Posted by:
alex71ut
(
)
Date: May 30, 2011 06:25PM
It's been 11 years for me since I stopped being TBM. A few lessons I've learned:
1. ASAP it's important to get past Stage #1 Denial to Stage #2 Anger and then realization that steps 3-5 of Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance will come. Specifically I'm talking about the Kubler-Ross model.
2. Don't get rid of the garments. In fact buy more to keep for the future (or to sell to exmos & nevermos who are curious). They'll become excellent props & things to show friends in the long run future.
3. Don't apologize for not believing anymore. It's not your fault. Nothing that you did or could've done can change the fact that Mormonism was always false (even while Joseph Smith was alive). In fact its certainly not the fault of any of your grandparents because they all were born after Joseph Smith died.
4. When people try to put you on guilt trips that you need to "keep your covenants" then I'd just remind them that you never made any oath at baptism or any other occasion before your first church so-called covenant to lie about church history/doctrine. This whole "keep your covenants" game is just a shameful manipulative guilt trip attempt that falls apart quickly when they realize that the covenants forgot all about making sure a person explicity agreed to lie for the church.
5. Anytime an apologist opens their mouth (or provides information) its of ZERO use unless it's accompanied by a "thus saith the Lord" endorsement from the First Presidency presently. Any apologist who tries to defend the church frankly lacks all credibility or standing w/o such an endorsement. They seem to conveniently that the only standing that the church has at all is its "We Thank thee O God for a Prophet" mantra.
6. Establish and maintain consistent discussion/communication boundaries with TBM relatives. From time to time I've had relatives try to get me thinking or verbally engaged in conversations that would help me "see the light". A simple "in follow up to last night's conversation I will not engage verbally or in writing on such a subject again until direct official answers are provided by the church on my personal questions" email worked. Then if they ever violated this again I had an email trail I could just forward back to them showing how they overstepped boundaries. In some cases this would result in a few exchanges but it always worked eventually because I made it clear that any in-depth discussion on any topic would require the "truth, full truth and nothing but the truth" in-depth discussion of the problems I have with the church.
7. For me this was the hardest one and plenty of heartache between 2000 and the present ...... clearly and fairly conclude how the realities on the church's actual history vs. the lies I had believed pre-marriage are impacting marriage, spouse, children, and responsibilities. I was too much of the "sacrifice everything" mentality which caused me to let my spouse behave irresponsibility when she became an exmo and this led to plenty of resentment by me in the long run + plenty of unnecessary drama + ups/downs.