My name is Stacy Leavitt
and I am an Ex Mormon.
About me
I am 7th generation (our children are 8th generation) LDS, we come from pioneer stock. My ancestors sacrificed everything for their religion. Which is one of the reasons why I started studying trying to strengthen my testimony, I felt like I owed it to my ancestors to be as sure of the faith as they were. At times I felt like I was the only one who couldn’t see the “emperor’s new clothes”. The only one who had issues, my shelf was getting very full and the old stand by of “it will all get worked out when you die” just wasn’t enough. I kept getting the textbook responses to “read, pray and fast”. Those never seemed to work for me, but I kept trying.
We all were very active. I held positions in several presidencies both in primary and relief society, I taught primary and nursery for almost a decade and served as a den leader in the cub scouts for 5 years. As a youth I served in the young women’s leaderships. Our families are both still very active. I attended BYU and I waited for Sean while he was on his mission writing him every week. We were married in the Manti temple 4 months after he returned home from his mission. I was pregnant with our daughter the next year and we had our son 3 years after our daughter was born. We knew our family was complete. But had some guilt because in relief society lessons I was getting the message you need to have many, many children. I also would always feel awful about the women who sat through those lessons week after week who couldn’t have children at all. I have several friends and family who have carried this burden.
I also had a very hard time when the LDS church started fighting so hard against equal rights – with the prop 8 campaign. The tactics and verbiage the church was using turned out to be very similar to the words used against women and African Americans. I couldn’t support an organization that would fight so hard to keep other humans from their basic rights. It was shortly after that when my husband and I talked- saying out loud to each other for the first time that neither of us believed it.
# Why I left More stories of 'Why I left' the Mormon church
It was in August 2009 when Sean & I talked and realized that we were both having serious doubts about the church and were only going thru the motions of the church because that was what was expected. We were both afraid to bring it up because the way the church teaches is such that you feel that you are the problem. You are either not studying hard enough or being spiritual enough. We both had been having doubts and issues with the teachings for years but quietly keeping them to ourselves. We were both afraid of losing our family. After talking we realized that our marriage was stronger than the religion we were raised in and we are even closer as a couple and a family- without the church between us anymore.
For several days after realizing that our religious center was false and that neither of us believed, we were in shock. We went thru a mourning period, all the stages. At first it felt like the floor had been removed. We both had to reevaluate everything. Are we doing something because it’s the right thing to do or because we were trained to?
We discussed the choice we had ahead of us, the pros and cons. We both decided that in order to be honest we could no longer belong to the church. We knew that we would be committing social suicide living in the heart of Utah county but decided for ourselves and our kids that being honest was the only choice. However, we found a very active and growing group of Ex Mormons so even though we lost several of who we thought were friends we were able to make some real friends and connect with others on a deep level.
The journey was difficult at times but well worth it. Instead of filling each Sunday with countless meetings, we now have that as our family day. We play board games, take hikes, watch movies, go to the zoo, we just spend the time on each other now. I really love my family, I have the best husband in the world, I love and appreciate that he took the leap and let me know he could no longer live being untrue to himself and going through the motions of being in that religion. I also love and truly LIKE my kids, they are wonderful people who care deeply about each other and want to make a difference.
My name is Stacy Leavitt and I am an Ex Mormon.
PS. Please know that you are not alone, you can reach out to me at [email protected]. I will answer all sincere emails – I will ignore all negative ones.