Hi. I’m new

Hi, Keth, and welcome!

One thing I would like to point out is that it’s not either-or, black&white. You said you’ve thought about leaving, but feel you don’t want to (you feel pain in the separation), and you also said that when you go to church, you feel frustration. Just realize that those are not your only two choices. Many leave for good, and get past the pain. folks here tend to stay in some way, even if they never attend church, but they can’t bring themselves to completely separate, and this is for a variety of reasons. What’s important, I think, is that many here feel less frustration as time goes forward.

A great way to accomplish this, should you choose, is to prioritize. We tend to lump all our frustrations into one pile. But the reality is that if someone starts preaching about how terrible same sex marriage is, I find that to be on a completely different level than somebody saying that they prayed to find their lost keys. Some are not able to separate these in their mind and they get frustrated over the small stuff just as much as the big stuff, and that, IMO, leaves them with nothing but frustration in the Church. To me, the lost keys doctrine is an eye-roller, but I know it comes from a faith within, so I don’t get upset about it. I’ve gotten to a point in my life where I find a lot of things to love about the Church and I let go of the eye-rolling. Sometimes I’m more successful than others, but trying has resulted in a lot of personal satisfaction.

Welcome.

I’ve chosen to do Mormonism “my way” and it works for me.

This. I am fully active, have a temple recommend and live a very typical Mormon life – but I still “do Mormonism my way”.

It’s incredibly liberating.

And then when I go back to church it is often very frustrating. Sometimes I have to leave a class so I won’t say something I’ll regret.

I have often felt this way. One thing that helps is if you just observe without judgment, like going to a zoo or an archaeological dig or reading a book about a culture that you don’t belong to, but that is intriguing in some way. I have found that often the people whose opinions I like least are ones I can easily imagine just aren’t that articulate or thoughtful about what they are saying. They’ve gotten caught up in something else (approval, their schtick, or just spouting a party line), and that’s why they’ve said what they’ve said. Anyway, that helps me to distance myself from it.

Best to just let go. If you like some aspects of the church then enjoy those. Ignore the crazy stuff the best you can. It is hard to do but best to just say little to nothing in class. After a lifetime of indoctrination most members simply can not get their heads around anything other than the correlated message. I have said things while giving a lesson that was so blatantly obvious and the class just freezes up not knowing how to respond. Their brains can just not make the leap. At least not all at once.

So do not get frustrated. Just take a deep breath, and if you want to participate and enjoy what you like about the church then do so.

Hi, Keth – I’m glad you found the site. It’s helped me so much. I just try to be myself at church and realize that most of the time, it’s my help and support that people need, not my opinions and thoughts. But in the opportune moments, I try to have the courage to say what I think. Many times I decide it doesn’t fit or won’t be helpful. It’s a judgment call. I just try to not make the decision out of fear.