Laura Lowder #fundie survivingtherainbow.com

For five years I wrote this blog under a pseudonym. It’s not just about me – there are other people whose privacy I’ve felt a need to protect. My children don’t deserve to be hounded for my opinions or choices, many of which they disagree with. And although my ex-husband has told some of his family I don’t think all of them know, and telling them is his prerogative. Also, his parents are elderly and unwell, and they deserve their privacy and peace. Thank you for respecting that.

DH and I grew up together; we dated a year before getting married, while still in our teens. He was the de facto chaplain of our circle of friends, a staunch Baptist, cheerful energetic, confident, strong. He was instrumental in the formation of my Christian faith.

We were married eleven and a half years — hard years, bitter years for both of us. We ought to have been a happy couple. We had all the important things in common: Faith, desire for family, and so on. But we were both miserable from the outset.

When people who knew us ask what happened, why we divorced, I tell them: “You’ve heard of irreconcilable differences? Well, we had a problem with irreconcilable similarities. We both prefer men.”

When I was first going through this, there was no internet, so there were no sources of information or support for women like me. But that summer I met through my work three other women who were going through exactly what I was going through – and all four of us were staunch evangelical Christians in some of the major evangelical churches in our city.

This sort of thing wasn’t supposed to be happening! – but there we were. And more and more of us every year.

Nearly thirty years later, I feel as if I’m still recovering. Sometimes I think I will be for as long as I live. But that’s okay. I’ve survived with my mind and soul intact.

And if I can, we all can.

This is my story. The dominant narrative is, and has been, that only the gay community is courageous and worthy of respect. But I say we former spouses are also courageous, our stories also count. Maybe ours count more; after all, we wed in good faith. Our perspective is important, now more than ever.

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Confused?

So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!

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