I tried. I really did. 

 

My parents are/were both converts but married in the temple. I am the oldest of 4 girls. They divorced when I was 9 and he was ex-ed (his own story, shall he choose to tell it - he is JazzDaddio here).

 

My mother remains very active. She had a miserable time as a divorced woman in the church. I can remember hearing people actually tell her in front of us that surely not all 4 of us 'would make it' and remain LDS, with my father's standing as it was. I remember her being shunned by some of her relief society "sisters". It makes me mad now, looking back, not recognizing it then for what it was.

 

We had a decent sized youth program in our area, north of Dallas. When I started in Young Womens it changed me. I wanted to be good and I tried so hard. I wanted to be pure and worthy of a temple marriage and ultimately the Celestial Kingdom. I was president of Beehives, then Mia Maids, then Laurels. I didn't know then, but have been told now, lately even, that I was so very looked up to by the girls younger than I. I read everyday. I prayed fervently many, many times a day. My Sophmore year was the year we studied the D&C in Seminary. I now know that the cog-dis I felt then was the seed that laid dormant in my subconcious for a decade. I wouldn't look directly at the questions. I tossed them aside as unimportant since the church was true, truer than anything in this life.

 

After high school I knew I wanted only to be a wife and mother in Zion. In Laurels we had made a list of every characteristic we wanted our eternal companion to have. Mine was very simple: return missionary. I felt so spiritually in-tune and was so praised by my teacher for those two words. Other girls put more 'frivolous' things like sense of humor, nice dresser, not hairy (I'm serious - that really was one). The very first return missionary that I dated, I married. It was a long distance 'courtship'. We spent a week together when he visited me in Texas. For most of a summer I visited him and his family in Utah. I had my endowment done that Thanksgiving less than 6 months after we had started to date. He flew in for that weekend. Then we were sealed that January.

 

Looking back I can see it was so ridiculous... the rushed timing of it all. We hardly knew each other... but any two people living the gospel can have a successful marriage right?

 

My return missionary never struck me; his abuse was other. I tried so hard to be a good wife. A couple months into the marriage return missionary tells me he never loved me, or even liked me, he just wanted to have sex. There's more to this part of the story, of course... to everything he said, things he did... but I lived in denial about it all even as it continued. Two and a half years and some LDS marriage counceling later and I left him. The unanswered prayer there is, we never conceived.

 

After that, I promised myself I'd marry purely for love, that religion would play no part in it. It was love at first sight when I saw him, my non-practicing Jewish bartender. I was still TBM. My mother was not thrilled when I brought him home. She tried many times to push me to end it.

 

He's amazing and brilliant so I just 'knew' that eventually he'd come around to the gospel. Our first son was blessed by my brother-in-law. After having him it was difficult to stay active. I tried, but respecting that, other church goers might want to hear the speaker and not my little boy, kept me in the mothers room or at home. I was still very much believing.

 

Soon after that I met my best friend. Our bishop had given her my phone number as someone married to a non-member. Her husband had blind-sided her with his unbelief and then he resigned, changing her world. We became friends quickly. We talked openly and often about her husband's reasons, about things that nagged at us...but it was just that, talk.

 

One day in a new ward, the bishop calls. They'd done a search on ward members who had endowments done but didn't have a current recommend. He, knowing DH was not LDS, was surprised to see my name come up. We set an appointment and I was excited to rededicate myself.

 

I went to the bishop's home for the interview, answered all the questions as honestly as I felt, right at that moment. I confessed everything I could possibly think of that might have been any shade of grey. He congratulated me and held out to me my recommend. He started to go on about the 2nd interview, stake so-in-so blah blah. I could not take the recommend. I felt sick. I interupted him, told him I had to get home and discuss it with my husband. I drove home quickly... still feeling sick. I didn't breathe a word to my husband. I tried to find good feelings about it, as I knew I should feel. I fired up the computer to find some quotes from General Authorities about temples, for inspiration... google was my friend.

 

Instead of inspiration I found racism, failed prophecies, DNA contradictions. In that moment I had to take my garments off, they were choking me. I threw up. For 5 days, I kept it hidden from my husband that my faith was unravelling (because surely any moment I'd find an answer to all this, to cure my delusions and doubt, and I wouldn't give him the ammo). I tried. I researched, I read the scriptures, wept and prayed... and wept and wept. The 5th night I was in bed praying and weeping while my husband slept. A light went on in my head. I asked once, "Is it not true? Is the church NOT true, all a lie?" I felt peace. That was it. My decision was made. The next day I told my husband. 

 

I thought I'd remain inactive and fade quietly away. An over-zealous ward clerk told me a couple months later that I HAD to come in for a tithing settlement. Even though I was a stay-at-home mom with a non-member husband, had nothing to claim, had a 25 minute drive to the chapel each way, had a brand new baby, it was winter... I HAD to come in... I had no choice he said, the proverbial "straw". I hung up on him and sent my letter to the bishop that day.

 

My extended family's responses varied. My mother and my's relationship will never be the same. She told me I was a bad mother, my children would suffer. She told me I've ruined her life and her eternity. One of my sisters told me I was "throwing away happiness with both hands". However it made my dad and I closer, to discuss all the things we found and all the BS we deal with about the church through our family.

 

I am now an agnostic poly-deist but that may very well change, who knows.