We have all found out after the fact that our tbm families had get togethers without us, the apostate child(ren) and our offspring. What are the crappy reasons you have been given?

Here's my latest:

We went out for dinner with all your siblings and one spouse and one boyfriend but didn't invite you because we found from someone who spoke with you that day that your wife was ill and besides, there were no children allowed and you wouldn't have had a baby sitter. Doesn't matter that you have well behaved intelligent children, the tearaway tbm grandchildren were at their other parent's house and we couldn't have them feeling left out. We shall still complain to anyone who will listen that you do not let us see our grandchildren.

Please post your own most annoying or childish family non-exclusion order and we shall vote for the worst at the end. We should probably vote for the funniest too.

You don't want to be with us in the next life, so...

Can we expand the situation to tbm marrieds not including us singles? I see this a lot. My young married yuppie tbms (with money) cousins having dinner parties but only including married friends or inviting marrieds. Only associating with married people in the church.

It makes us singles feel out of place, for sure....

definitely - any occurrence of tbm family excluding other family members for whatever self-justified reason they can trump up to make themselves feel better and appear righteous to fellow tbms and appear thoughtful and considerate towards excluded family member(s).

I just want to know it is a case of mormon crazy, not purely my family crazy.

I wasn't invited to my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. Not only was I not invited, the family went out of their way to try to make sure that I didn't hear about it.

I heard about it and was given a bunch of different excuses and it took a lot of years to finally get the truth about how it went down.

I just wish they taught empathy in the mormon church. Not only don't they, but it's almost like they think empathy is a sin. If they had any empathy, they would think, "how would I wish someone's family would treat them if they left the church of their birth and joined the mormon church?" They always think it's so awful when someone joins their church and that person's family disowns or disavows them. They don't seem to have the brain capacity to understand that it's the Exact--Same--Thing that they do to their own.

The 50th anniversary is a once in a lifetime chance to prove what successful parents they've been. So . . . you understand, right?

My parents had a poster at their 50th, listing each of their kids and that they had married in the temple. I think it even mentioned that each of the boys served a mission. However, it didn't mention that one of their children had long ago divorced the abusive ass they married. The whole idea was that they were good parents because their kids did what they were 'suppposed to' do. This was before I left the church, BTW.

But I get it. Sometimes if you just ignore somebody, or ignore their life experiences, it makes life in the bubble that much more comfortable. Totally worth it from their perspective. <SNARK>

You hit THAT nail on the head!

Yes, my parents for a short time were a 10 as mormon parents. All their sons went on missions and all their children married in the temple. What greater accomplishments could you have as parents?

I mean, the little inconsequential things like discouraging their daughters from getting educations so they were stuck in marriages with assholes didn't knock their scores down. But then I did the unthinkable and got divorced, left the church, got my education and can now support myself, stay single and try to make a contribution to the world, DID knock their score down.

God gives you no points for raising successful kids, only fearfully obedient ones. So I do understand that a 50th anniversary, where you're supposed to be celebrating your marital successes, with all your closest friends, 100% of whom were mormons, would not be something where you'd want to put your failures (me) on dispay.

But seriously, it's sad that they couldn't see what a truly good (and fun) person you are. If they could only see things as they truly are, they would have been proud.

Sometimes what Mormon parents see as failures, are their greatest successes: they have raised kids with the chops to recognize truth and the courage to follow it right out of the church. I give my parents the credit with raising me to be honest. If they hadn't instilled that in me, by their lifelong examples of honesty, I would have just said "I know the church is true", even though I didn't. And if I could have just lied about that, I never would have faced the discomfort of asking myself WHY I couldn't bring myself to bear testimony.

I know you feel slighted, but look at the positive side. You aren't forced to sit & listen to your family brag about their callings, ward gossip or ridiculous religious or political statements.
Count your blessings.

My view of this general thread is about communications especially with older people.

My Mom when in her 90's had all kinds of excuses for doing something or not doing something.

I lived 1500 miles away and would visit for a week or two, 2-3 times a year. I'd call 1-2 times a month.

She'd complain about never having anyone visit or call. When I'd remind her that I was just there, she'd just play it off that it was required of me.

When I suggested that the phone worked two ways, she'd beg off on that by saying she would have called but thought I was too busy to talk.

Back a number of years ago, the my brother was visiting her and had used her phone of call an out-of-town winery. This was just before cell phones. The call showed up on her bill as costing 30 cents. She went on a tirade about it and trying to find out this inappropriate charge.

When I was quizzed about it, I was able to figure out what happened. So I called my brother and told him what happened. He got upset and put 30 cents in an envelope and mailed it off.

The poop really hit the fan when then letter should up at Mom's, because the coins weight, with postage due.

Mom passed away 2 years ago at 102 with all her bills paid an no one taking advantage of her bank account.

Christmas, baptisms, baby blessings, thanksgiving, Weddings, Missionary farewells, funerals etc.. I'm not invited to.

I am the black evil sheep in the flock and must be avoided like the plague. I also tend to do the unspeakable in mormon culture and have a difference in opinion with a logical argument to back it up.

I hate it when you are not invited to an event you actually helped put together! When I was single I was not invited to a baby blessing or baptism or some such party even though I had helped plan it and designed all the favors, napkins, etc! My so-called friend didn't even tell me when it was.

Doxi Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I hate it when you are not invited to an event you
> actually helped put together! When I was single I
> was not invited to a baby blessing or baptism or
> some such party even though I had helped plan it
> and designed all the favors, napkins, etc! My
> so-called friend didn't even tell me when it was.

You were instrumental in the planning yet weren't invited? How on earth was that explained away?

Mormon's are ignorant to the teachings of Jesus Christ...

You see they are under the impression that the teachings of Jesus Christ are largely the following:

Pay a full tithe and a generous fast offering
Attend all your meetings
Keep the sabbath day holy
Never decline a calling
Obey the prophet and the under-prophets
Don't look at pornography
Get married in the temple and attend often
Don't pierce your ears more than once, or have tattoos (unless your from Tonga etc.)
Don't drink alcohol
Don't drink tea
Don't drink coffee
Don't smoke
When judging other people do so righteously

This is how Mormons lead a Christ-like life. It's no surprise they exclude non-believers from family events.

It's a cult people.

They don't know why I won't come. They never have tried to ask.

I don't have the patience to listen to Mormon clap-trap and the tension in the room is bad for my mood and blood pressure.

I didn't used to tell my mother when I'd be in town to see her because she always wanted to throw together an awkward high pressure event complete with Mormon guilt and fear mongering aimed at me.

No fun!

Apparently I was somehow the black sheep of my family even before I quit the cult.

I often got pushed out of family outings with the fuckin' lame-ass excuse of "There's no room in the family car," and it was always me getting left behind. It was never anyone else's turn to stay home to "keep the house safe and secure."

The final straw came when my youngest sister (who is so ultra-TBM she was even named after one of Ol' Joe Smith's many wives, I'll leave it up to you to guess in your own mind which one) finished up her mission. Instead of her flying home in a plane, my parents decided to pick her up right out of the mission field of Eastern Washington/Northern Idaho. I was looking forward to seeing that part of the land, but no! Once again, I had to get left behind in Utard yet again to "keep the house safe and secure!" So I was home alone for three days while the family was enjoying their family vacation, just like Kevin McCallister in, that's right, "Home Alone!"

That's it! FUCK this bullshit!" I finally decided. Luckily, I had inherited my grandfather's camper as a teenager, though I had to find me a truck to carry it, which I did when it came time for me to move out. If I can't be included in family vacations, I'll just take my own vacation. One of those Lone Wolf vacations even became my long-needed escape from Utard. First to Arizona because I wanted to see what all the fuss is about with Quartzite every winter, then into Southern California where I found me a truck and van transporting job that got me through more than a decade.

Now thinking back on it, it really is better that I didn't ride along for the missionary pickup because all of the inevitable non-stop churchy bullshit, especially all the way back home, would have driven me fuckin' insane!

You should've supported the wildlife and thrown a party at your safe house.

Yeah an Exmo party would have taught them a damn good lesson!

But it's too late now, as I had moved on and outta there long ago.

It is not just Mo Families. ANY passive aggressive Narcissistic family is capable of this.

My LDS ex hubs came from a NON LDS family that pulled this nonsense on me. All because I was not really part of "their club" despite being married to their abusive son for 20 years and just being the breeding cow for their only grandchildren.

Excuses of not being invited like

"Oh well, we didn't think you would want to come". I was a very social and positive person.

The best one was "Oh, well you didn't need to come to EVERYTHING with our family."

Hold the phone...I was family too. So, I stopped trying to play nice, stopped entertaining HIS family at OUR house.

Before the divorce, the ex Mother in law asked me....

"How come you never told me how bad it was?"

I said.."Because, I didn't think you would care."

She did not disagree with me.


RMM

just wait till your TBM family "forgets" your birthday, your wifes birthday and all but ignores your kids.

You get.......ignored???? I want to get ignored. Not trying to minimize heart pain but there's alot to be said for being ignored. It allows you to fill your life with happy moments, not asswich moments.
People there are many exmormon people who love you, whose heart grows 3X when you walk in the door, people who know how to love. There are people who are Mormons who love you and whose hearts grows 3X seeing you!
Like a garden, these empty spaces in time are worth planting something in. I want to be truly loved, loved to where people's hearts stop when they see Anon1500 because someone so beloved to them has just walked in the door. If they ignore you, give you that empty space, fill it with friend, laughter and slightly crazy people who when you have finished laughing to the point your body sides are in atomic pain, you can look over and see love.

It's not the being ignored, I think I could deal with that better. It's the mind games that go with being informed of things the rest of the family did without me or mine - why do they even bother telling me? I would never have found out from anywhere else, yet they volunteer the information.

Then, from out of the other side of their mouth comes the accusations of my isolating them from their grandchildren who attend a school that is literally at the top of my parents' street, yet they never offer to give my kids lunch or pick them up from school.

I'm beginning to hope my cousin the bishop will excommunicate me for daring to show my RM brother the gospel topics online. It is very hard to cut contact with toxic family due to the 'honour thy parents' brainwashing this cult hands out. I don't want to give them any reason to badmouth me but if I was exed for apostasy they would have to stop associating with me to keep their TRs, wouldn't they? Sometimes I just wish I didn't care.



My vote for worst TBM behaviour over a family event goes to:

Norma Rae for having her good nature abused during preparations, then being completely excluded (not even pretend non-excluded) from her parents' Golden Wedding celebrations. Reading that made me smart and I was secretly glad someone has worse parents than mine. Sorry if that sounds selfish.

I would have to care, which I don't

Maybe a thank you note would send a clear message!

Thank you for not inviting us. We would never consider spending time with people who cannot accept us fully, show unconditional love, and be respectful. As LDS members, we were under the impression that you knew your own religion and the 11th Article of Faith and dedicated to living it.
We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.