How did you guys tell your Mormon families you were done? Mine knows I'm questioning, and they are getting the idea, but my brother's temple wedding is coming up and he has no idea. How do I break it to him?

Do it AFTER the wedding, if at all.

Everybody's focused on wedding preparations and the couple's happiness. This is not the time for a very major, and very personal (to you) issue. Let them keep their day special and uncomplicated.

You can use the time to do more research and think through your reasons. Utah Lighthouse (Ministry) Bookstore has a lot, on-line and also to order. Much of it is Christian-based, but a lot is quite secular.

I definitely don't want to turn his wedding into my announcement of leaving the church. My concern was if he asked me to participate in the ceremony and me having to tell him then that I was done, and making things awkward that way. I'll probably just wait and see if he even asks. I haven't told him anything, but my parents might have relayed the "she's-probably-not-interested" vibe, I really just don't know

Will he expect you to participate in the temple wedding? That would make things a lot more difficult. . .

This is why I feel compelled to bring it up. I don't know if he is going to want me to participate, but I also don't want him to ask me and find out that way that I'm done with the church. I guess I'll wait to see if he asks; maybe my parents have filled him in more than I know

Your approach sounds wise to me.

Like LW, sounds good to me too.

If your family is anything like mine and all the Mormons I know, your parents told everybody everything within ten minutes of you telling your parents whatever you did. I would assume your brother knows a lot. With a very special day coming up, your brother may wish to keep the question going until after.

My littlest brother and sister found out when they heard my parents praying for me. Secrets don't last long.



For me, the time came and I let it out all unrehearsed and raw. Though many prefer to think about it carefully and deliver just so--which is good-- the news will be taken as the family takes it, not as you deliver it most likely. What is important is how you will take it.

You don't have to tell them anything. They don't own you. I know it is a part of mormon culture to be completely transparent about your feelings with the cult, but...it is a CULT! That's how they have conditioned you to respond if you have doubts.

If you are at home living with your family simply commit to the church less. Once you move away you can drop out of the church altogether. It is YOUR life. You have the say about how you feel. Just commit to the church the least amount you have to and that's it.

If you are out on your own then whatever time-frame you want to choose to tell your family is up to you. It does not make you less of a person to keep those feelings to yourself. You are dealing with a cult. Protect yourself and give them little go after you or pressure you to come back to the safety of the cult.

I do want to tell them. I've been out of the church for almost a year and have been working towards another religion (although I'm not going regularly yet). I just don't know how to tell them I'm really done.

These are good responses.

I agree that you don't need to tell them anything. Here's why. You want to leave on YOUR TERMS. The Mormon cult makes itself way more important than it should be. It assumes way more authority and control over you than it should. You can put religion in perspective, by treating it like it isn't important. It is not necessary for you to explain or make excuses, or stress about their reaction, etc.

I was faced with the exact same probem. No one knew I had resigned (and taken my children out with me), and my brother's daughter was getting married in a Mormon temple. I thought of lying, but I was tired of the cult making me live with lies.

We got an invitation in the mail for me and the kids to go to the wedding breakfast and the reception, with a separate invitation to the temple ceremony, for me. My RSVP was, "Thank you for the invitation. The kids and I are looking forward to the breakfast and the reception, but won't be going to the temple." Most people don't ask why, when you say that, but my brother did, and I said, "I let my recommend lapse." That was all. I felt bad, because my brother's wife had died recently, and he wanted me to sit in the chair next to him, where his wife would have sat. Be forewarned, that you might feel bad, but your brother chose this kind of wedding, knowing that people would be excluded. You shouldn't be expected to pay 10% of your income to sit in his wedding ceremony--no one should have to do that.

I was glad I didn't ruin the "sweet spirit" or anything. I didn't go to the temple to sit in the waiting room and be conspicuous. I didn't pose in the photographs in front of the temple, because I was not actually inside the temple, in the first place.

At the reception, family members asked me why I wasn't at the temple ceremony, and said things like, "We missed you at the wedding," or "I didn't see you at the wedding." The answer I rehearsed beforehand was: "I didn't go. Isn't this a nice reception. Doesn't the bride look beautiful," or something like that. If they got too inquisitive, I said, "This is a party--let's not talk about religion."

You have an easy out, because you are participating in another religion, right now. My son had the easiest exit of all of us, because he would just say, "I'm Luthern now." It shut people up. It also explained to others that he still believed in God and Christ and The Bible, that he still attended church, prayed, stayed within moral guidelines, obeyed the 10 Commandments and the Golden Rule, etc. It was perfect, because he didn't have to explain all of that.

I think a Mormon's temple recommend is immediately revoked, if they start going to another church. (Or, have they changed this policy, too?)

I didn't have to tell anyone but my brother and his family, because they were from out of state. My parents were deceased, and I was already divorced from my TBM husband. All my other Mormon family and friends found out through the gossip mill, within a few weeks of our resignation. Let them find out that way. They will probably say bad things about you, and even spread lies, but Mormons are going to do that, anyway, no matter who tells them you have left. You might as well make it as easy for yourself as possible.

If they ask you to be a bridesmaid, you could say you would love to, but they need to know that you won't be going inside the temple. My daughter's bridesmaids were all Mormons, but none of them were married, so they didn't go to the temple. They wore nice dresses, had bouquets, stood in the wedding reception line, just the same. Also, the groom's four brothers were under 18, but they wore tuxes, and were part of the reception, too. That's just the way temple weddings are.

Good luck, and enjoy the wedding festivities (except for that one impersonal twenty-minute preaching session you will be locked out of)). Act like it's no big deal. Maybe your brother and his bride will have a ring ceremony, or something.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/2020 03:40AM by forestpal.

To the OP: If you don't want to attend the temple ceremony, I like forestpal's way of handling it. Just go to the reception and any other festivities.

You could also attend the temple ceremony (if you have a current recommend.) I would not view that as signaling agreement with the Mormon church. You are just attending a wedding. People attend weddings in different denominations and faiths all the time. Attending a wedding does not signal agreement with the religion hosing the wedding (although the Mormons might like you to think that way.) But you don't have to buy what other people are trying to sell you.

You wrote "the religion hosing the wedding".

I realize that was a typo, but in the case of the mormon church, hosing the wedding is pretty accurate.

If both the bride and groom are endowed are they just doing the sealing and not an endowment?

If you still have a recommend can you go to the sealing? In my time you didn't have to wear temple garb to attend the sealing. It was a relatively quick affair.

Just a thought.

I didn't bother