Posted by:
anon guy
(
)
Date: March 08, 2011 06:44AM
Your story caught my eye because it shows what an "over" achiever can accomplish in life and be brought down to the gutter by Mormonism. I'm not going to tell you what to do. I'll just share my story, wish you the best and give you some thoughts on what I see lays ahead.
I started college at 15 the summer I turned 16. I did my first professional internship at age 17 and turned 18 on the job. I would've graduated from BYU shortly after my 20th birthday. But I was male & TBM to the core so I went on a mission the month of my 19th birthday. I never doubted that I'd serve a mission as this was my childhood dream. I was "successful" having taught dozens who got baptized and getting great praise from my rarely-praise-anyone mission president. At the time of my return I felt still that most of my mission time was a waste babysitting lazy non-goal-oriented companions and dealing with all the insider backstabbing crap that goes on in many organization (missions included).
Coming home at age 22 I had basically 3 semesters to go to finish my BS degree. I slowed it down to 4 so I'd give myself time to get married and be ready to start a family. I purposely chose a woman who I thought would provide the best opportunities for both of us to serve and help build up the church. She's not a bad person. Its just that she/I had some relationship/culture issues that were hard to overcome. I spent most of the last day and week before our wedding trying to get the courage to postpone.
Fast forward a few years. I married her. We didn't use birth control. I really did want to leave. Then she was pregnant and kids change everything. I graduated just after my 23rd birthday. Thanks to my internships & wide experience & hard work I advanced quickly in my career. We had a couple kids. We were given lots of church assignments. At age 28 I was in a Bishopric. In the eyes of everyone I was a huge success. The reality though was that I was in huge pain and felt like a failure. Why? The same issue as always all these years .... I simply wasn't happily married.
Around that time I discovered the church was a fraud. And I can say that with confidence 11 years later that it is a fraud. The top leadership knows they aren't honest with the members. But they're just as deluded into believing it all as your average member because they convince themselves that all the negativity is just Satan trying to destroy God's true church. But at the time it took me 2 years to break free because I was in an unhappy marriage. If I had been happily married I would've been out much sooner.
Since then she/I have been through 2 separations of nearly a year each. The 2nd time I thought for sure I was gone for good. She made a full court press to get me back. It worked. But in reality there still are some difficult problems between us. I don't have much confidence that we'll fix them. She doesn't want to change. I really don't want to stay if she doesn't change. And because of this I tend to be quite withdrawn in our family now.
I've never seen a marriage succeed where anyone had 11th hour doubts.