All of our closest friends us have reached out to us after deciding that Bro $ Sis Kathleen were pretty faithful friends.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/2020 05:03PM by kathleen.

Several, especial my Rel.Soc. 'minister'--who can't come over without bringing me some kind of goodie, it's her nature.

Also, at Christmas time, a couple I had never seen before brought me a box of cookies from our local bakery (I presumed they asked the Bishop who might be a good person to treat at this special time of year).

And, our used-to-be home teacher and his Down's syndrome teen-eager brought me some home-cooked goodies, although they had to stand on the porch to do so as they are not allowed to come in a home where a woman lives alone.

As you can see, I live in an area and neighborhood where LDS people are exceptionally kind.

We left 2013. At first my "friends" would even turn their heads away from me at Walmart.There are quite a few lds stay at home moms where I live. We would have play dates with our children at least once a week. Not one day goes by where I don't run into one of them. Anyway at first I got ignored a year later they were able to return my "hi" and now gasp they even did small talk with me as bad apostate. It was hard on my children because they did not got invited to any lds birthday parties and no more lds play dates. It took me a couple of months to realize that my support system was gone and that I had to start over again.

My experience was similar to subeamnotloggedin. I wonder if she is a divorced single mother, like I am.

What "support system" are you talking about? We never had any support or help from the Mormons. It was all taking away our time, our money, our family time together, making unreasonable demands, and always wanting more from us.

I felt sorry for my children being shunned, but we all agreed that it was better to be a shunned ex-Mormon than an abused Mormon. Our ward priesthood leaders bullied and physically abused other kids, not just mine. The bishop's son was a child molester, and my little girl was not his only victim. I still feel that getting my children out of harm's way, and resigning together was a good decision. My kids were happy to leave! They are happy, successful adults, now

My children had some good non-Mormon friends, and were popular at high school, so the shunning didn't bother them too much. WE were lucky that way. My parents had been dead for several years. I had no husband to worry about. My kids were strong in their convictions, and would not drink or party or take drugs, like the Mormon kids did--yes, the Mormon kids were the worst ones in jr. high school and high school. They harrasssed my children for not going to seminary. My kids did not want them as friends, anyway. In the end, I didn't want their parents as my friends, or in our life, at all.

The only reason the Mormons made such a huge effort to coerce me into staying, is that there was no other organist to take my place. Ha-ha. They even came to my house, after we officially resigned, and asked me to teach people in the ward how to play the organ. I said, "How much will you pay me?" They scowled at me.

No one believed me, about the shunning, and that was upsetting. One friend thought I was being paranoid, until she was shopping with me, and we ran into some of my former "good friends", and they looked past us like we didn't exist. My children and I have not changed our lifestyle at all, except we do more useful, fun, hands-on charity work, where it is needed more than at LD$, Inc.

We tried to resign as quickly and quietly as possible, but that didn't do us any good. After that, the bishopric and the stake presidency and our home teachers and some neighbor men from Scouts came over to our house, and threatened me with failure, threatened that my children would fail in life, financial failure if we didn't pay tithing, and the worsening of my chronic illness. The men insulted me in front of my children, to the point that we had to ask two of the men to leave our house, and we stopped answering the door to Mormons. My children witnessed all of this, and have never wanted to go back to church.

Still, all this post-Mormon pestering was better than the abuse we suffered while we were Mormons.

I have a few Mormon friends from home, that I have known since childhood, and we came to Utah to go to BYU and the U of U, and we ended up getting married to Utah men, and settling here. Some of us were each other's bridesmaids. We are still friends. Two left the cult in high school, I left when I was a divorced mother, one is still Mormon but is living with a man, two never married and are still Mormons, one is married to a GA, and three are Mormon SAHM's, and married to former stake presidents. We have other things in common besides church, such as book club, bicycling, hiking, music, symphony and opera, movies, etc. My children were always younger than theirs, and our get-togethers didn't include children, but were an escape for us. The single friends didn't have to put up with our kids at a restaurant, for example. These are the only friends I have in the world, except for work colleagues and some cool ex-Mormon cousins. My relatives on the GA side of the family have been shunning me for 10 years, now.

None of these people ever "reached out" to me when I resigned, except for my one very best friend. The rest of us don't discuss religion or politics at all, but just have fun doing whatever we are doing.

The Mormon shunning hurt terribly, and made me cry, at first, but RFM helped me put this in perspective. I had to realize that it was not my fault. I had to follow my heart. I had to leave for my children. After years of work, I trained myself to be less sensitive, Now, I don't care about those former fake friends. They are weird and rude. They are cult recruiters, who are living a lie, and who are stalking my grandchildren, now. We all still live in the same neighborhood, my children owning houses two blocks and 5 blocks away. In the last 15 years, our neighborhood has become one of the least Mormon-dominated in the valley, about 30% Mormons, and dwindling! Better people surround us, now.

Several of my Mormon ward former fake-friends have left the church, mostly because they have discovered the Truth. One couple's son came out gay. Another couple's son and daughter both married outside the church and outside their race, and these parents left because of Mormon prejudice and Mormon family fall-out. One neighbor and his wife dis-owned their son for not going on a mission, so the son investigated the church and discovered the truth, and four of his older brothes and sisters left the cult, too.

I have not reconnected with those who have left, because their friendship had been false in the first place, and I don't know them anymore, after 10 years of not speaking to them, They had tried to slander my good name, and friends don't do that. I don't feel bad about not reaching out to them. They don't need me.

When we left the church I was a SAHM and my husband was and is still working at the same place as the bishop. Our former bishop is now a stake president. You could say we were part of the "regular mainstream" we said yes to every calling we did as we were told. No mater how hot the weather I wore my garments. We used to pay $600 per month on tithing and we would live month to month. I said to my husband we are paying gross tithing we should only pay net tithing. So we decided to reduce our tithing to $500 per month we the leftover/saved $100 we put one of our children in a gymnastic class that he really enjoyed. About a couple of weeks later the bishop one of my husbands so called close church friends calls us into the office and ask us if we can increase our tithing money. That was the first time we got on the "naughty" list when I said "no we can not increase our tithing". Many lds husband work where my husband works and the wives are same age as me and our children would all go to the same private pre school.Picture perfect from the outside but inside I was falling apart with all the church pressure. My husband was working full time and working on getting his masters degree and was being a Scoutmaster for the ward. He was gone all the time. I had 3 children under the age of 4 and was struggling with post par tum depression. It seamed no mater how I tried the house was never clean and the laundry never done. One of my children would keep me up at night with a cough or a nightmare. I felt sleep deprived and unsupported. Basically I felt like a single mom with money. I said to my husband that we needed to give up all church callings and focus on our family as I was feeling like I was breaking inside. The bishop would not allow us to turn our callings down. Bishop said that god gives callings and god will decide how long we will serve in the callings. I said to the bishop that I had prayed and that I felt at peace with my husband and I having no callings. That's when all hell broke loose. Bishop felt that I was questioning his authority. I said bishop I can barely take care of my children I am crying all day long I need my husband at home. He has been a Scoutmaster for over 5 years! I can't do it anymore. We left and resigned. I was stamped the incompetent mother. My "friends" would tell me how I should be lucky that I was even able to have children and that depression is a sign that I don't believe in god. The church callings almost broke my marriage. I went on prozak and got a good therapist to help me through my depression. After we resigned from the church I went back to work. My depression lifted without the church pressure and a paycheck.

When I stopped attending meetings, the only so called friend who stopped by was to ask me why I wasn't renewing the church magazines. I told her I was no longer interested in getting them. Her reply? "well, you should be spanked!" That was it. haha

None. I have three TBM BFFs. The first also left. The second didn't seem to care that I stopped attending. The third TBM friend broke all the Mormon rules (she drank and had unmarried sex), so she couldn't preach to me. My family didn't seem to give a sh_t that I stopped attending. My mom and brother soon followed my example.

I was assigned a TBM friend to try and fellowship me, but I basically told her I didn't need a fake friend and she backed off. Members didn't beg me to return or were overly excited to see me the one time I returned to sacrament meeting a few years after I'd left. They all looked at me as if I were a ghost. That was the last time I set foot in a church meeting other than a funeral. I don't miss it one bit and I think the feeling is mutual. I was one of those dreaded single, childless women LDS Inc. had no use for.

Whenever I run into TBMs from the ward I attended for over 20 years they seem very nervous to see me, like I've gone to the dark side and they don't know what to say to me. It doesn't occur to them to just say, "hi Heartbroken, how are you? How's your family? It's great to see you." Instead they look like a deer caught in the headlights, frozen and at a loss for words.

I do have TBM friends who are kind and treat me like a friend without mentioning church. They know I have zero interest in church but are nice to me anyway. I appreciate their friendship and kindness.

Zero, zilch, nada. While inactive but not officially resigned, the bishop had his clerk call to set up an appointment with me. I asked the clerk what the meeting was for and he stammered, "Oh, I'm sure it's nothing". I replied, "If it's nothing why should I come?" Dead silence. I finally said, "If the bishop wants to meet with me about something have him call me and tell me what it's about and we can discuss it".

That was the final contact I've had ever since. I get ignored if seen out in society unless I make the first move to simply be polite and acknowledge that we know each other.

reach out to me, but we have an understanding now. Once in a while she messes up and I have to remind her. Many ward members were concerned. Some approached us, some didn't. The primary presidency came by to tell the kids that they would be picking them up for primary as we were bad parents. It didn't happen as we didn't allow it. They actually called me as a YW counselor after I had been inactive for years and my husband had left. I turned them down. It was the prior bishop's wife who wanted me in YW and my husband had been his ex. sec., and they absolutely loved him (they told me).

I have neighbors who invite me to ward functions. Since my daughter is TBM and lives in this ward in the winters, we are always a project.

My aunt won't let up. Most of my family is out and there is a stack of book of mormons in my brother's closet at my parents' home (who are deceased) that my siblings and their children never picked up from LAST Christmas. I hid them just before she showed up with this years' gifts. I picked mine up and my daughter has them. My boyfriend still has his.

Since we lived in this ward when we left the church and my husband was LOVED and he lives here now, too, it is NEVER ENDING.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/2020 09:34PM by cl2.

Only to tell me that I was going to hell. How supportive of them.

None for years. Suddenly many 30 years later.

No one contacted me except for one very good friend, but we've been roommates and climbed rock together. He was nice to send me his wedding invitation and still touches base occasionally. Great guy, and absolutely non-religious, the type of a "cultural Mormon". I sincerely wish him the best.

But none of the die-hard crowd from my Provo ward ever bothered what happened to me. I don't believe they bothered much when I was being forced to attend.

A couple did, but then the bishop announced from the stand that members were not to associate with apostates.
No more visits for 7 years after that.