But Phil was inexperienced in love. He was apprehensive about leaving the womb of Utah for what he feared would be Babylon. He didn't know what to expect and was nervous about being alone.

So he proposed to the girl he had been dating only a few months.

After seven years, two kids and endless trips to counselors and Mormon leaders, Phil and his wife divorced. As a devoted member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, he was emotionally, religiously and financially devastated.

"From my perspective, she is a perfectly nice person, but we had no business being married," he says now. "The way we came to see the world was completely different. I have my own weaknesses and they punched her buttons."

Growing up in a small Utah town, the woman felt oppressed by her father, the church and men in general. Though her mild-mannered husband was the antithesis of her authoritarian father, she transferred all those feelings to Phil.

"She felt suffocated by men," he says. "The way she chose to break out was by eating."

Phil began to notice crazy things. When he came back from work, the heart of a newly purchased watermelon would be gone. After the week's groceries disappeared in a single day, he had to hide food for himself and their two children. He had no idea what was happening. "It was as severe a form of addiction as alcoholism or cocaine," he says.

Today, they would have realized the woman was bulimic, but this was 1980 and her disease was not yet widely recognized. They sought counseling, but no one had any answers.

While dealing with a marriage spiraling out of control, Phil was teaching at the LDS Institute of Religion for Mormon students in the Boston area and completing graduate work on religion.

Phil's wife became involved with a New Age religion called Eckankar, which believes in souls traveling outside their bodies. He tried to be understanding, even attended a few Eckankar meetings, but that just added religion to their list of growing differences.

After several years of struggle and counseling, their professional marriage counselor asked them, "What would it be like to imagine yourself apart?"

As a Mormon, divorce was unthinkable, but the suggestion gave the couple a sense of profound relief.

The two agreed to share child-raising, alternating a year-long stay with each parent. Phil had them first.

The divorce cost Phil his livelihood. No divorced person can teach at the LDS Institute, no matter what caused it.

"They fired me with comments of great compassion," he recalls. "It didn't sound like they were judging me. They were trying to be soft and gentle, saying things like, 'Can you imagine how awkward it would be if you were assigned to teach a class on marriage and family?' They implied they were doing this for my own good."

In a flash, he was thrust into the gravest economic, occupational, marital, faith and religious crisis of his life. He felt abandoned by some church members.

"I didn't even know if I could finish my doctoral program," he says. "I had to pull out of my exams, come back to Utah and live in the basement of my parents' house. I was sick day and night for months."

It took years of soul-searching, mental anguish and hard work for Phil to regain his equilibrium. Eventually, he was able to finish his degree and trust love again. He finally met a divorced Mormon woman with three children, and, he says, "things got happy."

Today he has been joyously married for 18 years, is the proud father of six and chairs Mormon studies at Utah State University.

"Divorce should not be a casual thing," he says. "I appreciate the church's support of marriage and family in its various dimensions. However, we may err when we confuse ironclad rules with guiding principles. There are situations where divorce is the most constructive, compassionate and wise thing to do."

pstack@sltrib.com

On the Web

How the process works for getting approved to be married (sealed) in an LDS temple after divorce. www.sltrib.com/faith