Hi, I'm Mike
I was a mormon.
About me
I was born into what I would describe as a fairly Orthodox McConkie Mormon family. I hit all of the milestones and served a mission at age 19. I married an amazing woman and we had 5 kids. While I never had any super important callings (mostly due to a job that required work on some Sundays) we were one of those stalwart "same ten people" families. I never said no to a calling, even the ones I knew I would hate. My wife did the same and my girls were called into YW presidencies when they got there.
Why I left More answers about 'Why I left' the mormon church
My wife preceded me out of the church. Her leaving was like a gut punch. How could we have a celestial family with a non-believing mom. It took me a bit to come to terms with it, and she helped me immensely, but I eventually realized that I married her and not the church. I decided to double down and get us all there. At the same time, I tried to understand why she left. I will absolutely admit that I was arrogant enough to think that if she gave me the reasons, I would be able to "reason" her back into the church. Wow was I wrong. I had plenty of shelf items, but the first time I was honestly and permanently stumped was when we were talking about the Book of Abraham. I never studied apologetics, but I knew all of the "answers" anyway. The problem is, the only good answer for the BoA is wow, that doesn't make sense. I started to listen to A Year of Polygamy podcast on her recommendation. When I got to the episode about Helen Marr Kimball, all of my belief collapsed. How could I follow a man that would do that. My wife told me about her shelf-breaker, the Lowry Nelson letters. Our kids have all left as well. It has been a difficult time leaving, but our little family is happier and more together than ever.