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The original was posted on /r/exmormon by /u/CardiologistOk2760 on 2024-09-17 21:49:41+00:00.

My brother purchased a ski pass as a teenager and immediately quit going to church. If someone invited him back, he said he’d rather go skiing. If someone tried to talk about doctrine with him, he rolled his eyes. When our parents signed him up for seminary, he ditched class. When he was invited to attend youth events, he said he wouldn’t go because they were lame.

I held out until it was time to turn in my mission papers, then I told the bishop I had failed to believe. I continued to phrase it as a failure on my part when various ward and family members tried to re-route me back into the church.

My dad felt lied to, and was angry about it. He’d raised a family in the church, worked for the church as an employee, served various callings, and one day he looked up church history on the internet and felt like he’d been fucked with. He had a reputation for being timid, but he’d start fuming whenever anyone asked him why he left.

My mom says she never believed, just kept pretending until her husband and children stopped believing. The way she announced her departure to me was to offer me a coffee one morning. I’m not sure what she told the rest of her family.

If I did it again, I’d do it like my cousin. He finished his mission and then announced he couldn’t allocate any more of his thoughts to the mental gymnastics of it all. I like this because it would have saved me a lot of time when someone hit me with a surprise non-sequiter like, “wow, what a beautiful butterfly, doesn’t it just make you think about how true the church is?” Instead of saying, “How?” and continuing down a 45-minute rabbit hole, I’d just have said, “see, those are the gymnatics I’m talking about, but yes that’s a nice butterfly.”

What about you?