When I was on my mission I received a “Dear John” letter from my girlfriend. We were not engaged by any manner, and had only been dating 3-4 months before I left on my mission. But as only teenagers can do, we fell madly in love in those short months. We were pretty sure we were meant for each other, and would marry when I got back, but there was no formal commitment.
Soon after I left, she started going out with one of my best friends, who was not active and was not going on a mission. This was all kept a secret from me, as her letters revealed nothing, until that fateful day four months into my mission. (yup, she lasted four months!). I wish I had kept the letter, but it got burned in a missionary ritual. I don’t remember much of what was in it, except the part that said ” I still love you, but now there is Phil……”. I do remember the zone leader were visiting, and one of them grabbed my letter and read it out loud to all the other elders in the apartment, creating lots of laughter and backslapping at my expense.
They ended up getting married in the Oakland Temple about a year into my mission. So I guess the one good thing about it was that Phil became active in the church, though he never served a mission. Also they were at my homecoming talk in Sacrament meeting. I didn’t have the guts to say in my talk: “It’s so good to be back and see everybody, especially my girlfriend and her husband”. I was married within the year, and the four of use got together several times for dinner.
One of my companions later in my mission got a dear John of the worst kind. He was about three months from the end of his mission when he got a letter from his parents telling him that his girlfriend had been disfellowshipped for fornication. They had planned on getting married, in fact my companion told me the only reason he came on his mission was that she would not marry him if he was not an RM. He pretty much had a complete breakdown, and I and the mission president kept him sane for about 6 weeks, and then the mission president let him go home early.
I wonder with the lowering of the missionary age to 18 for the men if there are fewer attached missionaries going out today. It seems that year between 18 and 19 was a prime time for young men to start dating as an adult. Now they are leaving right out of high school. So maybe there are less Dear John letters written today. What do you think?
Wheat & Tares 
As a teenager of the 90s, I can recall my parents, youth leaders, seminary teachers, and even EFY speakers strongly recommending not to date anyone steadily prior to serving a mission, though not outright saying it wasn’t right. I took that advice to heart and have absolutely no regrets. The woman who would become my wife moved into town four months before I left, but we didn’t meet until a year and a half after I got home. Admittedly, I was older for my grade, so I didn’t leave too long after graduation. I can only imagine what more time for dating would have been like beforehand.
It would seem less Dear Johns would be a natural consequence of lowering the age, but I’d be interested to see some statistics, and some of the other consequences for that matter. We have few youth in our ward, but since the change, I think half the missionaries (men and women) have come home early for physical and mental health reasons. Only one of those, to my knowledge, had seriously been dating someone prior to leaving.
There was an elder in my MTC district who had a serious girlfriend at home, and she had a really hard time letting him go. She sent letters and packages every day, and he really couldn’t focus at all on being a missionary. Things got so difficult that he went home after just a month in the MTC. We were all very sad about it at the time. Since then I have wondered what ended up happening to them. Did they get married? 19 years old seems so young to get married, but I know that people do it all the time. Does he regret not finishing his mission because of her?
One girl in our ward (same age as my son) was dating an older young man in our ward but when he left on a mission, she began aggressively pursuing my son. I don’t know that my son would’ve gone on a mission ( he struggled with social anxiety) were it not for her insistence. (And I wasn’t going to encourage/require that he go). No way would she marry anyone who was not a returned missionary.
Long story short. My son came home after 8 months, suffering from depression. (Thankfully he had a good Mission President who was supportive and tried to help him). As soon as my son returned home, the girl dumped him (though we found out later she had been dating her first missionary and they ended up getting married).
My son struggled some for the next 2-3 yrs but eventually found his footing and has a family and successful career).
My wife waited for me. There was a conference talk a couple of months before I was due to go home saying the next thing a missionary needed to do after a mission was get married so I phoned up my girl friend and proposed. We were married 6 weeks after I got home, and will celebrate 50 years of marriage next march. Life is good.
I married at 28 to my wife who was 25. We are both glad we waited. I had a girlfriend who dated a guy but became available a few months before I got home. It didn’t work out. So sorry, I don’t have much sympathy for the Dear John letters. 18-20yos are young kids in my mind. They need to explore adulthood for a few years before tying the knot.
I would imagine that there are fewer Dear John letters nowadays. The internet and cell phones have really slowed kids down in terms of their social development. Plus, I remember back before the mission age change that a lot of people found a girlfriend/boyfriend at college.
In my area outside of the Jello Belt, most girls don’t want to get married at 18. 21 is more like it and a good lot of them are serving mission themselves first as well. In the last five years, I’ve only seen one 18 year old bride. All of which I imagine effects the number of Dear John letters as well.
The funniest letter I ever got on my mission was a “Dear John” from my sister.
There was a girl I really liked before my mission. We only dated about 3 months, and she moved back home to Arizona. I expected her to get married my whole mission, but to my surprise, she didn’t. She wrote my whole mission, and sent care packages on occasion. I was excited that she still wasn’t married when I got home, and wondered how I was going to go to Arizona to resume things. Then she Dear John-ed me. That was sad.
There are a lot of dear john stories in the comments to this post from a decade ago: https://bycommonconsent.com/2009/08/27/missionary-dear-john-letters/
I was dear john’ed on my mission. I am so grateful because in looking back, I would have been miserable! And I would have moved to Utah. Love you Utah but I think it’s best that we remain “just friends”.
I know I’m one of the ones that wouldn’t have had that girlfriend had they moved up the mission age.
I had a companion that was useless until he got his Dear John. He had an 8×10 picture of her above his desk, and he paid more attention to her than to any of his studies. Once he realized how much of his time he had wasted, he asked our mission president if he could extend his mission to make up for it. The mission president said no. I have no idea what happened to him after he got home.
My story was a little different. I bet a friend of mine that she would not write me while I was out, and that she would be married by the time I got home. We bet a steak dinner on it. She wrote me every week, and when we were at the dinner she told me that she was engaged, and had put off the wedding date until after I paid off the bet.
Younger missionaries could also just mean younger girlfriends. Our ward is sending out a boy who just graduated high school, and his girlfriend is two years younger. No way he doesn’t get Dear John-ed – what girl wants to spend her junior and senior years of high school unable to date???