If you could go back in time, would you? How far back would you go? And, what would you have done differently?

Personally, knowing what I know now, I would go back in time to just before I went on my that mission straight out of the anals of hell. Back in that time, it was unheard of to not go on a mission when you become of age (19). Since I wouldn't be allowed to remain at home, I would have taken the bruises and left home to make a new life somewhere. Yeah, it would be tough, but looking back, life was tough being a missionary and later just surviving as an active mormon.

If you could go back in time, would you? What would you do differently?

I have spent a lot of time (too much time) thinking about how I wish I would have known then what I know now. I wish I’d never served a mission. I wish I could get my Sundays back. I wish I could get my tithing back. I wish I had never heard of the law of chastity or the word of wisdom. I wish I had made so many different decisions, but... I like my life now, and I’m comfortable in my own skin. I guess that’s what really matters.

Tithing! I would never, ever have paid that tithing.

brigidbarnes Wrote:
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> Tithing! I would never, ever have paid that
> tithing.


This, pretty much. AFA the time I spent in Mormonism I don't really mind. It gave me an escape from a dysfunctional family, gave me space to heal from all of that.

Once I was healed, I was done.
Do regret the tithes.

I am glad you found some solace from your experience before leaving the lds church.

Yes, I wish I did not give the lds church any money! If I could go back in time I wish I did not pay tithing to them. I wish I gave the 10% either to my retirement account or to a real charity.

Agree!!

OMG!

I want my money back!!

I would never have gone to BYU.

A small junior college from Po-dunk USA would've been better!

No one wants to employ someone from a radical cult and I know
this is what mainstream America thinks of the school. I can
hear the eye-rolling.

To undo the less than stellar activities I let happen would have required me not to be me!

It may not be much, but I'll take what I have and who I have.

Unfortunately, there are so many periods in my life that I wish I could go back to and do differently. Joining the Church is only one of them.

Going on a mission as a convert was by far the worst decision. I am always happy when I learn of young people deciding not to go on a mission.

Eric K Wrote:
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> Going on a mission as a convert was by far the
> worst decision. I am always happy when I learn of
> young people deciding not to go on a mission.

Wow, where were guys like you when i was a teenager? Nobody was happy when i didn't go. I became a leper in the family.

Other than buying Apple, Microsoft, ATARI and Bitcoin when they were under a dollar, too many important life shaping events happened along with the bad.

My main turning point was entering the Military vs college. I wanted to design deep space probes. Maybe if I'd done college I'd be working on the next mission to Mars. But I'd not have my family.

Church wise I was never a TBM mormon so I don't think much would have changed there.

Didn't do the mission thing so no regrets about it.

At eighteen I would bash my father's face in and join the Army immediately instead of waiting another year to sign up.

I regret not pounding that SOB.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/25/2018 10:12PM by donbagley.

Probably would have applied to Texas A&M instead of BYU, gone to Texas A&M, and then never gone on a mission. Seems like a good time and place to separate from the Mormon church. Once you show up to BYU or go on a mission, it makes it ten times as hard to leave.

Told my bishop father to go f himself.

Most times, I don't regret my marriage these days, BUT both I and my ex have been discussing this recently. When I went to talk to the bishop about my boyfriend/future ex being gay, I was hoping he would tell me that my boyfriend could go out and find a partner and not be lonely. That was March 1983. I was told he was damned unless he CHANGED to straight.

Both of us wish that we could have started back then, lived our lives as friends, and been with someone we wanted to be with. We married mostly out of desperation. I was dating a recently reactivated guy (my roommate's brother) and he was an ex-druggie. He is a great guy. Oh what grief we could have avoided. All the pain that has been caused for so many over this one issue.

People say (especially mormons), but what about your kids? If mormons believe what they believe, then I would have the same kids. They probably would just look a little different than they do.

Oh well. It is what it is. It got me out of mormonism.

I would go back to the start of high school and worked harder in school and been more open and sociable. Definitely would have asked a girl or two out. Maybe more...

You can never go back, you have to learn how to deal with the now.

Really, you mean we're just blowing smoke out our asses by talking about what we would do? We can't really do it? Bummer. No seriously, I think we all know that. You can't go back and you can't undo anything you've done.

However, it's a fun exercise to talk about what you'd do differently. It means you've evaluated your life--a necessary thing to do if you want to come to terms with it and try to make fewer mistakes going forward.

Knowing what I know now, I'd have joined the military. It was right after the draft ended and if you did well on the exam, you had your choice of military jobs at your fingertips. Would have gotten me away from family and out of the church--which I'd have been wanting to do if I knew the facts. And I would have used the great G.I. Bill they had then to go to college, then would have gone on to law school.

So I can't do that but I keep trying to do as many things as I can that change the trajectory of my life that I was on until the age of 46. And change there has been. Much of it and all of it for the better.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/23/2018 11:38AM by NormaRae.

Yeah, I've pretty much figured that out. I just have to find a way to deal with the now.

If I could do it all over again, I would've encouraged my DH to transfer his job and have us move to Cali. Even if we couldn't move there, we wouldn't be active in TSCC, and would've had a nice retirement nest instead of throwing it away for tithing. I would've been more outspoken and not let people walk all over me.

No.
I know what I know now because of my experiences in the past. I don't want to go back and not have them (they were valuable, even the "bad" ones).

And it's just wishful thinking anyway, as in "not going to happen." So I'll deal with what I am and what the world is, realistically. Using my hard-gained experience :)

In search of the elusive perfect life? I could go back in time over and over and never pull it off. I'm just not good at it. All I know is to keep playing the hand I was dealt the best I can.

Even if I look back now and then and think about how things could have been different, I've made a good life for myself DESPITE the bad things that have happened to me. I've done the work to pick up the pieces of my life. I've been with the one who got away for 13 years now. I've dug myself out of horrible financial issues.

I've had some amazing surprises like twins. I never even considered twins. Never crossed my mind.

My kids and my dogs have helped me get through and heal, and somehow some way my ex and I are best friends and he lives here with me. Who would have thought?

So just because someone looks back and thinks about what might have been, doesn't mean there is anything wrong with how they view life or how they are living.

I can say that there are things I would never ever want to go through again. I do not look back and say, "That made me stronger." Was it worth it? No. I told my mother once that I WILL NEVER ALLOW MYSELF to go through what I have again. I'd be a fool to say that. There has been a price that my kids have paid because of what we went through and a price I've paid.

My life basically has been, as they say, life happens while you're making plans.

I would go back to at least 14 years old and go to child protective services and get out of my home way before i did not go on a mission. You are right it was brutal to not go on a mission back in the day, i lived it.

If I could turn back the clock I would go back to age 3 to avoid my older sisters baseball bat. She swung her heavy wood bat to hit a home run and hit me square in the forehead instead. I think it caused some brain injury that lead to a learning disability.

I would also make a list of things I have learned, a list of goals and other things to avoid. Wishful thinking!!

I would travel at least as far back as age 12 when that Sullivan kid missed the ball and kicked me in the kneecap when we were playing "jungle" soccer on a playground -- everyone wearing heavy hiking boots. That knee has troubled me for all the years since then, and now is crippling me with osteoarthritis. Damn that Sullivan kid.

My career choices would have been different, too. And I would have been a damned sight less judgmental, less stuck in "can't do that" prejudices, and had much more fun.

Oh, Felix, I'm so sorry about your injury! You were too little to move quickly and avoid that, or to even know it was coming.

I sustained permanent injuries at the hands of my abusive RM temple ex-husband.

I would not have married that thug! When I saw him in the bookstore, talking to my roommate, my first impulse was to go over and protect her from that hulk of a brute, who seemed to be cornering her. The first impressions are the most reliable! I should have listened to my gut, and gotten both of us out of there, but my future ex started talking, and telling lies, and smiling, and acting like a nice guy.

Another mistake--I would never have gone to BYU. I did end up getting a decent education and advanced degrees at other universities, so all's well that ends well. BYU classes--especially the religion classes--were a waste of time and tuition money. I met a lot of jerks at BYU, and was the victim of an attempted rape on campus. The guy broke my wrist, but help came when I screamed. BYU was a dead-end, and depressing. The skiing was great, though.

No, I would not go back, for even though I made mistakes, if I had it to do over, I would end up making different mistakes.

My only big regret is that my father knew tscc was a scam and tried very, very hard to keep us out of it. But he couldn't. I only wish for the chance to tell him he was right and thanks for trying to warn us. For that reason alone I wish there was an afterlife.

I have mixed feelings about whether I'd go back and change anything.

On the one hand if I could have, I'd have skipped all the
pain and agony and sadness that I experienced by being a
mormon woman and hanging in a horrible marriage because for
women , the responsibility for the marriage was all on us. But
if I hadn't have stayed I wouldnt have my children who I love
with all my heart. I wouldn't have learned all the things I know
now. My life was full, my pain was real and yet I learned so
much that I might not have learned had I gone back and changed
one thing.

When I read all of your words on this post about what you would or wouldn't change , My heart goes out to each of you with love
because as exmormons we each know what we experienced by being
in the church, and we each know what we gained and what we lost
along the way. I appreciate all of you who responed to this
post. I could feel your hearts and your genuine feelings. I'm
glad to know you and I'm glad that we all walked this way
together, each of us, sharing our hearts with each other.

My parents finally divorced when I was 16. I'd do anything to be able to move out on my own then, if I'd known how tough it would get, to live with my bitter, narcissistic mother who then targeted me when my alcoholist dad was out of the way and my elder siblings had moved out.

Of course I understand my life could have gotten tough anyway, but it hardly could have been worse than it got.

I would choose to go back in time with a sports almanac and create an empire by betting on sports and putting the money into the Google IPO and the depressed Amazon stock.

"Laban, wake up, that crazy Nephi kid is hearing voices again!"



That's pretty far back, knowing what I now know.

I looked back, at various turning-points in my life, and I was able to actually re-do some of the things I wish I had done differently. Maybe it's not too late, people!

I wished I had not married my abusive husband, who beat me, and wished I had married my old boyfriend, instead. I was crying, and wishing I could die, when suddenly I realized that I had some control over my own life, so I un-did the marriage, got a divorce. I honestly thought I would never get married again (one of many Mormon threats was that no one wanted a divorced woman, who was "used goods"). Still, I had a career, that was under my control. I was one who DID buy some of that valuable Silicon Valley stock, from the company I worked for!

Life is a mix of good and bad. My famous uncle always told us, "Change is always good." It was those times I thought outside the box, that I was able to take a giant leap forward. Deciding to leave the cult is such a change.

I regret that my children had to suffer Mormon abuse. I knew I couldn't go back in time and change that. I knew the Mormon leaders who bullied and beat my sons would never be punished. What could I do? I could take my children out of harm's way! When I told them we were resigning from the cult, they cried for joy.

If we don't learn from history, we are bound to repeat it.

My children avoided marrying bullies, criminals, or fanatics, because I personally investigated each person they dated--using the same techniques in checking resumes and interviewing potential employees at work.

We didn't immediately join another religion or group.
My children and grandchildren will never go to BYU.
They will never go on missions.
They will (hopefully) never be abused.
They will be loved and nurtured by me, and by other good people in our lives.

Well, you get what I'm saying. Take the lessons from the past, and move forward with it.

Oh, and after working several years at the Silicon Valley job, my old boyfriend came back to me, and we got married and had children. It was not too late for that, either.

I would only go back if I could take my current knowledge and wisdom with me. My teen years would be equally bleak if I were only as ignorant as I was then. That said, I'd go back to about 10 years old, which is when things with the church started to lose that happy innocence. I would go through the motions without the anxiety. As I hit my mid-teens, I would fool around with sexual things without blowing my chance for a mission, because mine ended up keeping me out of Vietnam. I wouldn't try to be a good missionary. I'd be that companion gung-ho companions hate. Once home I would tell my parents exactly where I stood with the church and let them be disappointed and heartbroken. Being the good boy didn't earn me much anyway. Then I would've gotten a vasectomy.

Go back in time?
No thank you.

It was hard and fast enough getting here. No sense wasting (more) time.

M@t