A few years ago, before I really started looking for the true truth, I wondered if I was alone, I was inactive, mainly because I was happier not attending and I still kind of believed. Surely, other inactive members were inactive due to some sin or because they allowed themselves to be offended... Not because the church wasn't true or there weren't answers to important questions. I guess that's part of the horror of the mindset that ingrained into people when they become members of the church... If you leave, you'll be alone. It's a hard thing to face and the more I've looked around the more I see I'm not alone, in fact, there's more happy people out here than there are "in there". This website, along with a couple others, has shown me that. I truly appreciate it. Researching fact based, information on several websites has made a huge difference in my life while I try to come to terms with my life as a non-member of the church, or to put it better, to come to terms with living my life on my terms.

I feel like I need to get my story out there. I'm sure my story is not unique (not anymore anyway, I used to think that I was very much alone) and I tend to be a been wordy. Perhaps it from all the years of "baring my testimony" I think it would be cathartic to tell my story to someone outside my family. So, here goes (it's a bit longer than I expected it to be)...

To start, I want to say that my parents are not bad people, they are just very much ingrained in to the church mind set. My Father has one of those voices with a deep bass rumble that everyone loves to hear speak and sing. When he speaks, it's with power, it reaches to every corner of the room, whether a class room or an entire chapel. He is a smart man and very intelligent and knows a lot, and I mean a lot of church doctrine. He has served on several Bishoprics, Branch Presidencies, High Councils, and other "high" positions for teaching and service work. He always has a calling to do something in the church, I can't remember a single time in my life where he did not have a calling. It should also be said that people love to get blessing from him since he says them with such prophetic authority. They were never just a simple blessing for the sick, he always included things as "directed by the spirit", which included guidance to help with whatever was troubling you. People receiving them couldn't help but feel that it's true, at least that's how I used to feel.

My Mother is is about as stereotypical "Mormon Woman" as you could get. She was a stay at home mother with 5 kids. Taking care of them as best she could while Dad worked and she had her service work at the church. She spent her days doing crafts and did some of the most amazing sewing, painting and wood crafts you would ever see. Her work was more than good enough to start her own craft show on TV and she could teach it as well, which made her very popular in Relief Society and Young Womens. But with five kids and all her service work, there was no way that she have time to do anything with it, so our house was beautfully decorated with crafts from one end to the other. You should see the play at Christmas. It's like the North Pole in there. She too, always had a calling. Her favorite work was always in young women, teaching them the way to salvation. To say that she was sheltered is putting it mildly. My mother is so removed from the world that we had one of those boxes that you attach to the TV that will automatically censor out what's being said if there was swearing... It was quite comical to watch certain things on TV to have the audio drop out and have the closed caption come up with various replacements... sometimes it added more innuendo than was originally intended. (the box always mysteriously breaks when we visit and then fixes itself when we leave).

Anyway, that gives you a little background on my parents. As I said above I was raised in a family of 5 kids, I have an older sister an older brother and two younger brothers. All of us are now inactive from the church. Some go to other churches, some don't go at all, but none of us go to the LDS church and I don't think any of us are planning to go back. This bring great heart ache to my parents, but we have each come to terms with that on our own. I was the only one who went on a mission (Korea) and I was expected to "do great things" in the church. I don't think my parents were "really" surprised by my brothers and sister falling away, but I think they really do hold out hope that I'll be back, or I'm just not going because my wife doesn't want me to or something like that. I think in their minds I'm still a faithful member in my heart.

Obviously I grew up in the church. Due to the influences of my parents, typical middle child syndrome and other emotional/psychological issues in our family structure, I was "the good one". (with my father gone so often I became a surrogate "husband" for my mother, there was no physical or sexual abuse, it's more of a over reliance of emotional support from a child than should be there. It's call "emotional incest" and it took a lot of counseling to deal with, even before leaving the church) I was expected to do everything right and I did my best to meet their vision of what they thoughts I should be. I had read the Book of Mormon several times by the time I was a teenager, held every calling a young person could and actively planned to go on my mission.

I remember growing up and getting callings like Deacon's quorum president, and having to "call" my counselors. I vividly remember talking to my mother on how to do that, I knew it involved prayer and feeling the spirit, but each time I prayed to come up with a name... Nothing happened. There didn't seem to be a still small voice, there was no warm feeling, no name magically popped into my head. Remember, I was trying to do this the "right way". Not just select the people I thought would be best, but who Heavenly Father thought would be best. I knew who I wanted to pick, but I didn't know if that was right. So, I talked to my mom again, and she suggested that I pray about each name specifically to see if they were right, rather than hoping for a name to appear. I tried that and I remember that I didn't think I ever got "clear direction" but I decided that those were the names that I thought of and I didn't get a negative feeling so it must be OK. Of course now I look back and think, I was starting to question things even then.

Time went on. I attended seminary in the mornings (we lived "out, in the world" outside of Utah so seminary was at 6:00 AM before school). and read all the scriptures very carefully. My scriptures were covered with notes and highlighting and I was one of the fastest at "scripture chases". Even with all that, it never really occurred to me to question them, we were just supposed to read them and learn the good lessons that they had. Any problems were glossed over, using the very "proofs" that are so very common that Mormon's use to ignore the truth. I accepted them all. I continued to have every calling and position of authority I could hold. I was always doing something in the church, all my friends were in the church, my world revolved around the church.

Outside the church, in High School, I was socially very awkward. It didn't help that I was bumped up a grade due to how I was doing in school. My older brother did not acknowledge me in school. He was the "eldest" brother. So, while he was not as devoted to church activities as I was, he could do no wrong (Oh, he went to Sunday meetings, but only played basket ball on youth nights, but he also dated anything with a skirt and hung out with the "popular" kids at school, any indiscretion was ignored... If he missed curfew, that's OK, I'm sure he had his reason. I would never consider missing curfew and my younger brother would be severely punished for even thinking about doing something wrong, whether he did it or not).

I never dated, even after I was sixteen and it was "allowed". I was "saving myself for my mission". I wasn't going to have any of those distractions like other Elders who write their girlfriends and then get a "Dear John" letter and waste my time with that. I was was going to be devoted to converting people and doing the "Work of the Lord". Besides, dating brought up sexual thoughts and those were Evil. Thinking of sex, let alone doing the act, was simply out of the question, it was all very evil. This was hammered into me to such an extent that I still, to this day as a 38 year old married man, I have several sexual hang ups (fortunately, I have an understanding and patient, loving wife). I remember my mother talking to me several times of how she was terrified of her honeymoon. Either all of my siblings were immaculately conceived or my parents had sex just 5 times. There was a part of me that actually believed this, sex was just for producing children, anything else was wrong.

All this time, I continued to get blessings from my Father that hinted at a bright future in the Church. I truly believe that my Dad wanted me to be a General Authority in the church. His plan for me was that shortly after my mission, I would marry a nice Mormon girl, we would move to Utah, I would get a job in the church somewhere (there are paying jobs in the church), and I would work my way up though the ranks of the church. I thought that's what I wanted too.

I remember going though the Temple the first time in preparation for going on my mission. I went to the Huston temple, one of the smaller ones. No one explained anything to me before hand, I didn't know what to expect. My parents just said that it would all make sense when we got there. I didn't go to temple prep class and the only advice my Mother would give me was that things are different in the temple and might be strange, but everything there is good. Needless to say, the "washing" was very uncomfortable for me, as I'm sure it is for most. This was at a time where you are naked under the "shield" and someone else is touching you on various parts of your body, not anywhere that I'd report to the police, but I was a teenager alone with an old guy touching me while I only had this poncho thing on... I was confused and couldn't ask anyone any questions, because that's not done. My parents had said it was not only safe, but good. The endowment ceremony was "interesting" but only because I wasn't expecting to get to watch a movie. I even recognized some of the actors because my mom had some of their music cd's. I couldn't help thinking that the whole thing was wrong somehow, I already knew most of the "doctrine" from reading the scriptures, most of it's in the "Pearl of Great Price". But, here we were sitting in a room learning secret words and hand shakes and promising to give everything to the church and to never tell anyone... Wasn't that what brought down the Nephites? Weren't secret combinations Evil? But no, there were my parents, smiling at me and happy that I was finally "part of the club", their only of five kids that were going though the steps the way they wanted us to. I tried to push all my worries aside.

Finally, the day came for me to go on my mission. I was sent to Korea (had to look it up on a map). My parents came with me to the Training Center to "drop me off". We spent a few days in Salt Lake City, saw the sights, went though a "live" session in the Salt Lake temple, oddly I don't really remember any of it. The thing that impressed me the most about that visit to the Great Salt Lake City, was that the entire downtown had all the streets repaved in just a couple of days. I still find it odd that after visiting the Tabernacle, going to the Great Salt Lake City temple and all of that, I was most impressed by the city public works department.

I'll never forget sitting in the MTC (Missionary Training Center), so very excited to get started. I never cried, I never broke down, I just wanted to go. We were sitting there, my parents and me and we got to the point in the meeting where they ask the missionaries to exit though the door on the right. I got up, I don't even remember hugging my parents, I probably did, but I don't remember it, but out that door I went! To be clear, I was't as excited about starting my mission as I was, finally being on my own. Going on a mission was the only way that I saw at that time that I was going to be able to get out of our house and be on my own. It was an odd way to think about it.

My mission is filled with all kinds of "faith promoting stories" that I look back on now and see how silly it all is and I can now see real explanations for everything that was "faith promoting". I was friends with all my companions, but for people that I spent 24 hours a day with for months at a time, I've never talked with them after that. Looking back, even on my mission, surrounded members of the church, I was very awkward. I was one of the ones that "knew the doctrine"... I KNEW everything about the church. My parents made sure of that. I tried not to have a "holier than thou" attitude but I'm pretty sure I did. But, even with that, I wasn't the best missionary because I had a hard time pushing my beliefs on other people who didn't want to listen. In Korea, a lot of people didn't want to listen and besides I was far more interested in visiting historical Korean locations on our weekly "P-day" than trying to convert people. I did the best I could and I actually enjoyed my mission. If nothing else, I was out on my own and it really did teach me and helped me learn to be more confident and less awkward around people. So, in many ways my mission was good for me.

When I got home, I was revered in my ward. I was the first missionary in a while and the first to go to some where as exotic as Korea. I gave talks at Stake Conference, got a calling in the ward, people wanted me to come over and visit, it was all very exciting and at the same time very overwhelming.

The strange thing was, I was unhappy. I was certainly unhappy at home. I was living with my parents again and I realized that these were not happy people. My mom had been diagnosed with "Chronic Fatigue" and had severe depression and wouldn't go to the doctor because the kept diagnosing her with depression and she insisted that she wasn't, she was just tired. My Father had a separate bedroom for himself downstairs in the basement and when he was home, that's where he spent his time. My older brother had moved out to college, my sister had moved out long ago (she was the black sheep of the family and little discussed since she had gotten pregnant as a teenager and had married and moved out, she was happily living with her husband and kids and was semi-active in the church). My younger brothers each spent all their time with their friends or in their rooms, no one interacted. I wanted to be around people that I could talk to, but no one wanted to talk with me, at least not about things that I wanted to talk about. My parents barely wanted to know more about Korea. This did not seem like the "Ideal Mormon Family".

There were other things too... The week after my mission, my Mother started having young women from the church come to visit to work on crafts together. I wasn't working so, I was home all the time. My mother would come up with some excuse and I would be left alone with the young lady. You can imagine what was supposed to happen next. I was supposed to fall madly in love and continue on my path to righteousness. The thing is, I didn't like these women. None of them could think for themselves. They were "molly-mormons" always wearing a dress or skirt, with a shy look of nervousness. They could all cook, clean and keep house, but not really talk about current topics or have an opinion of their own. Strangely, I wanted to date a woman whom I could talk with, someone with confidence and would enjoy getting out and doing fun things. These were not the women who were "available" to me. I politely asked my mother to stop inviting these girls over if they were coming over just to try and "catch" me, I was fresh off my mission and I wasn't ready to date yet. She assured me that she had no idea what I was talking about, but they stopped coming over.

Around this time, my sister came to visit to see how I was doing. She lives several states away and we didn't get to see each other very often. We went for a walk one afternoon and I explained that I couldn't stay here living with my parents, it was crushing after having lived out on my own, so to speak. I needed to get away. We decided right then and there that we were leaving that night. That's how strongly we both felt about it, we weren't going to stay another day. The moment we got back to the house from the walk, I announced to my parents that I was going to move in with my sister and her family. They were devastated. Neither would speak to my sister, and they were angry with me. "How could I do this to them?". We packed my clothing and went to look for other important documents that I would need, my passport and other things. My Dad hid my passport and refused to hand it over. My sister and I pulled out of the driveway and never looked back. I wasn't sad or upset, once again, I only knew I had to get away.

So, for the next year I lived with my sister. I continued to go to church, held a calling and started going to work so I could earn some cash and started making plans for the future. Eventually, my parents forgave me for leaving so suddenly. They didn't really have a choice, I guess. I was still the "chosen one" in the family, I was the only one still going to church, I called them regularly and I think they saw that I was happier. My sister tried to go to church, but it never made her happy and I couldn't see why at the time. I never pushed her though. I respected her too much. She was working two jobs and home schooling three kids, while her husband was in school for a very demanding doctor's program and they were going though very tough times and I did my best to help them out as best I could, though I'm sure having me there was an unexpected burden as well. It never really occurred to me until much later that the church wasn't doing anything to help her and was in fact hurting her and making things worse by making her think that she wasn't doing enough.

At this point I started going on a couple of dates... Think about that, here I was in my early twenties and I had only gone on a couple of dates over the period of a year. Looking back I think of all the fun I could have had but missed out because I was still so confused about dating and sex and what I was looking for. I knew I wanted a smart confident fun woman, but all I could see were ditsy, shallow, molly-mormons and I was terrified to be alone in the room with any of them for fear of having a sexual thought of any kind, to do so would be EVIL!

I finally decided that I wanted to go to school for a certain program that would take me away from my sister and further away from my family distance wise. I was still a Temple Recommend holding, tithing paying member of the church. My sister respected that and supported it, even though the church was causing her more problems than it was solving. I knew there were problems, but I didn't see them. Now, it' obvious, she was a young mother of three kids and people avoided her since it was obvious that she had her kids "too young" and no one wanted to know her real story.

Anyway, I moved out on my own, really for the first time ever. My mission was eye opening, but this was all on my own, no companion, no family or anything. I had already contacted the ward and they knew I was coming. I remember sitting in church my first Sunday there and seeing the woman in front of me. She was beautiful. Red hair, a confident look and an easy smile. I wondered if she was single and, if so, available. That very meeting she was called to be the single adult rep for the ward. This almost made me laugh, she was at least single. Later that day she introduced herself to me, in her capacity as the new single adult rep. We started dating that week and completely fell in love. The funny thing was I was called as the male single adult rep and the Bishop didn't realize that we were already dating and even went though the trouble to introduce us so we could start working together. Within a couple of months we were engaged (at the Nauvoo temple grounds, before the temple was recently rebuilt, that's a funny story in and of itself, we actually had to break out of the grounds as they locked us in without realizing it). We were married, in the Chicago Temple a few months after that, in other words from dating to married within about 8 months.

I feel terrible about our wedding day. My wife is a convert and no one else in her family were members and none of them were able to attend our wedding. If there's one thing I truly regret, it's our wedding day. I can deal with pretty much everything else, but the look of absolute terror on my wife's face while she was taking in everything in the temple by herself. Sure, my mom was there to help, but my bride had only met my mother the day before. She had no idea of what was going on and was simply told to just accept everything and be happy. It was all so strange. Everyone was happy and all smiles, while she had this look of being completely overwhelmed and even scared. Once we got to the actual "sealing" ceremony, it was a little better, but we couldn't talk, we couldn't hold hands though the ceremony. We sat and listened to the whole thing in these odd clothes with strangers all around. She was forced to just endure it alone. I hope that someday we can renew our vows in a way that will make up for what was supposed to be the happiest day of her life. To me, that's one of the greatest tragedies of the church. On the one hand her family felt alienated since they couldn't attend, and on the other, she felt alone and isolated since she couldn't have them there to enjoy it with her.

After that, we had a surprisingly happy marriage. There were struggles of course, but we loved and still do love each other deeply. She's smart and witty and I'd like to think we make each other laugh. The hard part was when she would question something in the church that there were no good church answers for. She didn't like the answer "we just accept that on faith". Really, our few arguments were about the church.

At some point, early in our marriage, we ran into some financial trouble. We went to the Bishop for help, who refused. We were told to ask our family for help, and to keep paying our tithing and things would work out. I had been a full tithing paying member all my life and I was told to go to my parents, who didn't have anything to give, though they would have if they could have. We were repeatedly told that marital problems with young couples were common and we would work things out. We never, and I mean never, said anything about marital problems. In fact, we were very happy together, we were just struggling financially, and we were doing everything we could to get out of it, but we needed help. Finally, the Relief Society president got wind of what we were going though and helped my wife fill out a request for food/supplies from the church store house and my parents were able to give us a little money and we started to get things back on track. Strangely, we were still being told in interviews, both separately and together, that young couples often have marital issues and that with prayer and fasting we would be OK. We always found this weird since we were very happy together, if anything having to deal with these problems alone pulled us together even tighter, we both felt like we were best friends as well as husband and wife and couldn't imagine being apart.

Ironically, due to the questioning of our marriage along with all the time I was spending working with the youth (I had been called as the young men's activity adviser), my wife started having real trouble with the church. She started having anxiety attacks at church and could barely make it though sacrament meetings, let alone the whole 3 hour block. Her questions about the church became more insistent and the answer of "just have faith" weren't good enough. Her visiting teachers tried to help, but sometimes hearing that you're not trying hard enough doesn't really help when you are terrified to go inside a church building.

I started to have my doubts around then too, but they weren't really strong. I was asked to spend more an more of my time away from my wife, who was starting to be diagnosed with a full blown anxiety disorder (it's hereditary, we can trace it though her whole family) and couldn't go to church. I needed to be there for her, but at the same time, the church was telling me that I needed to be there for them. There were times on youth night that I was at the church till well past 10:00 waiting for parents to come pick up their kids... I had to tell the Stake President that Youth activies ended at such and such a time and they needed to be there to pick them up for their own safety. The Young-Men's and Young-Women's presidents just left whether there were kids still at the church or not. I didn't have keys to the building and the kids would normally wait in the parking lot, sometimes for an hour or more, alone. I couldn't do that, it didn't feel right to leave these kids alone in the dark waiting for their parents. I even tried to make a deal about it in church, but it never changed. Meanwhile, my wife was at home getting more and more worried about me and wondering if the church was going to make me divorce her.

Finally, I started to become "semi-active" just going to sacrament meeting (the first hour) alone. I asked to be released from my calling. They tried to give me a token calling of keeping track of home teaching assignments and visits, something small so I could take care of my poor, inactive wife. At least that's the impression they gave me, I didn't really do the calling. Eventually, I stopped going all together. My wife started to realize that she was more important to me than the church, but she was still scared, she knew of the stories where people lost their spouses to the church and didn't want that to happen to us.

For years, I still believed "in my heart" while at the same time questioning it. All the while, I started to be more open to listening to new ideas and questioning things... I stopped paying tithing, after that we started doing better financially, who knew! I stopped wearing my garments and stopped being uncomfortable and I enjoyed a daily cup of tea (which I learned in Korea, where the Korean Mission president enjoyed tea every now and then, only certain kinds, not the Evil Black Tea). But this took years and it's only in the last year or so that I've allowed myself to accept that the church is false and to really look at what it is for what it is. I can now look at the Joseph Smith story with an objective eye. It's interesting that I can now remember the biography of Joseph Smith written by his mother that I read as a kid (even did a book report on it in High School, yep, I was popular) and see how all the contradictions in it with the canon of the church.

I no longer believe it's true and can easily see the subtle techniques used to lure people in and keep them there. I see how they change with the times to stay in power. How long after the Same Sex marriage is passed by the government with threats to tax-exempt status for churches that don't perform them do you think it will be before there's another "revelation" that "Oops, We like Homosexuals and really did all along"... or some other change like "that book of Abraham is just inspired by the Egyptian papers, not a literal translation". Looking at the latest from church leaders it seems that they are starting to distance them selves from difficult topics in order to soften those blows when they come. (Like, changing homosexuality is evil in all forms, to, we don't mind homosexuals as long as they don't marry or have sex with people they love.) The church changes, and it's not supposed to, especially these "eternal doctrines", temple cerimonies and other things, that now, looking back, seem all so very flexible depending on the times.

I don't know that we'll officially resign from the Church. My parents faithfully update the church with our address every time we move. I've "blocked" the address in my church profile online so it's not supposed to be published in the ward directory. But, I'm pretty sure that my parents would find out that we had resigned and it would really break their hearts and at this point, it's not really all that big of a problem for us. We still get the "offers" from my parents for various heirlooms if they can take us to the temple to buy new garments, etc. Anyway, We don't answer the door when we see someone coming up with a tray of cookies, which doesn't happen very often, but hey, they leave the cookies. I no longer believe in my heart and neither does my very supportive and loving wife. We have a happy home, I feel it's far happier now than it ever was in the church.

The funny thing is that the church did bring me a couple really good things. My mission did help me get out of the house and start to build my confidence which would eventually let me get out of the church. It also gave me my wife, whom I love dearly and would be lost without. It should be said that I'd like to think that I wouldn't have needed my mission if I hadn't been in the church and I'd like to think that I would have found my wife some other way if I hadn't been in the church. So, I try not to regret my time in the church too much. I'm still a bit angry at the lies and disillusionment, but we got out and I'm better for getting out.

There's a lot more, but I got the important bits out I think (the story of my Niece's excommunication is rather interesting, my sister's story is just as long as mine, but those are their stories)... Anyway, thanks for providing a forum for me to ramble on in...