Cheryl's original thread: http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,406490

December 2009. Sunday.

I attended Sacrament Meeting with the boys without my husband as I had been doing for years. I dropped them off at their classes after the meeting and barely made it to my car before the tears started rushing.

I called my husband and told him I was done.

I walked back inside, made an appointment with the bishop that evening and told him I wouldn't be coming to church anymore and please do not contact me.

It was only then that I start diving into the history and doctrine. I have only been in Mo sacrament meetings since for a baby blessing and once while visiting a friend.

My break with the church was FIRST emotional and SECOND intellectual, so I guess you could say, using mo rational, that Raptor Jesus told me it was all shit in my heart.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/2012 09:42PM by Queen of Denial.

For me the process of losing belief was a long one - over a 20 year period often going back and forth.

Ultimately it came down to although I have had many strong "spiritual experiences" deciding that those were human emotions and not caused by a diety. Reasons for this:
a)
- I could get the same feelings in the temple (where satan couldn't be influencing them) when praying if the church was fake
- As a teenager I had a strong feeling that a certain girl was the one for me. She wasn't interested at all. It turned me into a creepy stalker. I'm still embarrassed by it.
- So many stories of people getting wrong revelation. E.G. One person having a revelation someone else should marry them, etc.
- The whole ridiculous structure the LDS church has come up with to know that a feeling of the spirity can only be real if it is in agreement with the church leaders. If it is so reliable they wouldn't need to do this.
- Other times that I felt deep impressions about things that turned out to not be true
- The fact that I feel the spirit so much more when there is an obvious emotional attachment for me - e.g. the professional circuit speakers make you "feel the spirit" so much more than the boring talks in sacrament meeting

b)
There was so much evidence to the contrary that eventually the feelings of the spirit which I couldn't quite believe anywhere just weren't enough.

However, I never felt any desire to leave the church until I read about Joseph Smith's polyandry. The realization of him using his position of authority for just a disgusting purpose made me want to no longer be associated with the church.

About one month later in Utah...

I am sitting in Elder's quorum. The Stake President comes up behind me and says, "Brother MiB, could you come see me for a moment?"

I know immediately it's a calling and not a small one if it's going to start with an interview with the SP. I follow him to a small room and he invites me to have a seat. I sit.

"Brother Black how would you feel about having a major calling?"

"I'm not sure. What do you mean by 'major'".

"I mean a calling in which you would guide, influence and lead many members of this Ward. A calling in which you would assist the Lord as a shepherd."

"Ok."

"Good! Now, first do you have a willingness to serve?"

I pause...

"Brother Black? Are you willing to serve the Lord in a major capacity?

My mind is racing. I'm thinking "they want MORE? I've given two years of my life, ten percent of my income, three to eight hours every Sunday for ten years and they want MORE!?"

"Brother Black are you OK?" Brother..."

"No." I say almost instinctively.

"You're not OK? Are you feeling alright? I know it's a lot to take in but The Lord will..."

"No I'm not willing."

"Excuse me!?" Did I hear you correctly?" He said with an expression of both utter shock and disgust.

My heart is pounding and I feel like I may vomit. "You heard me correctly" I say almost in a whisper, my shame tangible.

We then spent nearly half an hour of him calling me to repentance. I felt humiliated. I hated myself. What had I done? Dear Lord what had I done?

I drove home in shame. I knew it was only a matter of time before the phone calls and visits. Only a matter of time before they called me in again to get to the bottom of it and route out the sin behind my actions, and in front of my wife; I'd seen this happen before to other people. They would find the sin. Only there was none and I knew it.

No. They would not rake me across coals. No they would not humiliate me in front of my sweetheart. No they could not have more. Never again.

No.

Infact, not ten minutes ago during dinner I thought, I should just shoot him an email and see if he's doing okay. I love coincidences. :)

Your story breaks my heart over and over again. Did you ever figure out what they were going to call you to?

Also, just made plans to visit the parents in June...

It was a dramedy. The sad part is over :-) . Besides, dramas suck!

June huh? May just have to do an exmo meetup in the heart of Zion. Wonder who would show.

Edit: No but I assume bishoprick since a vacancy was coming up.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/2012 10:00PM by The Man in Black.

I've noticed that I laugh at mo crap now that would have sent me into a dark place even a year ago.

I can think of at least one more person that would come to an exmo meet-up. As it gets closer, I'll start a thread to see who's interested.

Later. Take care!

You were lucky they pulled my wife in with me so I either had to say yes or spill the beans to her all at once.

I had already known that the church was baloney for years. But I stubbornly tried to find a way to stay in, make it work, be spiritual despite the falsehoods, etc. I stayed in despite listening to years of lessons with which I completely disagreed and knew there were a lot of inaccuracies, quoting of scriptures out of context, etc., and still I would endure and then go home from church very unhappy.

About 4 years ago I was sitting in priesthood meeting. The lesson was full of historical inaccuracies and lies. Something flipped in my head. I was done. I could no longer be part of this organization that was rotten at its core. I sat there and realized that I was listening to my last priesthood meeting, ever. I looked around and realized I wouldn't be seeing much of the members of the quorum. I just could not consider myself mormon anymore.

The only time I have been back was to attend a missionary farewell for a nephew.

BoA was the smoking gun for me.

It happened gradually for me. I never really liked it, stopped attending when I was about 18 and gradually lost whatever belief I had left.

Good topic. What was the last straw.. that caused me to have my name removed. Like most I'd become convinced the church was not true years earlier. I had not attended church for years. And I had turned down the Major calling years earlier as well. But my name was still on the roles, mainly because all my family were active TBM.

Then one night I attended a Father / Son activity with my 10 year old son. A man got up to give a thought at the fireside that evening. He talked about how a "REAL" man attended Church. A "REAL" man honored his priesthood. I felt humiliated in front of my young son... I was one of the few men who wasn't active.. So I suppose.. I wasn't a "REAL" man. I vowed then and there I was taking my name off the rolls of the church. I wrote the letter to SLC and my Stake Pres the next day.

It felt great.

That was 4 years ago.. before the divorce and now that son has moved 2900 miles away to lived with a "REAL " man who is now my ex wife's husband.

But I don't regret that I resigned.

It was a difficult choice, but it was a good one.

Holy Shit Kyle. That totally sucks. But its all about families right? What a crock.

The first one was the summer when there were three temple weddings and I decided that I'd go enough to get a temple recommend and then I'd never go back.

However, the next year I really delved into RfM and found all the links to all the disgusting history that had been hidden from me all my life, and I sat at my desk at work and said, "Fuck this shit. I'm fucking resigning."

Permanent inactivity wasn't enough for me. I was going to take a stand.

I hadn't believed in months but kept attending because my DH thought the church taught good family values, at least, and thought "all churches have problems." Even after Bishop Jackwagon yelled at me, I came a few times and stayed well away from him. For a while, I even attended periodically to support my husband.

But when I finally was absolutely done with the church, inside my heart, was one Sunday when the parents of Boy Scouts were asked to stay after for a meeting with the Scout Leaders. My son was 12 and still participating in scouts, so I went to the meeting. Each scout leader got up and talked about his plans for our sons. Each man looked almost alike in their dark suits, missionary haircuts and sober ties - only their ages differed. It started to get creepy and finally one man got up and said "In Scouting, we are going to see to it that your boy advances. We are going to make sure he gets his Eagle. Then we are going to make certain that he goes on a mission, comes back, marries in the temple and honors his priesthood throughout his life." Seriously, it was like I turned my son over to military reform school and these men I hardly knew thought they had a right to make and enforce all my son's major life decisions for him, and without asking me or the boy's father. There really aren't words to describe how weird, manipulative, unnerving and cult-like it seemed. I started feeling like I couldn't breathe and as soon as they ended the meeting I told DH to get the handouts and whatever else he needed to do and left the building as fast as I could. I literally turned my back on the church at that point and couldn't even look back. I rarely attended after that and I certainly never, ever felt the same about the church again. At that point, it was over for me.

I notice most people decided to leave the church while they were sitting in a church meeting.

Not out sinning like the church would like us to believe.

I don't think anyone said I was at a drunken orgy smoking pot, when it hit me, I don't want to be a mormon anymore.

It's either listening to a lesson out of the manual or reading the church approved books and scriptures that catapults people out. They can hardly tell the members that!

I think we should start a thread simply asking:

Were you in a church meeting when you decided to leave once and for all? Yes or No

Do it, Queen. I think that would be a good thread. I remember being similarly creeped out at a televised temple dedication but it didn't hit me as hard as the Scout incident, partly because it didn't involve my kid and partly because I'd had a pretty huge Starbucks coffee earlier that morning before the dedication and was feeling a bit Mormon-proofed.

Cool. Here I go....

I was tail-spinning fast in my church involvement--not spending all my time at church; being antsy to leave after sacrament or part way through Sunday school. They had just released me from one big calling and called me to another. I think I was stressing out big time. I remember the idiot they called to be EQP catching me talking with my wife in the hallway. He was harassing me about needing to show up to priesthood. The guy was such an a$$401e. I couldn't stand these people hounding me. That was my last day in church.

1997: 19 yr. old son had just died after a 2-year battle with cancer. DH asked EQ prez why a blessing given to son by a GA did not come to pass. EQ told DH it was because we lacked faith.

Flash forward to 1998-1999: Both DH & I were called in to have a 'talk' with SP. During the 'talk', SP responded this when asked why would the EQ prez say that to my husband: :If a righteous man said it, it must be so."

During this time, I had been disfellowshipped & it had been announced at church.

2004: We had moved & the current bishop came out to visit us at our home. We told him about the lacking faith experience. His wife was there, also.

Several months later we are attending tithing settlement. Bishop asked why we were not paying a full tithe. Medical expenses he was told. Then he shook his finger in my face, said you lack faith. I looked at him in utter disgust, stood up & walked out of the meeting & never looked back. A year later, my BIC, 4th generation TBM husband left too.

There were a lot more incidents but this is the catalyst story in a nut-shell.

Just Wow! That is really sick, kicking you while you are down.

I am so sorry for your heartbreaking loss and for the way you were treated. I wish those on the sight who constantly say "mormon's are lovely people, just like anybody else" would read your story.

The 'Moroni Promise' failed me again and again. I joined in my teens and prayed many times to know if the church was true and never found my answer. I was obnoxiously TBM (Julie B Beck was my hero, gag) and did everything "right" but the testimony never came and I was very depressed. Over time, I was having to do WAY too many mental gymnastics to rationalize LDS doctrine that has no scriptural basis, or unanswered questions. "Well, I can't find a scripture verse that talks about X but since there is still more scripture to be revealed, maybe the verses about X are in there and I'll get to read it someday" or "I've prayed about Y every day for a month now and haven't received an answer. Maybe it's just one of those things we don't need to know now, but will know in the future". What BS. I was also tired of feeling endless guilt (thanks, Relief Society!) no matter how much good I was doing. So, leaving was just the end result of years of mental gymnastics and slowly going insane from the church's teachings. I had heard of all the historical inaccuracies but never really looked into it because I thought "They just have an axe to grind and are bitter." I didn't look into it till after I made the decision to leave. I'm so glad to be out. Now i'm just an non-denominational liberal Christian and I am quite happy, despite what the church would have you think. I haven't been this happy in years.

I lost my faith rather quickly, but it took a few months before my wife found out about it. When I finally told her "it" really hit the fan. Things were pretty ugly for a couple of months and things were very tense at home.

The low point was when my wife came home from a visit to the Stake President's office. She asked if I would return to his office, with her, to talk with him. She made it sound like she was receiving a calling and the Stake President just wanted to OK things with me. Well that was a lie. It was a total set up, an ambush. When we got to his office he started in with the accusations of porn addiction, and what sins was I guilty of to lose the spirit and on and on. I was furious that my wife had sunk that low, that she would betray me like that.

After just a few minutes of gritting my teeth and trying not to explode. I patted my wife's leg and told her that I would not be railroaded like this and that I was going to walk home. As I left the office I could hear her sobs of desperate anguish but I was too furious to do anything about it. As I approached our house ten minutes later I could see she was already there and loading the car with luggage and the children. The Stake President was there as was the Bishop. The Bishop stepped in front of me before I even got to the curb and suggested that we needed to talk. I stepped around him saying “let's talk inside where we can be comfortable”.

It was about 8:00 pm and I learned that my wife was planning on driving to her mother's about 4 hours away. I asked if she had money for gas and when she ignored me I pulled my oldest son aside and told him to make sure she didn't fall asleep on the drive. And then my wife was gone. To this day I don't know if leaving was her idea of if the Stake President had recommended it.

The Bishop and the Stake President then sat at my kitchen table and tried to bully me into submission. They didn't get far. I told them I was no longer going to be a part of their little club and that I wasn't going to discuss anything with them any longer. After repeating that about six times I practically had to push them out the door and slam it shut behind them. Then I was alone.

My resignation letter was in the mail the next day.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/03/2012 12:17PM by Stunted.

I've read your threads for a long time and I hadn't yet come across this experience. I'm disgusted. How did you get through that? Did she ever come back?

At the time I didn't know if my marriage was over. I didn't know what else my wife might pull on me. I was in a state of shock. I couldn't believe what had happened. The whole situation seemed stupid and ridiculous. Why was my life turned completely upside down just because I decided to examine the evidence for and against the claims of the church?

The next day I called a few lawyers to get advice. Some suggested I change the locks on the doors and take advantage of the fact that my wife had left me and not the other way around. That seemed kind of harsh. I wasn't yet ready to concede my marriage. I had always treasured the relationship I had with my wife. We had a good thing going. There was respect. There was trust. There was love and kindness. I was angry and felt betrayed but I wasn't ready to give up. Over the next few days I spoke with my wife on the phone and eventually we both admitted that we didn't want to be apart. She came home and we started to put things back together.

I sent the resignation letter to Member Records and sent copies to the Bishop and the Stake President. If found out later that when the Bishop got the letter he called my wife in Idaho to "tattle" on me.

There was quite the effort made to rescue me but it was way too late. The night my wife left the break was made. I was done. I went to Target and bought myself some Big Boy underpants, came home and threw out all the garments I owned.

I was 40 years old but for the first time in my life I felt like an adult. I post with the name Stunted because that's what I was. Stunted emotionally, spiritually, and financially. I had the maturity level of a teenager. It was very telling that the bishop still thought he could treat me like a teenager and tattle on me.

That's one of the worst I've heard. You're very strong.

Such a family oriented church, you know?

I was in the hospital, holding my newborn daughter. She was maybe three hours old. I looked at her little perfect face and knew I could never subject her to a church that teaches such things.

I mailed in my resignation as soon as I got home.

I was sitting in Sunday School in the Singles Ward. I was already a non-believer but was socially and culturally ingrained with the church. My family and friends were still active and the thought of them finding out of my disbelief was terrifying.

I thought I could fake it and figured I could still get something out of church (good values, etc). However the only thing I got out of the LDS church was pray pay and obey. It was all propaganda about Joseph Smith, the prophet, the church, but very little in the way of spirituality or how to be good people and learning good principles. It was all about the church and not about good morals. I couldn't stomach it anymore and was not getting ANYTHING from attending church.

That was the last day I attended the Morg.

I resigned 2 years later after I confessed to my parents and helped de-convert them.