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Well, I'm new here, so I guess I'll start out with a little about myself. My parents joined the church shortly before I was born and so the church is all that I have known throughout my life. I was an active member throughout my childhood and teenage years, attended BYU (I'm not from the heavily LDS saturated west, so it was quite a commitment to move across the country and do so), served a mission, got married (to a non-member, more about that later) and then finished my undergraduate work at BYU. I then moved back home to follow another career path and I just finished graduate school.
Pretty typical arc, right? I guess the problem is that throughout the entire time that I was attending church I never really felt completely comfortable with the church. Growing up our Ward was about an hour drive from our house and so Sundays turned into a 5 hour odyssey that left me tired and hungry. When it came time for me to go to college, I wanted to go anywhere but BYU, but my parents really wanted me to go there, so I did. Arriving in the hyper-homogeneous land of BYU dorm life, I also never really felt comfortable. I made some great friends there who had similar experiences, and we all went on missions to hopefully get over our lack of commitment to the church. My mission was a very hard experience for me, and now looking back on it I really feel that it is because I never fully believed what I was teaching. Whenever I would run into problems with doctrine I would turn to studying language so that I didn't have to think about that....it was just easier than confronting those issues.
I then married a girl from back home who moved to Utah with me for the end of my time at BYU. She has been extremely supportive, even taking the discussions even though she felt like it was all a load of crap the entire time. She has been extremely supportive of my desire (when it was there) of attending church, but has also been very honest with me on how she feels about the church.
It has now been about five years since I have attended church. I am actually happier now that I don't. I have recently started confronting a lot of the problems that I found when I was on my mission but swept under the rug, and well, the results aren't pretty. It's gotten to the point that it is pretty difficult for me to even tell people that I went to BYU, let alone that I am associated with the church. However, I am having a very difficult time untangling many of the beliefs that I now feel are untrue from my life. So much of what people do as members of the church is pervasive into every life decision, and I'm finding it very difficult to sort everything out.
My family members are all still active members of the church who are not sympathetic to anyone questioning the church, which makes this all the more difficult. My wife is as understanding as she can be, but not being in the church she can't fully understand some of the mental roadblocks and problems that I am facing. So, that's why I'm really glad that I have found this place. I look forward to getting to know the community and appreciate any words of encouragement or advice that you might have.
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I am also married to a never-Mo, although he was raised in a very strict Hindu family, so he at least has some understanding of what it's like to be raised in a very religious family. And he understands what it's like to flout convention, as he did not go in for the traditional arranged marriage to a nice Indian girl.