1413: What Happens When a Mormon Bishop & Single Mom Fall in Love - Matthew & Elizabeth Shakespear Pt. 2

Mormon Stories Podcast

Dr. John Dehlin

Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 5.2K Ratings

🗓️ 30 March 2021

⏱️ 339 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What happens when a Mormon bishop falls in love with a member of his congregation? How could this happen?
What situation would make a divorced single mother returning to Mormon church activity fall in love with her married bishop?
In what ways does the calling of Mormon bishop, including both excessive time demands on the Bishop and the practice of one-on-one "worthiness" interviews with single women, put excessive strain on bishops, their marriages, and their families - making infidelity more likely?
Should divorced single women (or anyone for that matter) seek life counseling from a Mormon bishop? Are bishops trained and qualified to do life counseling?
How could a bishop and a divorced single mother come to believe that they were both engaged in a God-approved polygamous relationship? Does a story like this help us better understand the Chad Daybell / Lori Vallow story, or the Joseph Smith story?
What happens when a Mormon bishop loses his faith, while he is serving as bishop? What type of pressure does that put on the bishop, his wife, and their family?
What is it like to be viewed as "the mistress" in a public relationship that is viewed as scandalous (i.e., a Mormon bishops falls in love with a ward member, loses his faith, asks to be released, and the entire ward/stake knows)?
What happens when a Mormon stake president is forced to release a Mormon bishop early? What types of pressure does this situation put on the stake president, the ward, the bishop, and the bishop's family? How does the Mormon church handle such situations?
If you happen to fall in love with someone who isn't your spouse mid-life, how do you decide whether to stay in the struggling or failed marriage to improve it vs. leave the marriage to seek greater joy/fulfillment? Is there ever a time to "cut your losses" in a marriage and move on, or should most/all marriages be preserved at virtually all cost?
Can 2nd marriages work, with all the complexities of divorce, ex-spouses, step-children, etc.? Or are they generally doomed to fail?
How in the world do you ever heal from a lifetime of trauma as a Mormon? Is healing and growth possible? If so, what are some resources that can be helpful?

Today's epic two-part Mormon stories interview with Matthew and Elizabeth explores all of these questions, and much, much more. Buckle in for a 7+ hour in-depth interview.

I promise you that you will not be disappointed with these two strong, vulnerable, inspiring humans.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everyone and welcome back to part two of this special Mormon stories podcast episode.
0:08.0	We just spent two hours with Matthew Shakespeare, kind of the high level topic is how does a Mormon
0:14.2	Bishop loses faith and when it results in a request to step down his bishop and it also
0:21.9	ends up resulting in a divorce and then a marriage with a member of that bishop's ward
0:27.8	while he was serving Bishop and the faith crisis stuff all involved. It's just a fascinating
0:32.5	grouping story. We just spent a couple hours with Matthew Shakespeare, Bishop Shakespeare
0:37.5	talking about his upbringing, his mission, his service in the church, him getting married,
0:43.5	having six kids and all that went into his epic journey up to the point where he was called
0:49.7	to serve as a Bishop in Moses Lake. I was called to serve as a Bishop in Naches, Washington.
0:57.4	It's just inside of Yakima. Okay, near Yakima. We've heard those two hours. Now we are going
1:05.1	to pause and sort of like here Elizabeth Shakespeare's story of everything that led up to her joining
1:12.5	this ward in Washington and getting to know and meeting Bishop Shakespeare and that journey.
1:19.1	And then when that story is done, we'll bring it back and we'll talk about Bishop Shakespeare's
1:23.7	faith crisis, him meeting Elizabeth and how that led to all the things that came after.
1:32.0	And for me, it's an inspiring kind of love story, at least as it stands today and that's
1:40.2	all we can do is live in the present moment, right?
1:42.3	All great love stories have to have tragedy included. All of it. It's got to be there.
1:48.3	And that from William Shakespeare. But for me, this is an inspiring story just because there's
1:56.5	a lot of honesty and vulnerability and honest and candor, which is something that we just need
2:02.0	more of. So without any further ado, Elizabeth and Matthew, welcome back to part two of your
2:08.7	own story. Thank you. Thank you. So Elizabeth, we've heard a couple of hours from Matthew. Why
2:14.2	don't you tell us a bit about your Mormon story? Okay. Well, I have to say first that this
	...

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