I'm posting anon so I don't sound like a bragging jerk...

There is a common sentiment that if we stop paying tithing and leave the church, our lives will fall apart.

When I was tbm'ish I made just $40,000 per year at my peak. I never had savings. Spent all my wages every month, but had no debts. Had a house with about 1/3 equity.

Since leaving the club, things have become so much better! As most have you have experienced.

Divorced my mormon wife after leaving, and should have years earlier. It wasn't good at all, even after lots of marriage counseling.

Got a wonderful girlfriend and a good job that I like. We married after years of super wonderful dating together. Happy as can be.

I bought a house with cash in an expensive market. Wife bought one last year paying cash. We rent both out for extra income.
In another three years We'll have enough money to build a house paying cash. Have no debts at all, Lexus that is paid for. Nice motorcycle etc.

Was having sex guilt free for the years before we got married. Didn't have to tell the plumber down the road/bishop about it.

Drink a few beers a week in nice bars for socializing, and don't feel guilt at all. Vacation in exotic places twice a year for up to three weeks each time.

Health is good. Have health in my navel...blah blah blah, even though I don't live the word of wisdom.

I've been out ten years. They're all probably still thinking about how bad life must be for me by now!

I think you should brag. Post the evidence everywhere, and see how the mormons like that.

Yeah, but you gave up a great fiefdom on Kolob. Don’t you want to live like Kim Jong Un?

Haha. The Mormons---taking the concept of delayed gratification to the heights!

Well, as long as we're bragging . . .


I was taught all my young life that Mormons had true happiness that no one else on the planet had. They used to say we had a special glow about us that others saw and were perplexed by. I gave my Mission farewell talk using this subject back in the sixties. I was going to bring Mormon joy to the world!



But once I got away from my all-Mormon-all-the-time town, and was on my mission, the first thing I noticed was that everybody else was pretty happy in the new country I was in. In fact, they seemed much happier than I had ever been. They glowed more than me. Just being themselves. And the other missionaries were a pretty petty and miserable bunch by contrast for the most part living under pressure and guilt from the MP and pretending to be glad to do the Lord's hard work while they glanced at their calendars.

It's always better out of Mormonism. I'm not talking about having more cash like you are. I'm talking about owning yourself--which is what I liked about your post. That clearly happened for you. That is the brag. In good times or in bad times or even during the mundane. Happiness never was someone telling you what to do and black mailing you with your supposed afterlife as it robs you of self.

And yeah, like you, I have been the most successful in my family. And yeah, I have the best health by far of all even though I like my wine and the occasional martini. And coffee. OMG Coffee! Yea verily, I can walk and not be weary. I can run and not faint. At my age! But I just feel lucky. Very lucky. Knock on wood. I can't believe I found my way out of that church at a time when I knew none of the "Anti." Because I didn't fall away. I left on purpose. And then I found out why everybody actually was happier than most Mormons.


Luck. Some luck is serendipitous. But the best luck is when opportunity collides with preparation.

I used to think “the glow” was special too. Until I saw the very same glow on the faces of Heaven’s Gate cult members, on video before they offed themselves.

Same here...

After I left the church and was divorced by my TBM wife, I remarried a wonderful nevermo woman. I am now, years later, financially better off than anyone else in my entirely TBM family.

My TBM dad loves the country place where we live and admits that "Providence" has been very good to us, since we are living - according to him - in "heaven on earth."

My TBM brother-in-law once asked my dad, "Well, Dad, how do you explain the fact that your apostate son is so well off that he could buy and sell any of us?" Dad had no answer.

and my husband left, but it was in the works before we even married. BUT once the dust started to settle, then everything started to change. I've talked about it enough.

What I love is living my life like I choose in this great state of Utah and everyone knowing about it. I was such a perfect little mormon girl. I was ostracized by mormon females and males. Not all, but a lot of them who were my age. I barely dated mormons. It was like I had the plague.

Our finances are much better than I anticipated and even though it is because of my "husband's" pension and that we bought a house 33 years ago and I hung onto it (and it is worth 6 times what we paid for it), people who we know in this neighborhood are in shock. I love living my life authentically FINALLY. I never did fit into mormon culture.

Let alone that the love of my life from age 20 has been my boyfriend for almost 15 years now.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/28/2019 11:39AM by cl2.

If you still have TBM family and/or "friends," brag to them. Let them know how much better your life is, and just how much MORE you have, than them. Nothing screws with mormon heads like seeing someone that Elohim should be punishing, instead living the prosperous life that mormons think they are entitled to have.

Bear your testimony to them that your prosperity has come from leaving the church, and it starts with the 10%+ saved from tithes and offerings. Testify that they too have the chance to experience this if they cease allowing the church to hold them down.

They can outwardly say that you're not "truly happy" upon which you can openly laugh in their faces at the absurdity of their claim, but inwardly they'll be seething. You can then rub it in: "And you look just *so happy* yourselves." They won't be laughing at you. You win. Their shelves load up.

They will justify it some way.

They'll say something like, "It might seem like you are rich and happy in this world, but in the next life you won't have any riches. You'll be sad and see the error of your ways. THAT'S when you'll see justice for not being Mormon!"

I love the after death real-estate... your investing in a product you'll never see until your dead... makes sense?

The timeshare on Kolob is great, but the maintenance fees are out of this world.

Whenever my TBM friends talk about the temple, sacrament meeting, Sunday school, tithing, meetings, ministering, etc., I am so happy I don't have to do any of those things ever again. It is such a relief to be free, even if I'm not financially better off.

I have no car and can only find part-time work as a janitor. Most Mormons (and one narcissistic Jack-Mo) I know would look at my life and claim that things are worse for me due to leaving.

I just know that after leaving, I:

-lost several pounds to join the Navy
-got to steer a Nimitz class aircraft carrier
-met Hebi, the woman who should have been my older sister
-saw the ocean in person (a big achievement for a lower-middle class kid from Idaho)
-was published in a couple of literary journals (okay, one was from my college and the other was a project from students in an editing and publishing class. And neither paid. But hey, published is published for a beginning writer)
-acted as an editor for a literary journal (a different journal from the same editing and publishing class)
-graduated with a BA

And I'm not even thirty yet.

I've noticed that for all of my friends who stayed with the church, they are generally less happy and less educated. For those who left, they got educated and started thinking for themselves, and left or went inactive permanently. Many of the church leaders who I used to look up to, are now small in comparison, to my current ideals of what someone should be in life.

random luck or bad luck.

But there are three major advantages that can come with breaking free of the mind control of Mormonism:

(1) You always get a 10% raise on your annual gross income...for life. This is much bigger than most people may think at first blush. After paying all your taxes, if you were one of those suckers...er...I mean faithful Mormons...who paid 10% on gross, you're actually probably getting something more like 15% ~ 20% more disposable income per year to do things with after you break free from the cult.

(2) Free time. Time is VERY valuable. The amount of busywork in Mormonism is incredible. Sunday meetings, "homework" assignments from the church (reading scriptures, reading/watching conference talks, "ministering" (formerly "home teaching")), temple sessions, chapel cleaning assignments, etc., etc. You may not notice a huge difference right away after leaving. But every additional hour that you can use as you see fit instead of as a committee in Salt Lake City determines, can eventually add up to something really big. Over a decade of being out of Mormonism will probably result in a person reclaiming the equivalent of a year's worth of personal time that they otherwise would not have had. (You can use it productively or not. That's up to you.)

(3) The ability to perceive reality more clearly. This is the biggest advantage in my opinion. Instead of constantly trying to ram the huge square peg of reality through the narrow hole of Mormon teachings and doctrines, you are free to observe what works and what does not...and act accordingly. You can see cause and effect relationships and accept them for what they are...and act accordingly. If a cup or two of coffee or tea each day makes you more productive, you can choose to drink such beverages without worrying that an arbitrary god is going to punish you for it. You can stop stressing about whether your behavior is acceptable to a handful of stuffed shirts in SLC who call themselves "prophets" and "apostles". You can choose to focus on projects that have lasting value and long-term meaning for YOU instead of wasting time on busywork "callings" assigned to you by a Burger King manager who thinks he's a "bishop".