This has always been a minor irritation of mine. The framing of actions, a lack of actions, or a context being used partly as a means of framing an argument.

To leave something means to me that you are naturally there—in a place or a belief system—by default.

This isn't particularly important, but the idea that I even "need" to leave a church (that it actually takes an initiative to continue to participate in) seems to me more like a need to rephrase. Likewise, I generally don't leave an employer. I merely don't continue going to either.

I guess you could argue that sending in a resignation letter is leaving. But personally, I don't seek permission from people I need not respect to stop doing something. Such a letter for me is only an attempt to stop harassment.

Like an old soldier, I simply faded away.

There was a day that I remember well when it all came together. I had been having issues with the church even before I found out my boyfriend/eventual husband was gay. That just threw a curve ball into the whole mix as then I had to figure all that out and then readdress my feelings about the church.

I just knew one day I was done. That I no longer believed. I was actually walking at the middle school track. I had quit attending many years before out of necessity considering my marriage had fallen apart and I wasn't going to church as a divorced mother of 2. I wasn't going to put my kids through that.

But some years later, my daughter went back and she kept badgering me about going back and so I resigned to make a point. And in the end, it was one of the best things I've ever done for myself. It really did lift a huge load off my shoulders. Many people were afraid, including my nonmormon boyfriend, that I might have a psychological reaction as I was in my 50s and had been mormon all those years, but nope. I just saw the papers they sent me again the other day as I was going through some boxes. I couldn't be happier about having resigned.

I didn't leave mormonism.
Mormonism left me.

One minute I was Mormon, the next minute I wasn't.

I didn't leave anything or discontinue anything. The dynamic was much bigger than either after being BIC in an extreme Mormon family, the mission, BYU. The light went on. The Mormonism just vanished into thin air. There was nothing to leave. Poof!

The sudden change became about embracing a life I had wanted all along. No looking back. The only thing I left was my garments along side the freeway somewhere on the way outta Provo for the last time.

miner8 Wrote:
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> But personally, I
> don't seek permission from people I need not
> respect to stop doing something.
===============================

-- and no need to petition those who have zero actual authority over one's life.
Who one realizes are the merest of common frauds.

I left in an empirical experiment, noting that "church" attendance had a profoundly negative impact on the remainder of Sundays.
So decided to refuse participating for one year to determine: is life better or worse; and to then decide.

Three months later the answer was self-evident.

You make me remember that wonderful feeling of Priesthood and Sunday School finally being over and opening the doors and walking out into the sunshine. Vitamin D did me way more good than church ever did.

Of course in my day, there was always the 7 pm SM lurking.

I faded...then after an interaction with a certain HP I left officially.

I guess you could say that I did not continue. But five years after that time I officially resigned, and that did feel like leaving. Leaving them behind and officially telling them that I did not want my name associated with them in any way.

It's like leaving a spouse. I divorced them, so I left them behind.

Oh, I left in the grand manner.

I told everybody.

I resigned and took my garments to Goodwill in a clear garbage bag with the words--MORMON OCCULT UNDERWEAR.

Faded away.

I sent a notarized formal letter of resignation severing all ties. I am no longer affiliated with that organization.

The so-called church and I were mutually appreciative of discontinuing our relationship.

I didn’t need the guilt. The constant guilt and shaming was relentless.

They didn’t need me because I refused to be a missionary, never paid tithing, fast offerings, ward building funds, primary pennies or any other revenue directed toward SLC’s coffers.

It was a hate/hate relationship destined to an early demise due to irreconcilable differences.

I was inactive for decades before I officially resigned. First I didn't care, but then I felt the need to not be associated with them at all.

I never officially resigned as doing so would have killed my TBM parents.
Now that they have passed, I don't wish to give TSCC any more power over me. I'm out. I don't care if they acknowledge it or not.
Besides, continuing to be on the books means I throw off their attendance averages weekly!

There is this satisfaction that I have, probably a bit misguided and overblown on my part, that comes from thinking that by remaining on the books, I'm a problem to them, instead of them to me. For so long the church had a terrible impact on my life. I feel like I'm getting a small amount of revenge by wasting the time of bishops and ministers (although in reality, they probably spend little or no time thinking of me in particular). I'm glad to be even an infinitesimally small portion of whatever burden we "inactives" impose on the church.

I quit attending in 71...resigned in 2012

I resigned before the abusive CULT was ‘forced to discipline me’ for the unforgivable sin of simply being honest with my wife and kids.
The day my bastard Bishop threatened me by saying,”It’s fine for you to have these doubts, but if you share them with other Mormons, I’ll be forced to discipline you!”
“Even my wife and kids?!?!?”
“ESPECIALLY YOUR Wife and KIDS!!!”
I got up, didn’t shake his hand.
Went home and finished my resignation letter, where I threatened him with a personal lawsuit if he ever came near me, my wife, or my kids again, printed it out and sent it in.
What made that awkward was he was my wife’s OB/Gyn and delivered most of our kids. He touched my wife’s vagina and most of the kids who came out of that vagina, before I did.
He still delivered cookies once a year at Xmas and when my Daughter got deathly ill, he was there at her bedside, and instrumental in her recovery.
I Really think I overreacted, but I was soooo pissed off at the time.
Almost losing your only daughter changes you though and makes you a lot more grateful than angry when she recovers.

My Dad just quit going 60yrs before he died. He just didn’t believe in God. He believed in Einstein’s god, Nature. He thought Church was good for instilling traditional family values in kids, but never really seriously studied the topic. He just prayed and asked God for a sign if the Mormon church was true and God never answered, so he figured it wasn’t true. But raised us MORmON anyways because he didn’t have a better alternative. He didn’t like the looks of what Pop Culture had to offer and grabbed onto the closest anchorage, which was, naturally, the tribe he was born into, along with their myths and values.
I didn’t want to make the same mistake.
So I didn’t remain silent after learning 10 kids I know about we’re abused, by 3 separate men, who had yet to face consequences for raping kids. And for this I was threatened with ‘discipline’ for telling my wife and kids, by the man who delivered those kids and assured me my wife was a virgin, right after putting his football player hand up my wife’s vagina.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/2022 02:03PM by schrodingerscat.

Just that phrase, "forced to discipline you" makes me mad.

Officially resigned after 37 years. Burned my garments, one at a time. Very therapeutic.

Went straight from teaching Gospel Doctrine class to the bishop's office. Told him I was out of there.

I did not go much at all when younger. I tried a few times to go, did Boy Scouts in an LDS troop, but I never became a Deacon at age 12. My two brothers both did, and then never lived up to it. My dad told me to not become a Deacon if I was not going to live it. So I didn't.

In HS and even college, there were lots of girls that wanted to date me, but their dads refused to allow it, because I was an apostate. When I graduated college in 1978 and moved to San Diego, I did one last attempt to go. The YA group for where i lived reminded me of HS or even Jr HS, not young ADULTS. So I totally quit.

In the late 80's, I resigned so that I could be rebaptized in the catholic (lower case for a reason) church. They would not recognize my LDS baptism. So I submitted a letter to the local bishop, got the reply back, and was rebaptized.

Fast forward 35 years, my now TBM brother tells me that I am still listed as a member. He even gave me my member ID number......

So even if you do resign, odds are you are still counted.....