This was my final position - after a bunch that failed - dealing with my true believing husband of several decades at the time I left. This is the short version! I have posted and reposted the longer version. We had been married in the temple in UT just after I had been a member (joined in OR where I met him) a little over a year in 1962.

Let me help with an understanding of my husband. He was an engineer, with strong, unwavering faith. Solid. No question about it. Most of our marriage we shared the same faith while raising our family. I used to say that it was a "bad vaccination" with some as it just didn't take!

About his personality: He was more of an introvert, always a gentleman. Most of his communication, I learned came from his expressions. He didn't say a lot, but when he did, we listened. (I've written on that subject on Facebook for those that know me there.)

So here goes. My initial process.

When I realized that the original history was buried in their own volumes and was not the sanitized, white washed history they promoted that required believing in tangible real golden plated, real translations, etc etc etc. and it was all based on visions, metaphysical and supernatural claims (not unfamiliar to me as a convert)... that started my long study and slow process to resign.

I needed to find a method to deal with my believing husband. So, I tried several approaches - thinking, they would work and my husband would like to know what I found out. ahh..not so fast...

1. The frontal approach - in your face, this is fiction, no golden plates, etc. on and on and on. Dumping info, being argumentative, and upset.
Big Fat FAIL

2. oh look what I found, honey, did you know that.... real history, or negative stuff.. didn't matter - tried small things, little comments from the history. Even quoting from a book in our library - used for his classes at BYU.
Another Big Fat FAIL
This got ugly sometimes -- from many sources. Some lasting for a long time. This is when I began to practice another principle:
Forgive everyone, everything, every time.
Not easy! Takes a long time. It included the process of letting go of negativity towards others and forgiving myself and cleaning up my own messes.

3. Waiting for him to understand and be comfortable with resigning my membership, after some discussion. He agreed it was best for me to resign.
More talk - from time to time.
The general theme was: I know we don't agree, can we find some way to handle this subject... (or words to that effect) .. what to do now?

He suggested: Lets agree to disagree
Huge Big Fat Success!

That was it! He could do that, I could do that ,so for that. And we did, for over 10 years of his life. That was how we handled it. We had been married 40 years when I officially resigned my membership.

Side note:
Situations, experiences, dynamics are oven very different with everyone. I was in my late 50s and he was in his late 60's when I changed my mind about my beliefs/faith. I had been a young adult convert. I had retired, he was retiring. No children in the home. In addition, some family members were all ready out of the LDS Church when we negotiated this truce.

I took the approach that it was his right to believe whatever he wanted whether I liked all of it or not, about whatever he wanted. That was a process. In particular, I was not going to be a right fighter about beliefs and faith. Nor would I sacrifice any part of my investment in our marriage, home, and so on.
We were opposites in many ways. We didn't agree about a lot of other subjects also, so we used the same approach. Agree to disagree - then let it go. (Second half was very important-never bring it up again!) Such a relief!

Once in awhile I'd slip up and bring up something and he'd say:
"I thought we agreed to disagree". (OOPS) Oh ya! Sorry.

Many times I wanted to share something with him, but knew it was of no real interest to him, so I skipped it. While religion had been a core of our agreement in the past decades, it was not the only core. So we went on with our lives. It was not always smooth sailing. We had our ups and downs, our difficulties agreeing. I had a whole box of emotions that I had to work through, including changing those automatic thinking scripts, and my thinking about everything.

It was about using the basic principle of The Golden Rule: treat people the way you want to be treated.
He didn't bother me about my beliefs and I didn't bother him about his. We just let it be an individual choice and never allowed it to interfere with our relationship - which lasted until he passed away in January of this year -- 50 plus years.

The last few years, was about: Love One Another, Love is something you do!
Our time was taken up with his health care - many conditions: multiple doctors and appointments, traveling from city to city, medications, treatments, exams, tests, while his most current condition (cancer: spindle cell sarcoma - growing tumors on outside of the lower part of his leg-another story ) required more and more of my care eventually, getting help with Visiting Nurses, then when more health concerns turned into non treatable conditions, in December of last year, went into Home Hospice. (I broke two bones in my foot and was in a removable cast for months!) Also,I had past experience with geriatric care and Hospice which helped greatly.

My conclusions.
A long dedicated, committed marriage requires learning to respect each others rights to differences of opinions, some private things probably never shared, while giving a measure of respect and honor even if not in agreement. It doesn't happen automatically, It's a lot of trial and error, often very emotional and upsetting on both sides. In our case, we weathered everything. Nothing became a: deal breaker. Could have, but didn't. The most powerful negotiation and truce we ever found was to: agree to disagree. (Not just religion either.)

During the time his health (our primary focus) went into a decline, and he became what I called: "My third hip" and he went went me everywhere even enjoying lunch with my lady friends. (This was new) Religion was never an issue. He was not able to attend church often and only went with someone who could assist him.

When I knew his time was running out, I asked what he wanted for his "Going Away Party" aka services - and that was when he defined his wishes - LDS Chapel service, person in charge, cemetery-- Military Honor Guard, and all of the specifics, which he confirmed a few weeks before he passed. We had a wonderful bishop, a convert. He gave a very non-offensive Personalized Spiritual Thought aka his Testimony and Plan of Salvation aka faith - talk.

The family including some extended family gave my husband their 100% support and participated in the services: giving eulogies, giving prayers, blessings, dressed him for burial in his temple robes, pall bearers, and so on. For us, from what I have concluded, this was one of the best things we did to help our grieving process. Most of our immediate family had not been in an LDS Church in years. But, that didn't matter. This was for their father that was a great man that gave them unconditional love !

This is how we did it. It's an individual approach, in my case, requiring that I ditch negativity of any sort, get through any emotional reactions, and get on with the more important part of life, in my case, my life with my husband: a good man, who lived the Boy Scout Oath and Law and could repeat it up until he was too ill. Boy Scout Law: A Scout is: trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.
His Veterans Marker at the Cemetery says: "Always Trustworthy".

Each of you, from my observation, find it's a very individual, internal, solitary, process of leaving the LDS Church and it's belief system. It has been, very often, all inclusive, functioning, in my observation on so many levels (familial, societal, environmental) as a generational, patriarchal, traditional ritual/ceremonial religious tribe. As a convert, I began to understand how it was similar in so many ways to my other belief systems (two) that I had left as well.And in the Big Picture of religion and God Myths in general, following much the same patterns.

And so, we each find a way to work through our lives with differences of opinions about our religious views and how to live our lives. Sometimes, it's a deal breaker. Sometimes not.

This is how I did it with the very individual differences in our family. At this point, there are some believers, believers in another religion, etc. Each of our adult children and grand children, will, I hope make these very important decisions for themselves. Some have shared their beliefs and faiths with me, some have not. It doesn't matter. That is about them, not me.

I'm glad you were able to find happiness in a successful relationship even with such great differences in your personal beliefs.

Thanks for sharing this.

: )

This negotiation is probably the most difficult thing we did in our marriage as it was like a new foundation that was replacing the prior one that had survived for several decades.

Reading this board tells us that marriages don't always survive such a dramatic change in the foundation of their marriage.

It's my hope that more folks can save the family (if it's savable) especially for the children's sake.

Thank you for sharing, I will try to follow your wise advice.

You are never going to agree on everything.