I technically really want to make what has already been a 10+ year separation from the so-called church official and complete by getting excommunicated. Don't even want my name in the records, don't want anyone thinking I'm connected in any way shape or form. But...that might actually finally literally kill at least one of my parents, or worse. I haven't been completely shunned or ostracized yet but I'm pretty damn sure that might do it.

Has anyone else struggled with this, whether they actually went through with it or didn't because of the effect it would have on parents or other family?

Why not simply resign, and avoid the embarrassment you may cause your family by going to the kangaroo court?

If you don't feel worthy to be a member, and feel you've sinned to the point of being excommunicated then you're buying into the Mormon dogma hook, line and sinker.

Unless you want to wear that as a badge of honor, the more honorable way IMO is to resign. Walk away with your head held high. No regrets because you need not apologize to the morons there, nor do you owe them any explanation of why you no longer believe in the BS.

You can define how you wish to exit in other words. Don't leave it up to Mormon leaders to dictate it on their terms.

Wait, what exactly is this "resign" you speak of? Is that an official thing, some known alternative to excom? Hell no I don't feel "unworthy" or anything, and I don't really care if they'd think that, it would be a sort of badge of honor I guess, but either way Ijust don't wanna be on their books and I thought excommunication could be voluntarily chosen even if you just don't wanna be a member, not because you actually think you've "sinned too much"...how does one go about resigning apart from just walking away and being done?

And no, guess that's my dilemma, I don't technically want to hurt or embarrass my parents but at the same time it's my choice and my life...but guess I have to be the bigger person, their poor twisted culty minds will never ever understand my side, they don't yet so why would they....ugghhh screw this disgusting "church"...

The old days of the only way out of the church is excommunication are long gone.

Currently you can resign by mail or email.

The instructions are on a different tab on this site.

After you send your resignation, you'll get a letter saying they refered your request to your local bishop. He will probably try to contact you to either confirm you resigned and/or to try and talk you into staying. You ARE NOT required to meet with him.

Search resignation on this site for many stories of people resigning.

Your parents may find out during tithing settlement when the bishop hands them a paper about their family and ordinances they have performed. In a few instances the bishop may contact them, but that is rare.

Good luck to you.

Heartless Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The old days of the only way out of the church is
> excommunication are long gone.


Thank Kathy Worthington

Oh wow, ok thank you...I had no idea about that process and I'm brand-new to this site.

Despite growing up in the church I haven't ever really know what all excom entails but this resignation sounds pretty great... except I might want even that to remain secret from my parents just to spare them the anguish they'd still be determined to feel, even though they certainly don't give a crap about my anguish and disappointment in THEM. Amazing that parents and others who are brainwashed don't understand that it's a two-way street.

But thanks again, great to know an alternative and guess I just have more to think about....SIGH FML



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/26/2018 10:00AM by earthdaughter.

There's another option:

Just do nothing.

If you had joined the Mickey Mouse Club at eight, now that you are say ... 35-ish, do you need to formally resign? Seems silly, doesn't it?

I don't think they remove your name anyway.

That's what my husband has done--Nothing.

Not giving them any more of your money makes TSCC think you're a nobody anyway.


I, however, found that *resigning* was like eating carrot cake. Yum! I may resign again at least another couple of times. I find it's like saying a cuss-word and then grinning.

:D

XD Mickey Mouse Club....well put!

Guess I've just done nothing for years anyway so why not carry on..? Not like I need to send a message, especially since I'm afraid that message might give one or both of my parents a stroke.

Anyone ever seen "The Guild"? Maybe I should just use Tink's exit strategy...send a dagger with a note attached that says "Fuck off losers, XOXO"

You can just walk away .

OR you can resign.

earthdaughter Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Has anyone else struggled with this, whether they
> actually went through with it or didn't because of
> the effect it would have on parents or other
> family?


Has anyone struggled with it? well, maybe I have.

My MORmON enforcement agent male parent could beat the Hell out of little kids like a real pro. kick their butts so hard that their feet would come right off the ground.

Oh, he would not bang up em too bad, because then they could not work around the family farm and the law might come in, but he would really work them over. the only flaw in that plan of his was that by the time I was in my mid teens, I had been worked so much and beaten so much, that the beatings were no longer effective because I was physically substantial enough that I could handle anything he could dish out.

FTR, I never hit him,
I would not do that kind of thing for what ever reason.

I only raised my hands to deflect his blows.

But dont worry, my younger brother who is a real douche bag so much like him, did punch him right the face one time.


From there, as I was more of an adult, he moved on to threatening to kill me, which was just like an upgraded version of all the times he told me that I was completely worthless and no good .....while he was successfully working me like slave.

Eventually I got somewhat used to that too. because he, Thankfully, did not make an actual attempt and just as thankfully I moved away from home so I was not around him as much which mediated the troubled situation.

However. I always believed that he really did feel fully entitled to take my life, especially as some one self considered to be spiritually superior to me, If he thought he could get away with it and the conditions warranted such a thing. If he had been Abraham, then Isaac would have been killed for sure. He would have said "no biggie" and plunged in the knife with out any hesitation even after the Lord said it was not necessary. I am sure he felt that made him superior to Abraham too. He was a very sick person.

After being subjected to that kind of thing, I was extremely sensitive to the fact that the Book of MORmON (Laban story) and the MORmON temple ceremony really does advocate that kind of approach to handling the matter of dissenters.

A little later into my adult life, as he pressed the issue then I dared to question his beloved MORmON religion, made especially poignant because I had served a mission and he had not. At that point, He really did want to kill me, since he really felt it would be a good thing to do, since I was a dreaded "apostate". He was ONLY hindered by the potential of criminal penalties and the prevalence of the law. or I would have been shot in the back.

then, after so many years in utter frustration of not being able to pound me back into submission to THE (MORmON) church, he tried the sick tactic of trying to goad my into fights, as his plan was to get his own ass kicked by me and then call the law to get me into trouble over it. I could see that coming a mile away.

The last time that I ever spoke to him, he told me that "you need to go in to see the bishop and get excommunicated"

It was totally insulting to me because I know that A. such a thing was FAR WORSE than physical death to him as it was spiritual death in his mind which is like oblivion or worse. B, that he would readily commit suicide to avoid such a thing happening to him in his mortal life, how ever he totally delighted in the thought of me being subjected to such a horrible thing. C. that even if I was redeemed to some very limited extent, which was highly doubtful, I would ALWAYS be tainted and inferior to him the ultra obedient and faithFOOL MORmON.

Ex com was suitable punishment for me which was worse than death in his mind. that is so antithetical to being a male parent /father in every way.

My response was that "my" "need" to be excommed sounded so much like when I was told that "I" "needed" to go on a mission and that time and experience had shown that I really had no such need at all, but that it was really HIS NEED that had been expressed about me going on a mission and the same thing applied to HIS need being expressed by him as "my need" for me to be ex commed.

At that point he went into a shit fit rage.
Other stuff was said. He said he wanted to kill me, and that he hoped the law would kill me. I told him that there was no way that I could respect the pieces of garbage that run his church after the BS antics they pull.

My mother says he did not mean what he said. I say he really did mean it. and I know that I damn sure DID mean everything that I said. I hope it cut through him like a knife.

I never spoke to the POS again, which was a great move on my part. I could not trust him. I could not respect him in anyway. I could no longer consider him to be family at all, in spite of all of the stupid sealing secret MORmON handshakes that had been done.

after that, we were no longer family in my mind!!!! and is not that exactly what the MORmON church tells a person when their ordinances are cancelled as they are excommed??? that person is a lost soul in eternity at that point!!!

3 years and 3 months went by and he suddenly died. It was the nicest thing he ever did for me. Life is so much better without that POS!!!

For a joke, to point out how STUPID that the situation really was, every once in a while I sternly say to either of my cats "you need to go in and get excommunicated !!!"

my cats are like "does that mean its time for a kitty treat?"

my male parent was such a disgusting MORmON @$$ hole !!!!

....wow. I'm glad for your sake and the Earth's that he's gone too, holy shit...don't even know what to say to all that except that your dad makes my sound like a Care Bear. Though he definitely has his asshole moments too, and he did give some really rough and really undeserved spankings a good handful of times but nothing like that still. Well, good freaking riddance, it sounds like.

Smirkorama, sorry you had such a rotten father.

My dad was a spanker, yeller, and shaker; they don't leave physical marks/scars but are painful and leave emotional scars. My siblings and I used to hide when we heard his truck pull up in the driveway because he couldn't relax until he gave one of his little kids a spanking. He recently died. My dad seems like Ward Cleaver compared to your dad. Sorry you ended up with him as your parent. Life is a crap shoot.

me and my siblings got whipped with a leather belt a lot, which is pleasant compared to being whipped with a fiberglass fishing pole. he LOVED to do the thing where he'd pop the doubled up leather belt for effect for several seconds as a warm up before actually doing the actual child whipping. we would scream in terror. After all, there is nothing like making a little kid scream in sheer terror before they have actually been touched, before their beating actually starts, as a "nice" warm up to make a psychopath feel powerful and important. ....and the real purpose of having children is to have little people around to dominate and terrorize for some form of pathological gratification and amusement .....is not it?

IF a person had animals around that really did require that level of beating just to keep them in line, would not it be much easier to just be rid of them. I know in the end, it was much nicer for me to just be rid of my male parent.

Earthdaughter, here is the link giving complete directions for how to resign. The entire process usually takes 60 days or less, and we can coach you through it.

https://www.exmormon.org/remove.htm

Some people resign, and some people stay on the books for various reasons, including not wanting to distress their parents. It's up to you. If you resign, there is maybe a 50/50 chance that your parents will find out about it.

One compelling reason to resign is if you are getting harassing phone calls and visits from church members who are trying to reactivate you. Some people are thankfully left alone and don't feel an urgent need to formally resign.

Thank you, and that's a good point though...no harassing, especially as I live in a different state from the stake I grew up in and actually a lot of people I grew up with are inactive and the ones who aren't have never seemed to care, apart from my parents of course.

I might not do it, at least not while my Dad is alive. I believe in the 50-50-90 rule: if you ever have a 50-50 chance of getting what you want, there is actually a 90% chance that you won't!

I have already discussed my grievances with my mom and late father who are TBM and some of my TBM relatives. When I leave I'm not allowing any leverage to any local or stake leaders.

This is interesting. I would like to resign in some official way, but I have moved since my last contact with the church and updating church records.

I'm afraid if I contact the church in any way, they'll have my address and send people over here lol

I resigned a few years back but didn't tell anyone. I think the family pretty much assumed I'd been consigned to outer darkness when I came out as Gay some 30 years ago (at which time I was indeed disfellowshipped but I didn't tell them that either).

The resigning went pretty easily. It took about 2 months. I sent them a notarized letter assuring them that I'm me, I really wanted out and requested no contact.

I called Member Records every few weeks just to be a pain in the ass (and remembering stories from here about bishops or SP who let the paper work slide).

If you call ask whoever answers to be sure and put a note in your file that you called. They seem to be just volunteers and you get random whoever who answers the phone. Also ask for the supervisor's first and last name, they all appear to be named Dave.

Good luck. You don't have to tell anyone you don't want to.

Once you realize the Mormon Magic bucket is empty, why pretend they have the power to do anything to you?

Asking for a moron.

As long as you are a member, you are giving them two powers over you.

1) you give them the right to claim you in particular as a member. You may not care, but you are allowing them to keep that right.

2) You give them the right to fire you as a member.

When you resign, they lose both of those rights.

Great points, and exactly...I don't want them to have either of those rights, regardless of the truth I know. It's still a fact that I'm technically, literally down as a "member" and my enlightenment and detachment don't change that.

But guess I really do have to wait until at least my Dad dies. They're so freaking hardcore, going to the temple every week and definitely doing tithing settlement, they'll find out for sure. Would be a shit storm.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/28/2018 03:45PM by earthdaughter.

I waited until my Dad passed away, and then I used the online Attorney who does resignations for free. He doesn't ask for a fee, but there is a donation button on his website.

Also, I haven't told anyone that I've resigned, and nobody has asked. I suspect that one fine day one of my kids will notice from a church genealogy sheet or something that I am listed as "non-member" and then they will ask me about it. But, unless you tell someone, chances are good that they will never know without looking for it. If you can keep a secret, that will help.

For me, resignation from the MormonCult was a stick-it-to-them-moment which I enjoyed immensely. I did not want the bloody heathens to be able to count my name as a member. Plus, I wanted others to know that this was my move, not the org's.

It felt wunderbar!

But, I was not in your situation which I am sorry you have to put up with (and definitely sorry for smirkorama also). My family situation was always one of being emotionally abused and made to feel by words, not the belt, that I was a total piece of shit who did not count for anything. Counseling and lots of good information brought healing thankfully......but hell, why do any of us deserve to be treated less than human?

WE DON'T!

You're admitting that you might return someday if they'll have you back.

Mormons sometimes go after those who were exed and try to convince them to repent and return.

It's far better to bravely resign. If you leave a job by resignation, they know you took charge and moved on. If you ask to be fired, you look like you might reconsider if they lower their standards or ask you to return.