Ex-Mormon Stories

This is part five of my exit story from the LDS Church. If you missed the first four posts, please start with Part One here.

The night of the fiasco with the bishop, my husband and I went for a walk. I finally told him what happened with the bishop, and unlike the last time I told him I was doubting the Church, he took it really well this time. He told me that he’d had a bad run-in with a bishop years ago, and that he went inactive for three years because of it.

I was shocked - we had been married for six and a half years by that point, and I had never heard any of this. Turns out, he didn’t want to tell me before because he knew how strongly I believed in the Church, and he thought I would judge him for being inactive for so long. It’s strange how many barriers a church can put between two people, especially a church that claims it cares so much about the family.

Needless to say, DJ was very supportive of me as we discussed our options. I still wanted to try attending church to see if I could regain my testimony, but the ward we had been attending was out of the picture. There was no way I could continue attending that ward and see that bishop up on the stand every Sunday.

As I mentioned before, Deej was going through a major depression period at this point, so believe it or not, the run-in with the bishop and my questioning of the gospel was not our primary concern. It was trying to keep my husband sane.

Even so, I spent the next week internally questioning and debating everything. If there was a God, then why…If God did exist, then how…

Around and around the questions went.

Then one day, I got up, took a shower and went to get dressed just like normal, but this time, when I started to pull on my garments, I realized: I don’t believe. I just couldn’t make myself believe any longer that there was a God, and if there was no God, then I certainly didn’t need to wear my garments. I threw all of my garments into the back of the closet, and instead pulled on a pair of panties I kept on hand for the time of the month when I was on my period.

That afternoon, my husband noticed (Lesson Number One: Husbands always notice a difference in your underwear. Never think you can sneak this past them, because you can’t.) He asked if we needed to do laundry because he thought I was out of clean garments.

“Ummm….no, that’s not it,” I stammered. I didn’t want to lie, but I also knew that this was going to be a harder discussion than the last one. Last time, I still wanted to believe and attend church. Now, I was done with all of that. How do I tell my true-believing Mormon husband the truth?

I finally just blurted it out, “I just don’t believe there is a God.”

Despite this unpromising beginning, the conversation went surprisingly well.  I guess the warning I’d already given him helped smooth the way.  He spent a lot of time asking me questions like “Do you believe in angels?” and “Does this mean you’re going to drink alcohol now?” and never once freaked out. Words cannot describe how grateful I was for that.

That night we went out to eat, and I ordered coffee - the first time I had ever tried it. Words also cannot describe how utterly nasty I think that stuff is. I tried it black, with cream, and with sugar, and it tasted like wet dirt every time (with both the cream and the sugar in it, it at least tasted like sweet wet dirt, but wet dirt nonetheless).  I was quite sad about this - I had always said that if I left the Mormon Church, the first thing I’d do is start drinking coffee.  Well, scratch that idea.

Here’s the strange part: Over the course of the next week, I said I did not believe in God, but a small part of me still believed the Mormon Church was true. On the surface, that seems like a blatant contradiction, and sad to say, even when you dig in deeper, it is still a blatant contradiction.

It also wasn’t a contradiction that I delved into too deeply. When I discussed religion with someone, I told them that I didn’t believe there was a God, and that I didn’t believe the LDS Church was true. I was saying all the right things, but deep down, I just couldn’t let go of the idea of the Mormon Church being the one true church on earth.

Think about past Fast and Testimony Meetings that you’ve attended. Think about Sunday School and Relief Society/Priesthood lessons. Which is emphasized more: Knowing God is there and real, or knowing that Joseph Smith was a true prophet, that we have a living prophet here on earth today, and that the Church is the one true Church here on earth?  Unless your ward is completely different than any I ever attended, you’ll realize that the Church is always emphasized over anything else.

Joseph Smith said that he has done more for mankind than anyone else (including Jesus), and apparently the Church agrees with him.  We have buildings named after him, we sing his praises, and we teach our children that he restored the True Church to the earth, along with their ABC’s.

“Praise to the man who communed with Jehovah,” anyone?

So looking back on it, it’s not surprising that I lost my testimony in God before I lost my testimony in the LDS Church.

But then the bubble burst.  About a week after my atheist proclamation (where I only told my husband, my questioning sister, and my atheist brother what was happening) my buried but still very real belief came crashing to the ground in an event I will never, ever forget.

Part Six: The Masons and the Mormons.

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