My disaffection story

I stopped going to church approximately 16 months ago. I have not officially resigned, and as of now there are no immediate plans to do so. I always figured I would do it if I felt a need, but for now, my ward and family has been pretty respectful of our wishes to be left alone. I've never written my disaffection story before, and in talking to a friend, I realized it might be a good idea to put it on my blog then I can point people here if they're ever interested in knowing my story.

Grab a snack, this could take awhile.

I was BIC, and raised by two devout parents. While we always went to church on sundays, had callings, prayed before meals and bed, we were never totally TBM. We were, but rated R movies were okay once I was old enough, we would run to the grocery store on sundays, had diet coke aplenty in our house. So I guess we were the shades of gray type of sinners. I am the youngest of 5 children, and one by one, all of my older siblings apostasized by the time they were 21. I held on, mostly for my parents sake (so they could have at least ONE "good" kid), and also because in high school, I was good friends with several kids whose fathers were General Authorities. I was surrounded by the goodie goodie types, but I am glad I did. I had some good experiences being friends with these people, and I really learned a lot. I dare say that this helped as I went further along the path of apostacy.

When I was 22 I was married in the Bountiful Temple. My husband was not an RM, but still the good churchy type of guy. For the first two years of our marriage our church attendance was off and on, then we got really active once we bought a house in an older neighborhood with a struggling ward.

The next few years is boring to talk about- we served hefty callings such as YW 1st councellor, EQ presidency, etc. By the time we left the church, I was in the primary presidency and he was the finance clerk. Both of us were extremely involved with our ward. We were there every week, and I mean every week. I think we missed 6 weeks in 6 years, and most of that was from materinity leave time. We really gave our all, made huge efforts and sacrifices and were living as we thought we should.

A few months after I had my twins, I was called to be a gospel doctrine teacher for the teenagers. I'm a pretty hip woman, and still relatively young. I remember what it's like to be a teenager and have always been able to relate to them well. But I was terrified of this calling. First of all, the lesson manuals are the same for 13 year olds as they are for 83 year olds so it was up to me to determine how to gear the lessons so that they would understand.

So for nearly two years, I taught this class. Everything was fine and dandy until I got the Book of Mormon manual. A lof of what I was told to teach didn't make sense, or seemed like a double standard, and I just never felt that "spirit" when I prepared my lessons. Plus sometimes the lessons would contratict each other, and that really annoyed me. I allowed myself to think "What if it's not true?" But I quickly put that thought away. So I asked my husband my burning questions. His answer to me was "Pray more. Have more faith. Read your scriptures more often. It will all work out". I figured he was right, and continued to carry on. I was finally fed up with teaching these teenagers (who would try to trip my toddlers when they were learning how to walk), so I got my guts together and told my bishop I needed to be released. I went about 2 weeks without a calling before I was called to teach primary. Okay, younger kids are a little easier to teach than teenagers, I could handle this. Plus the lessons were easier. I was okay with this calling.

Near the end of the Book of Mormon year our Bishop was visiting primary. The president asked him to tell us what a testimony must consist of. He said that first and foremost, we must believe in the Prophet Joseph Smith. My heart sunk when I heard that. I realized that after this year of teaching BOM lessons, I never had a testimony of Joseph Smith. In fact, something about him was creeping me out this whole time, I just never allowed myself to think about it.

The next few months are a bit of a haze. I went through the motions, very numb. I figured this is what was in store for the rest of my life. Not really believing, but not doing anything about my disbelief. One sunday morning, it was February's fast sunday, I was in a particularly bad mood. I was babysitting the daughter of my good friend- she and her husband were both presidents of different groups and both had to be at early morning ward counsel before church. I was writing out a hefty tithing check, and realizing that I was going to have to put a root canal on my credit card later that week. This thought pissed me off, it made no sense that I had to charge a necessity, yet give cash away to a church that already have PLENTY of cash. The meeting was running overtime and I had to take care of this baby instead of getting myself ready for church and preparing my lesson. Too many small things collided all at once and I had it. And I started griping to my husband, very loudly. The first presidency doesn't give a rats ass about our struggling ward (we live in SLC, and everyone in our ward had 2 or 3 callings each), why am I giving money to this chuch and going into debt for a root canal and crown? I'm tired, I'm exhaused. I had to go to church, then come home alone and take care of my young kids while my husband stayed after for several hours for meetings and counting the tithing. And I don't even really believe in this church, I'm only doing this so that I don't disappoint my parents! At this point my husband stood up and looked at me and said "It's fine with me if you don't want to pay tithing. And quit worrying about your parents. I've been told not to tell you, but your dad doesn't believe anymore either!". I was gutted.

So I went to church that day with tears in my eyes the whole time. I didn't know what to do next. I had been given a link to an essay at Zarahemla city limits, by someone I knew off of an LDS parenting board. http://www.zarahemlacitylimits.com/iron_rod.htm This essay saved my sanity, I highly recommend reading it. Then I read more and more essays, and eventually found The View From The Foyer from there. My husband realized it was okay for him to question and research, and we spend the next two to three months reading everything we could. Eventually I had a talk with my dad, and he was thrilled to know of my choices. I talked to some of my older siblings who disaffected yeeeeeears prior, and they were great for support and giving me more places to research and things to know. I was shocked to learn about the Book of Abraham and Joseph Smith's polyandry. So many little things came out of the woodwork. For me, my disaffection wasn't one thing altogether, it was just all of the small little things that piled up and made it so I could no longer pretend.

For a few months I thought I would try to keep going to church for my mom's sake (I knew I would be a huge disappointment for her, since I was her last hope for eternity), and for a ward friend. Soon after, my friend moved. I was in the primary presidency at this point, and had to do a sharing time lesson on Joseph Smith (this was the year of the church history manual, after all). This made me physically ill. I sat there in primary realizing how much I hated this. I looked at my daughters who were sunbeams and sitting on the front row, and realized that they hated this, too. I figured now is a good time to walk away, they won't remember much about church and could care less if we continued to go. The next week I just didn't go to church, and neither did my husband. He did show up after the meetings to do his duties as finance clerk. Then after he transmitted the funds, he told the bishop that he needed to talk.

The bishop was shocked. We were 100%ers. We did everything we needed to do, and did it happily. The next day I sent a follow up letter that explained to the bishop that this was a joint decision, it was not hasty by any means, and we are at peace with this choice. He did call one time after this meeting, and asked if he could come visit us. I said no, I was no longer going to let him have this power over me. Since then he has stopped by our house once just to see how we were doing. My husband answered the door and said "We're great, thanks for checking in!" and that was it. We have since come out to our families, which were painful processes but liberating at the same time.

I bought myself a coffee maker as a reward for coming clean to all those who matter. This is why I need the DAMU, or post mormon community. Only they will understand the significance of my buying a coffee maker.