I'd say it was a tie between giving up my place in a master's degree program in order to serve a mission and having my dad walk me down the aisle so I could have a temple marriage. In fact, I gave up the wedding I wanted to have a depressing, uninspired wedding without my dad or my unendowed sister there.

OK, the wedding was the bigger sacrifice but that master's degree thing sucked too because I'd have a much more successful, interesting career if I'd been able to complete it.

Lol! My ability to think for myself.

A 2 day weekend.

What Muttley said. I was gonna use the less PC term p##sy but Ms. I/S wouldn't like it.

18 months of my life to knock on doors in Germany.
That and I gave up surfing on Sundays for 32 years.

Time, dignity, integrity, happiness.

Not having either of my parents at my wedding. I also gave up a lot of money, including 10 percent of the life insurance when my dad died ... it just seems so wrong now. But, I try not to regret those things too much, as without being mormon I wouldn't have met my husband. Thankfully we left the mormon church together.

peace, serenity, I could write pages.

The time I spent on my mission was a big loss. Then there were all the missed opportunities I could have had to have healthy adult relationships with people I liked. Also, there was the time, when out of guilt, I sold all my rated R DVDs.

I missed also once missed the opening weekend of a "Last Action Hero," to go to Wilderness Youth Camp. Admittedly, the movie was a big disappointment, but not near as big a one as Wilderness Camp had been.

Oh, and then I forgot, because of tithing, I was not able to afford to leave home until I was in my late twenties.

I've been lurking for months, but this post sucked me in and compelled me to post.

Growing up gay and Mormon, I realized, far later in life than I should have, that I gave up the ablity to have a full and meaningful spiritual, emotional, and intimate relationship with another human being--which ironically, the church implies is the primary reason we're here.

All of this despite that fact that I married an amazing woman who remains my best friend even though we are no longer together as a couple because we eventually realized how misguided our mixed orientation marriage was. Thanks church.

That is a very insightful comment. Please don't limit yourself to being a lurker, and lend your insights into the conversation. Lurking is for Strengthening Members Committee weirdos.

I second what Coke said. Speak up - we need more lurkers to tell their stories.

You and I went down the same path, at least part-way. While I accept the responsibility for all of my own decisions, I know that I allowed TSCC to influence me far too much.

I really do wish I had had the courage when I was in my 20s to be my true gay self, and to love the way I was born to, rather than to keep trying to be a straight LDS "normal" guy.

Well thank you. I'll take you up on your invitations to share my 2 cents once in a while. I'm in my early 40s and have only been fully open, honest, and OK with being me for a few years, PapaKen, so I unfortunately tried to be "normal" for a very long time myself.

I too agree that I made my own decisions, so no blame games here. That said, hindsight has made it crystal clear that in trying to do what was "right" and "good" through the filtered glasses I wore as a beliving Mormon ended up being exactly the wrong thing for me and my family on every level.

I certainly have made some missteps in my life. However, it's very unfortunate when religious doctrines cause pain, damage, and heartache to those believing members who seek most diligently to follow them. I've been much happier and more in touch with spiritual things since disassociating with the church, even though life in general has been more chaotic, in part due to the price me and my family have paid for undoing wrongs done with the best of intentions. ...hence my parting shot of sarcastic gratitute for the church.

I left my family to go 1500 miles away and a world away to BYU. 30 years later, I regret living out in Utah with no extended family around. My siblings are relieved I'm out of the church now--in spite of the distance, we are closer than we've ever been.

I didn't realize what a wall the LDS church had been between my never-mo family and I. I've missed out on a lot with them these past 30 years--and they're a good family. I have them back now.

And they have me back.

The biggest thing I gave up was having my parents -- and my husbands parents -- attend our wedding.


This caused a HUGE RIFT between me and my in-laws. They were so angry with me for not allowing them to be at their only son's wedding, and the anger and ill-will continued until their deaths many years later.


They blamed me -- not the church -- for not being able to go to their son's wedding, and family relations were never good because of that.


If I had it to do all over again, I'd tell TSCC to take a flying leap, and I'd marry in a local non-denominational church, with my parents and my in-laws sitting right there on the front row.

Garments, consecrated oil, patriarchial blessings, praying for bad stuff to go away, praying for good stuff to come, magical glasses that would allow a madman to translate a non-existant language for a non-existant people.

What didn't I give up for mormonism? That question just makes my head explode.

My whole f-ing life.

Time...So. Much. Time. And my self-dignity. I craved more knowledge and the ability to look outside my tight, stifled, controlled little environment, but I never felt I could do that. I am pretty cerebral, but smashed it all down and went with the flow for way too long. I'm now working on projects, educational goals, and other things that have been waiting in the wings for literally decades. I hate the money we paid for nothing, I hate the effort put into learning things that were stupid and nonsensical, and I hate the play-acting we all felt we had to do in the see-and-be-seen situations, but the most painful loss of all is the time. Oh how I wish I could get all that back. Life is short and there is much to be done and enjoyed - I grieve that thousands of hours was wasted playing music for the church, attending meetings, supporting our kids in various organizations, and trotting around doing the idiotic busywork like visiting teaching.

Freedom of expression and a running guilt trip. I bailed out early in life so I seen much discrimation as I grew up.

We really did sacrifice everything, didn't we? All of it galls, but I didn't have sex with someone I loved because of the stupid church rules and being so brainwashed (still so young at that point) that I stuck to all the rules even when they didn't ring true to me. I wish I could go back and have what I'm certain would have been beautiful.

Coffee and Sunday afternoons. Glad to have both back!

My brain.

Some one I loved .... he wasn't a member ....

I hear ya rescueranger, I lost 5 people that I dated and loved because they werent mormon. so so so much heartbreak... all for nothing.

All of the above, plus masturbation... well not really. :)

Friends. Good Friends. huge regret!

As someone that didn't start drinking until his 40's, I would have loved the idea of growing up having my Dad teach me about different beers, vodka, scotch (a new personal favorite) and such. What fun it would have been to have family dinner with a fine bottle of wine. Instead, it was always applejuice a sprite. BORING!!

Just my childhood. LOL, "just".

I gave up coffee for a few weeks. That's about it.

honesty

I had sex with my girlfriend, felt the only way to appease god and Mormonism was to marry her...it was a six-year disaster. At a time in my life when I should have felt most alive, I often wished I would just die and go to the telestial kingdom, wretched sinner that I was.

My health, my dreams, my career,20 years of my life, knowing who I am, happiness, who knows what else.

NO MORE!

my youth

I also have been lurking for over a year now and wanted to post. I gave up my fiance on the advice of my bishop and the repentance process when I was at Ricks college. Though it's been 16 years since and I'm happily married, I still struggle with my feelings/emotions of it all and the pain I caused my ex-fiance.

I also think I gave up a portion of my kids childhood -- or rather gave up really enjoying my kids childhood might be a better way to put it. Because I married an RM in the temple and thought it would be the happily-ever-after they promised. Instead, it took us over a decade to understand each other well enough to get along and for us to create a life together and get out of school/debt sufficiently that we could enjoy our family. Trying to live up to the church's expectations of what our family should be like and spending a lot of time in church pursuits also added stress to our family life.

I wish I could go back and use more common sense about who and when I married, so I could feel on my feet and in control during my kids younger years. I regret always feeling so frantic, mostly as a result of trying to reach the church's goals instead of my own.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/10/2012 03:50PM by CA girl.

The best years of my life!

10% of my income plus all missed investment opportunities.

Lots of time and ALL my Sundays.

The opportunity of better relationships with my family, due to so much time at church.

Oh... and the opportunity to meet and keep friendships from never-mos.

What I really regret is all the time invested and the things I went without in order to PAY tithing. PAY tithing, as if it was something I owed them, thieves!

Oh, I almost forgot, all my sleeveless dresses, mini-skirts, shorts and "inmodest" tops I gave away when I entered the temple.

If I had not been Mormon, I would not have gone to BYU. I would have likely come out much sooner and been able to date in college like a normal gay guy. Instead, I waited until after college to come out, making dating a lot tougher.