Reconciling Latter-day Saint Faith with Emotional Needs — Has Anyone Navigated This Tension?

S

SpacePongo

New member
Hi everyone,

I’m new here and wanted to reach out because I’ve been sitting with a deep internal tension that I imagine others in this space might understand.

Over the past year, I’ve come to understand that I’m probably polyamorous—not in a way that’s casual or disconnected, but in how I naturally form emotionally deep, committed bonds with more than one person. For me, it’s about connection, honesty, and integrity—not avoidance or escape.

At the same time, I’m a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My faith is still a central part of my life. I love the gospel. I honor my covenants. But I also feel this emotional capacity as something God-given, not broken. And right now, those two truths feel like they’re in tension.

I’ve shared this with my spouse, and we’re navigating it together thoughtfully and prayerfully. I’m not trying to justify anything outside my values—but I am trying to find alignment between what I believe and how I love.

So I’m asking:

Have any of you who come from LDS (or similar conservative Christian) backgrounds found a way to reconcile your faith with your polyamorous identity or emotional truth?

How have you handled the dissonance between the heart and the doctrine? What’s helped you feel whole?

I know this is a vulnerable topic, so thank you in advance for any stories or perspectives you’re willing to share. Just knowing I’m not alone in this would mean a lot.
 
Hello SpacePongo,

I guess you could say my way of reconciling my faith with the way I was treated in the church, was to leave the church, almost 25 years ago. Sorry that probably doesn't help you much, you're a loyal member and don't want to leave the church. You must make peace with the fact that the church today forbids polygamy -- and at no time has the church permitted one wife having two husbands. You will have to keep your poly practices a secret from the church -- if you decide to practice poly, and if you can live with the deception. Otherwise you would likely be disfellowshipped, released from any callings, and your priesthood would be put on hold. You would lose your temple recommend. You can of course try to convince your leaders to let you practice poly without all those penalties, but I am not hopeful about how that would turn out. It's like women holding the priesthood -- some of us feel strongly in favor of that, but it's not gonna happen. Not in this life.

You have a wicked dilemma on your hands. I don't envy you.
Kevin T.
 
SpacePongo said:
Hi everyone,

I’m new here and wanted to reach out because I’ve been sitting with a deep internal tension that I imagine others in this space might understand.

Over the past year, I’ve come to understand that I’m probably polyamorous—not in a way that’s casual or disconnected, but in how I naturally form emotionally deep, committed bonds with more than one person. For me, it’s about connection, honesty, and integrity—not avoidance or escape.

At the same time, I’m a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My faith is still a central part of my life. I love the gospel. I honor my covenants. But I also feel this emotional capacity as something God-given, not broken. And right now, those two truths feel like they’re in tension.

I’ve shared this with my spouse, and we’re navigating it together thoughtfully and prayerfully. I’m not trying to justify anything outside my values—but I am trying to find alignment between what I believe and how I love.

So I’m asking:

Have any of you who come from LDS (or similar conservative Christian) backgrounds found a way to reconcile your faith with your polyamorous identity or emotional truth?

How have you handled the dissonance between the heart and the doctrine? What’s helped you feel whole?

I know this is a vulnerable topic, so thank you in advance for any stories or perspectives you’re willing to share. Just knowing I’m not alone in this would mean a lot.
Click to expand...
Hi, I am in the church right now. I am "deconstructing" as its now called. My husband and I have been in the lifestyle a couple years. We both have very out front callings. We've been able to keep things under radar so far. It definitely isn't easy. My husband is keeping his calling till he is released this fall. He's in the bishopric and a new bishop will be called. Part of our deconstruction process is my husband actually taking another position within his company and moving to another state. There's no way our friends in church would understand being in a polyamorus relationships. It truly has been difficult road since the church is all I've ever known. But polyamory feels right for us. We've tried to excuse the deep impression that we're missing another person on our lives. It feels like we've had additional people in our marriage but we haven't. Or we feel someone is missing and not with us. Its a weird feeling and difficult to explain because we dont fully understand.
You can message me any time and we can chat. I feel what you're going through. It hurts and its frustrating for sure. Your post is very thoughtful.
 
If it's an emotionally deep, committed relationship without sex, does the church still forbid it? Do you need the sex part? Maybe you could practice emotional polyamory but sexual monogamy. There are people out there who are asexual and fine with that.
 
Tinwen said:
If it's an emotionally deep, committed relationship without sex, does the church still forbid it? Do you need the sex part? Maybe you could practice emotional polyamory but sexual monogamy. There are people out there who are asexual and fine with that.
Click to expand...
Thanks! Yeah, that’s where I think I am at right now. Now to find my people :). Been a LONG time since I was a prospective dater…
 
kdt26417 said:
Hello SpacePongo,

I guess you could say my way of reconciling my faith with the way I was treated in the church, was to leave the church, almost 25 years ago. Sorry that probably doesn't help you much, you're a loyal member and don't want to leave the church. You must make peace with the fact that the church today forbids polygamy -- and at no time has the church permitted one wife having two husbands. You will have to keep your poly practices a secret from the church -- if you decide to practice poly, and if you can live with the deception. Otherwise you would likely be disfellowshipped, released from any callings, and your priesthood would be put on hold. You would lose your temple recommend. You can of course try to convince your leaders to let you practice poly without all those penalties, but I am not hopeful about how that would turn out. It's like women holding the priesthood -- some of us feel strongly in favor of that, but it's not gonna happen. Not in this life.

You have a wicked dilemma on your hands. I don't envy you.
Kevin T.
Click to expand...
Thanks for taking the time to reply, Kevin. We’ve been moving so it’s taken some time to get back on here. The Church brings a lot of value into my and my family’s lives, despite the challenges that are also existent. It’s easy to hold that as a reason to leave, but a harder pill to swallow that that situation exists in just about any path we choose in our lives. It’s not just the Church that banned polygamy, and probably a different discussion about those skeletons in the Church’s closet. I don’t think society is yet ready to get behind polyamory either. I’m careful in comparing it to other things, but the poly community has a long way to go to gain broader acceptance like some other movements have.
 
I totally agree, polyamory deserves much more widespread acceptance than it is getting, and certainly the church isn't the only entity to condemn poly.
 
My wife and I (new to polyamory) have had no issues internally reconciling polyamory and the core beliefs of our faith (Protestant Christianity). Of course man’s attempt to organize religion and render judgment on their fellow man is a whole different matter….
 
Have any of you who come from LDS (or similar conservative Christian) backgrounds found a way to reconcile your faith with your polyamorous identity or emotional truth?

How have you handled the dissonance between the heart and the doctrine? What’s helped you feel whole?
Click to expand...

You could examine the doctrine and your understanding of it. Maybe you want to read things like "Stages of Faith" by James Fowler, M. Scott Peck, or Scotty McClennan.

Your understanding of your faith is going to mature over time. This is a brief chart, but you might appreciate the books.

https://www.ngumc.org/files/fileslibrary/james+fowlers+stages+of+faith.pdf

Once you were a baby and had to get through certain stages of physical development/physical maturity: holding your head up, sitting, crawling, walking, etc., right? We also have stages of mental development/mental maturity: learning about object permanence, learning to read, learning math, learning to think in the abstract and not just think literally, and so on. We also have stages of emotional maturity to learn: what the names of feelings are, how to self-regulate, that you should not upend the checker board and throw all the pieces around just because you lost a game. Things like that.

There are stages of "spiritual maturity" or "faith development" too. Whatever spiritual path or organized religion that helps inform some of that is about your BELIEFS, and how you fit into the bigger world.

Most adults hit a stage where they decide they believe things because THEY believe them, themselves, not because their parents, teachers, or ministers said to.

So, YOU decide. Stop relying only on external authorities and develop your own internal authority. You might examine some stuff and decide to keep it, and discard other stuff because you have outgrown it.

I'm no longer Catholic, but in general, I'm down with "Thou shalt not kill." I'm older, no longer a kid, so if an attacker is trying to kill me, I'm not going to just let them. I will do whatever self defense I can. If I end up killing the person, I'll feel bad about it, but it wasn't like I got up that morning with a plan to kill someone. Adults realize that there are extenuating circumstances.

The same goes for "honor your father and mother"-- in general, to a reasonable degree, fair enough. I'm okay with being kind to my elders. But I'm also old enough to know that not everyone gets to come from a healthy family. Some people's first bullies were their parents. So, no, I'm not especially into "honoring" abusive parents. Adults realize that there are extenuating circumstances.

You might be at a place where you are are examining your faith more closely, and curating, and updating yourself, moving towards a more mature understanding. It's okay to be in that mode, reviewing what still holds true for you and what doesn't in this next stage of life. That doesn't necessarily make you no longer LDS. You just might be at a different stage. Some leave their family of origin's faith as they realize another worldview suits them better. Some need different things at different times, or go full circle, and return to their family of origin's faith with a different understanding of it than when they left it. It's a personal journey.

I can't learn to walk for YOU. You have to learn to walk, right? I can't learn to think for YOU. You have to learn to think, right? It's the same with YOUR understanding of faith and what beliefs YOU are/are not going to carry into your next chapter. You have to do that work. Nobody else can do it for you.

Little kids sometimes literally think Jesus is some bearded guy in the sky, because that's what on their coloring pages. Later they outgrow that literal belief. It's okay for them to move on to a greater understanding of their faith tradition. It's okay for adults to do this too.

I know this is a vulnerable topic, so thank you in advance for any stories or perspectives you’re willing to share. Just knowing I’m not alone in this would mean a lot.
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You aren't the first. You won't be the last. It's okay.

If you are having a crisis of faith of some kind, this may or may not be helpful: Finding Your Religion: When the Faith You Grew Up With Has Lost Its Meaning by Scotty McLennan.

HTH!
Galagirl
 
I was raised in and deeply immersed in Evangelical Fundamentalism - but left that thought system completely in my late teens, decades before encountering polyamory. Like Kevin, my solution to overbearing authoritarianism that taught a gospel of hate and fear was to leave - although obviously not out of trying to reconcile fundamentalism with poly, but because fundamentalist theology cannot be reconciled with a God of Love. Nor can poly (or any form of CNM) be reconciled with fundamentalism. However, rather than concluding that there was no Higher Power of any flavor, I opted for the search for Truth - and ultimately found a solution that works for me - and sees only a God of Love.

Many declare themselves atheists more because of religious doctrine that tells them God is judgmental and condemning - when a preferable solution might be to simply discard the theology rather than to completely rule out the possibility of a Higher Power, First Cause, Spirit of the Universe, God of Love....

Perhaps the solution is to leave the church (Mormon, Evangelical, Roman, whatever) and consider a different belief system that teaches of a God of Love - and that Love is Love.... For those of a Christian orientation, New Thought (Unity, for example), UU (not Christian per se - but close enough) might be possibilities. I wrote an article that is somewhere on this section a few years back entitled "Poly Friendly Churches" that might be helpful.
 
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