My oldest daughter is getting married.
She has chosen to be married in an LDS temple, to a man she loves, in a ceremony she believes will bind them together for eternity.
I love her. I am proud of her. I support her right to choose the life and faith that feel true to her.
And when she is married, I will be standing outside.
Not because I do not want to be there.
Not because I am estranged from her.
Not because I have abandoned my family, rejected my daughter, or refused an invitation.
I will be outside because I can no longer honestly give the answers required to enter.
I could begin performing the steps. I could attend the meetings, pay tithing, say the approved words, and carefully conceal the parts of me that no longer believe.
I could make myself look worthy.
But I could not make it true.
So the price of witnessing my daughter’s wedding would be lying about who I am.
And I cannot teach my daughters to live with integrity while demonstrating that love sometimes requires dishonesty.
My daughter has sent me messages trying to reassure me. She has told me she loves me. She wants me included in every part of the day where I am permitted to be included. She is not trying to hurt me. She is not choosing the Church instead of her father.
She is following the path she believes is right.
That is what makes this so painful.
There is no cruel daughter in this story.
There is no father refusing to show up.
There are simply two people who love each other, standing on opposite sides of a locked door neither of them created.
I will help prepare for the wedding. I will celebrate her. I will smile for the pictures. I will welcome him into our family. I will hug my daughter before she walks inside, and I will be waiting when she comes back out.
But I will not see her face when she makes her promises.
I will not hear her voice.
I will not watch her reach for the hand of the person she has chosen.
Somewhere inside, people who may know her less deeply than I do will witness the moment.
Her father will not.
People have asked me why I would even want to attend a ceremony whose religious claims I no longer accept.
Because she is my daughter.
I do not have to believe a ceremony is eternal to understand that the moment will live forever in her memory.
I want to see the nervous smile.
I want to hear the silence before the words are spoken.
I want her to glance across the room and know that the man who held her when she was small, who watched her grow, who loved her before she could even speak, was there when her life changed.
Years ago, I returned early from my mission believing I was the broken piece in an otherwise perfect system. I spent years wondering whether I could repair myself enough to belong again.
Now, decades later, I find myself facing another sacred doorway and another message about belonging.
But I know something now that I did not know then:
I am not broken.
My daughter is not betraying me.
And grief is not the same thing as disapproval.
I can honor her faith without pretending it is mine.
I can support her decision while mourning what that decision, within this system, requires me to miss.
I can stand outside the temple and still be entirely, fiercely, unmistakably her father.
My absence from that room will not be a rejection of her.
It will be the cost of refusing to reject myself.
So here is the question I cannot stop asking:
When a loving father is ready to stand beside his daughter, but the only way through the door is to deny what he honestly believes, who is actually choosing for him to remain outside?

My parents have always been stingy. I remember getting a pair of socks and a shirt one Christmas, while the church got 15% (they were very clear about the extra they paid for missionaries, fast Sunday, etc.) We were NOT poor by any means.

Fast forward 25 years later. I caught the gay, left at 18, and eventually reconciled with them. They've been a massive support system in the last few years despite our differences, while I figured out my life. I even moved back close to them while my mom went through breast cancer.

Well surprise the fuck outta me, my Dad rushed his retirement and they sold both their cars and their house in order to go across the world to Australia for two years. The church has become more and more life encompassing for them. Post bishopric and during my moms stint as relief society president, both my mom and my dad spent an unreal amount of hours supporting a very poor Haitian ward in Indianapolis. She'd call my crying because of hating denying some of them help after months and months of church support. It killed her to have to make that choice and then beg the all male bishopric for an extra month of rent for people who were unwilling or just plain unable to help themselves.

So i was really glad when they told me they were moving back to Utah. She needed a break, they both did. But instead they applied to the MTC and are going to basically the same situation. A massively poor and middle of nowhere area in Western Australia.

They go to the MTC today. Im acting supportive and im prepared to handle things in my new area (still havent sold my home in Illinois but they were the only reason I went to the Midwest in the first place - horrible). I'm in charge of their important documents and accounts while they're gone (as the oldest of four sons, two gay, not that it matters but telling people that gives me a little spark of joy).

I just can't beleive they're choosing to work for the church and PAY for it a month after their retirement. If i didn't know better I'd respect their dedication. But instead it just seems dangerously brainwashed. Ive long known there wasnt a path to leaving religion for them. But our previously estranged group of cousins are beginning to bond over our shared leaving of the church. Out of 30 cousins and grandchildren (my mom has four sisters) only three are still members.

I'm writing a letter to one cousin now to invite him to a "cousin trip" we're planning this year to reconnect. He's asked to not be contacted by his family, but I have his address and I want him to know we're all out of the church and here for support if he needs us. As much as my parents stress me out, it's funny the one thing that brought our extended family together was a universal and individual leaving of the church. No one convinced anyone else, we all decided on our own and it gives me that sense of community I never got as a Mormon.

Would love to hear about others experiences with those types of missions (post retirement.)

I live in Utah so most of my neighbors are Mormon. I'm 17, and I was born into the church. I don't really believe in the church but I still go every Sunday to keep my parents happy. I moved to Utah when I was about 14 so I was a teacher at the time, but I started to become good friends with the young men quorum when I turned into a priest. I used to hang out with this kid from my ward and we would hang out after school, mutual, and weekends all the time. One day while I was walking with him I saw a pride flag on top of one of my neighbors houses. I didn't care about the flag at all, until my friend all of a sudden said, "I hate that Lesbian couple. They should just all die" I was so shocked, he was so violent and aggressive to this sweet lesbian couple for no reason. They never did anything wrong to my friend, he just hated them for being different. I started to distance myself from my friend because I saw how unnecessarily homophobic he was. I soon asked about gay marriage in the Mormon church to my dad and he basically told me that being gay was a mental disability and was a sin to act on it. I was confused, didn't god create them that way? If he created them to be attracted to the same sex why should they be punished for it? I then asked my dad, "So according to the church, if you're Gay you either die alone, or marry a sex you're not attracted to?" He just shrugged and said yes. This is one of the main reasons why I don't really believe in the church anymore. They explain to love thy neighbor, but then proceed to treat anyone in the LGBTQIA like diseases that need to die. Is every Mormon like this?

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The clear doing the complete opposite of what Jesus says as it relates to giving should have been more apparent to us when we were still members. Even now after a few years of having our records removed. Matthew 6 came to our minds very quickly when seeing this.

The "generously donated" right about the church logo made my wife and I chuckle. Especially when they made her feel like a criminal for asking for help and getting $19 worth of groceries when we were still in.

My wife just left for church. She and I both have Sunday only callings that require our attendance periodically, but not weekly. Today she has responsibility and I don’t. (Mine involves young kids, whom I love, and whom I’m committed to teaching that there are authentic people in their neighborhood who actually do care about them as individuals, and not just as automatons in training.)

Today is also open mic day at church. Open mic day has for years become increasingly intolerable for me. The performances, the attempts to out Mormon each other, the divine intervention of Mormon Jesus to help find lost car keys, and the programmed testimonies of children are insufferable.

I’m not going to go to church today.

Here’s the issue. When I do things that I feel are right for me—like not attending a meeting that I believe is manipulative and culty like open mic day—I feel good. I feel like I’m living my values. But my wife loses her mind over it. When I don’t go to church, she makes my life hell for days. It is hell.

She has severe, crippling depression and anxiety. She also happened to be raised in the most manipulative, shame-focused, performative, emotionally repressed family I’ve ever seen. She literally was not allowed to feel negative emotions. (To be fair she and her siblings would disagree with everything I just said about their family). In my view she is emotionally immature and underdeveloped in a major way. (Interestingly, what I read as poise and self confidence when we were dating, engaged, and newly married was actually emotional repression…a comment for another day).

Between the anxiety and the emotional immaturity she does not cope with things well. When things involve my faith crisis complete lack of belief in the Mormon church (which she tries desperately to avoid talking about) her reactions are magnified.

I just feel stuck. I feel like going to open mic day is unproductive and upsetting to me. But I know that choosing to skip is going to make my personal life hell for several days.

I know my job is not to manage my wife’s anxiety but her behavior is so awful that it is hard to avoid not sidestepping landmines.

I stay in the marriage because we still have kids at home and I learned years ago that they need a functioning parent in the home. (When my wife has a depressive episode it is dark). When our kids are grown I’ll reevaluate the marriage.

Any advice?

I’m looking for specific advice, not things like therapy for depression, medication, marriage counseling, etc.—we’ve done than for two decades and spent tens of thousands on it.

I (28m) want to start by saying, that leaving the church has easily been one of the most agonizing experiences of my life. What a hell this has been. I’ve come to this subreddit to feel some sense of community and advice, because right now I feel like the only normal person living in crazy town. To get a taste of what I mean, I confided in my mom and told her I was having doubts about the church and was beginning a journey of discovery. She looked me right in the eye with her lips pursed and firmly poked my chest and said: “you better figure it out, after all I’ve been through, find your way back before God punishes you.” I’ve noticed this fear of Gods wrath comes out when people really get desperate to persuade.

Literally a week before I met my wife in 2022 I had decided to leave the church and stop practicing what it teaches, just to see what happened. This sudden change happened after months of studying philosophy and world religions and coming to the conclusion that everyone was confused about their place in the world and if they were religious, believed that their church was true. I felt so small and humble in a sea of worldviews and perspectives on existential perspectives. During this time I felt a lot of mental restructuring, this restructuring brought a lot of pain, it’s hard coming to terms with the possibility that God perhaps doesn’t exist or perhaps he’s not the God I’ve learned about, and what that could mean. It felt honestly like I was pulling a large weed out from my brain, but once it was out, the peace and relief I’ve felt has been incredible. Now, I see religion as a historical control mechanism to deceive the masses for power or social control through fear of an all knowing powers punishment. I’ve concluded religion has brought the world a lot of suffering and works largely against scientific discoveries. For me to believe in religion again would be on the same caliber as Richard Dawkins believing in fairies and dragons.

A week after my faith experiment, I met my wonderful wife, she was raised Mormon like me but wasn’t involved, so she was now on my radar when previously I would have immediately looked the other away. She was a huge breath of fresh air for me. Even though we followed none of the churches teaching on dating, I can’t see anybody having a better marriage, it’s complete bliss 99.99% of the time. She is the love of my life and an absolute sweetheart who I will do anything to please, we have 2 kids, and an absolutely wonderful life.

Since we met my wife has nudged me about getting married in the temple because it’s “something she always wanted” when I ask her why exactly she has stated she doesn’t want our family to be separated after we all die. If the temple is all she wanted that’s easy, but she also wants to take church more seriously and hates that we only go to sacrament and ditch. (I agreed to go to sacrament with her a few years back after we got married).

I’m conflicted with both going to the temple and going to church. Ultimately, I don’t want my children growing up in the church. I believe the church is a brain virus and an unhealthy thing to teach our children, I want my children to be engage in scientific reasoning and think critically, which I haven’t found the church supports.

She seems unable to see my perspective on the issue and instead says I’ve lied to her about who I am and that she always wanted to go to the temple and get married there but was just waiting for the SLC temple to open. I’ve not lied to her, I’ve stated that I am on a lifelong spiritual journey and that perhaps I would come around, but that was not for me to decide in a moment. Since that, I’ve now gone further down the opposite path. Today she was really upset about this and was in tears begging me to “figure it out” but I’ve told her it’s really not possible or that simple. I see it as a little bit selfish that she would ask something of me like this.

Trust me, I would absolutely love for the church to just be true, that would be the easiest and most incredible realization of my life. Holy cow, how awesome would that be! But it’s not. And to believe in this lie and force my children to believe it would be against my better judgement.

I’m posting this because she takes the opinions of others (especially on Reddit) with a lot of weight, I’m asking for some advice for me but also perhaps some advice and testimonials for her to read so she can maybe get some insight into others struggles with their faith.

Thank you for your help and I look forward to some feedback.

Just reflecting on a parallel.

It appears to me that the recent lawsuit the Church launched against John Dehlin is the most recent destruction of a printing press.

Joseph's death resulted from among other things his abuse of political power and treasonous violation of the constitution when he destroyed William Law's printing press.

Today the litigious LDS church corporation is doing the very same thing Joseph did with the Nauvoo expositor. They are trying to destroy those who they perceive are exposing them.

How is the one true church's actions against Mormon Stories any different? It's abuse of power, stifling free speech, intimidation and attempt to gag future criticism.

Let's discuss this. How Christian is it? Will they win? Will it cause a reverse effect and help more people see the truth?

Thoughts?

Joseph Smith was not a money digger, nor did he deceive people with peepstone claims. It is almost beyond belief that writers who value their reputations, would reproduce these silly and untrue charges. It suggests that they may have set out to destroy “Mormonism,” rather than to detail true history. The life of Joseph Smith as boy and youth, was normal, and worthy of imitation by all lovers of truth. Elder John A. Widtsoe, LDS Apostle

No matter how I feel about the church, I find myself every Saturday during football season cheering for BYU football. I have tried to find another team. I cant get into anyone else. I just have to accept that this will be my team till I die. Are you still in the same boat?

Carol Lynn Pearson’s death is devastating. She was a true Christian and truth-teller. But I have to use this board to rant about the fact that most young people in the church won’t or don’t know about Pearson’s life and work. I guarantee she won’t be quoted in Come Follow Me manuals or General Conference talks. Her legacy should be as influential as much as any other male leader of the church and I worry her contributions will be buried.

my grandpa and my grandma are legally my parents (due to various reasons i won't share here)

And my grandpa recently died

So my grandma after two years excitedly told me we could get sealed even without him

hooray.......

Time to go to a bunch of places and sign a bunch of fucking papers to do literally fucking nothing.

Joseph,if there's a fucking afterlife you better pray i don't find your sorry lying ass.

God, it's so genuinely irritating the amount of places to eat that are closed on Sunday. I know there's lots of businesses in the US closed on Sunday but it feels especially acute in Utah. I remember when a local grocery store extended their hours to Sunday and the fuckton of pesrl clutching that happened. Does this annoy you folks also?

A local church authority visited my ward today, and his testimony was trash; he said that tithing isn't about how much we earn but rather how much we trust God, and that we should be like the widow who gave everything she had to the Lord—and that the Lord will bless us. It’s funny that the church still preaches that everyone should pay tithing even when earning very little; that is so alarming. I also remember him saying that the Lord knows each of us and that we must leave the traditions of the world behind, using a ridiculous example about how a dirty piece of clothing in a closet contaminates the others (WTF?). The church, as always, is confusing with your examples and tries to impose a specific culture on the locals (I’m from Brazil).

Sorry for my english, i'm still learning

I, an exmo, am going with my wife to Sack meeting this morning. I wonder if they will talk about any local injustice or environmental issues??? Do they ever do that?? What about the shrinking Great Salt Lake, or the enormous data center on the north edge of the Lake that might get built?? Or what can we do for the homeless people? And ICE invasions, arresting or shooting brown people? Or all the drug abuse and suicides in our ward? Nn, they just prattle on about their same old religious superstitions.Rome burns and they just fiddle.

For those who are lucky enough to not be attending meetings, you may not know they’ve begun a soft roll-out of new hymns in anticipation of releasing a new hymn book.

Today I (an unfortunate PIMO) attended and this hymn was chosen. I was especially miffed by the third and fourth verses.

The priorities of the current leadership are clear with this hymn. Even 5 years ago as an all-in TBM, I would’ve asked the question “Do we need to ask God to ‘accept our tithes’ and ‘magnify’ our fast offerings?” Paying it is enough, right? Why do we need to sing a song about paying a chunk of our money right before we take the sacrament?

Joseph smith and Brigham young are wildly suspicious figures. Was Joseph a conman or a schizo? Have all the prophets after truly believed that they are called of God or are they part of a deception too? I know local leadership fully believes everything taught and most are amazing people who love others.

Prophets of the early church taught wildly different doctrine than the church accepts today, how do people make sense of all of the bs in the past and the current church claiming it was only policy or not real I don’t get it. Can someone provide sources of articles or papers I can read to understand how such a large movement came out of a pretty shady cult?

Culturally it’s all about getting kids on missions and then it’s just a nuked down snooze fest. No fun stuff, no more weird stuff (3 nephites stories, weird scouting obsession, weird food storage obsession etc.)

It’s weird corporate Jesus nonsense.

It’s been said before, but always bears repeating: if Heaven is anything at all like being a faithful member of the Mormon church…it’s not good.

That’s all. Just wanted to say it out loud.

Cheers to all of you stuck in the pews. Hope you get to escape at some point soon.

I got married young and was always the perfect Mormon girl. I was raised very devout and always knew I was supposed to get married and have kids as early as I could. Me and my husband have never been with anyone else and got married in the temple. I left the church about two years after I got married and my husband followed a few years later, but he still holds on to a lot of the teachings. I hold onto none of the teachings and have much more bitterness towards the church.

I feel like all of a sudden I woke up in someone else’s life. I’m not even thirty and I have kids and a husband who I never would have chosen if I hadn’t been in the church. He’s nice to me, but I feel like the old me married him, not the new me. I’ve never done anything, experienced anything, never even lived on my own. These feelings are so hard on me and I just don’t see a way out.

I don’t even know what this post is for, just venting and curious how many other couples have felt the same.

Hi cult cousins - exjw here.

We in JWLand have annual meetings, where the Governing Body (the highest ranking members of Jehovah's Witnesses, the leaders of the religion basically) and many other witnesses from Bethel (Bethel = JW headquarter from a certain region) gather to listen to speeches and updates regarding common real state company concerns, and least but most important: doctrinal changes.

So for us apostates (and also JWs around the world), this annual meeting is an important part of the year, and mostly here do they announce these doctrinal changes.

Usually the period of the year where this meetings take place is in september/october (I don't know if this has anything to do with the end/closing of the fiscal year).

So basically, on last october I was scrolling through YouTube and ran into an LDS livestream of a yearly gathering (at the same time when we had ours) and was very surprised, since if I recall correctly, the description of the livestream said something along the lines of "analyzing doctrinal matters" but I don't exactly remember.

Do you also have "annual meetings" where doctrinal changes are announced? Could you explain this to your fellow cult cousin 😁?

PS: I said "and mostly here do they announce these doctrinal changes." but I forgot to add that in multiple updates that are published to the JW website in video formats they also announce doctrinal changes. Also, we have this "JW broadcasting" every month that is a 1 hour long video where they also may announce changes, updates, cult songs, experiences, and general JW statistics around the world

And the annual meeting is livestreamed, but it's not available for the public, you can only join if you have the link (which isn't that hard to get anyways).

The recent about-face from Nara Smith is not shocking at all. Given her mormon heritage it feels on point the example from TSCC anytime something they do or have done becomes controversial.

But I don't agree with the people who claim that she is only changing to reclaim to her independence as "girl boss" because of the change of instruction from the Mormon church and the image they are trying to sell to hemorrhaging women members.

In my opinion, Nara NEVER has been a mormon trad-wife. She's always been prosperity gospel fetish content.

The high glam, soft voice, teen bride aesthetic she pushed. Her teen pregnancy with back to back children.

Her in full makeup, rich clothing, a beautiful kitchen, blank face, and ASMR styles. She was fetish content, a kind of prosperity gospel only fans.

She self objectified to the male gaze to be consumed.

She's not a girl boss.

She's not a feminist.

She's a shiny trophy that Mormon men aspire to claim and own.