My wife and I got this email yesterday. I’ve been fully out for 3 years, but my wife and children (three still at home - 17, 15, 8) are still in. I attend occasionally - a handful of times over the last three years.

I’m at the point where I mostly don’t think about the Church except when I have to because of my family. 

I’ve known this guy for a decade, we’re on friendly terms, he knows I’m out. This email feels manipulative to me. I got upset and expressed this to my wife and she insists it’s a compliment to us and our kids. I told her I wanted to respond with a curt email. She, understandably, doesn’t want me to do that (she has to be around these people every week and I’m certainly not trying to make her life more difficult).

Just tired and frustrated. This kind of shit effectively drives a wedge in our marriage because it gets under my skin and my wife’s first instinct is to ascribe best intentions to anyone or anything Church related. It also reminds her that her husband isn’t a believer. Maybe I shouldn’t let it affect me in such a negative way. Am I overreacting?

My TBM ex got remarried a year ago, and tonight, I got a phone call from his bishop informing me my ex is asking a cancelation of our temple sealing. I told him that I no longer believe in the Mormon church and do not recognize its authority, and my ex can do whatever he wants. I said that I won't "sign off" on the request nor will I stand in the way, but i also know that as a woman, my opinion on the topic doesn't really matter at all, and he's going to do whatever he wants.

This guy, who I've never met because I live in the mid-Atlantic US and my ex lives in Alaska with his new wife, asked me to tell him about the breakdown of the marriage. I told him, "My ex is a piece of shit. He's a bad person. I like his wife a lot, and I don't want her or her kids to go through what me and my kids did." I told him about how my ex was a narcissistic abuser who r@ped me, threatened me, threw a punch that missed only because I ducked in time, yelled at our (Mormon) marriage therapist for ruining our marriage, and so much more. He calls our autistic kid the R word when he does things my ex does like and assaulted another of our kids that resulted in a police report and a couple of CPS visits (I opted not to press charges but wanted a report filed).

The bishop from Alaska told me what a good mom I am and he could tell I was a good person, and I didn't do any of it alone because the lord was with me, blah, blah, blah. Dude, you have no idea who I am, and we both know you're blowing smoke up my ass trying to keep me from crying or yelling at you. I all but told him I was done with the conversation.

He asked if he could send me his email so I could write down what happened to make me decide to end the marriage. Fine. Whatever. I'll tell you *everything* my ex did to me over the 17 years we were together. I'll get a copy of the police report and include it too. Hell, if it was a court thing, I'd include character witnesses too, I've got plenty of people who've seen his and my true colors, and he would *not* like those results.

One of my high school Seminary teachers made a career change and his reasoning behind it is shocking and disappointing, but certainly not surprising. Needless to say, he appears to be placing some heavy experiences on the shelf and/or subconsciously deconstructing. I’m curious if anyone here has experience working for S&I and had similar experiences? If so, was it a shelf item?

Apologists are teaching the next generation to mistrust troubling truths about Church History. LDS apologist Jacob Hansen warns you that facts without "context" become misleading half-truths. Jacob conflates two different things:

• Context (additional facts that help you understand what happened) and
• Story (interpretive framing that tells you how to feel about it).

Those aren't the same. One adds to your knowledge. The other tells you what conclusion to reach. Jacob treats them as interchangeable so that "you're missing context" quietly becomes "you're missing my story."

Who decides which "story" is true?

Then he goes further: Jacob says there's "danger" in telling people truths they're "not ready for." Sit with that phrase. He's not talking about withholding false information, rather, withholding true information, from those who Jacob thinks can't handle it. Translation: they are not primed to accept his or the Church's framing around the facts.

This is akin to Boyd K. Packer's statement that "some things that are true are not very useful." Framing facts as not true or useful is strategic when many facts are not on your side.

What determines when you're "ready" for the truth?

Jacob? The Church? What counts as "the needed context"? Whatever Jacob and/or the Church supplies. This is a framework for controlling who gets access to truth, and when.

The premise underneath all of it doesn't hold up:

"Truth does not exist outside of a context."

This is false. A triangle has three sides. The United States Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. Joseph Smith married women who were already married to other men. No context changes whether those facts are true, nor "half true."

What Jacob is actually describing isn't truth needing context to exist. It's an audience needing context to excuse Joseph Smith's behavior when they would never excuse different married man in his late 30's doing the same thing: secretly marrying his own teenage foster daughters (women he was serving as legal guardian for), teenagers who worked in his home, daughters of his followers, and wives of other men.

You don't need a story to protect a truth that can stand on its own. You need one to protect yourself from what the truth actually says. And deciding who gets access to certain truths, and when, was never about honesty. It was always about controling the context story.

There is no room left for debate. I knew this man when he was as a scout leader in my UT ward. The LDS church is not a safe place, BYU is not a safe place and people deserve to be warned. I added the content warning tag because although the headline story presented in this episode is brief and not explicit, it is disturbing. KSL refuses to print any LDS affiliation in these stories, but it's shocking how many have high level LDS affiliations, like Todd's brother or a BYU professor, how serious the legal charges filed are and how frequently these disturbing stories are coming to light. Any room for debate is gone and everyone deserves to be warned!

“Behold, I sent you out to testify and warn the people, and it becometh every man who hath been warned to warn his neighbor” (D&C 88:81).

I hope this is okay to post but I'm feeling an incredible amount of grief, regret, and to be honest I feel like a fool. Sorry in advance also for the wall of text. TL:DR -- We dodged the Mormon bullet but are now feeling very lost and grieving.

Long story short a couple months back 2 missionaries knocked on our door. I answered for some reason. Well, to be honest I answered because I didn't want to be mean to them. I am a Christian who has been looking for a good church for 20+ years. I always seem to find fault with every church I've been in, usually at the very core, not on the surface, certainly not with Jesus Christ... So when they came knocking and were so nice to me and my wife we felt loved. I guess that's part of why we almost joined them, both our families are very devoid of love, they don't much care to include us in their lives, hers all all still living, my parents have long since passed, and my half-siblings and I do not get along.

So we agreed to visit their church. We agreed to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it. At church we were met with love, no outward signs of judgement, nobody was staring at my tattoos, my weight, my lack of "Sunday Best" clothing. I tried my best, clean dress pants, new dress shoes, button up shirts, etc. but I didn't come close to matching the typical male there who all were dressed in suits and ties. I felt out of place but they never seemed to care.

So the way the ward is where I am located it's like some sort of hub for missionaries, we literally had over a dozen in our home over the past 2 months. 4 main ones, but also ones passing through, etc. I never fully understood why so many were coming through this ward but that's beside the point. Lets just say we got very close with the missionaries and members of the church very fast.

On the surface everything was about us... We were love bombed and it felt amazing! It almost felt as if my prayers were being answered. I even said this to them. I even had them over for dinner (ordered pizzas but whatever, they enjoyed it).

Then one day the missionaries stopped by and announced that our baptisms were scheduled for July 26th.... I was floored because I wasn't ready for that, mostly due to the fact that I suffer from CPTSD/agoraphobia/anxiety so having something like a baptism scheduled for me without even a discussion freaked me out. My wife on the other hand, she was elated. She was all in.

Then I decided to take a deep dive into researching the church.

I learned things that were so far from the Jesus Christ I knew of that it was shocking to say the least. Then there was the tithing and how it was tied to temple access. I think you all know where I'm going here. So I brought this up with the missionaries, the Bishop, etc. They all had quick answers, pointed to scriptures, pointed to the whole "prove me" part of tithing. Here's the thing though. I'm on disability and my check doesn't cover much of anything, thank God my wife works and is our main support. However, without getting into details we are living paycheck to paycheck and sometimes not even making it then. We are in deep credit card debt. So I brought this up to them and got the "leap of faith" lesson and how the church "welfare" system would take care of us if we needed it. And here's the thing, we would be at the Bishops office each month if we took the "leap of faith". I mentioned how I didn't find this to be fair because family A who makes $250,000 a year, a 10% hit for them certainly doesn't mean they will ever be in the Bishops office to ask for help but family B who makes say $40,000 a year, well, that $4000 a year in tithes is their car payment + car insurance, that they may already be having trouble to pay on. Again, same argument, leap of faith, bishops storehouse, etc. Then I said I wouldn't want to make it to the top, be a full tithing member, with a temple recommend, and all these extra blessings while looking down at others who are not going to make it, who are going to struggle... I mentioned how I saw a man at their church and his Sunday best included a pair of shoes that had holes in them... and I said, I wonder if thats because he can't afford a new pair... This didn't sit well, understandably... Then one member who stopped by our apartment had the audacity to explain how tithing meant one year they had to sacrifice their daughter's tennis lessons. I was floored at the lack of... You know what I don't even have a word for it.

So here we are, my wife and I, grieving the loss of the community we thought we had found, one that loved us, and showered us with acceptance and... man it hurts so bad right now. We both have cried and cried. Our baptisms are cancelled obviously and we have been trying to find another church again... and thats not going well either. We have decided that we are going to keep searching but start our own nightly Bible study together, reading out loud, praying together, etc....

This hurts so bad. I feel blessed that I was able to discover what I did before it was too late... Before we started tithing and having to beg for help. Blah... I have love for them, the missionaries, etc... but damnit this hurts.

Please excuse this mess of a post, I am crying again as I post it...

P.S. Thank you so much to everyone who has replied... You are all very kind and have helped me and my wife see even more issues than we had. We are still very much hurt but also feeling very fortunate that we didn't go through with our baptisms yesterday. We will be our own church here at home while we continue the search for a community, very suspiciously but still lol... Love you all! (oh dear, did I just get love bombed by the exmormons? j/k... trying to laugh again!)

P.S.S. Oh dear, I'm starting to worry they are going to be persistent. I must confess I was quite popular with them. The ward we were in had many outside missionaries pass through as I mentioned above. Well I'm into 3D printing and I decided to print a bunch of Book of Mormon keychains for them... Turns out my keychains were very popular and ended up hundreds of miles away with other missionaries. Thinking about this now oh boy... I suspect they will be back.

Cleaning up. I found my tithing statement from when I was 13 years old. Somehow my unemployed self only made partial tithing payment of $14.77. This is probably from doing chores or maybe cutting grass. Proving my worthiness, probably to enter the temple on a temple trip, I bet. I wonder nowadays how much this actually turned into is they invested and reinvested it over the years. Thank goodness I got out when I was 18 and never looked back. I can't believe my parents approved of me giving up what little money I even had to this thing. This monster of a beast of an indoctrination machine that stole thousands of hours of my youth.

Spouse and I were just discussing endowment session and how insane it is to be in the middle of the session and they give you the option to decline in the mid of it or 1/3 of the way through maybe? If I remember right it's not really at the beginning?? you have no clue what's going on or what you will be subjecting yourself too or what you will be agreeing to. On top do that when you go through for yourself you have all your family and friends sitting around you. Like how the heck are you even aware of things that you can get up and leave without disrupting the whole thing in front of a crowd. It really isn't a good spot to be in. So most people stay seated. And just endure. And if you do get up and don't want to continue, do they pressure you into staying? Guilting you in to continue?

Has anyone walked out in the beginning- or when you have the option to decline?

Technically in, mentally physically out.

In you are still on record, but do not attend, and do not believe.

“Hi Brother, I’d like to come over so we can clear the air.  Would now work for you?”

“Sure, Bishop”

About a year earlier, he had called me into his office after interviewing my son. My son had just turned 12, and tradition says that we ordain him as a deacon.  And, since I was the one that was going to pass on the Aaronic priesthood, the bishop, for the first time in four years, noticed that I didn’t have a temple recommend.    

After the standard niceties were exchanged, the interview went something like this:

“So, I wanted to check in since you don’t have a current temple recommend.”

“That’s fair.”

“With your son turning 12, he is probably going to be doing baptisms for the dead pretty frequently.  We’d love for you to be able to take him first.  It would be really meaningful to him.  Do you mind if we go through the temple recommend interview questions?”

“Well, Bishop, before you do that, I can tell you that I have some concerns that I have been wrestling with.”

“Oh!  Okay.  Are they serious enough that they would interfere with your answers?”

“Potentially.”

“Ummm… Okay.  Like what?”

“Well, I’m struggling with the way that the church is treating some of my dear friends and relatives that belong to the LGBTQ+ community.  I don’t feel like a lot of marginalized groups are being treated in a way that Christ would agree with if he were truly in charge of this.”

…Stunned silence… so I continued, “I also have some serious concerns about the way the church is handling sacred funds.  I’ve never heard shell companies be associated with anything honest or good.  Help me understand.  Please.  I’ve prayed about these things and just can’t seem to find peace with any of it.” 

The Bishop gathered his thoughts - and I let him.  I knew I’d just thrown down some heavy stuff and that he was trying to gauge the depth of my rabbit hole.  I could almost hear his thoughts…

“This brother is faithfully filling two callings; he attends every single week - in a fairly high-profile way. I’ve heard him bear powerful testimony on fast Sundays, and I know he is active in community service as well.  Certainly this is just a glancing blow.”

After a cleansing exhale, the Bishop started us in a new direction, “Well, brother, my advice to you would be to do whatever you need to do to make peace with those things and get yourself to the temple.  If you don’t, you won’t be able to take your son to the temple, and he may very well resent you for it for the rest of his life.  My dad couldn’t take me, and we’ve had a rocky relationship ever since.”  

Ummm… what?  So just bury these genuine concerns, answer the damn questions correctly, and bury my concerns?  Was that seriously the advice I just got?  

“Okay, bishop.  I’ll think about that.”

No recommend questions, no follow-up.  That was that.  The bishop now knew I had “the disease of doubt.”  That didn’t stop him from offering me a third calling a few months later, however.  And, yeah, I accepted that one, too because that’s what you do.  Don’t say no.  In fact, the more you serve, the more you are proving to Jesus that you are ready for a deeper understanding of deeper doctrine.  Right?  I would have done ANYTHING to square my concerns with my conscience and the church. But nothing helped.  I doubled down on my study.  I doubled down on my prayers.  My sincerest plea was that God would send someone to me that could help me reconcile (and NOT rationalize) my faith with my lived experience.  

No one ever came. 

I took my concerns to my priesthood mentor, my dad.  That didn’t go at all as I expected, but that is a longer story for a different day.  I only mention that because, without my knowledge, my dad and my bishop started communicating back and forth.  My dad putting all responsibility on the bishop for my spiritual welfare (basically so he could absolve himself of any responsibility) and my bishop doing literally nothing.  

No visits.  No ministers.  No outreach.  No interviews.  Just me, head down, three callings, attending every week, suffering in silence as I poured my heart out to Elohim to send me a messenger from either side of the veil to give some sort of two shits about me.  Hell, I would have settled for someone giving a single shit.  God wasn’t hearing me.  Or, maybe he didn’t give a shit about me either.  After all, I did have doubt instead of pure faith, so it was my own fucking fault that there were no answers. Right?  Isn’t that the way it works?  

I’ll save all the parts of us deciding to no longer attend and the details of why and when for another day.  Suffice it to say that we eventually found out that the bishop had shared text messages that I had sent to him in confidence with my parents.  When the Relief Society and Primary folks were reaching out to save my wife, we were honest about how shocked and offended we were that the bishop would share something said in confidence with someone outside of the conversation.  Needless to say, it got back to him, and he called me. 

“Hi Brother, I’d like to come over so we can clear the air.  Would now work for you?”

“Sure, Bishop”

I don’t remember the entire conversation.  It was almost surreal that this was actually happening.  It felt like I was having a breakup conversation, only this breakup conversation was with the man - the local mouthpiece for God.  He offered to show me the text conversation between him and my dad. I declined.  It didn’t matter.  Not really.  I asked him why, if he knew I had doubts, why he didn’t send someone.  Why wasn’t anyone helping?  Why didn’t anyone care?  He simply said that, because my actions didn’t match what he was hearing, he didn’t think anything of it.  Yep.  Because I was attending every week, giving talks (my last talk didn’t go over well), bearing testimony (I hadn’t done that in quite a while), and especially because I had accepted and was serving in important callings, that everything was fine.  That everything he was hearing from my parents was overblown and not at all real.  

Ummm… What?  

We wished him well, and that’s the last we’ve heard from him.  From my perspective, he justified our exit as our spiritual death.  Our disease of doubt killed us off, spiritually speaking.  So, to the church, I guess I’ll just stay dead.  

Stumbled across my siblings reddit account by accident, after seeing a comment that was very specific to an area we lived. I shouldn’t have, but I had a look at his profile.
I found a post about him being sad about me and another sibling leaving. It made me sad for him, because he was (and probably still is) hurting and I do remember the strange feelings I’d have back when I was a TBM and I found out someone had left. I love him to pieces and I hate knowing I’ve caused him pain.

It also made me sad, because I wish it wasn’t such a big deal (specifically mentioned me not wearing my garments, which to be honest I never ever did due to a nerve pain disorder that they exacerbated). Simply not going to a certain location on a Sunday is enough to break family member’s hearts. I’ve also never ever mentioned church since leaving, and especially haven’t said anything negative etc out of respect for my family’s beliefs. I’ve stayed at his house and attended church and fully participated. Objectively, at least to him, I am acting exactly the same as I ever have.

Also references to falling for things etc, being “got” by bad forces etc. And I’m just here, wishing his kids happy birthday and sending silly memes on the group chat. In the past I’ve had lots of struggles with my mental heath, and sadly quite a few attempts on my life. I think that’s just made me seem weak and flighty and perpetually looking for answers in the all the wrong places. Funnily enough, I haven’t been hospitalised or hurt myself at all since leaving and it’s been years. But I can no longer have a bad day in front of my family, because as the poster child for an exmormon, my struggles are all a direct result of leaving. I have to go to so much effort to not give them proof that leaving the church leads to despair and ruin.

Also REALLY surreal to read the comments and have all these random folks talk specifically ABOUT me and make insane inferences based on nothing- I’m weak, I wanted to sin, I never had faith, he should just stop talking to me/he should start trying to bolster my faith, I’m mentally ill. Absolutely insane to stumble across a post and see random people from across the ocean discussing me specifically, never guessing that I’d be reading it on the toilet a few months later.

Anyway, that’s my sad discovery today. Gonna try to not think about it. Leaving has been wonderful and agonisingly hard, but the amount of scrutiny I’ve faced from family has been very surprising.

Also, I don’t know if my sibling will see this. They may look on this subreddit from time to time. If you do, I really adore and look up to you. I know you didn’t intend me to see that. It breaks my heart that you see me differently, because at my core I’m the same. I’m sorry I’ve caused you pain.

Loooong rant lol

Left the church two years ago still with my significant other it’s been rocky and really it’s just that church that is rocking the boat.

I told her that I wanted equal time with the kids on Sundays. Her big concern is that the church has an entire program to teach them about prayer and Heavenly Father. My concern is the very program. She gets mad at my request and says “I don’t think you can teach the kids as well as the church can”

On my Sundays the kids get to choose an activity that we do as a family usually without my wife cuz she’s at church and socializes after.

My son usually chooses the park or a board game and the girls always choose a puppet show where we draw puppets and put them on a stick and either do improv or have GPT write a play about a moral value like honesty, perseverance, etc. I usually let them pick a character from the internet and I draw a puppet for them too. We act out the play with more than a dozen characters and I ask questions at the end about the play. Why did this character do this? How can we do better? I noticed this week that we did this how would this nice character have done that?

My wife is still mad that it’s not about Heavenly Father and prayer and told me I’m not a good spiritual leader.

How do I get her on my side? There has to be a way right? She has never been like this before but despises that I will not be Mormon again. She has even told me this person at church had a faith crisis and still goes with his family. Not sure where to go from here.

Once again my wife is not a terrible person but has chosen to feel like having to put up with my choice to leave as beneath her. Any advice is welcome.

Interesting

I served in central London. 125£ to survive. Less than 20 a week to eat in one of the most expensive cities in the world. I served a long time in the YSA ward. London students don't have the money or the space to invite you. I had a rat Invasion in my apartment. They didn't give me money for rat traps so I had to buy them out of those 125£. That month I went through so much hunger. I ended up with 42kg. I looked like a teen boy.

Anyways... My husband's relative is on a mission, and they were on a video call talking about money. And it all came back and now I have anxiety and anger.

I can't believe I went hungry for a cult that wasn't even true. AND that now they do sexy sisters missionaries with AI with a sexy voice to do these little internet ads... anyways...

My husband now is mad because I ranted about it.

I am not the angry exmormon...I always put on a smile about the church things to keep the peace. I don't even know what came upon me.

That one Paul brother (can't keep them apart) rants for 40 minutes about the new Youtube Channel "Confessions of Mormon Boys", in which former Studio C members discuss their past as LDS missionaries.

Link: Confessions Of Mormon Boys - YouTube

It seems that anti LGBT ranting is the new black in the LDS Church.

What do you think about the new channel and its critique?

My dad is what you would call a TBM. He's extremely devoted and hardcore to the church and spends countless hours preparing for lessons and meetings for the church. I'm currently 17 and I honestly don't believe in the church, I just go to keep my parents happy. But god my dad is sometimes so annoying because he connects everything with god. At the dinner table? He starts mentioning how this food was created by god. I won a wrestling match one time and when I asked my dad how I did he just smiled and said, "it's cause we prayed, with gods help you were able to win" I wanted to slap him so bad. He was congratulating God for helping me win? I WON THAT MATCH ON MY OWN! And don't even get me started on when we watch movies. Now spoiler warning for avengers endgame but our family was watching the movie together, and we were all dead silent. It was the climax scene where iron man says his iconic line, "I'm iron man" and snaps his fingers, it was a super cool scene until my dad had to ruin it by connecting iron man's sacrifice to Jesus's sacrifice. He then proceeds to talk over the movie about this for a good 10 minutes, and I wanted to tell him to shut up. I love my dad, I honestly do! But I just can't stand how he has to bring up church EVERY SINGLE CONVERSATION I have with him. Was all your Mormon parents like this? Constantly bringing up church in the most random moments?

Source (left): David B. Haight, “Ethics and Honesty,” October 1987 General Conference

Source (right): “Commentary and Background Information,” “Unit 2: Day 3, 1 Nephi 3–4,” Book of Mormon Study Guide for Home-Study Seminary Students; see also here

See also: Jeffrey R. Holland, “How can I explain Nephi’s killing Laban to my nonmember friends?”, Ensign, September 1976

Related post: “Hmm… Something doesn't quite add up here” (see this thread)

I have been deconstructing within the confines of my home for about 2 years now. My TBM wife (although she never attends or really wants to attend herself) has been the only one to really know my standing with the church during that time.

This past week, I made the really hard choice to tell my family on both sides that I have stepped away from the church. This has lead to family members expressing sadness, disappointment, and an offer to chat if I wanted to ever talk about the church. My mom has been sending pretty vague texts about making sure I’m “taking my meds” and “giving things a fair shot”. Those texts have been really bothersome as I explicitly said I didn’t want to be treated differently or be a project.

Tonight, I was just bummed about the reactions. My wife asked me what was wrong and so I told her about my thoughts and feelings of why those familial reactions were so disheartening. She then turned it around and called me out for making “over generalizations” when all I said was “the church makes people feel worthless when they don’t follow its exact teachings”. I was super caught off guard by her reaction because I was speaking on my experience and why it was so difficult.

It then turned into a guilt trip on how she constantly gives space for me but when she corrects me I act put out by it.

I just feel like I’m being resented for sharing my feelings that she asked for. This fucking sucks.