt were important. So we were definitely on very different pages there. So my understanding of, like, what I thought the agreements were, the marital contract, he was instantly not interested in. So then I was really frustrated. I'm like, what do you think we signed up for? We just got married in the temple. Like, take me to the temple.

John Dehlin [00:45:32] What are some examples of, you know, the specifics of that contract in your mind?

Meg Campbell [00:45:36] You know, just regular temple attendance as one. And he. Which I don't. I did not like it either. But I was like, we have to go, right? Like, you need to go with me. And so that was always a bit of a fight. Then same thing with church. I just felt like we fell into this not ideal dynamic of where I'm just nagging. And we'd never experienced that before. Like, me nagging to do something and then him feeling like I wasn't listening, right. Of like, he just did not want a lot to do with the church that would. So we just kind of waffled in that space for a while of.

Julia [00:46:27] Can. Can I ask. So part of the. Part of the marriage agreement I guess in Mormonism is that in the temple, at least in the endowment, the woman covenants through her husband and the husband covenants to God with your husband or with your current husband at the time, with him not being as active as you were, did you feel like.

John Dehlin [00:46:45] Yeah, yeah.

Julia [00:46:46] Like disappointment or like. Or like, could be. Yeah. Did you feel any kind of thing about that?

Meg Campbell [00:46:51] Yes, I felt really frustrated. I felt like. And again, this was just zero communication around it. But I thought he. I just thought we were on the same page. Right. That he was going to re. Engage with me. Right. That he would. Even though he didn't serve a mission. That's okay. He was now going to be this really strong priesthood holder in the home. And it was going to. Right. It was going to be set up and structured. How I grew up believing is what I needed to, you know, do. And yeah, it was something we argued about quite a bit.

Navigating Faith and Spirituality Within Marriage

John Dehlin [00:47:31] I'm curious how much of this was like, you having a genuine desire to, like, develop your spirituality in the faith, slash you feeling a genuine inclination that if you were to have kids, they would do best Being raised as faithful Mormons versus guilt or shame or conditioning or pressure. That was like pleasing parents, pleasing grandparents. External stuff.

Meg Campbell [00:48:02] Say like 99. External stuff.

John Dehlin [00:48:05] Right.

Meg Campbell [00:48:05] The guilt, the conditioning, the. And I'm just like, why did I not let myself think for myself earlier? Right. I just felt so, so much on autopilot. Right. It was just this, I think, indoctrinated need to do it this way. Right, Right. Later therapists, right? We'll call it like shoulding on myself. Stop shooting on yourself. Because it was all these. I'm like, no, we should, we should. We should be doing this. We should be going to the temple. We should be accepting these callings. We should be praying together. We should be. Right.

John Dehlin [00:48:38] Tithing 10% of your income.

Meg Campbell [00:48:40] Oh, that was a huge. Yeah. Fight. Well, he didn't want to. He could not stand pain. He didn't agree with paying 10%.

John Dehlin [00:48:53] It's a lot.

Meg Campbell [00:48:53] It's a lot. And I'd be like, we should. You need to. It would be something. And even now, though, we'll laugh. He's like, I'm so glad I always slacked on.

John Dehlin [00:49:05] Yeah. Because really regret how much they gave the truth.

Meg Campbell [00:49:08] Oh, so much. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:49:10] In many ways, as your story is going along, what I'm realizing is like, it seems like you. You met and had some time together where you were more authentic, you were more connected to yourselves. And then it's like you had a moment of where the conditioning caught up to you. You're feeling older, you're feeling like you kind of. And so you go back and the bishop adds a ton of shame. Right. And so then you're needing the worthiness. But it feels like your husband was like, we're going to do this temple marriage. And then he kind of goes back to authenticity.

Meg Campbell [00:49:48] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [00:49:49] Of like.

Julia [00:49:49] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [00:49:49] But yes.

Margi Dehlin [00:49:50] Which he kind of.

Meg Campbell [00:49:53] Right. He was.

Julia [00:49:54] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [00:49:55] Always better at being able to, like, stand alone a little bit. Right. Like, just to say, not serving a mission. Right. And he was able to be confident in that. Where I didn't have that, I always felt very. Just this pressing need to conform with whatever, you know. Right. Being a good Mormon looked like. And even when I was, like, faking it. Right. I would do it quietly. You know what I mean? Like, people. When we were off in college, and people wouldn't necessarily know that he was, you know, that we were living together after my roommates were married or. You know what I mean? It was always something that I understood to be like, needs to be secret. Even though, like, you said, like, between the two of us, it was honestly healthy and happy and. And good.

Margi Dehlin [00:50:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:50:49] Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, you're. You're systematically being taught to ignore how you think and feel, to not be tuned into who you are and what you. You want. You've got this external source of authority telling you all these things you and your husband should be doing. That's not authentic to who either of you are. But that also is adding a bunch of stress and unpleasantries to the relationship. Like, doesn't sound great.

Meg Campbell [00:51:15] Right.

Margi Dehlin [00:51:16] And that's your start. And you're so.

John Dehlin [00:51:18] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [00:51:18] And that's the beginning. Yes. That's.

John Dehlin [00:51:20] That's how it starts.

Meg Campbell [00:51:22] The beginning of the end.

John Dehlin [00:51:24] Yeah. Beginning of the end, you say?

Meg Campbell [00:51:25] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:51:26] Right.

Meg Campbell [00:51:27] Like, if we go back far enough. Oh, for sure.

Julia [00:51:28] Right.

John Dehlin [00:51:29] Yeah. Oh, man. Okay.

Meg Campbell [00:51:30] Yeah.

Husband's Resignation and the Faith Crisis Begins

John Dehlin [00:51:31] All right.

Julia [00:51:31] So.

John Dehlin [00:51:32] Because we want to focus on the divorce part.

Meg Campbell [00:51:35] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:51:36] What? How? And we're just going to basically say, how would you characterize from the marriage to the point where things started really to fracture?

Meg Campbell [00:51:45] So if I just to kind of line it up. We got married when I was 23 and then started having kids. Had our first when I was 25 and 27, and then 30 was on my third. I was 30 when my third was born. But this whole time, there's perma. Church activity level tension.

Julia [00:52:13] Right.

Meg Campbell [00:52:13] If we can call it that. I'm. I'm trying to, like, for. And I would get so resentful because I'M like, I, I was having a hard time like wanting to go.

Margi Dehlin [00:52:22] Right.

Meg Campbell [00:52:22] I was doing it so much out of feeling that duty or responsibility. And I was like, I need a partner. I need a partner. I need you to be supportive.

Margi Dehlin [00:52:32] And.

Meg Campbell [00:52:33] Right. He's feeling the same way, but in the other direction. Right. Why can't I be supportive of us not being active in church? But he ended up, and I should mention, we at this time live in a rural community in Utah, very active LDS population. And my then husband, when I was pregnant with our third, resigns, voluntarily resigns his membership.

John Dehlin [00:53:03] What?

Meg Campbell [00:53:04] From the church.

John Dehlin [00:53:05] How many years into your marriage?

Meg Campbell [00:53:07] So 23 to like 20. I was 28, 29. So 6.6ish years in. So we've been waffling back and forth. I'm trying to get him to engage and finally he's like, yeah, it's. And. But then he had had his own faith crisis right before. He just was kind of content to be inactive. Right. But then he really got into researching and exploring and learning more and so he resigned.

Julia [00:53:44] Did he do that?

Margi Dehlin [00:53:45] Treason? Yeah, okay, sorry.

Julia [00:53:47] Did he do that quietly or was his. Was his resignation and his faith crisis, was that known to you?

Meg Campbell [00:53:52] Yeah, it was known to me. And he tried to include me and I was really awful to him, which is sad. I didn't want to hear it. I felt like this was one more thing he was like, do. I took it personally.

Meg Campbell [00:54:11] I would say things like, why would you not decide this before we got married in the temple, Like, I felt like it was so unfair to me when I still was in this place of wishing I had like a partner in the Mormon Church. Right. I wanted this priesthood holding partner and I just had very little, like, no empathy, very little patience for him wanting to work through this faith crisis. So I still, even now think that must have been so lonely. And I'm so grateful that like your work was out there. Like he had places that felt less lonely, I'm sure, and resources and was able to find.

Meg Campbell [00:55:03] Because when you're in it in like a very active ward, you feel like so alone. Right. You think you're the only one. And he was the first in our ward to voluntarily resign. And it was a big, it was a big deal.

Margi Dehlin [00:55:18] Wow.

Meg Campbell [00:55:19] And so, yeah, I did not. He wasn't trying to be quiet or secretive. He didn't try to hide it. He tried to include me. But I, for a lot of years refused to shut it down.

Margi Dehlin [00:55:31] Kind of.

John Dehlin [00:55:32] Yeah, that's tough because he, he was just kind of going along to get along. But it just wasn't working out for him.

Meg Campbell [00:55:39] Right.

John Dehlin [00:55:40] You know.

Meg Campbell [00:55:41] Right.

John Dehlin [00:55:41] And I wasn't hiding it from you because that's a really extreme act to resign in. In the Mormon context, to resign your membership while you're early in your marriage, after. There's a kind of an understanding as to the marriage contract, that the temple marriage, it's built on eternal families. You're going to be together forever. The kids are going to be born under the cov, you know, with both of you faithful, like, that's. That would end, I would say, at least 50% of Mormon marriages, that one of the spouses just resigning. That would end it right there.

Meg Campbell [00:56:11] Yes. And that was definitely a.

Margi Dehlin [00:56:14] Is that how it felt? Like in that moment, he was very much drawing a line in the sand that you.

Meg Campbell [00:56:21] I mean, well, and that's what felt very. And we were just so disconnected because I felt like if he had any idea how hurtful this was or how scary this was, he just wouldn't do that. And it felt. It honestly felt like a huge betrayal at the time. And we reached some point, some hard conversation where he explained, like, this. Do you think I took this lightly? Do you think I took this decision lightly? Like, this was one. Just my integrity demands. He's like, I can't live like this anymore. And. Right. I love you, I love the kids, but I cannot fake this.

Margi Dehlin [00:57:10] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [00:57:11] It's not sustainable for me. And so that was a big. Just. I don't know, that woke me up a little bit to finally. I was so stuck in my own, like, rage at him. But to be like, I actually don't. I knew him well enough. Like, he didn't take this lightly. Right. Like, he must really not believe this. Right. Because I'm here thinking, if there's a chance your family gets to be together forever. And we just opened. Oh, this was mean of me, too. I don't know if the First Presidency still sends letters to everybody who resigns is that old, or do they still do that?

John Dehlin [00:57:48] I mean. Or the membership department, one of the two.

Margi Dehlin [00:57:51] Okay.

Meg Campbell [00:57:51] So he had got a letter from the First Presidency that explained every, you know, covenants being forfeited and all these things. And I basically.

John Dehlin [00:58:00] It's basically a letter from the prophets. I mean, yourself to hell for eternity and your children.

Meg Campbell [00:58:05] And when you're believing, wife, like, opens it. I was like, he's just like, ruined everything. He took everything away. And so it wasn't even my letter to open, but I did. I was so upset, and I ripped it off and I threw it away.

John Dehlin [00:58:21] Oh no.

Meg Campbell [00:58:23] It was so. No, he did read it and I still later I. But he, he had wanted to save it, I think I don't. You like taped it back. But like to read that was. I'm like, yeah, you just took away. I have no. Which should have been so telling for me. Like why do I have no control and no say and no power. Right, right. But yes, I didn't question those things at the time. I just was so upset at him that he just cost me my eternal family. So.

Julia [00:58:56] But wait, so you said. So you said something interesting. You said that he was the first in your ward to resign or choose to resign. Did he have like a higher up calling? Or did this happen? Did other people resign or did. Did the war. Did it affect the war to some degree?

Meg Campbell [00:59:09] I think since. And again, this is. Right. How many? 11, like 14 years ago. So it's been so since quite a few. Right. Have resigned. But at the time, and this area has grown a ton. It was still really small rural area when we moved in and. But the bishop was, you know, really just genuinely sad, genuinely concerned about our family. It was his first experience with a member asking for their name to be removed. And having to navigate that whole process was just a big, A big deal at the time. And it's just very much not like my former husband. It's not his personality to just kind of go inactive.

Meg Campbell [00:59:59] It really was important to him to not be affiliated with the organization anymore. So he did. Yeah, right. That whole process. And I think I mentioned I was pregnant with our third child at the time and went to meet with the bishop who had worked with my husband with his resignation and everything.

Meg Campbell [01:00:23] And again, he was like honestly concerned and worried about our family. And I had questions and I was worried about our family after that letter from the first presidency. And the bishop had what he explained, like, looked into it, said this was his first experience with it. And we had some, you know, unusual factors, but explained to me essentially like our first two kids were born under the covenant and so they were still technically sealed to me. But then this baby I was pregnant with where her father's resigned and forfeited all these covenants, like she would not be sealed to me. I was just.

Julia [01:01:08] It's so.

John Dehlin [01:01:09] It's like meaning she'll be an orphan in heaven.

Meg Campbell [01:01:11] Honestly, in my mind I'm like, she's just off on her own. And it was. I was just shaking in the chair trying. I mean, I'm right like seven months pregnant I think just trying not to throw up. I was really sick for all my pregnancies, but I was just, just really sick over it and then really confused and then really mad at my husband. But he explained just, she won't be born under the covenant, like. And I asked, I was like, why can't. Which I knew the answer. I think it just came out. But why can't she be sealed to me after she's born, after she's here And.

Meg Campbell [01:01:52] Well, because you're a woman, right. You can't just go have a child sealed to you by yourself. And we finally. And I. I feel so bad for this leader. Right. It was an awful position. But I kept. Right, you're just. I was just a desperate mom at the point who still know better than to believe what I'd always believed. Right. This thing I was trying so hard to make work so I could have a forever family.

Meg Campbell [01:02:19] And essentially we got to a point to have her, right? To have her sealed to me, it would look like divorcing my husband and eventually remarrying in the temple.

Margi Dehlin [01:02:33] So you would have to basically connect yourself to a man.

Meg Campbell [01:02:38] Exactly. And then my kids could be sealed to me under that ceiling.

John Dehlin [01:02:44] So the only way for your kid, your third child, not to be an orphan is for you to hurry and marry some other faithful Mormon man.

Meg Campbell [01:02:50] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:02:51] Somehow the church always wins in that scenario. Right?

Meg Campbell [01:02:53] Exactly. But also believe this is the option.

Julia [01:02:59] But also like how twisted that the, Your, Your child born to your husband, your third child would belong to somebody else in the eternities, or I guess all of them, because he's resigned.

John Dehlin [01:03:08] Yeah, right.

Meg Campbell [01:03:09] Forfeited. He voluntarily forfeited that.

Margi Dehlin [01:03:13] And.

John Dehlin [01:03:13] But the weird thing is, is if he had just divorced you, married somebody else and got sealed to that person as a Mormon, which he could have.

Meg Campbell [01:03:20] He could have. Then he could still.

Margi Dehlin [01:03:23] He'd have it all.

John Dehlin [01:03:23] He could be sealed like me, because I received. This is where Mormon theology always breaks down. If you scratch the surface of Mormon theology, it's like a centimeter thick. Because my parents got divorced and then they each had second spouses and then they divorced them and then they each fell in love with their third spouses and both ended up getting sealed to their third spouses, which meant the temp. Their original sealing had to be nullified. So I'm at BYU as like a freshman at byu. And yeah, my parents are divorced, but at least I'm sealed to my parents still, which is weird because how's that going to work?

Meg Campbell [01:04:04] But it'll work out. It'll just work itself out.

John Dehlin [01:04:06] Yeah. It's all good. But anyway. But then I find my mom doesn't want to be sealed to my dad. She wants to be sealed to her third husband. So she has to like timidly say, hey honey, I just wanted to let you know I'm canceling the ceiling. And. And then I'm just like literally thinking, oh great. So I'm not sealed to either of my parents in the afterlife. I'm not going to choose. So that was one. That was a crack in my testimony because I'm like, wait a minute, this doesn't make sense. So then I'm like, oh well, it doesn't matter. I could just visit both of them. And then I'm like, well, if that's true, why does the ceiling matter at all? Right.

Meg Campbell [01:04:43] But it's so heavy when you.

John Dehlin [01:04:44] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [01:04:45] Still believe. That's how it works.

Margi Dehlin [01:04:47] It's kind of. It's like emotional violence.

Meg Campbell [01:04:49] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [01:04:49] To you.

Meg Campbell [01:04:50] Yes. You're thinking about it so scary. Like it was just scary. I'm like, what am I gonna do? And you. I felt this responsibility to problem solve this. But also on the other hand, that was the first time that something cracked. Right. That I was. All of a sudden I was like, oh, I don't know, whatever. Right. Mormon God. I'm trying really hard to believe in. I. It's not that. Right. It's not one that's gonna say you don't get to be with your daughter or any relationship you earn with your daughter doesn't matter. Because of a choice her dad made.

Margi Dehlin [01:05:31] Right.

Meg Campbell [01:05:31] That just. I could not make that make sense. And so that explanation, which is funny because it was at that time I would have had so much support to pursue a divorce like you said. Right. This was the ultimate betrayal. My husband just resigned from the church. I would have. It would have been easy to ask for a divorce. I would have felt justified and again had a lot of Right. Support for that people like from ward members. From ward members. And yeah.

John Dehlin [01:06:04] Sometimes in laws of the non believing spouse will encourage their in law to divorce their own child.

Meg Campbell [01:06:13] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:06:14] Or to punish them in some way because they're so angry that their child

Meg Campbell [01:06:18] is the one that left and yeah. Messed up the internal family. No, absolutely. And that I was. People would share. We fully support you keeping your covenants with your heavenly father over civil ones with your husband. And so that was shocking to me because even though I was trying so hard to believe all the things I was like, I don't believe in. Right. Choosing These abstract things that I, you know, don't even know, can't see, have to have faith in.

John Dehlin [01:06:51] Let's just remember you never really got your witness to begin with.

Meg Campbell [01:06:54] Exactly. Over a person right in front of me. Over my kids, dad's dad.

Julia [01:06:59] Right.

John Dehlin [01:06:59] It's craziness. I call it a manufactured scarcity. Like if you talk to the other Christian, they're like, of course our families are all going to be together in heaven. Like, it's not even a thing. It's just like, yeah, in heaven, we're all with everybody because good people, they're all together. That's my family. And so like it's. The church likes to sell it as its selling point, its differentiator that, that in this church, in the Mormon Church, families are together forever. But the truth is the Mormon Church is destroying families and keeping families apart in the afterlife by having this manufactured belief about eternal families where. Oh, by the way, the footnote is everyone's got to make it back or else there's, quote, empty chairs and then sad heaven because Johnny didn't make it or Sally didn't keep her covenants. And almost every family has at least some that leave.

Meg Campbell [01:07:52] Oh, right.

John Dehlin [01:07:53] And so like pretty much everyone's set up to be fail and to be missing core family members in the afterlife. And it's literally all manufactured.

Margi Dehlin [01:08:01] It is a setup for sure, for most people to fail. Just the amount of loopholes. Do you remember at the time, either with the bishop, I guess you experienced kind of this, this idea of families can be together forever, just not yours, but you know, with the conversation about your third child and also with your ward family, in essence, being like you'd have support over divorcing your husband at that point. Do you remember how you experienced that belief of families can be together forever and what you'd been told and sold about that? Did anything. Do you have. Do you remember how you processed that?

Living Through a Mixed-Faith Marriage

Meg Campbell [01:08:46] Remember that was the beginning of a very debilitating faith crisis. Right. That was the first crack, the first where I was finally ready to be more open to this possibility that maybe I've been wrong or maybe I've been trying to believe in something, trying really hard to make something work that is in fact wrong. So that was. Yeah, really, instead of making me feel resolved to get my kids sealed to me under like all the, the Mormon rules. Right. Like the way this bishop just outlined for me, I was very. I couldn't, I tried really hard and I could do some, A lot of mental gymnastics around other stuff, but not that yeah, so that was really, that conversation was a huge favor to my then husband. So I was finally like, okay, tell me what you found.

Margi Dehlin [01:09:51] Right, okay.

John Dehlin [01:09:52] So up until that point. Yeah, you, he hadn't really shared with you what the reasons were for him wanting to resign and leave the church.

Meg Campbell [01:10:01] He tried and I would not listen. I, I seriously, I think I said, I'm like, if we're gonna stay married, we have to never talk about this. That's a super good formula for a healthy marriage. Like if this is going to work, we can't communicate.

John Dehlin [01:10:17] But that's again, that's the church. It teaches its members. Never allow yourself to question, never listen to doubt.

Meg Campbell [01:10:23] Well, they're so good at that. If they've taught you that cognitive dissonance is the devil, meaning if you feel

John Dehlin [01:10:30] feelings of anger or if you feel dark feelings or sad feelings or scary

Meg Campbell [01:10:35] feelings or uncomfortable feelings. Yeah, it's Satan. So that was like, that connection was really well established for me. Right. So I'd be like, oh, that's of the devil. Nope, nope. And I was totally justified in just shutting it down, which was so frustrating I can only imagine for him. But that up until, yeah, this conversation about our third child, that's what I'd done. I just would not engage with him about his reasons for leaving.

John Dehlin [01:11:06] And people in your ex husband's situation just feel so alone because the person that they supposed to love most, the person that they're tied to through kids, won't even entertain their, their concerns. And that's just devastating. You just feel isolated and desperate.

Margi Dehlin [01:11:26] And I think too, the, the layer that you're describing of the church actually manufacturing all these further wedges. So now he's wearing that, he's, you know, changed belief, he's learned some things and changed his belief. But now you have a bishop in addition to that, saying to you, sorry about your unborn child who now is lost. Well, how is that going to make you feel about your husband? In addition, right now you're like, great, yes, great. You know, and then you have your ward members basically saying, you know, divorce, divorce him. Like if there's a time, it's now like he's literally, you know.

Meg Campbell [01:12:12] Right.

Margi Dehlin [01:12:12] And so many ways, the ward family and the bishop, they're creating more and more of this shame cycle for him and a wedge for you as a couple to really. So I love that actually in some ways it backfired and you're like, actually.

John Dehlin [01:12:26] Well, I'm just gonna call it. I believe that there have been suicides and a Lot of suicidality on the part of people, adults in Utah or in Mormonism, in the situation or in high demand religions, in the situation that you're describing, your ex husband to be in. Because, like, you can feel like there's just. I'm going to lose my spouse, I'm going to lose my kids. The whole community is against me, and I can't talk to anybody about it.

Margi Dehlin [01:12:53] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [01:12:53] I can't imagine that level of loneliness. And it does. It makes me so sad. And I've told him this, like, I've apologized and I'm so incredibly grateful beyond words that he was brave enough to deviate and that I got there eventually. But, yeah, I agree. I think it's heartbreaking. And.

Meg Campbell [01:13:20] And I did have. There was a circle in my area, my neighborhood, my ward, who were very supportive, even though they were still very in. Some of them have since moved, left the church since. But I can remember one Relief Society meeting since my husband had left, resigned. And it was just something we had to figure out owning. Like, there was no hiding it. He didn't want to hide it. He was going to stop coming. I was going to church by myself. But how. One good friend in Relief Society kind of. I don't remember what the lesson was about, but just questioned the narrative. It was something about the one and only.

Meg Campbell [01:14:06] Right. We're the one and only path. The one and only. And her comment was like, essentially so simple. Maybe there are other paths and that's okay. And I knew it was for me and it was very generous and I appreciated it. But then I could also. Then it was crickets.

Meg Campbell [01:14:25] Right. It was not well received. It was not. So there were like tiny moments after of. Right. Both support and then also. Oh, it's. It's not a big tent. This is not.

Margi Dehlin [01:14:38] I see.

Meg Campbell [01:14:39] Right. But if you've built. I feel like Mormonism's so good at what they sell in the sense, like, we're gonna give you a problem that only we can solve. And so there isn't a lot of room for them to deviate from the narrative that this is the one and only. Right, Right. Right. But, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:15:03] Wow. Okay. So where did y' all go? Where'd y' all go from there?

Meg Campbell [01:15:08] So I took kids. We just kind of navigated the mixed faith marriage for a while. Oh, I didn't get to the point. Well, no, I did. Sorry. So I finally. Yeah. Was more open to hearing his reasons.

Julia [01:15:23] Wait, what was the. What was the time span, Sorry. Between him resigning and you saying, I'm ready to Listen, what was the, what was the time span there?

Meg Campbell [01:15:30] So that would have been. He resigned when I was 27, I think I. Around 29, got more. 28, 29. More open to listening. That would have been the conversation with the bishop time. So really that year, two years. There was a lot of harm done there. Right. Where we're just kind of surviving, not being willing to really see or listen to each other and also having a third baby in the middle of all that. But shortly after she was born, like, at 30 years old, I was very,

John Dehlin [01:16:15] very,

Meg Campbell [01:16:18] very full blown faith crisis. I knew I was very angry. Like, back to the. I'm like, I tried so hard to make this work and it's not even true. And not only is it not even true, it's like not even kind, like, it's not. It's just not okay. So I was really, I was upset. And then there's this whole layer of how awful I'd treated my husband over it. And I was like, he was right.

John Dehlin [01:16:43] Do you mind taking just one minute and saying like, just what the topics were, the issues, like three to five of your husband's issues and then three to five of yours. And we don't have to go into any of them, just.

Meg Campbell [01:16:55] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:16:56] For those who are new to all this, they can look up, they can Google these topics to learn more.

Meg Campbell [01:17:02] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:17:02] But I just want to let get a sense for both your husband's and your concerns.

Meg Campbell [01:17:05] Yeah. So my husband, when I finally was a little more open to engaging around this, he asked, he's like, if I could give, give you just one thing to read, one thing to look at, would you, would you be open to that? And he must have thought so hard about what would like, hook me in really quick. But I finally, I was like, okay, yes, sure. I, I love reading, I love books. And it's like, I can do that even if I think it's anti Mormon. I'm gonna just.

Meg Campbell [01:17:37] Right, I'll read it. That's fine. And so the first thing or whatever he settled on was about the Book of Abraham controversy. And I can still remember, I was super skeptical. I'm like, he thinks I just thought that was so funny. He. That's what he gave me to read.

Meg Campbell [01:17:56] But I was just a handful of pages in and could just see where it was going. And it hit me. I'm like, oh, my goodness. We can, we can translate Egyptian now, right? We have Egypt now. And I was like, it was seems like such a minor thing, but it was devastating. I was like, oh, my Gosh, he's. He's right. So that was a big one. And then the CES letter, which I had been very carefully avoiding, I read.

Meg Campbell [01:18:29] And then your work, Mormon Stories was super instrumental in just providing a. A safe space to explore when it was all really heavy and feels like your worldview is falling apart. But you have kids that you think you have to have answers for, which now I'm at a place where I'm like, how great that I can tell my kids. They don't have all the answers. At the time, though, I felt pressure. Right. That I needed to. So, yeah, those are a couple.

Margi Dehlin [01:19:01] If you had to kind of describe the. The mixed faith year, was it a couple? Yeah. How you would talk about it during that time and what it felt like and where maybe your. If there were places of tension in particular, how would. How would you describe the stress of. Of that on the marriage?

Meg Campbell [01:19:25] Just being. Feeling alone. Right. Feeling. There's various ways. Right. People have quoted it, but just. It's so, like, the loneliest feeling to feel alone when you're right next to the person who's, like, supposed to be your person. Right. And I think that does a lot of damage to a marriage because, yeah, we were just mostly me, like, refusing to communicate. And he's really good. He'll say he could have done things differently. Like, he was very critical of the church, which understandably. Right. I don't think anybody can skip the anger phase. And his was probably exasperated by being so alone through all of it. So he'll say he wishes he had approached it, like, just been more soft around it with me.

Meg Campbell [01:20:23] And so, yeah, primarily, I think it was just really lonely. And then we're trying to. And it turned in. I think this definitely contributed it to turning into more of just a roommate situation. Right. We're raising kids, but we are just super disagreeing on some really big life things that we can't talk about, so we can't solve, and just that wedge gets, you know. Yeah. Driven deeper.

John Dehlin [01:20:52] And by roommate, you mean what, this?

Meg Campbell [01:20:55] We were just kind of living together. We didn't actively spend a lot of time together. We stopped going on dates together. And I think the resentment just kept building. Right. I resented him for not being this, like, partner and priesthood holder and taking kids to church with me. And I'm sure he resented me for being so stubborn and refusing to.

Meg Campbell [01:21:23] To listen because it is like, once I was there, it was so hard for me to run into, like, people, friends and family that I love who didn't want to Hear it. Right. Who didn't want to listen to me. Right. And I've been told, like, we're like, church stuff is off the table. I don't wanna. And so I've like, felt that on the other side, I'm like, but don't you know me? Don't you want to, like, know why I doing this or made this decision or.

Meg Campbell [01:21:50] So I'm like, oh, I get it now, how he would start to resent me. And like, also there's that layer of kids. He didn't like kids going to church. But I.

Margi Dehlin [01:22:02] The parenting.

Meg Campbell [01:22:03] Yeah. Refused to not go right at the time.

Margi Dehlin [01:22:09] Okay, so attending church and having the children participate was a hard part of the rap.

John Dehlin [01:22:15] Yes. From his perspective, if he's viewing the church as a bad thing or even as a cult, then he's seeing your taking the kids to church as like, conditioning them to believe in something.

Meg Campbell [01:22:28] Grateful.

Margi Dehlin [01:22:28] Right.

Meg Campbell [01:22:29] We're on the same page now. But I'm like, oh, I would be. That would be incredibly difficult for me if my co parent were trying to take the kids to church still. Because that is something I very much want to protect them from. I want them to understand that I don't want to, like, shelter them from what it is and what it's about and what it teaches. But if I had a parent wanting, a co parent wanting to raise them LDs, I think. I'm sorry, just from my own experience. Right. Even if you think you are providing like this nuance or these other perspectives.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:06] Right.

Meg Campbell [01:23:07] Like just me attending weekly, like that conditioning.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:11] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [01:23:11] Happened. Right. And those shoulds, you know, are placed and I would not want that for kids, so. Right, right.

Julia [01:23:21] You mentioned. Yeah, sorry. You mentioned one of your babies was blessed by somebody else. Can you talk about the dynamics of that and if that affected your relationship negatively?

Meg Campbell [01:23:30] Yes, for sure. There was just hard feelings because I wanted it to be her dad blessing her. This was our third baby. The one that was born after he'd. Right. The one that's in. I don't know where she is off by herself at Heaven.

John Dehlin [01:23:45] For the Never Mormons. Just context. Whenever a baby's born in Mormonism, all the extended family comes to your Sunday meeting, like your ward, your congregation, and then in front of the whole congregation, which is like your community, the street surrounding where you live. It's this huge event where on fast Sunday, you invite people up from the congregation along with extended family, and they all circle around the baby up in front of the entire congregation, and then give the baby a name and a blessing and it's always the father that's supposed to be doing it. And if it's not the father who's doing it, what would members assume?

Meg Campbell [01:24:25] Right. And they knew by now he had resigned. But just so that he's not even in the circle. Right. That somebody else. That's right. So like that. That'll be hard for me to talk about because I'm sure he was. That was hard on him. Right. Somebody else, you know, picking up his new baby because his wife's insisting she be blessed. And he came for it to be with the family. He went.

Margi Dehlin [01:24:52] Is this the same ward too that was saying like having opinions about divorce?

Meg Campbell [01:24:57] Yeah. And we might have split since then because it was a couple years, but it's still this a small community. And so he was definitely just a black sheep for a while, which he is not bothered by. So for whatever that's worth, he was much more comfortable than I was with sitting through somebody else blessing his daughter. But again, it was just one more layer of me resenting that it wasn't him, that he put our family in this situation, that he chose to make himself ineligible to bless his child. Like that was not also not good for. For the marriage. So.

John Dehlin [01:25:46] But it's deeply shaming to him to. To the one who can't do the blessing.

Meg Campbell [01:25:51] Yeah. And I don't think he perceived that. Right. He was very. But others do. Absolutely. And I did. Others do. I did. I could feel like the pity was like palpable.

Margi Dehlin [01:26:00] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [01:26:01] He was pass given. Right. He was so confident in his position and relationship with the Mormon church.

Margi Dehlin [01:26:11] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [01:26:11] He was upset that his kids were still involved, but it was definitely hard. It probably made everybody uncomfortable.

Margi Dehlin [01:26:21] Honestly, I feel like we missed one point maybe about also why it might have been hard for him to have the kids go to church in that. Like what is the narrative that could ripple down to your children about him?

Meg Campbell [01:26:37] Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And I think, and I noticed this was as we're getting closer and closer to me leaving as well. But I still remember my then 6 year old son coming home and he was just upset from whatever the lesson was in. I don't know if it was primary or primary or Sunday school, but. And this is where I, I still was on the fence of being a good Mormon. I've always loved coffee. I went a decade really trying not to drink it and then. But by this point I had gone back to drinking coffee. So there's that background. My son gets in the car and he's like.

Meg Campbell [01:27:22] Explains he's six. They're having a word of wisdom lesson. And it was one of those, like, objects you draw an item, a picture of an item out of a bag and it goes in a bin labeled. Literally labeled good or bad.

Meg Campbell [01:27:37] Right? So I'm like, Of course my 6 year old would draw coffee. He draws. And just the fact, though, he was so concerned to tell me, mom, I don't think you're bad, but I just knew it was supposed to go on the bad side, so I put in the bad side, but I don't think it's bad. Okay. And just me seeing like the conf. I'm like, this is ridiculous.

Margi Dehlin [01:28:00] Right?

Meg Campbell [01:28:01] The confliction he's filling over right. Of behavior he sees his parents engage in, which I want him to understand is not bad. Right. And then the guilt he feels that he knew he had to call it bad to conform. And so that was just right. Tip of the iceberg where, yeah, I knew they were right. Having similar or would have to navigate similar conversations about their dad's membership or, you know, lack thereof.

John Dehlin [01:28:39] So if the. If y' all had gotten divorced at this point where you're still a believer and he's resigned, my guessing, it would have been sort of a super acrimonious divorce if you had gotten divorced at that point. Correct?

Meg Campbell [01:28:54] Right. It was possibly, I think so. Because things were. I mean, I think with divorce, it's always feels really raw. But I was really unstable just individually myself. Right. I was still in that whole deconstruction. I think of that time and compare it to.

Meg Campbell [01:29:19] There's so many, like, there's so many analogies, but one of my girlfriends has a really good one of. It's like you have this vase, this really nice face, this precious thing, and you drop it and it shatters and you can't step, you can't walk anywhere. You'll step in glass. And not only do you, like, you need help, you need help cleaning it up. You need help, right? Getting out of this mess or putting it back together or picking it up, but nobody's there. People are just being like, well, why'd you drop it? Why'd you do that? Right? And that's how it felt like we had put ourselves in this place.

Meg Campbell [01:30:02] Like, well, why. Why'd your husband leave? Why are you staying? Why are you? Yeah, right. So it felt just like this, you know, broken glass everywhere or this minefield. Like, I nowhere was safe to step. And so I'm very grateful we didn't pursue divorce at that point because I just felt like I was barely Barely managing survival mode and very much needed to.

Meg Campbell [01:30:33] Yeah. Needed help with some nervous system regulation. And I'm. Yeah. Just forever grateful that we didn't impulsively divorce then and there over that. Really glad.

John Dehlin [01:30:46] It's like, you all weren't healthy enough to get divorced.

Meg Campbell [01:30:49] No. Like, we couldn't even introduce that. There was no. I couldn't see my next step. Right. And I was still trying to figure out. Right. My relationship with the church. I could not. Which is so funny now. At the time, though, I could not fathom trying to raise my kids outside of the church, especially in the community we lived. I felt like even if I could commit to this decision and the potential social isolation for myself. Right. Like, is it fair to choose that for my kids? Like, I grew up in Utah Mormon, so I knew, like, that lens was familiar. I knew what that looked like.

Meg Campbell [01:31:29] And I would just have these. I'm like, they're not gonna have friends. They're not gonna get invited to birthday parties. They're not gonna get asked to dances. Like, I was just spiraling, trying to anticipate these consequences for my kids, and I just could not wrap my mind around any direction at the time. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:31:50] Yeah. Yep. So. So fortunately, y' all decided to hang on for a little bit and. And what happened?

Meg Campbell [01:32:03] So we. Yeah, we stayed married. I ended up just progressing through my own faith crisis. And then.

John Dehlin [01:32:12] Oh, really quickly. I was just going to say we have to shine a light on how the Mormon Church sets up women to be so vulnerable because you think about where you are in terms of vulnerabilities. Okay. You did finish your degree. Right. Which puts you, I think, in the minority. I think most Mormon women either don't go to college or they don't finish their degrees. So you were better than average in that you finish your degree, but you hadn't developed your career, you hadn't developed, you know, marketable skills, and then you've got all these kids. What in the heck are you supposed to do as a divorced, single mom of three kids, how are you supposed to now all of a sudden be providing for yourself?

Feeling Stuck and Choosing Not to Divorce Yet

John Dehlin [01:32:56] And that someone was bragging the other day about how infidelity, slash, you know, divorce is better in Utah with Mormons than elsewhere. And I kind of responded, yeah, if you. If you put a woman in a box, she doesn't go anywhere. Like, if you put her in jail, she doesn't go anywhere. You know what I mean? Like, where are you supposed to go?

Meg Campbell [01:33:17] Right? And I hear that. I hear that so often. And I think it contributes to such a feeling or sense of stuckness. Right. I. I do think a lot of Mormon women don't have options. Don't have. I mean, some of them, I think, don't even know where the money is. Yeah, that's right.

Margi Dehlin [01:33:36] They may not even have access.

Meg Campbell [01:33:38] Yeah, yeah. I think that's very common and very scary. And like you've said. Right. You're spouse probably has over a decade of skill retirement and experience and skills and like those relationships and. Yes, exactly. Such a. And I was like you said I was very lucky that I had a teaching license because that's pretty, you know, employable or relatively easy to return to work. But it's still. You don't have the years of like moving up the lanes. Right. The pay scale lanes. And it's just terrifying. Yeah, right. Like if it. I think so many people stop at that, just thought. Right. Like it is not feasible. I can't support myself. Right. Where. Where to go, where to work. Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:34:33] Okay. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. I just gotta shine a lot light on that because that's like almost every Mormon woman I know.

Meg Campbell [01:34:39] Yeah. And that is, that's a very scary corner to be backed into. So where should I get.

John Dehlin [01:34:47] So you didn't get divorced?

Meg Campbell [01:34:48] Didn't get divorced.

John Dehlin [01:34:49] How did things progress to where you did get divorced?

Meg Campbell [01:34:51] Yeah. Okay. So I worked through my own faith crisis. I resigned from the church at 30. So we're like. My husband left it when I was 27. I left three years later after a lot of up and down and back and forth and trying to figure out what to do for kids.

Meg Campbell [01:35:12] And then by 34, so four years later we were getting divorced. And those four years were actually. We were on the same page with church stuff. I would say they were pretty smooth. And it's an understandable, like super common question where people ask if we got divorced over like the faith crises or one or both of us leaving or what that connection is. And like I've mentioned, I'm super glad we didn't get divorced over him leaving.

Meg Campbell [01:35:47] But then like four years later. Well really seven or five. Seven years after he left. But like the dots are kind of easy to connect in the sense that like experiencing leaving the Mormon faith. Right. Where there are kind of dire consequences if you still believe them. Like it's a big decision and a big process and you do. Right. I feel like oscillate through all the stages of grief there.

Meg Campbell [01:36:19] So I think it set us up to start just exploring really how are we Living like, are we living in line with values? Is this authentic? Is this honest? Is this what we want? And so the whole experience of leaving the church, I think a number of years later landed us in a place to be open to acknowledge. Like, oh, I think I recognize this space. Right. It's hard to stay, but harder to go. And then somewhere that starts tipping. Right. So our marriage was kind of reaching that place where.

John Dehlin [01:36:58] Or like where it's harder to stay and easier to go or looking like

Meg Campbell [01:37:03] it's getting harder to stay. And maybe the brave next step is to acknowledge like, divorce is our. Is our next step.

Margi Dehlin [01:37:13] And what I'm hearing is that the. The faith transition work that you did, that you each did, allowed you to ask yourself questions, to connect with yourself in a way, to know yourselves in a way.

Meg Campbell [01:37:28] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:37:29] Then you used and because once it's kind of like you're. You have that. What would I say? Like the. The pattern of self reflection.

Meg Campbell [01:37:42] Yeah. Right, right.

Margi Dehlin [01:37:43] It's really difficult to unsee or to unknow things about yourself or to unobserve. Right. Or to go back into places where you feel like you're ignoring things that are important to you. Is that kind of what you're saying?

Meg Campbell [01:37:57] Yes. Oh, a hundred percent. I saw on your bookshelf over there a Cheryl Strayed Brave Enough book. I absolutely love that book. And it's. Honestly, when I first read that book, I'm like, oh my goodness, this is like that elusive experience people are talking about having with scriptures.

Margi Dehlin [01:38:13] Right.

Meg Campbell [01:38:13] I've never felt this reading my scriptures, but I feel something like reading this. And. But I love how. Anyways all that to say. I love how she talks about, like kind of getting in touch with your core. Like, I feel like there's core knowing. Maybe you call it your internal compass, whatever that I feel like for me, Mormonism really did just condition right out.

Meg Campbell [01:38:39] Right. I felt like I learned to outsource everything. I outsourced all my big decisions, all my big. I. Right. Am I a good person? Well, am I doing all. Am I doing everything I should? Then, yes, I'm a good person. Right. It didn't have a lot of room for that self exploration and awareness and just being in touch with. Yeah. Like what lights me up and what is in line with. Yeah, my core. Yeah. And so, yeah, both my former husband and I think had kind of been on that same path and were just reaching this place of, yeah, this marriage is not it. We were again feeling like, I think that sense of trying to fit in a box that we.

Margi Dehlin [01:39:29] Oh, like another box.

Meg Campbell [01:39:31] Another box, a different box. And there was still that left over pressure, though, I think from the church that at least I had for a long time. Even when divorce would come up post faith crises, I was just like, we don't get divorced. You just don't get divorced. We're not doing that. We're not doing that to the kids. That's like off the table. Just head down, suffer, endure. Right. That was still there, but we were challenging it slowly.

Margi Dehlin [01:40:01] Right? Yeah.

When and Why the Marriage Finally Ended

John Dehlin [01:40:02] And I've already asked this sort of at the beginning, but I just want to touch base with it again. A mechanistic observation might be, now, wait a minute. You were compatible before. You loved each other, you lived together, you know, and it was the church that messed all that up. Well, now the church layer has been lifted, so you should go right back to really enjoying each other again. Now, of course, that's simplistic.

John Dehlin [01:40:29] And so, you know, one of the things that comes to mind is, well, maybe the church ruined it. Like, if the church all hadn't have been there then, you could have survived. Now, I know I already asked and you said that maybe you would have never gotten married in the first place, but there is that question of now that you have kids, maybe if the church hadn't have ruined it, you could have actually kept things together. But that's speculation. But I mean, it's just. It's kind of a question worth asking, I think.

Meg Campbell [01:41:03] Right. And I. It's a good question. And it's one of those that I'm curious about too. When I was working with my own uncoupling coach through the divorce. So by the time we decided on divorce and I tried to obtain some support, it was interesting as she asked about background, asked about our story, asked about, just write the history of our marriage and relationship. And of course, the church came up, up.

Meg Campbell [01:41:34] And she's fantastic. I absolutely adored this uncoupling coach. She was based out of Santa Barbara, California. But it was nice. She didn't have a ton. Well, it was nice and hard sometimes because she didn't have a ton of background with the LDS church, so I would need to do sometimes a little extra explaining.

Meg Campbell [01:41:56] But it was so almost empowering for me to see her reactions to all these things where I'm like, oh, I wasn't. I wasn't the weird one all along. Or I wasn't. Because she'd just be like, that's wild. I can't believe that. And she did comment. She's like, I feel like that church set your marriage up to fail.

Meg Campbell [01:42:20] And I think there's truth to that. But by the time we were really deciding on divorce, I don't. I don't know. I've seen couples, like, repair beautifully, just completely, like, burn everything down and rebuild beautifully. And I can't. I still can't explain why that didn't. That wasn't feeling like an option for us. We felt past that point, like. And we tried. We went to, you know, marriage therapy and, you know, tried a number of things, but it just was becoming more and more apparent that, yeah, the next step was divorce.

Julia [01:43:11] Wait, can I. Can I ask a little bit about that? So with what I saw with my parents and their divorce, and even with me and my divorce, it sort of seems like a pattern, or at least in those two experiences where the church leaders set you up to see a therapist. And I. I know it was different for you because you had stepped away with him. Them from the church. But. So when you saw this therapist, was it, like, through the church? Were they. Were they members? Or, like, did it help?

Meg Campbell [01:43:34] So we didn't try therapy, marriage therapy, until we'd both left. So luckily, we did not have any, like, referral from church leadership or anything. I found our own marriage and family therapist and purposefully found a Gottman therapist because I felt like there was.

Meg Campbell [01:43:58] And that was actually at my husband's. He was not interested in going to therapy, but willing to check it out if there was. This therapist had, like, a whole process. Right. We would do questionnaires. We would. Yeah, there was some outline. Seemed to be some system to it, so.

Meg Campbell [01:44:18] But it. Yeah, definitely proved too little too late. I think she even is the one that shared the statistic that most couples will seek marriage therapy, like, six years too late. Oh, wow. And we were for. We were probably. She probably shared because we were the perfect example of that. We were probably six years too late. And there's a lot that happens in six years that it's probably hard to.

Margi Dehlin [01:44:44] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [01:44:45] Reset. And those six years would have included two very separate faith crises and church exodus. So there's a lot there that makes sense.

Margi Dehlin [01:44:56] I have a question. I think, you know, it's interesting in life, I feel like when we have these moments where all of a sudden we may be confronting a judgment, a prior judgment we have about something like divorce, and then we, lo and behold, find ourselves in that place. So my question is, you know, what did you feel about people who got divorced or about divorce in general before you got there yourself?

Meg Campbell [01:45:31] I still remember, because It'll still come up occasionally for me. Just left over, I think, from years of believing. For a long time, I thought divorce was selfish. I thought it was cowardly. I thought it wasn't fair to kids. I thought if, you know, you were a good parent, you would just stick it out. You stay married. Excluding which I do, I feel like it's an important disclaimer. Nothing I advise, you know, within or share within the context of my own story applies to. Right. Instances where there are abuse. Right. That's totally, totally different.

Margi Dehlin [01:46:09] Right.

Meg Campbell [01:46:10] But, yeah, for situations like my marriage where kids even, they didn't see, we were very careful not to fight in front of them. I felt like they didn't see a super poor model. Right. It wasn't ideal, but that same. So many parallels between. Right. Leaving the church and divorce. I'm like, what's good enough? Right. Or what's, you know, uncomfortable enough to leave or what Right. Discomfort can you live with? Right.

Julia [01:46:46] It's just.

Meg Campbell [01:46:46] Yeah, it was exploring that tipping point for a while, but I definitely. So many negative connotations around divorce. Yeah, I, Yeah. Thought it was pretty. Pretty just lazy, honestly, is how I would have characterized it for a while until we were there. Right.

John Dehlin [01:47:08] Yeah, we have, like, I've mentioned this in other episodes, like, you see these news reports in Utah and Arizona and Idaho of these Mormon men, often dentists and they kill their wives or, you know, the Jody. The Chad Daybell, Lori Valo situation where she killed her husband or husbands and he killed his wife.

Meg Campbell [01:47:36] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:47:37] It's got to be in part because, number one, the stakes in Mormonism are so high, you know, in terms of eternal families and breaking it up and kids that are orphans and all that. But even though that was lifted for you, you're still swimming in the shame of divorce. Shame that's still in you and all your family and your friends and the community and all the culture culturally around you. And I think that's one of the most, most damaging aspects of Mormon culture is instead of just it being, oh, what a celebration like you did 10 years together and produced three kids.

Margi Dehlin [01:48:17] We honor that.

John Dehlin [01:48:19] We honor what the time you did have. And now it's time to move on to a next phase in life with new partners or by yourself or whatever.

Margi Dehlin [01:48:26] And you're both going to need support. Yeah. So how can we rally?

John Dehlin [01:48:30] Let's even have a celebration of the ending of this phase of your life and then a new phase instead. It's just like, oh, we failed and. Oh, you failed. No, you failed. No, it's your fault. No, it's not. It's your fault. Let's. Let's fight over the kids because we're mad and let's get as much money as we can and wreck the other person financially. And all because we all feel so shamed and embarrassed and like, failures and

Margi Dehlin [01:48:56] because the narratives that are available are so insidious. Yes.

Seeking Support and Deciding to Divorce

Meg Campbell [01:49:01] And I think it's so important to bring up because I've talked. I can't even tell you how many people I've talked to who really in the thick of divorce. And it is terrifying. Like, you do you need support now more than ever because you are just facing these scary decisions of dividing resources and custody and just huge, heavy things when you're also, like, going through the saddest breakup of your life. Right. Like, that's just impossibly heavy by itself. And I've talked to too many people who just at those low points have, like, that thought is there. It'd be so much easier if one of us just died. Right. Like, that perception that, man, death would be easier. Death of one parent feels easier in this moment.

Margi Dehlin [01:49:51] Wow.

Meg Campbell [01:49:51] Than moving forward with divorce.

Margi Dehlin [01:49:54] Yeah. That is not okay. No.

Meg Campbell [01:49:55] It's so heartbreaking.

Margi Dehlin [01:49:57] And it'.

Meg Campbell [01:49:58] So I feel. And again, like, my experience in visiting with those, like, in the thick of it. That is a thought.

Margi Dehlin [01:50:08] Right.

Meg Campbell [01:50:08] Which is so, so sad.

John Dehlin [01:50:11] Yeah. But I mean, that's. Those are the stakes. That's how people feel.

Meg Campbell [01:50:16] Right. Oh, I still. I had for so long, I was like, I'm just going to stay married because I cannot have that conversation with the kids. Right. I did not want to have that conversation. I did not want to have to tell them and then to tell everyone. Right. Really.

Margi Dehlin [01:50:35] Right.

Meg Campbell [01:50:36] Just getting through that part is impossibly scary. But I wish there was more. And I wish we talked about, like you said, I wish people had this sense that, like, like, well, what if maybe we can do it different? Right. Right. Maybe we start looking at this marriage. And I love. I can't. I can't remember now who said it. It's in. I think it's in Conscious Uncoupling, the book, which I highly recommend. And it was fantastic. And I read through my own divorce. But she talks about, like, as a society, why do we measure the success of a relationship by its longevity? Right.

Margi Dehlin [01:51:17] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [01:51:18] Right. Like, why do we do that? It's successful if it just lasts indefinitely, but what about what it does to the two souls who make up that union? Right. Right. Is that some. Like, is that something to celebrate? Because if they're getting dim and if they're getting, you know, smaller, and if their kids don't get to know these, like, bright, different versions of their parents because their parents convince themselves that they should stay married for the kids, like, is that that. Do we celebrate that? Right. And just really. Yeah. Trying to shift that.

Margi Dehlin [01:51:53] Yeah. So what did that conversation look like with your. Your kids and with each other and. Yes, and each other.

Meg Campbell [01:52:00] Yes. It was. Oh, it was rough. I'll talk about with each other first. I am super fortunate that my former husband was willing to collaborate in this space. Right. I understand that. So many. When you reach like this doorstep of divorce, it is so hard to look at each other, to be in the same room. They just, their presence triggers you left and right. Right. Your brain, like, views them as a threat. Like, it is just activating physically hard to be around them. It's really asking a lot to. Yeah. Stay regulated and even be able to, you know, have those conversations. Like, what do we tell kids?

Telling the Kids and Beginning the Uncoupling Process

Meg Campbell [01:52:49] What's that look like? So I am very lucky that he was open to that. The very first thing. And this was at the advice of my own uncoupling coach, was right now, before anybody even knows, we're the only two that know we're planning to get divorced, she's like, can you set up this joint intention along the lines of everything you say, everything you do. Right. So your words, your conduct gets filtered through the question of how will this affect our family?

Meg Campbell [01:53:26] Because there's the hard and heartbreaking of here and now, but then there's two and five and 10 years down the road. There's going to be soccer games, there's going to be tumbling meets, there's going to be. Right. Music concerts. There's going to be maybe a wedding, graduations, whatever it is. Like, can you. Do you both want to be there? Do you both want to be there in your presence, not detract from your child's achievement or from what you're there to celebrate.

Margi Dehlin [01:53:57] So very intentional, very child focused and very long game.

Meg Campbell [01:54:02] Yes. Oh, very. And she was so instrumental in helping broaden my perspective because again, when you're in the middle of all these divorce decisions, it's really hard to step back and see that bigger picture. So that was huge. Having this trained professional remind me of those things and then give me these action items like setting that joint intention. She's like, is this a conversation you can have with your co parent? Right. And luckily it was like he was open to that and understanding. Like another piece is Going to be just so much surrender. Right. I was losing so much control and that was really hard for me. Right. Like that I was going to lose not just time with kids, but I was gonna miss.

Margi Dehlin [01:55:01] Right.

Meg Campbell [01:55:01] Making memories with them too. I think the first trip they took, you know, just with their dad, I think they went to Lake Powell and it was just impossibly like so painful. Right. But just sort of practice that like you have these intentions of how you want to show up and then also how are you going to. Right. Take care of yourself or just survive these pieces where you need to practice surrender as well.

Margi Dehlin [01:55:28] Right.

Meg Campbell [01:55:29] So yes, that was kind of the first. First big thing is we had that joint intention that we were going to prioritize kids well being and both agreed that it they didn't choose this, they would never choose this. That we're the ones that brought them into this world, accepted this huge responsibility of prioritizing their development. Right. Making sure they're safe and healthy. And so again, that was very central and we kind of shaped our plan for how to tell them, you know, around that I read a lot, I researched a lot. And being just my background in education was fortunate for some just understanding of their developmental stages and kind of what they needed to hear and understand at the time of our divorce.

Meg Campbell [01:56:27] And they were young, they were 4, 7 and 9 at the time. And so we eventually settled on needing to tell them three things. And that was we love you no matter what you are loved. And this being divorced has nothing to do with you. Just trying to kind of prevent some dangerous misunderstanding. Right. Just making that explicit.

Margi Dehlin [01:56:55] Right.

Meg Campbell [01:56:55] This has nothing to do with you. And that we will always be a family.

Margi Dehlin [01:57:00] Right.

Meg Campbell [01:57:00] And our family's going to look different. Right. Dad's not going to live here. We're getting divorced. And just explaining what that even is to them, what that means. But then also right. Again being very clear, like parents don't divorce kids. And again, that's our fortunate situation. Both parents were around.

Margi Dehlin [01:57:22] Right.

Meg Campbell [01:57:22] I know it looks different. I. I've talked to people where. Right. One parent has checked out, taken off that conversation. So many different, different.

Margi Dehlin [01:57:31] I think there are so many different situations for divorce. So I'm noticing in myself like wanting to take care of viewers a little bit who may have already gone through a messy divorce and how guilt inducing. Even talking about ideal or healthy ways of divorcing like what they look like. So yes, we acknowledge that. Right. We acknowledge this idea.

Meg Campbell [01:57:57] That's so. And I almost. Yeah, I find. I'm glad you bring it up. Because I do. I find myself almost feeling sometimes like I'm so grateful but then also so guilty that I understand this story is more the exception than the norm. Especially having both parents on so much of the same page in terms of like the child centered communication and planning and being able to. Right. Just even make a co parenting plan at all.

Margi Dehlin [01:58:32] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [01:58:32] Is unusual. So maybe this is an okay time to speak to. Oh, yes.

John Dehlin [01:58:38] Just finished. To speak to what?

Meg Campbell [01:58:40] Oh, that how hopefully empowering it is to just control. You can only control yourself. Right. And if you can show up as an authoritative parent. Right. Meaning like high warmth, high engagement. Right. There's things you can do to protect relationships with your kids. And even if it's starting today, and I've witnessed parents, you know, tell their kids, like, I'm so sorry. I wish I did that differently. And that's like so powerful. If your kids, like, it's just never too late to have a conversation or to reset or to think like, I'm gonna do this a little bit differently. And yeah. Just remembering whatever your kid's relationship looks like with the other parent.

Margi Dehlin [01:59:29] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [01:59:29] You can't control. And that's impossibly hard. And I have so much empathy for that. And if I, I honestly, I can't even tell you what I would do if I had a co parent that I thought would put the kids in the middle of a very vicious divorce. I don't, I don't know. That's terrifying and I'm. And I'm sorry for that. But I've also seen single parents just foster these beautiful relationships with their kids and understanding that this is part, like your kids are their own autonomous beings too. Like you can't. This is part of their story. Right. Their parents. My parents got divorced when I was four. When I was seven. When I was nine. That's right.

John Dehlin [02:00:13] I love that. I. I'm curious about one dynamic that I think probably influences a lot of acrimonious divorces. And this may or may not be relevant, and it may not. May or may not be something you're comfortable with, but I imagine that sometimes the acrimony comes from one person rejecting the other. In other words, it's not a really a mutual decision. It's one was unfaithful or, and, or one just decides they love someone else or one out and the other one doesn't. And it seems like the one who, who is rejected maybe might have. Unless there's some big violence that leads the person who's leaving, emotional or physical, to want to leave or some big betrayal. Like usually it's one rejecting another or maybe often. And so I wonder if that was a play at all, if you even want to share that or comfortable.

Margi Dehlin [02:01:19] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:01:20] And. Or if it was a totally mutual decision, if that's part of what made it maybe relatively more amicable. If you want to talk about that.

Meg Campbell [02:01:27] Yeah. So it's. Yeah. I actually write about this because we went. We kind of waffled back and forth between. And I call it just this dysfunctional dance where one of us would be like, okay, we need to get divorced. And then the other one would super backpedal and be like, no, no, we're not going to do that. And one of my still most salient, I feel like, memories of this, we had.

Meg Campbell [02:01:58] So we got divorced, officially divorced. It was March 2018. Okay. But if you go back to like January 2017, so over a year before we were officially divorced, we were in that same limbo land. And we had an appointment with a mediator that, like, we needed to leave for, like, right then. And I had just this moment of sheer panic where I'm like, we, we can't do this. We can't. Right. So it was when my. My then husband was very resolved and being like, let's move forward. Right. We've got to get this process started. You can't. We can't. This is not sustainable. And I completely just melted down.

Meg Campbell [02:02:41] Right. I just was sobbing, like, literally begging him. Like, I've never begged anybody to please, let's not go to this mediator appointment. I don't want to get divorced. I like, begged him to go skiing. Like, we ultimately, because we already, like, kids were at a sitter, we just needed an eye.

Meg Campbell [02:03:00] So I think it's common, you reach these places of maybe one partner feels resolved and pretty confident that this is what needs to happen, and then the other just. I think that's human nature. Right. Like, I can't. And your brain, Right, your brain is so concerned with keeping you safe more than it is with keeping you necessarily happy or fulfilled or, you know, self actualized.

Meg Campbell [02:03:26] And I just completely lost it at the thought of. Right. Divorce and losing that core attachment. And so he conceded and we went skiing. But it was very like, in hindsight, I wish I had been brave enough or open enough to sit with that rejection because that's what it felt like.

Margi Dehlin [02:03:53] Right?

Meg Campbell [02:03:54] He is wanting to go to the mediator. He is wanting to get divorced. He is wanting to put this. He's green lighting, you know.

Margi Dehlin [02:04:03] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [02:04:04] And so, yes, feeling rich. I did. I wanted to change his mind. I wanted, right. I, I just wanted so badly for things to be different. And so I, I slowed it down, right. For another year. By January of the next year, we'd finally finished filing everything.

Meg Campbell [02:04:26] But I absolutely. If there weren't like, so for me feeling like rejected at that, at that point, if there weren't kids, I think I could have very quickly and very easily gotten ugly and gotten just vindictive and you know, fought over everything and tried to make him miserable.

Meg Campbell [02:04:54] Because I absolutely think, right. That's something that we're kind of naturally like self preservation tend to do. Right. Like we feel hurt and hurt back. So it was absolutely my kids and that very core drive to make our decision to get divorced. Not their pain, even though it's of course going to be inevitably painful for them, but as much of that as possible.

Margi Dehlin [02:05:30] Right.

Meg Campbell [02:05:32] Yeah.

Parenting Together After the Divorce

Julia [02:05:32] Can I, can I ask a question about your kids too? You'd mentioned that one of you, when you decided to get divorced, your oldest was nine.

Meg Campbell [02:05:40] Yes.

Julia [02:05:41] Was there discussion, and maybe not because you guys had already left the church, but was there discussion about them getting baptized? Like pressure from your, your active member families or the ward or anything like that?

Meg Campbell [02:05:52] There was. So when he had turned eight or was about to turn eight, there was definitely pressure. I know grandparents were probably hoping that he would get baptized, but I do, I do remember this is more of the, this is another good like backfire story, but we got delivered some great to be eight packet. And I remember looking through it and it was, there was a page like what you should think, what you should know and what you should fill for your baptism day. And I was instantly like, nope, not, not getting baptized. And that was close to, let's see, that was shortly after.

Meg Campbell [02:06:46] So the November 5, 2015, right. Then the very next. So that happened, I stopped going, I stopped taking kids. The next year is when my son would have been turning 8 and he got delivered that packet it. And that's when I decided none of us are going to be members. He's not getting baptized. And then I officially resigned.

Julia [02:07:06] Wow.

John Dehlin [02:07:06] For those who don't know, the November 5, 2015 was when the Mormon church basically declared doctrinal war on same sex married couples in response to the United States Supreme Court legalizing same sex marriage. That's just a shortcut for what happened. But yeah, no, I didn't like that.

Meg Campbell [02:07:23] I didn't like that and I didn't like. I had kind of rationalized taking my kids for social reasons up until that. And I think I still had some. Yeah. Hope in more nuanced big tent space for our family and. But after that that was just very. Where I. It's like it's not kind. Right. I never want my kids to think, yeah. I was just not okay with them. Them being affiliated, me being affiliated. So we stopped going. Kids weren't baptized yet.

Julia [02:07:59] Can I just ask how they felt about that? Like, I don't know if you, you're open to sharing but like because you said that they were going, you know, you had the six year old in primary and I know it's really. Eight is really young to, you know. Or your other kids were really young. Did they, did they feel like a loss of not going? Did they really want to go or were they totally fine stepping away?

Meg Campbell [02:08:16] They were. The youngest one was fine stepping away. I mean she was like in nursery. It was funny. I think somebody asked her what she remembered about church like a little bit later and all she remembered were was the sample. Sample cups.

Meg Campbell [02:08:32] That's all she could. She's like, I just remember some sample cups. So yeah, she was fine. The older two were. I don't remember it being overly stressful, but we had a lot of conversations with them about it. Like, and we gave them because we knew it would come up so often in our community. I really wanted them prepared with like answers and an understanding. So I would explain. Like your friends that go to church, their parents decide, right. They're going to church because their parents have decided their family's going to church. Right. So when your friends ask, why don't you go to church? Like my parents have decided we don't go to church. So I did try to help them with that kind of ownership, like my parents.

Margi Dehlin [02:09:18] That's so helpful.

Meg Campbell [02:09:19] Yeah.

Julia [02:09:20] Right.

Margi Dehlin [02:09:20] And even words like giving them things to say if you know they're going to be asked about it.

Meg Campbell [02:09:26] Yes. And she wanna. Can I just share one conversation that was like the most for how stressed I was about like my kids not going to church and how it might affect their friendships and just their school in this very Mormon Valley.

Meg Campbell [02:09:49] So. And they would have things like, you know, hear things from friends. One friend had said, you know, my parents don't like me going to your house because there's a coffee maker and just very, just these funny, just so very funny cultural things. But I used to, I would overhear these conversations with my kids and just be so tempted, just want to rescue them because I'm like, they didn't choose this, I chose this. And I, I Don't want them to be uncomfortable and.

Meg Campbell [02:10:23] Right. That's not my response anymore. But at the time, my son and I just. I know it was the result of conversations we've had about leaving the church. We talked to him about why. Why we felt it was important to not support it anymore and talked a lot about just love and what we believed love was and how that was different from things that we felt the Mormon Church was sharing. So I heard my son must have been, oh, May 7th at the time. And a friend was like, why don't

Margi Dehlin [02:11:04] you go to church?

Meg Campbell [02:11:05] And he used what we talked about. All my parents just decided, we don't go to church. He's like, okay, you don't go to church, but do you go to another church? He's like, no. The friend was like, well, you believe in God, though, right? And my son's like, I don't know. And I'm, like, holding my breath. I'm like, oh, my gosh, he's gonna have no friends. He's gonna have no friends.

Margi Dehlin [02:11:27] Friends.

Meg Campbell [02:11:28] And this friend is just like, what? What do you mean you don't know? And he's just. I'm like, oh, my goodness. He's such a little sponge. He's like, well, different religions believe in different gods, and nobody really knows which God. So I just. I don't know.

Julia [02:11:45] Wow.

Meg Campbell [02:11:45] Friend was like, well, what do you believe in? And I just hear this, like, wait time. And I'm like, like, forcing myself to not go, like, jump in and fill it. And he's just like, love. I believe in love. And it was just the first time that I'm like, oh, my gosh, we did the right thing. Like, it's gonna be fine. Like, he's fine. If that's his answer for the rest of his life. This is just perfectly fine.

John Dehlin [02:12:15] And even Jesus would agree.

Margi Dehlin [02:12:20] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [02:12:21] Well, this. He also had a really good friend and family. Different friend leaving a kind of on the same timeline. And that friend's mom was really. She was just really good and witty about it, but along the lines of that, you know, November 5th policy, she started telling her kids, she's like, being Mormons getting in the way of me being Christian. So, oh, wow, we don't go to church anymore. So there was conversation. He was exposed to some different ideas around. Around it. But, yeah, that was huge. And then just to kind of piggyback, different.

Meg Campbell [02:13:02] Different story, but same thing with divorce. I was terrified of my kids having to answer those questions. Right. And my youngest, she was five. And I hear a Friend be like, where's your dad? And I'm like instantly frozen again. I was like, I have to answer.

Meg Campbell [02:13:19] And oh, he's not here. She's like, what do you mean? Because this was like evening probably evening play date. She's like, he's probably at his apartment. And her friend's like, what? He doesn't live here? Like, that was so foreign. And my five year old's like, no, my parents are divorced, but there are bunk beds in a pool there. He didn't think twice. Like I was holding on to all this.

Margi Dehlin [02:13:43] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [02:13:44] You know, like, like scarcity and fear for her and. Right. And her friend's like, oh, can we go swim?

Margi Dehlin [02:13:50] Right.

Meg Campbell [02:13:50] It's like if you. So yeah. That, all that to say it was really important. I never wanted the kids to feel like the choice to leave the church or the fact that their parents are divorced, I'm like, that's not embarrassing. That's not wrong. Like it's what is.

Margi Dehlin [02:14:09] Yeah.

Julia [02:14:10] Right.

Meg Campbell [02:14:10] It's what has been right for our family. So I've been honestly so pleasantly surprised at how well my kids have figured out their out group. Minority.

Margi Dehlin [02:14:28] Right.

John Dehlin [02:14:31] Wow. So let me just recap what I've heard so far. The things that you did to make your divorce more versus less healthy. You waited until you weren't in crisis. You kind of got on the same page as it related to core things like religion. You, you kind of made the agreement that it was going to be a child centered divorce. You, you know, you talked about it in very simple terms with the kids to reassure them. It sounds like you got a conscious uncoupling coach, right?

The Harder Moments of the Divorce Process

Meg Campbell [02:15:12] Yes, I did.

John Dehlin [02:15:13] And, and then you gave each other time to process the ping pong back and forth of regret, but then determination, regret, determination. Those are some of the main things I've heard so far. I think there's going to be a lot of people that are like, there's got to be more to it. You know what I mean?

Meg Campbell [02:15:33] Yes. And I think the more to it piece is, well, I do feel like this primary buy in of prioritizing kids is key and there are so many just incredible resources on that. Another one that's just coming to mind right now and it's a short, very succinct article but that like divorce is the most important story you will ever tell your kids.

Meg Campbell [02:16:05] Just that it has the potential to like it's going to stick with them regardless. Right. And you are the only. You're the adult right now. Right. Of between you and your kids. You're the only one with a fully developed frontal cortex. Like, do what it takes, like to be able to make decisions in line with that intention of prioritizing kids. So I think that will forever be central just.

Meg Campbell [02:16:41] And then also managing well, probably tabling expectations. Don't go in with a lot of expectations, but one. And this is one that came up, like with my uncoupling coach with. With so many things that I read. Just know like that first year at least is. Is hell. Right. And hopefully with a right ton of work after that. Like, you're moving towards like the healthiest and happiest your family, your expanded family has ever been. But there's just no skipping, not really awful hard heaviness. And I think we see a lot of couples, it's so tempting to want to escape that hell. Right. So we do things that are super counterproductive and create more problems trying to escape. Whether it's like the unhealthy coping. The unhealthy.

John Dehlin [02:17:40] So distress tolerance.

Meg Campbell [02:17:42] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:17:43] That sort of thing. Emotion regulation.

Meg Campbell [02:17:45] Yeah. So get the. Try to get the support, the resources you need to survive. Right. Those really, really low points to have the tools, right. To have the coping, to have the plan for self care and self compassion and realize that you need to like prioritize that if you're going to show up for your kids. And that was a huge thing.

Margi Dehlin [02:18:12] Right.

Meg Campbell [02:18:12] My own uncoupling coach was like. Because I kept being like, the kids, the kids, the kids, the kids. And she knew because we were just zooming on my phone. She's like, you can't do anything for the kids from your bathroom floor. So we need to back up. Because I was, I was just crying on my bathroom floor. She's like, so we're gonna back up and just write these baby steps. And you know, there were things that she was really good about too, like challenge. Like no sex or alcohol for at least six months. Like, that was one of her as an uncoupling coach, like non negotiables.

Meg Campbell [02:18:50] She's like, because you will not be engaging with either of those things in a healthy place. Six months, wait. With each other or with any course with anyone. She's like, you're gonna be alone and like, figure this out. Right? And that was something that she said she pretty much insists on before she'll work with somebody. Because if you're gonna go unproductively cope, we're just gonna drag this out instead of make any progress.

John Dehlin [02:19:22] Not ready.

Margi Dehlin [02:19:23] So, yeah, I'm noticing already, like how challenging it Might feel as you're talking about kind of having the resources for yourself during that one. That one year. And what a challenge it could feel like if you're trying to balance basically this whole new life.

Meg Campbell [02:19:45] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:19:47] And whether you have to go to work.

Meg Campbell [02:19:49] Yeah. Right away.

Margi Dehlin [02:19:50] You're.

Meg Campbell [02:19:51] You're all of a sudden job like.

Margi Dehlin [02:19:52] Right. Yeah. Like trying to find a job. You're. You're grieving. You're actively grieving the loss of likely something you didn't anticipate happening. So it could be like even if you. It's the right decision or right. You know that it's kind of the good thing to do.

Meg Campbell [02:20:10] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:20:10] There's still likely grief involved. And then you. And then also being the. Being a parent and then also trying to show up with the co parent.

John Dehlin [02:20:21] Right.

Margi Dehlin [02:20:22] In a way that's. And it just feels like that feels like so, so much.

Julia [02:20:28] So much.

Meg Campbell [02:20:29] It honestly I.

John Dehlin [02:20:30] It.

Meg Campbell [02:20:31] And when you list it out, I'm like, it honestly feels impossible. And I think that is such a very common sense. Right. For so many in that place. Another huge key, I think helpful tool, I guess that was instrumental in kind of shaping how our divorce and co parenting relationship played out. Was. And this is from the conscious uncoupling philosophy. But is kind of understanding the difference between like boundaries but then also gestures of goodwill. Because so many people, like with divorce, yes, boundaries are super important. But it gets very easy to refuse gestures of goodwill and like call it like, no, that's my boundary. That's my boundary. And so I would be challenged like by my own coach. Like, is this a gesture of goodwill you can't afford? And that I would usually say, like, no, nope, I can't. I can't do that. I can't. And there were some times I wasn't ready. But.

Margi Dehlin [02:21:42] And you may have been in a state of. Of overwhelm where like in reality you have so much that you're giving out to people. That it. That is I think, a place where you're like, nope, actually I'm tapped out.

Meg Campbell [02:21:55] Yes. And that's an important Right. Distinction that you learn to make. And sometimes I would, I would need to leave and I would go for a run. Right. Other times when. But it was also this practice of like exploring. Like, is this a gesture of goodwill?

Margi Dehlin [02:22:13] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [02:22:13] Or is this a no, I need right space. And so one. It's probably one of the first examples I call this like in. In hindsight I called this second hardest thing I did after telling the kids about divorce. Telling the kids about divorce. Was hands down the hardest, most heartbreaking.

Meg Campbell [02:22:35] Just nothing felt the same after that. That was rough. But second to that was probably like six months later my former brother in law was getting married and I'd known him since he was 5. And the extended family was trying to honor all these things we'd asked, right? We had explicitly communicated with close friends and family how we hoped they would respond to our divorce, how we hoped they would treat our kids. And we did a lot of explicit coaching. I feel like ourselves trying to set our kids up for success.

Meg Campbell [02:23:19] So anyways, in line with trying to like honor this request, they had invited me to the wedding. And I was like, there's no way. There's no way I'm going to a wedding. I was super bitter about marriage anyway. And I was like, people, people don't do this. Like divorced people don't go to their former in laws weddings. Like this is.

John Dehlin [02:23:42] And then the in law is going to be like, oh, she's so bitter. She doesn't even come to accept her. I'm not saying they did that.

Meg Campbell [02:23:49] No. Well, yes.

John Dehlin [02:23:50] That's what humans can be.

Meg Campbell [02:23:51] I'm talking this through with my uncoupling coach thinking she is gonna just totally validate. Like that is so unreasonable that they would think you'd come that and she would just like challenge some point. She's like, well what, what do your kids, what do your kids feel? And they really wanted me to come and okay. They, you know, your former in laws have extended this invitation probably as a result of this communication you shared, which I did. I drafted this whole thing about wanting just nothing but big love for our kids. Right. We really expected nobody to point fingers or take sides.

Meg Campbell [02:24:36] Very clear. Like do not speak negatively of either parent around the kids. Like just shared those expectations. So she's pointing out all these things about. Right. Just helping me explore if my going might be a gesture of goodwill. I ultimately decided to go and it was hard. It was really hard to just be in that environment and see my kids off taking pictures with the family that I just dissolved like any legal connection to.

Meg Campbell [02:25:11] But at the end I feel like it communicated what I really wanted our kids to fill that we're still a family. Mom and dad will show up for you guys when you're hoping, you know, for a family event. Because the girls, they were little and flower girls and it was right. I was like glad to be there. But it was, I don't know why I remember being so. Because now I'm like, oh, that'd be easy. I would totally go right to, to some wedding. But at the time it felt just next to impossible. But having somebody else, like a more objective, removed person pointing out like just challenging, like that might be a gesture of goodwill.

Meg Campbell [02:25:53] And then the more I feel like I made, the more my co parent was returning and that I could totally see going either way. Right. Because there were times where instead of being like gracious and kind, I was super defensive and cruel. And then that triggered a very similar response in him. Right. Or vice versa. Yeah. So it really was a collaboration in that way. But I convinced any divorce can be horrifically messy.

Margi Dehlin [02:26:27] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [02:26:28] Right. The more if you like repeat. Because every time. Right. You repeat a behavior, it's easier to repeat again and again. So if you just get used to responding really aggressively or really defensively or just you're dead set on refusing to cooperate or concede ever, that's going to be right. The story you shape. But as we both started kind of trying to lean in to gestures of goodwill and just we were lucky because I could always know, like, my kids love their dad, like why would I ever challenge or try to hurt or take away from that? And that made those gestures of goodwill a little bit easier.

Margi Dehlin [02:27:15] Yeah. Do you know what it reminds me of, John, a little bit as you're describing the process of you intentionalizing the divorce around, you know, your, a child centered experience is act. Because really what you're kind of saying is you're going to have all sorts of feelings as you go through this process, which can oftentimes feel like a death. And so feel the feelings like we're, we're going to have you. This is kind of acceptance commitment therapy. Like the general idea. You're going to have the feelings, feel the feelings like when you act, when you make a decision, have it be around values because you can end up in all sorts of places. We would never choose consciously if we just live what we feel.

Meg Campbell [02:28:00] Yeah. If you just follow your feelings.

Margi Dehlin [02:28:01] Yes.

Meg Campbell [02:28:02] Oh, that's so wise.

Margi Dehlin [02:28:03] Yeah, I love that. I was just recognizing that as she was explaining it.

John Dehlin [02:28:07] Yeah. So acceptance and commitment therapy is relevant as a modality. Secular Buddhism is where acceptance commitment therapy gets most of its ideas. So that's also a useful tool. I was just about to recommend a cousin to acceptance and commitment therapy and it's called dialectical behavioral therapy. And stick with me here. I, I do think in this one small instance my, my background in psychology might be useful. So one of the hardest things that I felt as a therapist was dealing with people who were Engaged in self harm. So they would, you know, come to me as clients with, you know, cuts all up and down their arms and legs.

Structured Separation, Nesting, and Co-Parenting Tools

John Dehlin [02:28:50] And I know this is kind of triggering for people, but maybe trigger warning, trigger warning. But self harm was really hard for me because I felt like I got to cure them of not cutting themselves. You know what I mean? And I learned pretty quickly why people cut themselves. It's not, you know, a main reason is they're feeling so much stress, so much pain, pain, so much distress that like cutting themselves helps distract themselves from the emotional psychological pain that they're experiencing. So in that sense it's actually helping them cope. It's emotion regulation, it's distress tolerance just in a way that's harming them, but it's actually in some ways keeping them alive.

John Dehlin [02:29:33] So there's a form of therapy that got developed for people who are self harming and or have what's called borderline personality disorder. And the therapy is called dialectical behavioral therapy or dbt. It's developed by a woman out of University of Washington named Marsha Linehan. And it's just all about when your emotions are so big that you're screaming or losing your temper or self harming or suicidal, what do you do? Do right. And, and it's the only really well established form of therapy for that just deep emotional dysregulation. And as I was going through it myself in my training, I realized this stuff is really valuable not just for people.

John Dehlin [02:30:20] Turns out with borderline personality disorder, not just for suicidal people or people self harm, but for people who have really big emotions. And I just had the realization, I think somebody out there could make a lot of money learning dbt, training for DBT and then using it for couples who are about to get divorced.

Meg Campbell [02:30:38] I can do it.

John Dehlin [02:30:39] Yeah, yeah. No, but you could be the first.

Meg Campbell [02:30:41] Seriously? Really.

John Dehlin [02:30:42] It's called dialectical behavioral therapy or dbt. And it's just all about mindfulness and meditation and values and, you know, healthy coping and healthier forms of coping versus less healthy forms of coping.

Margi Dehlin [02:30:56] Regulating your nervous system.

John Dehlin [02:30:59] Yeah. Your nervous system.

Meg Campbell [02:31:00] System. So it's so perfect because every. I feel like pretty much, yeah. Honestly, every parent divorcing couples I've talked to, everyone wants to protect their kids. Everyone wants to have a smooth divorce. Every, like they want these things, but they spiral because it is just impossible to.

Julia [02:31:23] Right.

Meg Campbell [02:31:24] Show up how you want or need to to achieve those things with how dysregulated and how much, much pain you're in and how. Right. Just those Huge emotions. That was. So I did. I did have to make a plan for when I could not engage in a healthy way with my co parent.

Margi Dehlin [02:31:45] So you were aware we wouldn't go.

Meg Campbell [02:31:47] We wouldn't engage. Right. The days that we like, could not show up in a way that would. Right. That we could honor that intention of filtering words and behavior through. Right. Protecting the family.

John Dehlin [02:31:58] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [02:31:59] And I would. I would go run. She's like, what's the plan for when the ugliest version of yourself shows up? What is the plan?

John Dehlin [02:32:06] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [02:32:06] And for me, that was running.

John Dehlin [02:32:08] Oh, yeah. Well, that's fascinating. And I. And I think. Yeah. And I was just gonna say one person's dysregulation then triggers the other person.

Margi Dehlin [02:32:19] That's right.

John Dehlin [02:32:20] Regulation. And the attorneys are just, just cha ching, cha ching, cha ching.

Margi Dehlin [02:32:28] And I think even what I've heard about, like the process legally of getting divorced is that it feeds. Oftentimes like just the very structure and process of it is it's. It kind of feeds animosity. It feeds this sense of you're against each other.

Meg Campbell [02:32:45] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [02:32:45] Which is so, so challenging.

Meg Campbell [02:32:47] Sad. And I've been lucky to meet. We did not use an attorney divorcing. Even though I. Right. Highly recommend that's part of an important support. If you are in like a high conflict divorce situation, I would definitely advise, like, get a therapist, get a lawyer, do what it takes to get objective about, like, what's equitable, what's fair, and then move forward. Right. To be like to forever fight about things is just. It's so sad. And I think there are absolutely all that to say. I feel like I've encountered some lawyers that are very. Divorce lawyers, honest about that. Like, let's expedite this, like, what needs to happen, what is fair, let's move on. But I think there's some that are like, oh, you want to pick this ridiculous battle and pay me to pick this ridiculous battle?

John Dehlin [02:33:46] Like, I'm in.

Meg Campbell [02:33:46] Okay.

John Dehlin [02:33:47] I'm all in.

Meg Campbell [02:33:47] Yeah. It feels like it would be really

Margi Dehlin [02:33:49] helpful to have divorce attorneys that are educated around DBT and knowing about. Nervous. That's right. Like, you know what? Actually this is going to be key to what you're doing. Well.

John Dehlin [02:34:03] Okay, so this is my next question. So I'm not ashamed to admit that a few years ago, Margi and I had a very high conflict situation that led to our separation. And so we were separated for a couple months and we got a former attorney, former divorce attorney, who transitioned into being a mediator and then eventually a coach so she knew how to do it all. And what we worked on was something called a structured separation, where it was like, well, okay, right now there's a lot of conflict, but you have a lot going for you.

John Dehlin [02:34:39] And, you know, you need to be separated right now, but maybe you're. Maybe you want to have some ground rules to make it so it doesn't blow everything up and lead to divorce, because maybe we can work through things to get back together again. So we did that. We did a structured separation, and she helped us set up ground rules and rules for the separation. And we even, you know, saw her together during the separation, and we dated during the separation and was actually some of the funnest dates we've had have been when we were separated, believe it or not. But anyway, we. Obviously, we ended up getting back together. But I'm wondering if you knew about the idea of a structured separation as a trial and if you tried that at all.

Meg Campbell [02:35:21] That's a good question. And I explored it a little bit. We did not do any, like, trial separation before. Lots of that was due to just our circumstances, really. Like, when we looked at. And I think there was a piece that. And this might have been. We both weren't mature enough to explore a separation further because of that rejection piece. Right. Maybe it was a little bit easier to be like, I'm going to be done. Right. Or I think if he had even asked for a trial separation, I would have felt too rejected to be like, like, no, I want a divorce. Right. Right. So for probably a variety of reasons, that wasn't on. Yeah. Like an option for us. And I. But that being said, I think it's amazing. There's resources, choices there for that.

Margi Dehlin [02:36:18] Right. For different circumstances.

Meg Campbell [02:36:20] Yes, exactly. And, yeah, for us, I really. There was probably just. It was really overwhelming.

John Dehlin [02:36:28] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [02:36:28] Right.

Meg Campbell [02:36:29] There was. I was like, where would one of us go? Right. Like, part of our agreement was refinancing the house and splitting the equity so that he'd be able to afford to move into an apartment kind of thing.

Margi Dehlin [02:36:39] I think that's. That is.

Meg Campbell [02:36:40] It was a big. The finance was definitely our piece that limited, I think, some options. And even it's real. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:36:50] And I also think, you know, structured separation maybe has a bit more of a place if either you're unsure about that you want that divorce, or if you're. You're in some ways trying to work through something in particular that just feels threatening in a moment as opposed to, like, people who really know actually, or.

Meg Campbell [02:37:16] Sure.

Margi Dehlin [02:37:16] We want to go through. Yeah. This is what we need.

Meg Campbell [02:37:18] Which. Yeah, yeah, but I think that's so I love that actually. A structured separation with. That's not impulsive. Right. With the ground rules with a plan in place for moving forward. And yeah. There's making decisions.

John Dehlin [02:37:35] There's financial rules about how money's handled. There's rules about dating and sex or whether or not that's allowed or not. There's rules about kids and, and rules about working on the relationship. So anyway, the only other thing is some solution people have, and this is both in separation and divorce is this idea of nesting where the kids stay in the main residence, but the, the couple takes turns being with the kid in the home, primary home, and then there's an apartment or some other residence that the other goes to when. When it's not their week to be with the kids. And I just want to make sure people know that that idea is called nesting, I believe. And that people do that both in, in separations and in divorces.

Meg Campbell [02:38:21] That's right.

John Dehlin [02:38:21] As an option, you know, to keep as much. Again, if this is a child centered.

Meg Campbell [02:38:27] Right.

John Dehlin [02:38:28] You know, divorce or separation, that helps things stay as solid as possible for the kids versus the kids having to pack their bags and go to the.

Meg Campbell [02:38:36] Right.

John Dehlin [02:38:36] Pack their bags and go back.

Meg Campbell [02:38:38] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:38:38] And.

Meg Campbell [02:38:38] And that's. And we didn't start doing that. We started with an agreement where kids were at their dad's apartment for, you know, X amount of nights every year is how it was set up in our decree. But thankfully being. We reached a place of being very. Just collaborative and open to kind of following certain, you know, not that the kids make all the decisions ever. But after. And as the kids got older, like after a few years, they really just wanted to be in their home, which is. I stayed in the family home and they were just wanting to be there and their dad was so awesome about that. Just didn't feel threatened by them wanting to just be with the majority of their things or be where their friends are.

Margi Dehlin [02:39:30] Right.

Meg Campbell [02:39:31] And because we have this cordial relationship, he honestly, I feel like sees them more now even though they're sleeping every night in the family home. But he sees them all the time. Right. And they're texting him. Right. They're older, they're calling him, they're making plans with him. So. But I've seen situations where it'd be so tempting and even if it were me, I would like insist on like, no, this is my time with you. Like, you have to be here. But he. I. That's another. Yeah. Piece I'm so grateful for is he didn't resist there and just supported them. And I really. I don't see that it's hurt their relationship at all. I really feel that it's enhanced it. Like he has.

Margi Dehlin [02:40:18] Yes.

Meg Campbell [02:40:19] Like they have good relationships with their dad. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:40:22] I mean, maybe that's a natural place to go next. Is just, you know, things that have. Have been positive or surprising that have come out of the divorce.

Julia [02:40:37] Yes.

Meg Campbell [02:40:38] So that's another. I have one more favorite story about this one's with my oldest son again, but a couple years after the divorce. So he was 11 at the time of this conversation. And it just seemed super out of the blue. We were driving to one of his sports practices, and he was like, why'd you and dad get divorced? And I was just frozen again. It's like, we did this, right? Like, I used to live in this terrified anticipation of that conversation. And I've already. I've done it.

Julia [02:41:15] We.

Meg Campbell [02:41:16] We're in a good spot. Like, what do I say? But then I also, like, normally we just have very open communication, and I'm glad he's asking me, but it really caught me off guard. And at that moment, I told. It just kind of circled back to those. Because I didn't. I didn't want to mess it up. I just went back to those kind of three things and just said, I'm sorry. I. I feel like as we all get older and as more time passes, we'll all have a better understanding of it. But I don't have a better answer. Right. Other than those, like, we love you.

Meg Campbell [02:41:53] We're a family. Like, you know, it had nothing to do with you. Right. And he was disappointed with that response. But I went on to talk to one of my good friends who she's, I think, just brilliant marriage and family therapist. She became that years after my own divorce. But I was talking to her about my son, and I was like, he asked me why we got divorced. I don't even know what to do with that. And she was just so helpful. She's like, you don't. You don't answer that for him. Like, you can't answer that. And that's not really what he's looking for. Right.

Meg Campbell [02:42:31] He's looking for help making sense of his story. He's looking for support integrating this fact of his life. Right. He's 11. He's noticing, like, most of my friends, parents aren't divorced. My parents are divorced, but their friends. Right. He probably just has so many questions, and even it's almost not fair to give kids again, depending on the age, but, like, a reason.

Meg Campbell [02:42:57] Because even my reasons behind the divorce still seem to be evolving, right? If I had given him a reason when he was nine, it was already a totally different reason when he was 11. So if I'm still making sense of reasons myself as an adult, like, I don't need to try and communicate that to my kids at that time, because it's going to change. Even things I would have really, like, felt like people needed to know this about our marriage or our divorce at the time. I'm like, they're either just completely irrelevant or, like, even inaccurate now.

Meg Campbell [02:43:34] So she advised this friend advice. She's like, ask him questions. Like, just be open to talking about it. Ask them, what. What's it like for you that your parents are divorced?

Margi Dehlin [02:43:43] What do you.

Meg Campbell [02:43:44] You remember about the divorce? Or what do you feel? And so I did, when I revisited that with him, I just said, what. What's it like for you that dad and I are divorced? And the conversation we had. And I had to be so aware to not, like, interject and try to give him answers because I could recognize, like, I was scared, right? I'm scared of his answers. I'm scared of what I'm gonna learn, right? Divorce did to him.

Margi Dehlin [02:44:14] And.

Meg Campbell [02:44:15] But he was able, like, I'm shocked for 11 years old to just articulate. He's like, I was really sad. I remember being really sad when you told us it was really sad when dad moved out. And so he had, like, these really sad memories. But then he went on to be like, but I still see dad, and we still do some things all together because we'll still, like, go on hikes together, have certain things that we're able, you know, to do as a entire family. And he eventually commented. He's like, yeah, I guess everything just kind of seems better this way. It was the most.

Margi Dehlin [02:44:59] Just.

Meg Campbell [02:45:01] I just didn't even realize how much guilt, right? Just that, like, conditioned guilt over divorce I'd been carrying until he said that. And I was like, I thought we hid any marriage problems. I thought that, right, our kids would never be nothing but sad that we're divorced. But he was, I think, expressing what. Not that he could totally articulate it, but kids are sponges, right? For whatever that energy was that they were living with in that marriage that just wasn't super healthy, wasn't super authentic. They could fill that, right? So he's like, everything seems better this way, I think, is him just being like, oh, yeah, just living and being.

Meg Campbell [02:45:45] And like our family is functioning like better this way. So that was. That was huge. I should mention, like, that same conversation with my girls wasn't as miraculous. Right. If anything, they were more sad than not about it, but also like, maybe the win there is that they're able to talk about it too. Right. They're sad that I don't go to grandma and grandpa's with them.

Julia [02:46:17] Right.

Meg Campbell [02:46:17] Their dad's side of the family parties. They're sad that they wanted me to sleep over at dad's apartment with them. They. Right. They still understandably wanted us to do everything together all the time. And so, yeah, they didn't have the same, like guilt alleviating feedback that my oldest did, but they were able to talk about it and. Right. Without this sense of it being a taboo thing. Right. It can be open.

Julia [02:46:50] Is.

John Dehlin [02:46:51] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:46:51] Yeah, that's great. How about for you, some of the positives or surprising things for you individually that came from the divorce.

Personal Growth and Life After Divorce

Meg Campbell [02:47:06] Yeah, I think the divorce and Right. If we go back even further to the faith crisis. Faith crisis and then divorce, it fills like I just figured out how I want to like, show up and engage with the world. And I just feel like myself in a way that I just wasn't aware before was a way to fill, if that makes sense. Because I was trying to, I think.

Meg Campbell [02:47:40] Right. Just fit into all these roles that I thought were important or that I needed to fill. And now I finally. I love this idea and it's from. I know it's from Eckhart Tolle, but I had first come across it and all the faith crisis reading and trying to figure out what else I was wrong about. It's like this never ending rabbit hole. But he talks about just right presence, which I'd never known how to like just be present before. And this idea of space to be.

Meg Campbell [02:48:14] And I finally just feel like there's space to be. And yeah, it. It feels good and it feels amazing to give my kids their own space to be. I think tabling all these shoulds, whether it's about like church membership or marriage, really was this catalyst for making sure I don't put any of those on my kids. Right. Right. And I love that. Just this front row seat to watching them grow up with space to be. And so, yeah, it's been. Things are. Things are good. Good. Right now. It's.

Margi Dehlin [02:48:54] I was going to ask you too. You know, it came out last night at dinner, this idea of, you know, the empowerment of doing something incredibly physically difficult and mentally difficult with these Hundred mile races or like runs that you do. Do you want to just talk a minute about that? I think it's interesting that it emerged.

Meg Campbell [02:49:19] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [02:49:20] That it emerged at a time of, you know, loss of control, deep suffering, you know, some of those themes.

Meg Campbell [02:49:28] Yes. No, I'd love to. It's been interesting to watch my. Or just kind of notice my relationship with running evolve. I've always loved. I love Utah, I love the Utah mountains. I love the Utah desert. Grew up hiking and backpacking, skiing and running.

Meg Campbell [02:49:47] And the first piece of writing actually that was of mine that was ever published was about like mid faith crisis. It was titled Return to the Mountains. And I didn't even at the time intentionally be like, I need to start running again or I need to start trail running. I need to go back to the mountains. But it's just where I ended up when I felt my sense of self completely unraveling and everything felt turned upside down and yeah, I just found myself spending more time running and on the trails. And then later with the divorce, that was. Was right, one of my like, very planned coping skills with my own uncoupling coach.

Meg Campbell [02:50:31] Right. When you can't regulate, when you can't be sure that you aren't going to say and do things that you wish you could take back, right. Like the plan is go for a run, like, move this energy. It was so effective at moving some really sad, sad energy.

Meg Campbell [02:50:49] And so for a while I ran to like cope and it was definitely like heavier I would run and right. I have these trails that I remember just sobbing on. I have so many memories of different, different things in different seasons. Running around these mountains. And then after the divorce, running, it was. It just like became easier almost because I had this totally different metric. Right. I was like, oh, I would have in the past, I would have thought this was so hard. But this is nothing compared to. To write telling the kids their parents are getting divorced or this would have felt like miserable except it's nothing compared to taking off my wedding ring for the last time.

Meg Campbell [02:51:33] Right. All these new comparisons that made. Made it feel easy. But now, so I moved from like through this like running just to survive and cope. Running out of comparing like this hard to something that was way harder. And now I still like run regularly, but it's just from a place of gratitude really. Like I just am so like grateful to be out. Grateful for right like body movement and just the balance, I feel like it brings to yeah, my day. So yeah, you're very, you're very, very

Margi Dehlin [02:52:14] grateful because 100 miles is very, very long. That is a long way to be grateful.

John Dehlin [02:52:23] She runs centuries. She's the ultra marathoner. 100 miles in a single run.

Meg Campbell [02:52:28] Wow, that's. I think I'm done with the last, last one. I don't plan to do any more because that is. That is long. I like sleep too much.

Financial Negotiations, Custody, and Practical Wisdom

John Dehlin [02:52:40] I'm curious, a couple just micro questions. I'm curious what wisdom you have to share around alimony and child support and those types of financial negotiations around the divorce. Are there do's and don'ts around there or not? And then I want to talk about child custody.

Meg Campbell [02:52:56] Yes. I'm probably not a. Yeah. I don't know if I'm a good one to ask about this because I've been told by a lot of people I did it wrong. So I did not. I was so opposed. I did not want to fight about any resources.

Meg Campbell [02:53:16] My former husband was great to say, you stay in the house. That's literally all I cared about at the time. I wanted to stay in the house with the kids. Like I needed. That was, that was like my sole focus. And I just did not want to fight about money. I had obtained my teaching job.

Meg Campbell [02:53:36] He was happy to pay child support and I did not ask for alimony or any of his retirement, which again I've been told was very unwise and you probably can't count on doing that. And if you don't have like who my spouse was on the other end, so I don't know how much.

Meg Campbell [02:53:59] So I'll say that we didn't fight about money ever. And that was largely me not probably asking for anything but child support and then even the house. We split the equity. But he has been.

John Dehlin [02:54:14] You made the car, you made the house payments by staying when you stayed in the house.

Meg Campbell [02:54:18] Oh yeah, but I'm very house poor. So all that to say we didn't fight about money through the divorce. And he has been. And it was like my living situation was really stressful for a couple years and then I finally just reached out to him and said this. I don't know what to do. It's not really sustainable for me. I might need to look at selling the house. I might. And he has been so open. He just very proactively took over a ton of kid payments like tumbling tuition and this and that. And like just after that conversation, and again, this had been years of sensitive or years of not fighting over money and things. And within minutes of like that conversation, I had a notification on my phone that he'd Transferred, you know, money, and he just started sending more for child support.

Julia [02:55:17] Oh.

Meg Campbell [02:55:18] And. And I don't know how that came about other than he is very like, whatever the kids need. Right. But he will also point out that he feels I've never claimed kids needed something and it was for this. Right, right, right. So I think we've tried to be very transparent in kid expenses and we're lucky that we're on the same page in terms of wanting to continue to support. Right. Like the hobbies kids were involved in at the divorce, they've been able to remain involved in, like, continue to pursue because of him. Like, that's, he's totally taken that on.

Margi Dehlin [02:56:04] So.

Meg Campbell [02:56:04] Yeah. I'm sorry, I don't have great advice other than decide what's equitable. Right. What's fair, what's going to set kids up for success.

John Dehlin [02:56:17] That's cool. It's a good story though, I hope. Okay, the next questions are on custody and I have one of my favorite stories ever about it. But I'll have you start. How do you. What do you have thoughts around custody?

Meg Campbell [02:56:33] Well, again, I am lucky that through our divorce I was like, my kids are safe with their dad. Right. So I didn't want to fight about custody. And this is another place he was really generous. We did joint legal custody, but I have on the decree sole physical custody because that allowed me more child support and to claim kids on taxes.

Meg Campbell [02:57:04] And so really. But he was going to trust that I wasn't going to. Right. Not let him see them or anything. So that was for like, financial reasons. So joining a lot of trust there, really. Yeah. Back to that, like, even when we didn't trust each other really at all, like there was very like raw, complicated, hard feelings. But I don't think either of us trusted our prioritizing the kids.

Meg Campbell [02:57:36] Right. So he knew I was not gonna keep kids away from. From him. So I like any setup, though. But back to custody, I like anything that helps the kids have because especially when they're young. Like, you have so many big questions and concerns and like worries about divorce, but your four year old's probably like, who's. Who's making me breakfast in the morning? Right. Like, how can you preserve their just sense of routine and feeling stable and.

Meg Campbell [02:58:13] Yeah. Just make that again the forefront of deciding custody over when you want to see them. Right. If. And I've seen an education and maybe this works for some. I'm sure they make it work. But I've seen kids that go literally every other day to the other Parents home. And I think that's hard. Right. They're missing something from mom's house or dad's house or. Right. So whatever. I mean, 18 years with your kids goes so fast and then they're out of the house. Right. How can you. Yeah. Help those 18 years be like, stable and safe and, and happy for them.

John Dehlin [02:58:53] Okay, great. Can I tell my story? Really?

Meg Campbell [02:58:55] Yes, please. I'm excited.

John Dehlin [02:58:56] So I'll give a context that. And that was beautiful, by the way. I'll give a disclaimer that this is through the recounting of my friend, not his ex spouse. So I don't have all the story, but this is how my friend told me the story. So my friend loses his faith. He's married to a devout woman. Long story short, they were really close friends, loved each other, but she wanted to be with the priesthood holder and he stopped believing, so she wanted a divorce.

John Dehlin [02:59:31] So. And they have a couple kids, kind of middle school, high school, kind of age. And so in the divorce proceedings, she just, I think she was probably feeling a lot of anger, resentment, frustration, because he did change the deal. Right, Right. They got married in the temple and it was all about the church and then he left. So I'm sure she was angry. Long story short is she wanted full custody of the kids and he wanted joint custody.

John Dehlin [03:00:03] And it was really, really hard for him. But he, he just told me, I'm, I'm giving her full custody. I'm not even gonna, I'm not even a contestant. I'm like, dude, you gotta fight it, like, fight for it, you know?

John Dehlin [03:00:15] No, no, no, I'm just going to drop the rope. And that's a term from ACT where you just, instead of pulling on the rope and exhausting both parties, you drop the rope and you just, you know, don't, don't just refuse to fight. So he drops the rope and he just grants her full custody and, you know, breaks his heart. The kids just go move in with her. And now he's living alone and like, he, you know, barely gets to see his kids. And. And I just thought, wow, man, I hope this turns out well. And sure enough, like, you know, the mom really wants, you know, her kids to be righteous in the church.

John Dehlin [03:00:53] And it's tough with teens these days in the Mormon church, even if both parents are married and faithful. But so, you know, the kids started feeling all that pressure that the. And that's why the mom wanted full custody. She was worried that the kids were, were going to lose their faith because if they were around Their non believing dad too much.

Meg Campbell [03:01:15] Right.

John Dehlin [03:01:16] They lose their faith. So that's why she wanted full custody. So sure enough, she gets full custody. She's trying to do everything she can to make sure they stay faithful. But like at the end of the day, kids are going to do what they're going to do. And I think they felt that pressure and I think they missed their dad. And I think over time I think the mom got, I don't know, more and more frustrated or just realized that there was writing on the wall.

John Dehlin [03:01:41] And weirdly, at some point the kids, one or both of the kids asked if they could go live with dad. And at some point both kids are living with the dad even though he full custody now. He wasn't like, you know, he wasn't vindictive. He was like, I think by that point the ex wife was like just like in despair and probably going through her own grieving and mourning and so long story short, he ended up with both the kids, you know, and at least for a time until she healed and whatever. And then they grew up and whatever. The point was was by not going to war and dropping the rope in this case, and I'm sure she was very reasonable and kind and loving about it, that he ended up getting full custody without even going to war over it.

John Dehlin [03:02:34] And that's just. Surely everyone's situation is going to be different. But I, I thought that was kind of a cool and a powerful story again about you drop the rope. You don't inject the acrimony. You're. You're both doing your best to care about what, what's best for the kids sometimes that, you know, two people in good faith are going to arrive at whatever's best for the kids without the war and without the acrimony, without the legal.

Meg Campbell [03:03:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:03:01] Constructs. And again, don't follow my advice. You know, talk to your attorneys or same or mine. Do what's best for you.

Meg Campbell [03:03:08] It's a story, but I do. It's a story. But I think I see that similar.

Julia [03:03:13] Right.

Meg Campbell [03:03:13] Like a similar theme of parents who most will only fight for so long. Right. You run into some that are like just crazy vindictive and will never have any concept of dropping the rope. Right. But it seems like one will finally realize we can't do this forever and talk about a long game. Right. Where you see kids less or you lose all this control of what narratives there have been being told away from you, which is so stressful.

Margi Dehlin [03:03:49] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [03:03:50] But again, if you keep focusing on what you can control in Terms of relationship building with them, whatever that looks like. I do think they will sense that genuineness. And yeah, it's interesting when they. That's not the first time I've heard of kids asking to spend more time or live with the not full custody parent. So.

John Dehlin [03:04:16] Okay, interesting. The next question I had is around dating and I'm sure it's triggering if, if I'm assuming your husband, ex husband, dated at some point and or got married, I imagine that could be very emotional or triggering for you and vice versa. And then there's a question of like introducing significant others into your children's lives.

Meg Campbell [03:04:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:04:44] Anything you want to share about that?

Meg Campbell [03:04:46] Good questions. So we had. This was another agreement and this is something that I can't say, right, like recommend from a like solid wise place because I made it completely out of a scarcity place. But in the divorce decree I insisted like we include kids will not meet a new partner of either of us for the first year. And that's not to say we could be off doing whatever we want, dating whoever we want, but kids aren't going to meet somebody new for the first year. And so I was super. I didn't touch alimony or his retirement, but I like made sure that was in there and that was important to me.

Meg Campbell [03:05:31] And again just from wanting kids to have a year to like adjust to this new normal without meeting multiple new people. So not sure if that was wise. I think in hindsight I feel like it was. It gave us all a year to readjust without this expanded family, like bringing another relationship in and to just be able to prioritize.

Meg Campbell [03:06:04] Like I, I think at the time I was really into family systems things and like wanted relationships with kids and parents to fill primary and not have kids feel that parents have replaced, you know, a primary relationship that's taking time and energy.

Meg Campbell [03:06:22] Because as much as you want to think, or at least this was me, I was like, I can't like heal on my own. I can't show up for kids in the capacity that I want, want and invest in what I want to be. Like a next relationship to be healthy, right. That is like time and energy. Like that's a commitment. So I knew I didn't or wouldn't be ready for that the first year.

Meg Campbell [03:06:49] So that was one of our initial agreements. And then after that point we agreed we're not going to talk about each other's dating life. Right. Because we'd reached after a year or so we've, you know, are in this friendly co parenting place. So we're like, we're not going to talk about it. We're not going to ask about it. Let's just agree that we'll have the conversation when we're going to introduce somebody to the kids, right when the kids are gonna. Gonna meet somebody. And after that point, I feel like I'm such a bad person to ask because I am so, oh, so scared of dating or opening that up again.

Meg Campbell [03:07:32] And, yeah, feel this, like, really compelled to just be here and now with kids and not lose time to pursuing a relationship. But, yeah, I have some work to do there. Once I got on and the encouragement of a friend, she's like, you need to get on a dating experience up, like, let's rip off the band aid. She helped me make a profile, and I thought, just cluelessly thought it was, like, by default, private and I would, like, at some point publish it.

Meg Campbell [03:08:07] And I went to bed and I woke up the next morning to, like, dust. And I literally. I think I, like, threw my phone across the room. I was. It was, like, so unsettling that, like, this many people had, like, like, seeing my face. And I was like, this is probably how, you know, you get murdered.

Meg Campbell [03:08:26] You're like, my life is over. I am now. So I, like, hurried and deleted it. And, yeah, have not made tons of progress since. But all that being said, we did share, even at the time of the divorce, shared this hope. Hope. And this kind of goes along with, like, reframing divorce. Like, what's the bigger tragedy? Parents getting divorced or parents raising kids with this, like, model of marriage that you would never want your kids to replicate themselves. Right? So if we both agreed we were in a relationship that we wouldn't want our kids, right, to be spending their own lives in, like, why are we modeling this?

Meg Campbell [03:09:10] And so there was that whole hope that, right, kids get to see, like, a really healthy partnership where you're just, like, choosing each other, like, day to day and, like, this makes sense for us to be together. And so, yeah, I would say that's still a hope, but it's not.

Meg Campbell [03:09:30] Yeah, not a bridge we've crossed yet. As far as remarrying, I will say, though, I have one more story about that. I used to be so, so paranoid. So scarcity about my kids spending time with their dad and a new partner. Like, I had so, much, like, jealousy. And, yeah, I was not in a good place about that for, I feel, like, a long time.

Meg Campbell [03:09:58] And same thing. My uncoupling coach, once again, she was like, well, the goal is you reach this co parenting place where you're both healthy enough that whoever, whatever new partner you bring in to this expanded family is gonna just love your kids really big. They're gonna be just like this awesome adult. And who wouldn't want another awesome adult in your kid's corner?

Margi Dehlin [03:10:29] A bonus, right?

Meg Campbell [03:10:30] And I, like, now, I never thought I would reach that place. I'm like, she's crazy. That. And now it's like, oh, if he came and told me that. Right. He wanted kids to meet somebody. I just feel like I trust I would adore her. And that's wild because I used to, like, just detest this fictitious girlfriend that I never met. And now we're totally in the place. I'm like, oh, I trust him to only bring somebody awesome around the kids.

John Dehlin [03:11:00] Four grandparents instead of two. I guess the idea.

Meg Campbell [03:11:03] Yeah, yeah. And you see, there are some problems that I'm like, oh, I would spend Christmas morning all together. Right. With a new partner and with like. Absolutely. But that was not right.

John Dehlin [03:11:14] I mean, some even talk about, like Thanksgivings together or vacationing together. Like, that seems kind of wild. And it's probably for some it's never going to be a reality, but.

Margi Dehlin [03:11:24] And there's beauty, I think, in all those equations. Like, if it feels great for everyone, there's beauty there. And if someone's boundarying around that because it doesn't feel great, there's beauty there.

Julia [03:11:35] Right.

Reflections on a Healthy Uncoupling

John Dehlin [03:11:35] We're waxing kind of idealistic right now

Meg Campbell [03:11:40] that I would be just. I noticed myself. I've moved from a place where I'm like, I would never be open to that. Right. That's where we're gonna have. Have to start sharing holidays or this or that to now. A place where I'm like, oh, I'd be. We just have to see. Right. See the. We'll see the dynamic and.

John Dehlin [03:11:58] Yeah, got it. Were you gonna say something, Julia?

Julia [03:12:02] Oh, no. I love that where you guys are at right now.

Meg Campbell [03:12:06] Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a good.

Margi Dehlin [03:12:08] So I mean, as one of the final things for me that I was thinking of how to end this, I was thinking about when you shared the picture with the umbrellas.

Meg Campbell [03:12:20] Oh, yes.

Margi Dehlin [03:12:21] And how meaningful that's been for you. And maybe we could provide a link or something where people can actually see what you're referring to. But you could describe it at least, and then what it. What it means to you and what we've talked about today.

Meg Campbell [03:12:36] Okay. Yes. So I found. I started calling them wreck and rescue moments. Like, I've noticed myself in just various. Right. Identity crises and just deep self exploration or whatever the, you know, crossroads is. I come across these things like just feel so. Both wrecked and rescued and just kind of woken up.

Meg Campbell [03:13:06] But it was during just mid faith crisis and I followed and super grateful for Mormon stories because it was a place that I just felt less alone and it was less, just bleak. The future was less bleak and you found things you could relate to when otherwise, right. In your more normal circles, you might question if you're the one, you know, going crazy or wrong, but I came across this picture that John had posted and it was this line of individuals. It's kind of this gray picture. All the individuals, except one are just hunched under an umbrella. Their steps just look forced and sad.

Meg Campbell [03:14:00] And the umbrella, essentially it's like not even raining above them. They're carrying their own storm. So they have their umbrellas up and it's storming all around them. And then except this one lone individual has closed the umbrella and looked up just to realize there's no storm at all.

Meg Campbell [03:14:26] And that was very much my experience with leaving Mormonism. I was right. You're just handed this umbrella at a really young age and told it's good for you and it's protecting you from the storm or from these bad things and you need to keep it up even when it feels like heavy to carry and even when you don't want to carry it and even when it doesn't fill in line with, you know, your core, what you want, right? The umbrella is good for you. And then closing it, right? Just life on the other side of, you know, Mormonism has been so bright and happy and liberating and like, makes sense.

Meg Campbell [03:15:12] And it's like, oh, I didn't, I didn't need to like carry that storm with me and very similar. Getting divorced was very similar, right? You feel like, keep the umbrella up. It's good, it's good for the family. It's what's best for kids. It's what you should do, just kind of weather the storm. And then our experience with divorce was very similar. Like upon closing it, it's like, oh, the world didn't end things, right? Didn't totally fall apart. It was like incredibly like hard and scary to close it and you don't know how to live without it right away afterward, right? That's that whole year of really scary unknowns.

Meg Campbell [03:15:59] But yeah, then again, life on the other side is, is happy. Your son's telling you that things seem better this way. You have a better relationship. I mean, I have a better relationship with the father of my kids than we ever did married. So for us, yeah, that was definitely our experience of closing the umbrella.

Julia [03:16:24] Yeah.

Meg Campbell [03:16:24] And I love that image and I think that's so powerful. Like, you share so many things and I know I'm not alone. I just have to tell you, I have another good friend who when she heard I was getting to come chat with you guys, she was so excited and said, you have just. Just been her safe space through a faith crisis. And. Yeah. And you just never know. You share one thing and it was like trajectory changing because it resonates so much. So that's cool.

Margi Dehlin [03:16:53] Thank you.

John Dehlin [03:16:54] That's beautiful.

Margi Dehlin [03:16:55] Thank you for that.

John Dehlin [03:16:56] Thank you for sharing.

Meg Campbell [03:16:57] Thank you.

Meg's Uncoupling Coaching Work and Final Thoughts

John Dehlin [03:16:59] So you've kind of turned all this learning into purpose in that that you want to and have been helping people with their own divorces. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? And then I don't know if you're even offering services to others who might, you know, because I mean, we need lots of uncoupling coaches. Right. I don't even know. Do you. Do you call yourself an uncoupling coach or do you want to become an uncoupling coach?

Meg Campbell [03:17:28] Yes. So I this. The coaching practice kind of evolved organically where. And it's been the hugest compliment that anyone would, you know, suggest anyone call and talk to me. But that is how it started. Right. Somebody who knows me, knows somebody else who's getting divorced and ask about this, talk about this, talk about how to talk to kids or see, you know, what they did. I had shared on social media divorce announcement, which I think resulted eventually in like directing a number of people towards asking about it just because it was. We sent. We shared a joint divorce announcement which was a little different. And we just get asked so, so frequently about it.

Meg Campbell [03:18:20] And so yeah, it kind of reached a point where I needed to get a little more systematic about. About scheduling and about calls and about. Yeah. Chatting with parents who were either mid divorce or looking for some co parenting best practices.

Meg Campbell [03:18:39] So yeah, that's kind of come about. And I was already close just in schooling to obtaining my associate clinical mental health counseling license. So I'm in the process of finishing that because I would love to. Yeah. Support families in a more clinical capacity that way. So.

John Dehlin [03:19:03] And so are you accepting clients?

Meg Campbell [03:19:05] Yes. For coaching. Yep.

John Dehlin [03:19:06] Okay.

Meg Campbell [03:19:07] Very happy to do a quick consult call, see if it would be a good fit. I would love to. Yeah. Always chat co parenting topics. So. Yes.

John Dehlin [03:19:23] How do people find you?

Meg Campbell [03:19:24] I have a website. Megcampbellcoaching.com and then also I wrote a book with grace and gratitude, which is a memoir is not a self help or how to. It's just completely this story that I wrote down. It was a huge healing exercise and then I don't know, I didn't even know if I'd share it but then shared it with enough people to convince me to, to move forward and publish it. But yeah, it's just the story of like our divorce and co parenting and

John Dehlin [03:19:56] Julia will include all that in the show notes and we should probably give a shout out to our friend Mindy who put us in touch with you. Thanks, Mindy. This has been fantastic. So Mindy and Steve, we love you guys.

Meg Campbell [03:20:08] Yes, thank you, Mindy and Steve.

John Dehlin [03:20:12] All right, well, any final words or did we do it?

Meg Campbell [03:20:16] I think we did it. Just thank you so much. And I'm yeah, so grateful for any opportunity to reframe divorce. Like when your family, if your family finds yourselves at that next step, that it's not a life defining failure and that in a lot of cases it is brave and there is a way to do it with like compassion and dignity and yeah. Set everybody up for success.

John Dehlin [03:20:52] Beautiful. All right, well, thanks for joining us today.

Meg Campbell [03:20:57] We appreciate you.

John Dehlin [03:20:59] Margi, thanks for joining us.

Margi Dehlin [03:21:01] Yes. I'm so glad I was here.

Meg Campbell [03:21:03] I'm so glad too.

Margi Dehlin [03:21:04] Thank you.

John Dehlin [03:21:04] And Julia, thanks. It was great to have you on today. Thank you.

Julia [03:21:08] Yeah, this is a really good story.

Meg Campbell [03:21:10] Yeah, thanks, Julia.

John Dehlin [03:21:12] And I'm mindful that like only a fraction of all divorces are gonna end in such an idyllic way. So I guess no shame, I guess. And it takes two, right? It takes both being healthy and being in a place where they want. So no shame if this doesn't fit

Margi Dehlin [03:21:32] your situation over and over again.

John Dehlin [03:21:34] You know, we don't, we don't want to say that this is the way or this is even possible for most people, so.

Meg Campbell [03:21:42] Yeah, absolutely. And that was where I was so adamant about a memoir versus anything self help. Right. This is like an N of one divorce story. But yeah, again, just appreciate being able to talk about it because it is so prevalent. Right. So talk about the continuum.

Julia [03:22:02] Right.

Meg Campbell [03:22:02] Talk about, just talk about divorce and

John Dehlin [03:22:04] getting more prevalent, I think.

Margi Dehlin [03:22:06] Yeah. And. And practicing also I think this reframe around it. So just for anyone out there who is, you know, amidst it right now, just all the love and support, no

Meg Campbell [03:22:21] matter what it's looking like, and get support. I think that's part of it. Like the stigma around it prevents people from reaching out and obtaining like the support and the tools and. And yeah, I would instead encourage like it's so brave to get the support and the help that you need to carry you through like a really rough season and how awesome to. Right. Proactively look for something that will help you navigate it in a way that.

Margi Dehlin [03:22:53] Right. Yeah, we want to.

John Dehlin [03:22:55] Did you and your ex husband and both see the same uncoupling coach?

Meg Campbell [03:22:59] No, only I did.

John Dehlin [03:23:01] Okay.

Meg Campbell [03:23:01] But she was awesome. So she always offers like one session with the spouse or former spouse and she said almost 99 of the time they'll decline. But he was great. He did meet with her for that one session just. And her purpose there is to help share some common language. Right. Just explain like this is what I'm working with Megan. This is where. And so he was great to attend that but that was just, just once. And then I worked with her for a while and I love that because

Margi Dehlin [03:23:36] that models oftentimes the differentiation piece and the letting go of another person's, you know, where they are, what they need, their decisions and that you're focusing on your own support and what you feel like will.

Meg Campbell [03:23:50] Will help you.

Margi Dehlin [03:23:51] Yeah. That's. That you deserve, you deserve good support. Support.

Meg Campbell [03:23:55] Yes, absolutely. Yeah. That you're worth. Worth that. And that's such a difference. Right. That's where I learned even this idea of self compassion. Right. Which I felt was so foreign after growing up in the Mormon Church. I, I don't know, maybe I can't, maybe that's not fair to attribute to Mormonism. But I was so self critical. Right. Like that was the go to and so yeah, it's been life changing.

John Dehlin [03:24:19] All right, well, thank you for joining us today on Mormon Stories. Please like and subscribe to the Mormon stories podcast YouTube channel. Same on Facebook and TikTok and Instagram. Huge thanks to our donors that make all of this possible. So if you're a monthly donor, annual donor, whatever. Thank you.

John Dehlin [03:24:41] Also, please know that if you value this content, we do need support to continue. So we lose 10 or 20 monthly donors a month and if we don't replace them, then we have to start cutting back. So if you value this type of content, want to see it continue and you're not currently a monthly donor, please become a monthly donor@mormonstories.org click on the Donate button. Become a monthly donor. And for as long as we can, we'll keep providing this content.

John Dehlin [03:25:10] Yeah. And most importantly. Oh we, we are, we have some panels so we are thinking about a divorce panel. Just A panel of people to discuss divorce, to kind of allow other people to share their experiences. So if you have experienced a divorce in a Mormon context and are interested in being a part of a panel, reach out. There's a application form for anyone who wants to be on Mormon stories@mormonstories.org you can become and you can apply, and then we can decide if you could fit that panel. There's other panels we're trying to staff. The young single adult experience or dating experience in the church infertility panel.

John Dehlin [03:25:55] We are looking for grandparents who lost their faith as grandparents. Those are always cool stories. We're always looking for, like, in it, to win it power devoted couples. We've thought about doing a neurodiversity panel of, you know, autism and. Or ADHD sort of stuff.

John Dehlin [03:26:17] And yeah, there's all those different panels we're trying to put together. So check out if you want to be on a panel or. Or if you've just got a story that you think is really interesting and compelling, just go to mormonstories.org apply to be on the show, and Margi will decide if you're worthy. Right, Margi? It's all too mar. If you get rejected, it's her fault.

Julia [03:26:43] Great. That's great.

John Dehlin [03:26:44] It's all her.

Margi Dehlin [03:26:45] I do look at and appreciate and love everyone. Every video, every submission. So.

John Dehlin [03:26:55] All right, well, be good to each other. Be kind to each other. We'll hope for a day where divorces announcements are sent out for all divorces as a celebration and a big party ensues where just like, there's a beautiful wedding, there's a beautiful divorce party where all the friends and family envelop the separating couple, the divorcing couple and their children with love and wishing them all well into their next journeys. That's what we're all working for, right?

Meg Campbell [03:27:28] Yes. I love it.

John Dehlin [03:27:30] Yeah. Versus what's happening right now in Utah. All right. Be good to each other. Be kind to each other. We'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care, everybody.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.