Ive only been a non believer a week now and told my husband 2 nights ago. I can only imagine how my husband would react to me not wearing my garments. Im not ready to take them off right now anyway because it really just hurts my feelings, plus I dont have anything to replace them with . My husband I know would have a huge problem with it. He still thinks Im going to go to the temple again so we can be sealed to two of our kids. That Im just going to be a fake member and lie to the bishop and say "Oh I changed my mind" lol. Hes becoming delusional it seems. Hes being more lovey today though which is strange but Im happy with it. Better than yesterday with the immediate arguing about tscc when he got home. Last night I chose to stay home to spend time with him in this sticky time instead of going to my friends house which I know he really appreciated.



So anyway back to the garments, when were you OK with not wearing them anymore? How did it make you feel once you took them off?

You will know it is time when you cannot put the damned things on again.

In the meantime, just search for sexy underwear to buy. Surprise hubby and tell him that they are for this "special occasion". He will probably appreciate the change of pace.

So I wore them for about 9 months after I stopped believing, "just in case" I was wrong.

When I finally stopped wearing the tops because I got behind on my laundry, I didn't miss them. And when I stopped wearing them completely, I stopped wondering "what if I'm wrong?" They definitely had an effect on my mind.

But from the spouse's point of view: My husband stopped wearing the garment tops to bed a couple of years before I stopped believing. I was concerned, but I didn't feel it was my place to act like his mother and try to get him to wear them. He had NOT told me he was a non-believer at that point. I probably would have been much more concerned if I had known that. But again, it's not a spouse's right to dictate underwear.

If I were in your shoes, I would probably keep wearing them for a while, maybe even just to bed, while your husband adjusts to the new normal (you as a non-believer). But, if or when the garments come up, I would set a boundary that you choose your own underwear.

It only took us a day or too after the big shock came. We both threw them in with the fire and they burned up real nice. It was very therapeutic, and toasty too!

It's still really weird not wearing them though. When we visit family that doesn't know yet I wear a white undershirt to not raise any suspicions.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2013 12:29PM by DonQuijote.

I quit wearing garment tops when I was pregnant and they no longer fit. It wasn't until hubby and I both admitted we no longer believed that I was brave enough to buy some real underwear and get rid of the bottoms.

"Hes being more lovey today though which is strange but Im happy with it. Better than yesterday with the immediate arguing about tscc when he got home."

When I told my wife, at first she was angry. Then she immediately switched to overcompensating about nothing being wrong, but it all blew up again after that. I can't really make my exit from the church (or go public) until later this year because of school.

My point is, I don't know if he has talked about it with anyone else, but he may be holding all his feelings in. I didn't see this happening with my wife until it about exploded. Just something to keep in mind.

I ran out and bought real underpants the day after I told my wife. She wasn't happy about it but since she said that she supported me it was my first real test of that support.

It was about 2-3 months after I told my wife I didn't believe. I kind of got casual about when I wore then, wearing them less and less often, and transitioned out of wearing them over about a month. She finally said something when I was hardly wearing them at all - she said she was sad about it but she agreed that it didn't make sense for me to wear them.

Eventually I felt hypocritical and like I was being disrespectful to her beliefs to continue to wear them.

I had to wear a white t-shirt most of the time for a few months after that because after 20 years it felt really, really weird not to have one on.

Summer is about to hit and we are in the south. It will be so much nicer to not have an extra layer if I dont have to. Maybe I will just get my new stuff now and have them there when Im ready to not boil to death.

Ive gone without my top a couple times for laundry reasons and I really dont like bra on skin feeling. Its irritates my skin.

ohhhh sundresses!!!! I havent thought about those.

When I had stopped believing and I knew that I was going to leave the church then I stopped wearing my garments. It had only been a little over a year since I had gotten my endowments, so it wasn't too dramatic of a change for me, but I was surprised by how light I felt without them on- that extra layer under my clothes made me feel so bulky.

I wore mine for the few weeks I seriously started researching the church. The day I decided I was done with the whole thing, I took them off. The first few days, I thought I was going to get in some horrific accident. I had to keep reminding myself they were just clothes, and really ugly ones at that.

I thought my husband would be offended, but I was pleasantly surprised to see he was more relieved. And he certainly has never complained about all the cute underwear and sundresses I buy now!

They were one of the first things to go because I hated them but I sort of eased out of them. First I stopped wearing them at night. After a while, I took them off during the day but still put them on for church (we attended periodically at that time) and put them on when I was going to be around Mormons/Mormon family. Finally, like someone else said, I got to the point where I just couldn't put them on. Now it's a deal-breaker about ever returning to activity - I couldn't stand to put them back on. The whole time I was wearing them I had a low-grade depression that miraculously went away when I took them off. I'm not saying life is perfect now but I didn't even realize how wearing garments was like living in a shadow and once I stepped out of the shadows, things were just better, easier to deal with etc. The real freedom came when I could just throw them in the trash, markings and all. I hung on to them for a while after I quit wearing them but one day I realized how silly it was and threw them, unceremoniously, into the garbage. That was a great day.

On another forum where they encourage people to stay active I read a story a few months ago.

A lady was about to get married to go through the temple. She found she had MAJOR body image problems when she tried to wear garments.

She discussed it with a counselor at LDS Family Services. The therapist acknowledged that they were destructive to her, so gave her a plan to work through it and continue to wear them.

Yeah...

You should where whatever undies you want. Your choice of undergarments is NOBODIES business but your own. Do what you feel comfortable with.

Still can't take mine off - real mental block.
Good to read others thoughts though x

Dh and I took our garments off (except for Sundays, and winter warmth for the tops) long before we left the church. We just couldn't take it any longer. Dh stopped wearing bottoms even earlier because they gave him heat rash. They were ruining our sex life because there was never any skin or sensuality about bed time- or any other time.

heh heh, must have worked- we now have a 6 yr old. :P WE decided this about 2 yrs before we had her.

i took them off the same day my testimony vanished

I took mine off about 2 weeks after I told my wife. She was very supportive and she is slowly easing out of hers.

Always found an excuse to not wear them; running, heat, laundry, and of course Love Making! When I finally came to the Realization I felt liberated to do away with.

It takes time to "get it" and that is you get to choose! and that's the best answer!

Now you see why the church expects you to wear them day and night. It can control you through your underwear!

Take them off when your ready. You'll know when the time is right. But beware, once you do, you wont be able to put them on again.

Take all the time you need to stop wearing them. It can be a major adjustment for people, especially if you've been wearing them for years and years.

I went to the temple one last time after I discovered the fraud, just to hear the words of the endowment again and see exactly what I had "covenanted" to do. After I came home from that less-than-positive experience, I went cold turkey back into real underwear after 21 years of garments. It was weird for about a week. Now, after less than a year, I can't believe I wore the damn things for so long.

I'm reminded of what the hippies used to say about military uniforms back during the Vietnam era: "If they can control the way you dress, they can control the way you think."

I always understood that you had to be "worthy" to wear your garmies, so when I got excommunicated, but still believed, I cut all the symbols out of them, and tossed them in the garbage.

Now I wish I left the markings in, and donated the tops to a homeless shelter. There are very few Mormons in this area, so the homeless would have been given them as outer wear with no problem.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2013 03:28PM by forbiddencokedrinker.

I was a convert, and quit going before I became eligible to go to the temple and get garments. One thing I have done is to get rid of any white underwear and bras, because white reminded me too much of garments since I knew that garments only came in white if you're not in the military. It's nice being able to not only chose the style of underwear I wear, but picking a color as well. The other great thing is that my underwear is my own business, and nobody else's.

No white underwear since the day I went and bought new ones. I went to throw the garmies away and the ex took them out of my hands and told me my new underwear were 'evil'. (cuz ya know, ya gots to get rid of them properlike) Maybe, but they are stylish and comfy.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2013 04:50PM by AmIDarkNow?.

Maybe I should have waited until I was out of the parking lot.

The day I realized the church was a load of BS is the last day I wore garments.

It was easy for me. For me they were like wearing a smelly straight jacket.

I lost my beliefs over the heat of the summer last year. By the end of the summer, I had started transitioning out of wearing them everyday. Then I bought my first pair of normal length shorts, and I could never go back to knee length! No more garments for me! Yay!

Give yourself time. Guess what--I still felt like myself without the g's. If anything, I felt more attractive without having to limit every outfit to the garment lines.

My backstory is too long for now, but once I was the TBM whose DH wasn't wearing g's anymore. I stored all of his stuff just in case he'd need them again. But I saved one shirt in my drawer and occasionally would take it out and hug it and cry to myself that DH had removed them. I
was full of fear and anguish about our future as a "part member" family.

Now that I am out and look back, I'm so relieved that TSCC doesn't dictate the state of my marriage anymore. I'm not scared of the unknown. It is what it is.

Be patient with yourself right now. And just be sure your husband realizes your love for him isn't contingent on the church. For me, it helped realizing that DH was committed to me before any other factors.

Good luck! If you ever come down to the coast, we can do our own exmo meetup!

Hey Weepingwillow.

I am currently in this process of phasing-out my garments! Even though I've been inactive for a number of years, I continued to wear them partially out of habit, and partially because it wasn't until this year that I officially said 'I'm done with the church.'

So I've been trying new underwear, and so far it has been difficult to get used to. One thing I will say for the garments, the fabric is soft on the skin ... even though I hate the ugliness of them, the length, and of course the fact of what they represent that I now want no part of.

I found the first pairs of normal underwear I bought to be really rough on my skin ... but I'm getting used to it and trying to decide what I like (I'm a guy) so I'm going through the whole briefs vs boxers thing, etc, and trying to decide if I still like an undershirt beneath my normal shirt, and trying to find underwear made of a fabric that is as soft as the garments were.

One thing I've definitely experienced is what many others have been saying ... once you've taken them off you never want to put them on again. At first I only bought a few pair of normal underwear to try out, and when those were dirty and I hadn't had time to wash them ... I went to put on my garments again and I was sort of repulsed by the idea.

As far as the intangibles go ... discarding the garments seems to be a very nice symbolic act of liberating yourself from the firm mental grip that the beliefs of the church may (or may not) still have on you. I found that it was a very nice physical way to mirror the process that was happening in my head ... that process of liberating myself from dysfunctional beliefs.

The awesome thing is that this process can happen at any pace you want it to. Good luck!

I bought some cute underwear today. And a sundress that has no sleeves! :) my husband was not too happy about it. He wants me to keep them on for the rest of my life. Haha. I told him I will keep them on for as long as he is reading mormonthink. I think its a fair compromise. He's not going for it . But he's agree to watch a video tonight. I'm starting a new thread about that...