Author’s note: Part 1 was the set up. This is the one with all the interesting stuff about how my wife and I ended up leaving the church. Sorry, but I guess there will have to be a Part 3 to wrap things up.

Oh man, BYU. What a place.

Ironically enough, it was “the Lord’s university” that caused everything to fall apart. Not at first, of course. I started classes, met a pretty amazing girl, and after a lengthy LDS courtship spanning 6 months, was married in the temple.

Things continued as per usual for the next year and some change. We faithfully attended our ward, fulfilled our callings, paid our tithing, etc. In the end, it was a BYU required religion class that got me.

It was my D&C class, to be precise. It only covered the second half of the Doctrine & Covenants so we could really dig in and dissect it. It worked too well.

As we plowed our way through the revelations, I felt disconcerted about a few things. Doubts once again began to blossom in my mind. Questions like, “Why does Jesus speaking sound an awful lot like Joseph Smith speaking?” and, “How come so many of these ventures Joseph is ‘inspired’ to pursue end in failure?” and what’s more, “Why is there always a convenient explanation for everything that doesn’t go as planned?”

The background and history I had learned from “Rough Stone Rolling” only sharpened my doubts and the new issues I encountered began to weigh more and more heavily on my mind.

Then we got to D&C Section 132. My professor said that there was a new essay just released by the church that delved deeper into polygamy than the church had ever gone before. It was also assigned reading that day.

I knew from Joseph’s biography that he had practiced plural marriage and how volatile his relationship with Emma really was. I mean, she tried to poison the man. Her own husband! And not just once! You’d have to do something pretty bad to piss your wife off that much, say like hiding the fact that you’ve been sleeping with other women and girls on the reg for the last decade. Reading Section 132 in that context, especially “the Lord’s” chastening of Emma, really messed me up. I hoped the church’s new essay would help make things better.

I was sorely disappointed.

The essay entitled “Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo” didn’t exactly bring peace to my soul. Instead, it evaded the hard questions and cherry picked the faith-promoting pieces of history to feature while leaving out the rest, saying in some parts that “the history [was] unclear.”

It was at this point I first entertained the thought that maybe church leaders had purposefully handled church history in this manner for decades. I’d later learn it was called “whitewashing,” and yes, the brethren had been at it for a long time.

My head was spinning. I felt dazed. Cognitive dissonance is a real bitch. My established worldview was clashing with new possibilities and I needed to talk it out with someone.

I tried to bring it up with my wife that evening. We had talked very little about my existing disaffection, as I had buried it under what I “knew” to be true. The most I had said was that Joseph wasn’t quite the man the church portrayed him to be, and that there was more to the story.

This night, I pushed further. I can’t remember what I said exactly, but I know when I crossed the line because the look in her eyes changed. I saw panic. She went on the defensive, reinforcing what she believed. There was something said that I heard as, “If you leave the church, you could end up losing me.” Talking about it later, we’re not sure if she said that specifically, but that was the feeling I got. I definitely spooked her.

Now let me take a minute to say that I love my wife. She’s amazing and strong and independent and we’ve grown so much together over the time we’ve been married. She reacted the way anyone would when their deeply-held convictions are challenged and we both understand that now.

In the moment though, I was scared too. Not only was my faith and entire belief structure crumbling, but I was faced with the possibility of losing the one person I loved more than anything. So I backpedaled. I said I didn’t want to leave the church or do anything drastic, I just had questions that didn’t have any good answers and I could deal with that.

After that I doubled down on my believing actions. I read scriptures more, prayed more fervently, and we went to the temple more often. My wife must have felt the need to rededicate herself as well, because she began to read all the scriptures through for the first time.

This opened a dialogue between us about the church and its teachings. We were expecting our first child and talked a lot about what we felt comfortable teaching our future kids. In this way, we were able to explore a little more about what we agreed or disagreed on and built our communication about church and our expectations moving forward.

Even though I was going through all the right motions, it didn’t lift the weight from my shelf. Essentially, I just put a nice-looking tablecloth over it and pretended it wasn’t there. That only worked for so long.

Fast forward to after graduation. We left Provo for Salt Lake, now with a baby girl in tow. I got a nice job and we settled into our new normal.

A few months after our relocation, we went to my good friend’s wedding. We grew up together in the church and were close friends all through high school. He drifted away from the church and I went on a mission. I had spent a lot of time in his home over the years and knew his whole family pretty well.

During the wedding celebration, one of his brothers (who I thought was the most active member of the family) had a few drinks and was feeling very open and sociable. He pulled me aside and said, “You’re a smart guy. When you lose your faith, I want you to look up something called ‘Letter to a CES Director.’ Just remember that.”

I just awkwardly said, “Um… okay” as his other brother pulled him back into the party, but what he said kind of startled me. I thought I had put all that doubt business behind me, for the good of my family, and I wasn’t planning on revisiting it.

On our way home, I told my wife what he had said. She almost visibly paled. She simply said, “I don’t like that. It doesn’t make me feel good.” I didn’t pursue it further than that.

It only took a few days with his voice bouncing around in my head for me to give in to my curiosity and look up the CES Letter.

It was a pretty extensive document. A lot of the information was old news from “Rough Stone Rolling” but there were a few things that were new and kind of shocking. Things like multiple accounts of the First Vision and how they aligned with Joseph’s evolving view of God. There was mention of similarities between The Book of Mormon and written works available in Joseph’s community during the time period he was growing up. There was more: the witnesses only seeing the plates with their “spiritual eyes,” revelations being written retroactively years later about important church events like the restoration of the priesthood, and more details on Joseph’s sexual indiscretions.

I didn’t really appreciate the angry, combative tone that the author used throughout the letter, but seeing all the issues compiled like that seemed especially damning. I couldn’t fake that everything was okay anymore. I knew my belief would never be the same.

I told my wife later that day that I had checked out the letter. She was mad at first, but we were able to talk. She stressed it was important to her that we stay on the same page, but I couldn’t drop the bomb that my testimony had finally disintegrated. I was too afraid of her taking our daughter and leaving her apostate husband in the dust. I’d heard the horror stories and I was determined that my lack of faith would not be the end of our marriage.

I was willing to fake it every day for the rest of my life if it meant keeping my family together and happy. That would have either been unbearable or I would have thrown the tablecloth back over the remnants of my broken shelf eventually, but thankfully it didn’t come to that.

I asked her to just read through the CES Letter so we could be on the same page and talk about the issues that were there. She agreed, reluctantly, and so I sat while she read for the next hour or two.

The only things that really bothered her initially were Joseph’s questionable character (he wasn’t even a good husband, how could he be a prophet?) and the questionable origins of The Book of Mormon. She was able to mentally gymnastic everything else for the time being.

We talked about those at length and reached some kind of vague middle ground. At that point I thought I would pretty much just be one of those New Order Mormons who knows all the shady stuff but still does everything in the church because at the end of the day, it’s “good.” I never got the chance.

The very next night we had another talk. I think everything she read had been weighing on her mind and she needed something more concrete moving forward. I imagine that she felt kind of like I did that day after reading the church’s essay. Then came something I wasn’t expecting. She asked me point blank if I wanted to stay in the church, or leave.

She even said something along the lines of, “Take me and our daughter out of the picture. If it were just you, what would you want to do?”

I thought about it for a second, but my conscience would only let me say one thing.

“I would choose to leave.”

That just kind of hung in the air. It didn’t even seem like it was me who had really said it. I had never imagined that I could possibly be in this position and frankly, I was scared shitless. Talk about surreal.

She just kind of nodded and was like, “Well, okay then…” It wasn’t exactly what she was expecting either. She still took that truth bomb a lot better than I was expecting.

With that out in the open we talked some more. My wife kept saying she wanted us to both be on the same page, all in or all out. I told her I was willing to be supportive and continue to attend with her and our kids, but that I couldn’t believe again. That ship had sailed. Once you see the man behind the curtain, you can’t pretend he’s the Wizard of Oz anymore.

She was okay with that, until we explored it further. She didn’t want our kids to be taught one way at home, then another at church. She especially was concerned what they would be taught about their “apostate” daddy. I think it’s also important to note that for her, the church was never the center of her faith. Her belief was always more Christ-focused while mine was built on Joseph, the Restoration, and The Book of Mormon.

We decided that on the upcoming fast Sunday, we would both fast and pray for an answer. If God wanted us to stay in the LDS church, he’d find a way to let us know.

It was one of the worst 3 hour blocks I’d ever sat through.

In sacrament meeting we had people bear testimony of everything under the sun, expect for Christ, which was a big deal for my wife. There was also blatant false doctrine being taught in Sunday School, and it was applauded by most of the class as scripture. Priesthood was a snooze fest, with the exception of our resident bitter divorcee spewing hateful wisdom to all us naive honeymooners. From what my wife told me, Relief Society was on par with the High Priests when it came to spiritual conjecture. There were all kinds of harebrained theories about Adam and Eve and the Fall, none of which were founded on anything even remotely scriptural.

After that disappointing series of meetings we still got on our knees and prayed. As I contemplated leaving the church behind I felt peace and a little bit of something else…

Hope. The potential for a happy future of our own making.

So that was it. We never went back.