This is harsh...and long...but I need to vent. I saw the movie "The Dallas Buyers Club" tonight. Great movie and true story! Although this post has nothing to do with the movie, there was one part that really hit me. It was when the main character told a kid who needed AIDS medication that he couldn't get any because he couldn't afford the $400 per month membership fee. It just reminded me so much of the temple and that we don't get the eternal family if we don't pay the membership dues/tithing. The absurdity in my own family of tying finances to eternity:


My widowed mother lives on social security and let us kids know she could not survive without help anymore. She asked each of us to start sending her money each month.


One sibling is very wealthy and could afford it no problem, the other sibling my mother has helped massively through the years allowing him to use her credit to buy cars, take equity out on her house and lives like a king on other peoples money ("investors in his schemes") and can't/won't repay her while all of his children are doing football club/cheerleading, etc., they take vacations and his wife doesn't work because she is following the prophet and staying home with the children (who are all in school). They also pay tithing and attend the temple. They both have had many leadership callings in the church over the years and look and act the part of the most righteous Mormon family. Seriously, they live in a huge house and both drive brand new cars while my mom drove a very old one and barely survives.


I barely survive as well, was divorced at the time, worked two jobs, live in a small apartment, put myself through school on loans, have several struggling college kids on financial aid (and always had to work while raising them) and am the only one in the family that has left the church (along with my children). None of them help us, I don't ask for help and have refused when my mother offered her credit because I think she needs it for her own issues and shouldn't be giving it away. It has caused a lot of contention between her and I when I tell her to quit giving to my brother and she just goes back and forth between feeling used by him and defending him because he lives right and grieving over me since I'm lost.


I dutifully paid my mother each month while she paid her tithing because she is so old and brainwashed that she is sure if she doesn't pay it she won't be with my father for the eternities. I resent so much the church holding my family financially hostage for the eternal family lie and feeling the pressure to play the game to keep my mother from so much distress, while my family doesn't acknowledge the absurdity of her giving to an undeserving son AND a church when she can't afford it and me giving to her when I can't afford it. And then all of them enjoying their eternal family delusions tied to their tithing and looking down on me for not enduring to the end and of course, I deserve no eternal ties to my loved ones because I don't pay tithing.


I resent living in that same delusion for so long that I paid tithing for years while my own children went without extracurricular activities and often basic needs to make sure we were an 'eternal family'. I remember my devastation when my then husband announced he wasn't going to church or pay tithing anymore and I was sure it meant he didn't want me eternally anymore. It was HEARTBREAKING and TRAUMATIC. I felt he personally caused the obliteration of our eternal family (how would that marriage EVER last?). It's all so twisted.


It took years for me to have a complete paradigm shift, post divorce and then remarried. I kept trying to find the good in the church since every one of my family members is active in it but basically when it comes to the damaging, divisive, exclusive, elitist temple doctrine, I think it's just a cult and it's all about money. Add to that my nephew came out as gay. He went on a mission and graduated from BYU. His parents were grateful he kept his mouth shut and they weren't about to tell on him since they were paying for his tuition and hoping he'd graduate...and magically change to being straight. The church forces you to lie...and pay...to keep your family, your reputation, your marriage, finish your education, participate in family weddings, etc.


It's what led me to actually resign, I don't want any part of it. Now that I'm remarried, I could never be a spiritual polygamist just to have the 'eternal marriage' which is my only choice since my hubby is sealed to his first wife. It feels like I'm a 2nd class citizen in the church's eyes. It makes me even more aware of how gays must feel in the church. I feel these are human rights issues that I can't ignore anymore. Attending church began to feel like being friends with a bully and thinking it must be right and they are just being assertive in their rights, even though it embarrassed me and I kept my mouth shut. And then after I could no longer take the constant temple/tithing rhetoric (it was rarely about Jesus) I felt like staying a member was like watching a bully from a distance, knowing it was wrong and just ignoring it. Totally done with all of it. I am not a Mormon anymore and PROUD of it. Although I still have to hide that to keep from causing my mother any more distress because of this twisted belief system.

And yes, I am angry and offended BECAUSE THE DOCTRINE IS OFFENSIVE!

Go ahead and vent!! We're here and at least we'll listen!! That's such BS that your going though!! Sorry to hear about your situation!!

This is the damage that the belief system in the organization does to families that could have been normal. The priorities are upside down and people are looked at as secondary to the church. When obedience comes first then real people suffer.