Someone you love sent you this

Someone sent you this because they are going through something they cannot easily explain, and because they love you enough to want you to understand it rather than guess.

What is happening to them

They have learned things about the Church’s history or doctrine that they cannot reconcile with what they were taught, and their belief is changing or has already changed. This did not happen because they wanted to sin, because someone offended them, or because they were lazy or deceived. Those are the explanations members are given, and the research, including the Church’s own, finds they are almost never true. It happened because they studied, and prayed, and could not make it fit. It is happening to tens of thousands of sincere members every year, and it happened to the most committed ones most often.

What it feels like from the inside

Like a death. They are losing a worldview, an afterlife, a community, a plan for their life, and possibly your good opinion, all at once. They are probably not sleeping. They are frightened, above all, of losing you. Much of what they say in the first months will come out wrong because of that.

What they need from you

• To still be your spouse, your child, your friend, without conditions.
• To be listened to without being fixed, argued with, or handed a talk.
• For this not to become the only thing you talk about.
• Time. Years, possibly. Not a decision by Sunday.
• Your honesty about your own fear, said as your fear rather than as their fault.

What makes it worse

• “You just want to sin.” “Someone offended you.” “You never had a real testimony.”
• Sending the bishop, the missionaries, or a General Conference talk they did not ask for.
• Making the children choose, or using them as messengers.
• Telling the extended family or the ward before they are ready.
• Ultimatums.
• Pretending it is not happening.

What this does not mean

It does not mean they have stopped loving you. It does not mean they will divorce you, abandon the children, drink, or become someone you do not know; most people who leave keep almost everything about who they were except the belief. It does not mean you have to leave, or that they will try to make you. And it does not mean the family is broken. Families get through this constantly, and the ones that do are the ones where nobody was made to choose.

Where to go next

The rest of this path is written for you: When your spouse is leaving if this is your husband or wife, When your child is leaving if it is your child, What not to say, and what to say instead for everyone. If you want to see what they are reading, the whole site is open. If you want to hear it from believing women married to non-believing men, the LDS Women Project, mixed-faith marriage series series is by people in your position who stayed.