I started periodically not wearing garments a couple months ago. At first my increasingly less and leas TBM wife protested, although I think she likes the look and rebellion. To me they represent control instead of freedom and individuality. I resent them.

This morning my wife decided to wear a tank top sans garments! Not only did I like the porn shoulders, I think she feels good to be an attractive woman. Today, while shopping she made numerous comments about how cute small skirts and dresses were, all garment unfriendly. While doing this a Minnanite family passed with a mother and two female children in heavy full length skirts and hats. I told my wife that they probably judge us, in our garment appropriate clothing As immodest. We agree it is all so subjective and the opinion of conservative men and not of God.

I think I want to end with a testimony: I know that in life we can choose to allow others to tell us what to do and control us through their rules, or choose to live and thrive in our own life. To me, true happiness comes with the latter. If there is a God, I think he will judge my wife and I by the love and understanding we show for all men, rather than absurd subjective judgments about whether a shoulder shows, or if. Skirt or short goes above the knee, or whether we drink alcohol like Jesus did, or whether we contributes 10 percent to mormondom. If there is a god, he is certAinly not that petty. I do not believe LDS leaders are apostles or prophets. Making up controlling rules Nd controlling the minutia of lives is not prophetic or profound, it is insular, myopic, and petty. I don't want to worship the God these men represent. Mormonism and its controlling ways have pushed me almost to atheism because it lacks much virtue. This is my testimony. In upcoming days and yeara I promise to be truer to myself, so the thinking for myself and enjoy the time I have on this great planet. I will live free and authentic. Happy 4th!

One that stands out is removing garments for the last time. It is an act of freedom. Even 20 years later it still feels wonderful to wear shorts and a t-shirt in the summer. The stifling garments left a lifetime impression.

I stopped wearing mine back in 2010 and I didn't even remove the stupid symbols. I just tossed them in the garbage and watched as it got picked up minutes later.

+1 that's exactly what I did in 2013. In fact I was on this forum and let people know when they were picked up. Lol. I got rid of them because I realized Mormonism was a sham.

I must add that I had the most amazing feeling of freedom and liberation when I did it.

There's definitely something VERY wrong with an organization that wants to control even what you wear under your clothes.

I felt the same. It is really bizarre looking at it from outside now.

I had been inactive for a long time and had finally decided I didn't believe. Even my inactive niece asked me why I still wore them. Fear. I went to my exmo therapist and he sent me HERE. That is when I first found the place, almost 10 years ago. I did a search for "garments" and read a bunch of threads about it and laughed so hard there were tears running down my face.

I felt 'special' when I first started wearing them. We went to Hawaii on our honeymoon and I sat in the shade all the time because I was SOOOOO hot. It has been 10 years now since I tossed them. Genetically, I tend to sweat a lot, as did my dad, my brother, my daughter. Taking off those damn garments REALLY HELPED. My daughter is getting temple married in October. She is going to HATE those damn garments. She has already told me over the years how much her friends hate them.

I've noticed since the girl next door started running in the last few years, she is usually in her running clothes even in vacation pictures on fb.

Isn't it about time ⌚ to pay for the services rendered?

Okay, I paid. I'm sorry it took so long, financially it's been tight. Luckily, it isn't ten percent that we don't have. That's why my DH left and I soon followed.

When I stopped wearing the garments (9 months after I stopped attending church), I finally found peace about my decision to leave.

Previous to that, I was in daily fear, wondering if I might be making a mistake about leaving the church.

The garments are most definitely a form of control. If you can get people that God wants them to to wear ugly hot underwear (that will be a 'protection' to them), underwear limits everything they wear, you can get them to do and believe, almost anything. Letting that go was the final step of freedom for me.

So nice to be able to walk around in the heat without that extra layer. I sleep better too.

I never could sleep in them. Took them off in my sleep. Finally stopped wearing them at night. I just wore them as underwear in the day, for the most part.
When I realized the extent of the control of the LDS Church in my life, I could no longer wear them at all.
Control by underwear was just too crazy!!

I learned the truth in the middle of a long stretch of 100 degree days a couple years back. The hot, uncomfortable garments were a constant reminder of the cult...a reminder of embarrassing moments with visible garments, a reminder that the ugly-ass underwear affected mine and my wife's sex-life, a reminder that I had paid 10's of thousands of dollars to a cult founded by a pervert that I had been taught to revere, etc... Just looking at myself in the mirror would make me blood-boiling, raging mad. I couldn't take them off fast enough.

Taking off the garments is just about as strange at first as when I put them on the first time. I vividly remember stuffing them all in a trash bag and taking them out to the can (no cutting out the emblems or any respect).

I remember dreading the day I'd have to wear G's, because many of my shorts were too short for them. The things are a bummer for summer!


It's getting to the point that I just take choosing my own underwear for granted. But, it's good to remember that it was not always so.

And man, were they a nightmare for someone who is always overheated already. I couldn't wait to get them off of me for good. But I have to admit, I carefully removed and destroyed the markings from them before they made their way to my bin at the curb.

BTW - much to the dismay of the LDS I know, I did not turn into a woman of ill repute thereafter. I still dress fairly modestly, but that's because of who I am, not who I belong to.

I had some pretty strange feelings, lemme tellya.

When I wore my garments, I felt sickened at being bullied by church leaders or by random church members. I had gone to all the trouble of wearing my garments and trying to be "worthy," and here they were treating me like garbage. I considered myself the Lord's Anointed as much as anyone, and I was highly offended that they would insult the Lord by bullying me.

I did not like the temple ceremony the first time I went there, and I did not like the garments. I had no preparation as far as what the temple would be like except being told that it was soooo wonderful and I was soooo lucky to be getting married there and that the garments were such a blessing and protection to wear.

Then, I discovered these garments were boiling hot in the summer months, cumbersome and bulky under bra, panties, and then clothes, and plain ugly to look at, IMHO. I did not like the look of hubby in them nor did he cherish the look of me in mine. We never wore them to bed and never gave it a second thought.

I think I was soooo disappointed in the whole package---the silly temple clown clothes, the childish script of how the earth and Adam and Eve came to exist (evolution made much more sense),
the silly signs and tokens and how loooog that scene went on and on, and the fact that all of us 'patrons', a word that made me feel I was seventy or eighty years old, now showed that we belonged together in one big special group by wearing our garments.

The whole kit and kapootle temple deal never sat well with me. It felt like it was a hold over copy from when a person was ten years old and originated a club with his friends. So ridiculous and silly.

I did not ever feel that my garments were special, but rather that I had been duped and this made me feel stupid and angry that I had been taken in by this organization. It wasn't long before I had added other items to my list of disappointments in the cult of Mormonism, as did my husband, and we were on our way out, with the garments thrown out with no thought of removal of so-called 'special' markings as they certainly were not special to us. Rather, all I could think of is "good-riddance", I am no longer connected to ole sleazy, sneaky, smooth-talking Joseph Smith and the scam he founded.

Thanks be to finding honesty and freedom.

I have read that they were originally a symbol of plural marriage; and, that is why JS took them off when he went to Carthage--he didn't want to be charged with polygamy also, since it was illegal.

I have also read that originally, the markings were cut into them at the veil while you were wearing them, which would draw blood. You then took that garment (didn't wash it) and put it in a very safe and sacred place--being so sacred and all.

Sorry for not citing my sources. Has anyone else read these things?

This has information and sources for the origins of the original garments:

http://www.i4m.com/think/temples/mormon-garments.htm

One way Mormonism is a cult in that it tells members what type of underwear they must wear. I'm just glad I escaped before going to the temple and having to wear them, but even then I now refuse to wear any white underwear or bras, so that drawer is actually colorful.

Yes, it's the ultimate quest for control when someone thinks they can control you right down to your underwear.

I was staying with my parents for a couple of weeks right after I had my second baby. It was still the one-piece garmies era. If you are wondering how you wear one-piecers when you are still in the after affects of childbirth, just use your imagination. It ain't pretty.

So I was wearing regular undies that allowed for better hygiene. My mom came to me and I know she had probably told my dad to leave it alone, but he told her she needed to talk to me and tell me that I needed to get my garments back on. I was like, "Mom, do you know what that's like?" Course she did, she'd been through it 5 times. But she always bowed her head and said yes to whatever my dad told her to do. And they were helping me out so I did what I was told to do until I could get out of there.

If that wasn't a red flag, I don't know what one is. Here I was with a newborn and a 15 month old, trying to heal so I could make an overseas trip to go back to where I was living and my "priesthood leader" at the time felt like he had a right to be in control of what kind of undies I was wearing. And Yes, it was all a matter of him thinking he was supposed to control all the women who were in his house. Asshole. One of those moments I wish I could go back in time and handle the whole situation with my grownup mind and not the kiddie mind that mormons are stuck in most of their lives.

No, I actually thought they were really comfortable. I was surprised to find that going back to regular undies was fine too though.

My daughter and my TBM son-in-law received in invitation to a party, and they are required to wear crazy hats. TBM SIL went into a tirade about how he was not going to wear a any kind of hat, and that the party hostess was a control freak. I had to bite my tongue hard, to stop myself from saying, "Well, you wear those ridiculous garments, day and night."