Secrets

I hate keeping secrets. I am probably one of the worst secret keepers in the world. I can keep them and I do. But I hate it. I have always believed that a husband and wife should have no secrets. I do have secrets from him but they aren't my secrets, they're hers. So I'm not really breaking my belief. I tell him everything unless I'm told specifically not to. But now....now his religion has made us keep secrets. It's very demoralizing to a marriage for a member to keep secrets from a nonmember. It makes it more difficult for me to see what the benefits are of becoming a member. Instead, I feel icky when I think of joining. I get this oily, creepy feeling crawling down my skin and that's not natural.
Since he's joined, he can't talk about what he does outside of what I can see. I can't question him. I can't peek. And since he has so much invested in his cult, he talks of nothing else. So our conversations are now limited to surface talk. I can fill any void with any words but I miss that give and take we used to have.
I can see why nonmembers join. If their spouse is a member, these nonmembers join just so they have that normal conversation again. So they don't feel excluded anymore. So they don't feel like the red-headed stepchild.
I don't like what his religion is doing. I don't think it actually believes in the sanctity of marriage between a member and nonmember. I think it does its best to drive a wedge between the two so they'll divorce and the member can marry someone more worthy. That's not going to happen in my marriage. I'm not going to give in to the pressures just to make some strangers happy and to make him talk to me. But I'm also not going to sit quietly by while it tries to drive in that wedge.
I hate secrets. And this church promotes them. Something is definitely not right.