I don't know what to do. I joined the church about 2 years ago, some sister missionaries found me when I was very lonely and vulnerable. I was a new mom and in the year since my daughter had been born I had lost all my friends. My husband was an ex mormon but his whole family was lds so it was easy for me to become involved in the church. And I believed SO HARD. And now I teach primary and I sing in the choir but I don't know how I ever believed all this nonsense, and I don't want to go anymore, I don't want my daughter raised in this church, but we love with my husbands mother so I can't leave. I cant take it back, because my whole family, they wouldn't hate me but they would all be so disappointed and they are good people and I love them. I don't face a lot of pressure to be temple worthy,I drink coffee and I don't tithe and nobody cares, so I am going to just keep going to church and keeping people happy, I figure by the time my daughter is 5 or so we'll be able to move so I won't have to explain myself to anyone,but in the meantime I feel lost, I found this forum so I can talk about this with someone. I miss my old Methodist church. I miss being an atheist. I don't want my daughter to grow up being told that her number one goal is to get married and have babies.

try jesus OPie ~


https://youtu.be/HMzZYkEGywI

My elderly mother has advanced stages of dementia. I live with her and take care if her 24/7. The experience is overwhelming and I have no one to help me. My life is on hold and I feel stuck.

On the other hand, I am trying to make the best of a horrible situation with death staring my mother in the face. So try to make the best in your circumstances and eventually when the time is right, you will move on.

There must a local non-profit hospice organization that can offer some help? Worth a google search & phone call.

When my half-sister died from dementia at 67, she was in hospice care (in Salt Lake City.)

Some of her children lived nearby, but she wasn't living with them.

Check and see if your mom qualifies for hospice care. It may be the break you need so you can focus on taking care of yourself and taking care of business matters, and still have time to be with her.

My half-sister's organs just shut down eventually. Her brain went first, but her heart and other organs weren't far behind. She'd suffered from it for a few years, and was a progressive disease. Near the end is when she went into hospice care. It was around the clock.

((((Hugs))))

I would consult your local department of ageing for possible options for your mom. She may be eligible for a nursing home or as others have pointed out, hospice care. Or perhaps she can be provided with a health aide.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/27/2017 05:43AM by summer.

www.mormon nomore.com
www.mormon resignation.com

If you ever go back to the old Methodist church you claim you once were a part of, give a speech, and (if needed) chastise the pastor and congregation for being too patronizing towards other denominations that are rightfully considered cults just because they don't want to offend anyone.

People like Dave Bartosiewicz, Mark Cares (www.tilm.org) and Earl Erskine may be able to help you.

Pleasing your mother in law shouldn't be your highest priority.

You need to take care of yourself or you're no good to anyone else. You owe it to your daughter to leave before she's damaged by the mormon cult. Be a brave mother bear for her sake. Don't sacrifice her to a false and harmful organization when you have it in your power to protect her.

Grownups have to learn to act as reasonable adults. You're not a child who owes life or satisfaction to your husband's mother. If she has love in her heart and integrity, she'll learn to live with your leaving her favored organization. If she's a shallow empty shell of a person, then she isn't worth giving up your happiness and your child for her.

KEEP GROWING, further and further away from the mormon 'church'; keep learning - but keep it balanced by meditation, recreation, etc.; keep your child informed and your head up [high, where it belongs].

Good luck.

You married an exmo and there was a time not that long ago when you did not go to the Mormon church as well. Your concerns are valid, and you are allowed to change your mind. Be brave and tell your mother in law and her family that it's not for you.

Hello, mica.

Have you and your husband got work to save some money aside? Start networking and see if you can find work that way. Your number one goal right now is to establish financial independence. As with church, when you move, don't give your address to them. Once you are settled, you can submit a resignation letter to have your name removed from the church records.

Keeping the peace for a brief period of time has value. Eventually you will be able to establish your life elsewhere. Maybe far away. That will be exciting. In the meantime any calling with children is full of their innocence, laughter, smiles and at times insights. They can be refreshing...and a relief from adult classes. Now how to get out of Relief Society? I have no idea on that one..

Gatorman
In Primary for two years and lived the diversion

You shouldn't stay in Mormonism to please your mother in law any more than your mother in law should leave Mormonism to please you. Each of you have your own lives to live.

Also, if staying Mormon is now a condition of your relationship with your mother in law and other in laws, I would suggest that this relationship isn't genuine and is not worth preserving.

Going back to your title "Made a mistake and now I'm stuck."

NO YOU'RE NOT.

That's the worst possible kind of (negative) thinking you can engage in.

If you KNOW you made a mistake, the best thing to do is to rectify it. You aren't stuck in it.

Get out now. Why wait? Give a notice to the oppressors at church. You can be kind to your in-laws, but they do not own you.

Own your choices!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/26/2017 10:45AM by Amyjo.

You're only stuck if you lack the courage to move forward.

The thing that's keeping you where you are is you are afraid of the consequences of leaving the church. That fear is what the church counts on to keep people in line, especially the fear of being rejected by family members. The fact is that people will be unhappy with you for leaving but you can minimize it by keeping your exit low key. You don't owe anyone, except maybe your husband, an explanation. Why you want to leave is none of their business. If they pressure you tell them you're taking a break for "personal reasons" or say you don't want to talk about it right now and leave it at that. You said that your in-laws are "good people". If that's true then they would want you to be happy and won't pressure you to keep doing something that is making you unhappy.

Go find your happiness because life is too short to let other people steal your happiness from you.

You say your husband is an ex-mormon. Surely he'll support you in leaving the church. No?

As someone noted above, if there's genuine affection and regard between you and your mother-in-law, then leaving the church shouldn't affect your relationship. On the other hand, if it does, than it's phony anyway. The same goes for any friends you've made in the church.

Two years ago you were a vulnerable new mom. You're not anymore.

Build a life with your husband and child(ren). Find other organizations to join. I grew up Methodist, and, although I don't really like it, I know it not to be so toxic as TSCC. They don't want all your free time. They don't demand 10% or more of your money (and with the money they do get, they do much, much more in the way of charitable work).

You say you lost your old friends. Is it because they were single and had little in common with you as your life changed? Perhaps some have moved into the same phase as you have. Try reaching out to them. Btw, some single people don't mind hanging out with married friends. In fact, I recall from my single days that a good way to test drive a relationship is to hang out with a married couple.

I think step one is to just talk to your husband about how you're feeling. If he's ex-mormon, certainly he'll understand. You said he "was" an ex-mormon, making it easy for "me" to become involved. I read between the lines that perhaps he's still ex-mo, or perhaps he followed you back. If it's the former, surely he'll support you. If it's the latter, perhaps he's doing it to make YOU happy!

You should be open and honest with him and see where he stands. If he's out, should be easy. If he went back, he's probably just going through the motions to make everyone happy, just like you are.

Perhaps an innocuous way to broach the subject with him--if you need one--would be to ask him WHY he left the church before. That's a fair question. Doesn't mean he's necessarily out now. He ought to be able to discuss it as a topic. Gauge his responses and respond in kind. As he talks about the issues, just nod a lot. Or, "yeah, I'm starting to wonder about that too..."

You've got your own family to protect from this cult! Mormons are expert at shackling people with guilt. Don't let them do that to you. You are not obligated to remain there.

In any case, that is what really matters.

On another note—you are obviously young. The best thing I ever learned in life is not to be beholden to another individual in the way that you are here. If MIL is so wonderful she will accept you as you are. (From my personal experience that is not going to happen). You do realize their goal is to suck your DH back in don't you? Think what a fix you will be in if that happens-you'll never be able to get out.

Been there, done that. Suck up the courage and do what you want.

At what point in your life will you care more about what you want than about what other people want?

I know it's hard to disappoint others. But they'll get over it. It's much harder to get over personal regret for not living the life you wanted to live.

Like another poster mentioned, sometimes you do have to bide your time and work your way out when the time is right. But my opinion, after being here on the BB for over a decade, is that it is soul crushing to live an inauthentic life. And if you have loved ones who will abandon you if you leave the church, it won't matter if you wait a few months or a few years . . the result will be the same. You might as well get on with it.

Some great ideas on starting the discussion with your husband were given. I wouldn't dump it all on him at once. Measure how much you share until you know how he'll react.

That is an example of black and white thinking. Don't fall into the trap. When you are driving and you are on a road you do not wish to be traveling on, what do you do? You put it in reverse. First, tell your husband. Tell the Primary president you can't continue. Don't tell her why. Don't get caught up in another religion/church right away. Make Sunday family day and concentrate on your husband and daughter.

If people need you to be a certain way, you're doing them no favors by being that way. The best thing you can do for them is disappoint them. That's how their neediness unravels one thread at a time.

Mormonism makes people needy. It's how it hooks them, like emotional junkies. It's actually pretty awful that way.

Yes, things happen. Not good or bad things, just things. I caught myself obsessing just this morning about something in the past. Of course things happen, but is there anything that happens that isn't ultimately perfect? I saw the absurdity of holding grudges and maybe I picked apart a little more of the leftover Mormon neediness. Needing to please others - uh huh. You only need one thing, to be nice to yourself. Normal people are just fine with that. It's all they need.

TBMs are caught in an inversion layer. They think they're normal and the rest of the world is in the gall of iniquity.

A lot of good advice here.

I like the notion that you don't owe anyone an explanation. Just say I'm doing what is best for me.

My mom at that point would tell me I'm selfish or that I would be happier in the church. At which point I would give her a list of activities I "knew" would make her happier.

Since I like milking cows and driving trucks and tractors, I told her that is what would make her happy.

So perhaps when they lay the guilt trips on you, shoot back with a list of your own demands. They often don't get it until they get a dose of their own medicine.

mica Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I don't know what to do. I joined the church about
> 2 years ago, some sister missionaries found me
> when I was very lonely and vulnerable.


Rethink this. Do you really believe it was happenstance? It's much more likely that you were targeted in a vulnerable period by a MIL "grieving" her exmo son and his nevermo wife. Your "rescue" is much mor likely to have been a carefully orchestrated and timed move br a mormon vuture.



I was a new
> mom and in the year since my daughter had been
> born I had lost all my friends. My husband was an
> ex mormon but his whole family was lds so it was
> easy for me to become involved in the church.


Imagine your husband's heartbreak and dismay. He had escaped, only to see his beloved nevermo wife sucked into the con.



And
> I believed SO HARD. And now I teach primary and I
> sing in the choir but I don't know how I ever
> believed all this nonsense, and I don't want to go
> anymore, I don't want my daughter raised in this
> church, but we love with my husbands mother so I
> can't leave.


Don't you love your husband and daughter first, and best?


I cant take it back, because my whole
> family, they wouldn't hate me but they would all
> be so disappointed and they are good people and I
> love them.


At what point do you decide that you're the mom, the one who gave birth, the one (along with your husband) who gets to say what your daughter should be taught in her developmental years?


I don't face a lot of pressure to be
> temple worthy,I drink coffee and I don't tithe and
> nobody cares, so I am going to just keep going to
> church and keeping people happy,


They are taking it easy on you, to suck you in even more deeply, getting you fully enmeshed. You already feel only obligation toward the church, but keep going. Do you really believe that nobody cares? Man, do you ever have that one right. Their ultimate goal is your husband and *his* daughter. The perfect situation would be to suck him back in, divorce you, he finds a "real" mormon girl to marry. They know that your loyalty was not programmed at the age your daughter is being programmed. They already know that you are not a "real" bic mormon, they *DON'T care* about you.

YOU are serving as "the crack" they want and need in your husband's armor against his and your daughter's bic indoctrinations. Where does your loyalty lie?



I figure by the
> time my daughter is 5 or so we'll be able to move
> so I won't have to explain myself to anyone,but in
> the meantime I feel lost,

You are not lost. They tried to brainwash you, it didn't "take," they know it. The trick now is to make you feel obligated long enough to pressure your husband. Imagine the strength it took for him to leave, find you, start living a free life, and then...


I found this forum so I
> can talk about this with someone. I miss my old
> Methodist church. I miss being an atheist. I don't
> want my daughter to grow up being told that her
> number one goal is to get married and have babies.

Talk to your husband. Like you have expressed yourself here. You are not alone, and he can help you, you can help him. It sounds to me like he may have been very patient with this whole mormon intrusion into your lives, though you didn't really say.

Anything is only as hard to do as you make it out to be.

mica Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> but I don't know how I ever
> believed all this nonsense,


Oh Look ! Its the story of my life in 11 or 12 words!!!

....Except that I DO know why I believed in all that MORmON idiocy!! *thanks* MORmON Mom and MORmON male parent!!