The cost of leaving

[_Stormy Waters]

For those who leave the church it is a difficult journey.
My wife has left me, saying that'll she only come back on the condition that I change. My family relationships are damaged. My job only safe because I keep quiet.
The only way to free myself of the church completely seems to be to move and abandon everyone and everything I know.
To any Mormons out there I'd like to issue you a challenge. Try leaving the church. Then see if you can say that it isn't a cult.

[_Yoda]

The only area I know where your job would be in jeapordy is Utah. Is that where you are from?

I am so sorry you are going through this, Stormy Waters.

[_Tobin]

For those who leave the church it is a difficult journey.
My wife has left me, saying that'll she only come back on the condition that I change. My family relationships are damaged. My job only safe because I keep quiet.
The only way to free myself of the church completely seems to be to move and abandon everyone and everything I know.
To any Mormons out there I'd like to issue you a challenge. Try leaving the church. Then see if you can say that it isn't a cult.

I too am sorry you went through this. When I left the Church, I moved far away from Utah or anything having to do with Mormonism and made a new life in New York. However, your wife's reaction and those around you has nothing to do with Mormonism itself and they greatly error in treating you like this. They should accept you for who and what you are, and if they believe as I do that you are mistaken, express that through treating you kindly, listening to your concerns, treating you fairly, and by encouraging you to seek out and really see and speak with God instead.

[_Chap]

For those who leave the church it is a difficult journey.
My wife has left me, saying that'll she only come back on the condition that I change. My family relationships are damaged. My job only safe because I keep quiet.
The only way to free myself of the church completely seems to be to move and abandon everyone and everything I know.
To any Mormons out there I'd like to issue you a challenge. Try leaving the church. Then see if you can say that it isn't a cult.

I am sorry to hear of your troubles. This kind of punishment of those who leave the church seems to be exemplified with particular sharpness by Mormonism, of whose actual historical culture it seems to be an essential part.

Of course you get the same withdrawal of fellowship and close family problems in some other odd little religions, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses. But there are, so far as I know, no major areas of the earth's surface where Jehovah's Witnesses and similar enjoy the same predominance as Mormons have long enjoyed in some parts of the US. So even if they wanted to cause the same kinds of wider social problems for apostates as does Mormonism, they just couldn't.

I hope you are young enough to start a new life somewhere else, if that is what you want to do.

[_Drifting]

For those who leave the church it is a difficult journey.
My wife has left me, saying that'll she only come back on the condition that I change. My family relationships are damaged. My job only safe because I keep quiet.
The only way to free myself of the church completely seems to be to move and abandon everyone and everything I know.
To any Mormons out there I'd like to issue you a challenge. Try leaving the church. Then see if you can say that it isn't a cult.

I am sorry to hear of your troubles. This kind of punishment of those who leave the church seems to be exemplified with particular sharpness by Mormonism, of whose actual historical culture it seems to be an essential part.

Of course you get the same withdrawal of fellowship and close family problems in some other odd little religions, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses. But there are, so far as I know, no major areas of the earth's surface where Jehovah's Witnesses and similar enjoy the same predominance as Mormons have long enjoyed in some parts of the US. So even if they wanted to cause the same kinds of wider social problems for apostates as does Mormonism, they just couldn't.

I hope you are young enough to start a new life somewhere else, if that is what you want to do.

It is always difficult to realise that, in Mormonism, you are the most disposable party in the menage a tois of Husband/Wife/Religion...

[_Stormy Waters]

For those who leave the church it is a difficult journey.
My wife has left me, saying that'll she only come back on the condition that I change. My family relationships are damaged. My job only safe because I keep quiet.
The only way to free myself of the church completely seems to be to move and abandon everyone and everything I know.
To any Mormons out there I'd like to issue you a challenge. Try leaving the church. Then see if you can say that it isn't a cult.

I too am sorry you went through this. When I left the Church, I moved far away from Utah or anything having to do with Mormonismand made a new life in New York. However, your wife's reaction and those around you has nothing to do with Mormonism

I beg to differ

"In later years, I saw a few leave the Church who could then never leave it alone. They used often their intellectual reservations to cover their behavioral lapses"
Neal A. Maxwell April 2004 General conference

"If the people would live their religion, there would be no apostasy"
Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young, (1997), 78–84

"Why do men apostatize? Why do they lose the faith? Why do their minds become darkened? Because they wander from the right path; they neglect their duties and forget to pray, and to acknowledge the Lord and He withdraws His Spirit from them and they are left in the dark."
Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph F. Smith, (1998)

“The moment you permit yourselves to lay aside any duty that God calls you to perform, to gratify your own desires; the moment you permit yourselves to become careless, you lay a foundation for apostasy. Be careful; understand you are called to a work, and when God requires you to do that work do it.” Another thing he said: “In all your trials, tribulations and sickness, in all your sufferings, even unto death, be careful you don’t betray God, be careful you don’t betray the priesthood, be careful you don’t apostatize; because if you do, you will be sorry for it.”
Joseph Smith Ensign Sept 1971

"It seems that history continues to teach us: You can leave the Church, but you can’t leave it alone. The basic reason for this is simple. Once someone has received a witness of the Spirit and accepted it, he leaves neutral ground. One loses his testimony only by listening to the promptings of the evil one, and Satan’s goal is not complete when a person leaves the Church, but when he comes out in open rebellion against it."
Glenn L. Pace General Conference April 1989

"Those who leave the Church are like a feather blown to and fro in the air. They know not whither they are going; they do not understand anything about their own existence; their faith, judgment and the operation of their minds are as unstable as the movements of the feather floating in the air. We have not anything to cling to, only faith in the Gospel" (DBY, 84).
Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young, (1997), 78–84

"What is that which turns people away from this Church? Very trifling affairs are generally the commencement of their divergence from the right path."
Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young, (1997), 78–84

"Why did some of the early Church members apostatize from the Church? How could a forgiving attitude have helped them? What does the Lord say we should do when others offend us?"
Lesson 21: Joseph Smith Is Tarred and Feathered," Primary 5: Doctrine and Covenants: Church History, (1997)

"What can we do to keep ourselves from being deceived and led into apostasy?"
"Lesson 24: “Be Not Deceived, but Continue in Steadfastness”," Doctrine and Covenants and Church History Gospel Doctrine Teacher’s Manual, (1999)

When have the church and it's apologists ever conceeded that there are legitimate reasons to doubt?
In every case I've seen they place the blame squarely on the person who left and that attitude is reflected by the membership.

[Guest]

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[_sock puppet]

For those who leave the church it is a difficult journey.
My wife has left me, saying that'll she only come back on the condition that I change. My family relationships are damaged. My job only safe because I keep quiet.
The only way to free myself of the church completely seems to be to move and abandon everyone and everything I know.
To any Mormons out there I'd like to issue you a challenge. Try leaving the church. Then see if you can say that it isn't a cult.

I too am sorry you went through this. When I left the Church, I moved far away from Utah or anything having to do with Mormonism and made a new life in New York. However, your wife's reaction and those around you has nothing to do with Mormonism itself and they greatly error in treating you like this. They should accept you for who and what you are, and if they believe as I do that you are mistaken, express that through treating you kindly, listening to your concerns, treating you fairly, and by encouraging you to seek out and really see and speak with God instead.

It would be nice if Tobin's take on it were the Mormon reality. It is not.

[_Yahoo Bot]

Of course you get the same withdrawal of fellowship and close family problems in some other odd little religions, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses.

Or Islam. Or the Baptists.

Or in the case of one family on my mission, the Lutheran church.

The poster doesn't realize that "shunning" and "wife leaving me" are phenomena experienced with other religions and devout spouses. One of my law partners had hell to pay with his EV wife, who would wear on a day to day basis a large wooden cross around her neck. He decided he had enough of that life and didn't want to attend church any more. She left him and took the kids.

'm not saying that is appropriate by any means, and I fault the spouse who values her religion more than the father of her children, but it happens. But, when I was a bishop so long ago I would not support, emotionally (but perhaps financially as necessary), any wife who decided to leave her husband over his faithlessness in religion.

[_Stormy Waters]

The poster doesn't realize that "shunning" and "wife leaving me" are phenomena experienced with other religions and devout spouses. One of my law partners had hell to pay with his EV wife, who would wear on a day to day basis a large wooden cross around her neck. He decided he had enough of that life and didn't want to attend church any more. She left him and took the kids.

The church is not an idle third party in this. The church has actively worsened the effect by demonizing and marginalizing those who leave the church. They teach the membership that people leave because they're offended or because they want to sin.