1971: Parents tracted out by Elders, parents went inactive almost immediatly, but no, not me until last year.

1981-1986: BYU, loved it. (What can I say, I had a great time and dated lots of beautiful women!)

1982-1984: Mission. MP no other than Jon Huntsman.

1986: Temple marriage, still married, we both left together last year (I know, we are lucky)

All my children went inactive on their own, causing me to really question the truthfulness of the church.

I've served in most callings available to adult males, except Bishop. TR just expired July 2010, no plans on getting a new one or ever going back. Church became depressing and more boring than ever....and I'm not usually a sad guy.

Overall, I'm happy about leaving, BUT the dream of the church being true with happy active children and everything turning out perfectly as I have always planned is gone forever....

Not really mad, church has left me alone. Bishop and SP are truly wonderful, loving men, I cannot find fault in them.

Anything else? Please ask. This is a great forum.

PS: Why are threads limited to 30 responses????



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2011 01:22AM by regularguy.

What were the key tipping points for you? What issues set a hook that could not be extracted? How did you manage being "hooked"? Consult any leaders, GA's, family? Did you hide out or was your journey in the open? Please share!

Yes...we need more details!

Do you, your wife, or your kids have any recovery issues?

Sounds like things are progressing well excepting perhaps for the dashed dream of a perfect mormon family. Is this hurtful or have you adjusted reasonably well?

Actually my initial reason for going inactive was a little different. As my kids started going inactive as they reached adulthood (to our credit, we never forced them to church) we just couldn't attend church anymore knowing the dream of our "perfect" mormon family was over. The insidious part of this is that church leaders always held out the promise that we needed to be even MORE faithful and righteous to get the kids back again.

As I stayed home and studied mormonism now with a different set of glasses on, I finally saw how crazy the garments, the temple, the lack of financial accountability, the long boring meetings, etc all were.

Also, I am a child abuse detective at a city PD and I would always get perplexed/mad at church when I heard a story of HF rescuing someone from something trivial when I have cases on my desk that are horrendous.....where is HF to protect these kids from being beat, sexually abused? But I digress.....

Wife and I are really enjoying our "2nd life", beer, coffee and no guilt over stupid things. Kids are getting better, but its tough. When my son didn't go on a mission several years ago, I did lay alot of guilt on him to "do his duty".

Also kinda feel jipped that I missed years and years of seeing my beautiful wife walking around in panties/bra, no lots of garments...yuck. Also missed lots of friendships with other regular guys on poker night and/or beer and football.

I know this is all over the place, but bottom line is, I'm so glad to be out AND see the church for what is ISN'T.

amen to the non garment sex life. it REALLY fires things up!

It clears out the old and makes room for the new, regardless of how witty, charming or talented to old happen to be. If humans don't die from something else first, around 80-ish, probabilities start to climb sharply that they will die "just because".

People have discovered that the same thing is true for internet threads. A line should be drawn somewhere, for various reasons. Long threads often split into two or more subjects in the same thread. Some become pissing contests between a few posters. Some just beat the topic to death. Some are perfectly fine, and could continue, but it is nice to have a point at which people know that a thread is likely to get closed.

Some threads are allowed to run long (condolences and congratulations, and shout out polls typically run long), and most drop out of sight before they reach the magic limit.

And some run long because Susan needs to sleep sometimes, and is not around to close the thread. :)


Short answer - things just work better if there is a "sell by" date.

regularguy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> All my children went inactive on their own, causing me to really question the truthfulness of the church.

You make your plans, and then life happens. :-)

Don't regret what already happened. Rejoice in the wonderful things that lie ahead.

Hi and welcome!

It sounds as though you all are taking a fairly gentle, mellow trip out, all things considered.

If you are a child abuse detective, I actually have a question about the Satanic Ritual Abuse scare in the 80's and early 90's that you might be able to answer for me. Would you be comfortable with that? If so, I'd start it up as another thread.