It started when I was disfellowshipped for having premarital sex with my then-fiance. We did marry in the SLC Temple and he had been my only partner. At the same time I was disfellowshipped in 1983, my husband was excommunicated for many sins he committed (extramarital sex not with me) both before and after our marriage. I accepted this punishment because I knew I had broken the rules of the church -- but I never believed what I did was morally wrong.

At the time, I had one toddler and a newborn baby and I was 20 years old.

We worked very hard for a long time to get back into the church, attended every single meeting, paid our tithing (through me) even though we couldn't feed our babies, read the scriptures daily, prayed constantly and did everything else that was asked of us. Or at least I did. Eventually, a couple of years later, we had moved to a different state. I felt I was ready to be reinstated in the church and went to the bishop to talk to him about it. We talked, then he called my husband in to talk in private. I was then told that while I was ready, my husband was not and that giving me back full membership in the church would cause my husband great emotional and spiritual stress.

It never occurred to me to ask why my husband was not ready to be rebaptized.

For years I sat through meetings listening to other people complain about how they should be allowed into the Celestial Kingdom because they had never been ex'd or disfellowshipped, but those of us who had been did not deserve to go even though we had gone through the repentence process. I wanted to scream at these awful people (women were the worst). I watched as members looked down their nose at me because I couldn't take the sacrament nor could I participate in classes.

Eventually, husband was rebaptized after many years of on-again, off-again going to church and experimentation with many things and many moves from one part of the country to another and back again to Utah. I had my membership fully restored. Then one day, we got a knock on the door and it was the Bishop telling us that some high muckety muck from SLC was in town and he was to have his Priesthood restored because Heavenly Father had revealed to him that husband was worthy.

I knew it was BS, pure and simple.

But we went to the church where these "blessings" were restored to him, got our temple recommends and started going to the temple every week. We accepted callings in the church and participating fully.

But I couldn't do it any longer because I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the whole thing was a sham, that God had certainly not revealed to anybody that my husband was worthy of having his preisthood blessings restored because this man had cheated on me left and right for years, even after his baptism.

This led me to finally allowing myself to question the church, its origins and everything I had been taught. My ancestors had been pioneers, original settlers in the Salt Lake Valley, coming across in the horse-drawn carts with Parley Pratt. My family has a long history closely tied to the church, and I didn't want to disrespect their sacrifices and their beliefs.

But the more I learned, the less I could believe. I was teaching Sunbeams in Primary and we got to the lesson about JS in the Grove and I found that I just could not bring myself to teach the lie to those precious little souls. So I called in sick. Then I asked to be released from this calling. I was worn out with trying to be the perfect Mormon wife, taking care of my children, holding callings, going to the temple every week, paying a full tithe, doing my geneology but still, it never seemed to be enough.

And then, I walked out the door of that building and never, ever went back. After so many years of feeling emotionally abused by the members of the church, when not a single solitary one of them ever reached out to me in kindness and love, but instead snubbed me when I needed support the most, when I realized I did not believe the JS story which is, after all, the foundation of the church, everything crumbled. I did not want to belong to a church that treated people that way.

It took a while, but eventually I wrote the church and had my name removed from its records. I divorced my husband and eventually remarried a never-mo.