Moving / Separating Myself from the Church Completely
Posted: Tue Jan 02, 2018 12:50 am
Hi Everyone,
Just wanted to share my excitement around moving out of state this upcoming year. I live in a somewhat small city and the LDS community is very tight-knit and small. It truly feels like all active members know each other or have at least heard of each other in some way or another.
I am truly so excited to move away from this environment. Since no longer attending church for probably about 2 years now, I dread seeing someone from one of our old wards while running errands or at the gym and having to explain my "situation" as an inactive member. I find it very hard to be phony and to put on an "act" that my husband and I are still active / believing so I always feel very awkward. The way I've dealt with this is avoiding people as much as I possibly can. I just don't have the strength or desire to explain to our old friends why I don't want to go to church anymore, why i don't believe in a lot of what the church sets forth as doctrine, etc. . . Over the past 1.5 years I would say, I no longer invite out old friends, turn down offers to spend time with them and avoid events / places I'm more likely to see friends from church / people we knew from church. I truly hate this feeling! I feel as if i always have these thoughts in the back of my mind of seeing people while out, someone from church seeing me order coffee from Starbucks, being "seen" wearing shorts that are not bermudas, etc. . . I already deal with anxieties and this certainly hasn't helped.
I have never dealt with anything like this in my life. On top of serious difficulties with my marriage and feeling unsupported due to my need to isolate / separate myself from our previous life (and having few connections outside of members), it's been an extremely rough past 2 years (my husband and I were sealed 12/2015 and it's been downhill from that time). I feel like I'm just surviving and focusing on caring for myself and trying not to worry about what other people are thinking, etc. . . this includes my husband's family that live in the next city.
I cannot express the joy I feel at the thought of being able to live in freedom!! I have no intention of being engaged whatsoever in the LDS community once we move and look forward to building connections with people I'm truly interested in and feel a true connection with--something I've been missing and craving for such a long time now.
The one "loose thread" left hanging is that of my marriage. My husband and I have had many talks, at length about whether our relationship is something we want to continue with or leave behind. My falling away from the church has not benefited my husband in any way and I feel truly guilty that it has actually been a negative influence on his life. He still considers himself a believer although we don't go to church and don't really do any church-related activities (we shop on Sunday, don't do FHE, etc. . . .) It seems in many ways we are going in two different directions. We are going to be going through marriage counseling to see if we can salvage something, but I have a feeling I may be moving on my own.
Wish me / us luck during this strange and exciting time! Thanks for reading.
Just wanted to share my excitement around moving out of state this upcoming year. I live in a somewhat small city and the LDS community is very tight-knit and small. It truly feels like all active members know each other or have at least heard of each other in some way or another.
I am truly so excited to move away from this environment. Since no longer attending church for probably about 2 years now, I dread seeing someone from one of our old wards while running errands or at the gym and having to explain my "situation" as an inactive member. I find it very hard to be phony and to put on an "act" that my husband and I are still active / believing so I always feel very awkward. The way I've dealt with this is avoiding people as much as I possibly can. I just don't have the strength or desire to explain to our old friends why I don't want to go to church anymore, why i don't believe in a lot of what the church sets forth as doctrine, etc. . . Over the past 1.5 years I would say, I no longer invite out old friends, turn down offers to spend time with them and avoid events / places I'm more likely to see friends from church / people we knew from church. I truly hate this feeling! I feel as if i always have these thoughts in the back of my mind of seeing people while out, someone from church seeing me order coffee from Starbucks, being "seen" wearing shorts that are not bermudas, etc. . . I already deal with anxieties and this certainly hasn't helped.
I have never dealt with anything like this in my life. On top of serious difficulties with my marriage and feeling unsupported due to my need to isolate / separate myself from our previous life (and having few connections outside of members), it's been an extremely rough past 2 years (my husband and I were sealed 12/2015 and it's been downhill from that time). I feel like I'm just surviving and focusing on caring for myself and trying not to worry about what other people are thinking, etc. . . this includes my husband's family that live in the next city.
I cannot express the joy I feel at the thought of being able to live in freedom!! I have no intention of being engaged whatsoever in the LDS community once we move and look forward to building connections with people I'm truly interested in and feel a true connection with--something I've been missing and craving for such a long time now.
The one "loose thread" left hanging is that of my marriage. My husband and I have had many talks, at length about whether our relationship is something we want to continue with or leave behind. My falling away from the church has not benefited my husband in any way and I feel truly guilty that it has actually been a negative influence on his life. He still considers himself a believer although we don't go to church and don't really do any church-related activities (we shop on Sunday, don't do FHE, etc. . . .) It seems in many ways we are going in two different directions. We are going to be going through marriage counseling to see if we can salvage something, but I have a feeling I may be moving on my own.
Wish me / us luck during this strange and exciting time! Thanks for reading.
It's a crazy, fun world out here! You're going to love it!