Im glad I found this place!

Im a 37/f living in Happy freaking Valley (but originally from Australia we moved here over 10yrs ago. ). Im a convert, hubby baptized me. Hubby is originally from Utah and was BIC. We have not been to church since we have moved to the US. The Utah mormons turned us off from going.

Hubby wants to cancel his/our membership but I’ve told him we have 3 teens to think about. I don’t want my kids to go thru hell. Its bad enough they get outcasted at school. My neighbourhood is pretty good about letting my boys hang out only coz I was heavily involved in the scouting program several years ago.

Hubby and I keep to ourselves, we have not made any friends here. I used to be a social person. Now I don’t know if I’m capable of nurturing as friendship since I have been living such a secluded life for so long. My friends and dysfunctional family are back in Aust. Hubbys family are dysfunctional, so we stay clear of them all.

How do non mormons find friends in Happy Valley?

By simply visiting with almost any youth pastor of maybe a somewhat progressive non denominational church of your choice. You can begin to weigh in on what they offer the teenagers and perhaps gauge how religion can be exceptionally different than what may have been bred into the lies and deception Mormonism sells. Maybe that's asking too much, after being so severely abused by the horrid LDS belief system. Many good youth pastors can easily offer the empathy you need if that does not seem right for your family at this time. I was a terribly troubled teenager when I decided to depart from the unhealthy and consuming Mormon ways. Finding out that there needed to not be another dose of Fear, guilt and shame in an alternative belief system turned out to be truly life changing for me.

Hi Aussie. Welcome.

I'm in Canada. To think that I used to dream of someday living in Salt Lake City. Ugh! I'm sure glad I didn't follow that dream.

Rain, Maybe you can check in with the Grizzlies hockey player's (Perry) blood brother, up there on another puck team in Canada, to learn how he manages to survive among all of the morbots down in Salt Lake.

Welcome to Utah. I'm amazed that you and your family aren't treated like royalty. You are converts, which is cool, and Australians, which is even cooler. I would kill to have the means to go to Australia and New Zealand. Good for you- and us, getting to meet you- thatyou see the church in a more truthful light.
But I have to agree about happy valley. I went there about a year ago a few times because of my brother's death, and I could not believe what a zoo that place is. We are certainly happy you joined us, and I know there are people here who can offer good support and hopefully some resources for your situation.

Hey Aussie, there sould be some exmo or postmo support groups to get out and meet locally there for you in the SLC area you are in now? Anyone know of meetings to attend and meet others to build up your social network of better friends to provide you with options to look at? Someone here shouldbe familiar enough to suggest a place for you to get a start??????????

I guess that's one advantage of living in a heavily-populated-by-Mormons area. You've got ex-Mo groups to hang out with. Where I live, I've never worked with anyone LDS. I never run into members I used to know at the stores, or other places I go. We all just live too far apart.

Thank you for your warm welcomes!!


joseph's myth..... thanks for the info but i think we are done with organised religion. my boys arent interested in going to any sort of church/organisation at all. i dont blame them. i feel the same way.


Rainfeather... I used to think like you when I lived in Sydney Aust. Boy was I in for a rude shock when I moved here.


paladin.... we arent treated like royalty in fact its just the opposite. when we first moved here we were picked on by my in laws.... then my kids were bullied allot at school. My daughter was stabbed in jr high and was told to go back to her own country. she received pictures with kanagroos and bombs. the school principal didnt care and told me i should be glad my daughter had 3 weeks of peace when i confronted him about the ongoing harassment by the kids at school.

my experience of living in utah has been a nightmare. the adults and kids here are horrendous. right now we have a stalking injunction of a kid coz he assaulted one of my teen boys... vandalized my home.. is held in contempt of violating a No Contact Order and the Judge here asks the kids if he wants to go to juvie or not!!

i dont mean to offend anyone.... but I dont know if Utah is just a hell-hole or is the whole country as f*cked up as this State?

as for seeing the light about the church... i would like to give you all a better understanding of the situation i am in.

To give you some background on me: I joined the church early 95 four months after my abusive father passed in late 94. I ended up marrying the missionary who dunked me. My missionary served 4mths of his 2yr mission (I’m sure u can all guess why) so you can imagine how his Utah so called molly Mormon family reacted. I was 23yr a single mum with 3 small kids, hubby was barely 19yr at the time. My missionary’s family didn’t like that fact I was a convert, I ended his mission!!, that I had kids, that I was in Australia and that I wasn’t trained to bake, sew and whatever else the molly Mormon women do.

My missionary went thru hell with his parents as soon as he returned home from his mission. The day my missionary arrived back in SLC from his mission his parents made him give intimate details of our personal relationship before they left SLC airport to head home!!

I wrote letters to my missionary when he arrived back in SLC, his mother took them before my missionary was able to get the mail. I sent immigration papers to my missionary, his mother decided to burn every legal document my missionary owned including his graduation cert, birth cert, passport.... you name it she burnt it, along with my immigration paperwork & payment so my missionary couldn’t move to Aust. My future mother-in-law eventually got a PO Box so all of my mail would go there instead of her house…. I’m sure she read everything I sent. My missionary soon moved out, got 2 fulltime jobs so he could get back to Australia so we could get married. We were married end of 95!

Fast forward 2yrs hubby is a full time student in University in Sydney…I had had baby no. 4. I did the temple classes so we could be sealed in Sydney. Mother-in-law from hell decided she had to be at the sealing in Sydney so she had her daughter 27yrs old buy tickets for her and her daughter with the daughters money (mind you my mother-in-law earned a good salary) so they could attend our sealing. Hubby tells me my mother-in-law attends all of the sealings just so she can find out everyones temple names. In-laws arrived in Sydney and pretty much ignored me, and all of our kids including their own blood (baby no 4). They never spoke to us much for the week they were in Aust. The sister was careful not to overstep by being friendly because her mum was watching her every move. They stayed for a week in a hotel… I was glad when they left Aust!

The following yr my in-laws offered for us to move out to Utah. We were living in hiding from my ex so I thought it was a good idea. Hubby and I were hoping my in-laws changed and everything would be ok. So we moved out here to Utah end of 98. We moved here with 2 boxes of belongings each.. mainly clothes and photo albums. Hubby started looking for work straight away… I was dealing with culture shock. Learning to grocery shop, drive and learn a new language (even though aussies speak English we do use different words for some things). We lived with in-laws for 5 weeks till all hell broke loose. My father-in-law never wanted us here. Inlaws hid their food, detergents etc. They stole our greencards and made life a living hell for us. We were locked out in the middle of the night in the snow with nowhere to live with 4 small kids. Lucky for us we saved up some money before moving to the US. We stayed with hubbys sister one night and found a rental the following day. My mother and father-in-law told their bishop and our new bishop not to help us at all. Lucky hubbys new boss gave us some towels, sheets etc to get us by till pay day. Like I said we moved here with nothing but clothes and 4 small kids. I will never forgive my in-laws for what they put us thru. Moving to a new country with no credit history, no car, no job, no belongings was tough, and for them to throw us out with nothing…I should have called immigration on them since my in-laws signed the paperwork to sponsor us for 10yrs.

My hubby comes from a large family he is one of 8 kids. Mother-in-law from hell has selected some of her kids to be her favorites, (hubby isn’t one of them) there is sibling rivalry because of this. Mother-in-law controls her husband. She hasn’t allowed her own hubby and her kids to visit with her husbands family in over 25yrs. Father-in-law is just as controlling with his kids. Both mother-in-law and father-in-law were abusive physically, mentally, emotional to their kids when they were young and still are to this day. Father-in-law shows up at his grown kids workplace or homes demanding they choose the right. My mother-in-law never goes to church, she using her occupation (a nurse) as an excuse not to go. She doesn’t work every Sunday. She is rude to Bishops and other church leaders, I’ve seen it with my own eyes, yet she judges us for not going to church. because we don’t go to church family members have been told to stay away from us because we are atheist. I don’t know where my inlaws get this info .... but it shows how controlling they try to be. So you can imagine… hubbys siblings all have issues due to the controlling abusive upbringing.

Once we purchased our new home after being in the US for 10mths I had noticed how awful the Utah Mormons were. I missed my old ward back in Oz. the Mormons here in happy valley are so freaking judgmental, nosy & materialistic. Hubby decided we were not going to go to church in our new ward due to some crap we had been thru in the last 10 mths with members in Utah County. We have not gone to church since 1999.

Hubby always had issues with the church. He questioned his membership when he was a teen. He went on his mission because it was expected. Like I said before hubby is one of 8 kids. 3 out of the 8 are full practicing members the other 6 are part time jack Mormons. My mother-in-law and father-in-law don’t have a decent relationship with any of their kids. 4 out of the 8 kids barely talk to their parents. motherinlaw and fatherinlaw treat their grandkids like crap. They have been mentally, emotionally and physically abusive to some of their teen grandkids!!

All of our kids have been sealed to us. My oldest was baptized coz that was the thing to do. My other 3 children have not been baptized. All 4 kids have had a naming and blessing. So I’m gathering all 4 kids have church records. Just before my kids move out I’m going to write the resignation letters then move!!

In the mean time I’m looking for friendships. My hubby is 34yr and in the IT business, and I’m 37yr SAHM thinking about going to University. We don’t socialize with anyone… its driving me nuts!!
I have tried joining the UtahCountyMommies.org.. they emailed me back saying they were closing down and i would need to register with SLC. Im wondering if there are any other support group coffee meets anywhere in Utah County?

OMG! What a nasty situation. Your hubs must really love you a lot to put up with all of that just to be able to be with you. At least that's one thing to be grateful for.

I don't really know what it's like in Utah, except for the stories I've heard on the on-line forums. I visited there once, back in 1977. I grew up in a city which may well be the most multi-cultural city in the world, so I find it really hard to relate to "foreigners" having a hard time. There are more immigrants in Toronto than there are people like me, who were born here. LOL I'm just used to that.

But anyway, is there any chance of you guys getting the heck out of there? I'd want to move away and never look back, and cut off the toxic relationships (his family). You don't need that.

Hey, I wish I could help, but the best thing I can tell you is: Utah sucks.

I love the mountains, and there are some nice folks around. But, generally, I hate living around the snoops and the gossips and the holier-than-thous and the materialism here. (Materialism is pretty bad in a lots of US cities, though...)

We live too far away (we're in 'miserable valley' -- Davis County, up north), and my wife still clings to her old ways of "no friends in my house" attitude, or I would say, hey, let's get together!

But, sorry, I'm not sure what else I can tell you. (If your hubby is in IT, why Utah? Hell, he could find work ANYWHERE!)

Living in Utah is sheer hell. I can relate because I transferred to YBU as a junior so I would have a better chance at graduation, which I'm so glad to say I did. The breed 'em young culture mentality was such a total shock that I became inactive while I was out there, but promptly became reactivated once I crossed that damn state line into Colorado. Hell, I even pulled off to the side of road, got out, and yelled, "Hooray! I'm back in REALITY!" I'm a shadow mormon and attend church to keep peace with DH and the two kids. Thank God, I live in what's called the mission field.

Now what's so funny is that I have a nonmember sibling who lives in a part of Utah that is 95% LDS! How they stand it along with their family is beyond me. Maybe if you PM me I can find out if you live near them and you can have a new friend.

How are you with writing? This is the soap opera plot of the decade. Going to get better? Nope. Utah has been unfavorably compared to Saudi Arabia, and I am not joking. And it is getting worse. Yes, it is getting worse. A law is about to be signed that will put women with miscarriages under suspicion of trying to commit an illegal abortion, or simply being careless, and causing harm to the baby, can be tried as criminals. I'm going to try and find somewhere for you to get into a exmormon group down there. I'll be in touch.

Aussie, there is a group called CALM (Community After Leaving Mormonism) that meets in Orem. They have a meeting tonight. see:
http://www.postmormon.org/exp_e/index.p ... h_home/268
The address is 84 S. 1000 W. Good Luck.

Aussie, welcome to the forums...where you will find many friends, family and peace.

My mouth dropped as I read your story. I thought I had the MIL from hell...wow. Yours makes mine look like Cinderella...and after 25+ years or so (give or take) she's still not any better. I hope your ex-mishie hubby has given her the what for and in no uncertain terms. You say she's inactive? Send an anonymous letter to her Bish, VTs & HTs. How two-faced she is! Sheesh, Suz...she's a morgbot...DUH!

I too in my ignorance wanted to move to Happy Valley...and be sealed to my DH in St. George (I know - not quite in HV but still in "Zion"). Yeeech.

Stay strong. If she and her DH ever try to make amends (trust me, they will before they feel like their "mortal existence" is ending), turn the garden hose on them. Trust me...it's healing.

Peace,
~Susie

Aussie, what a nightmare! Unfortunately you have experienced the control that the Mormon church has over its members. I'm sure you know that the only reason your in-laws wanted your family to move to Utah was so they could work on separating you and hubby so they could dispose of you and your children and attempt to get their son back under the control of the church and "choose the right".

Outwardly, Mormons preach family, but in reality the church and its rules are #1 and the family is a very distant second. And unfortunately, to your in-laws you are viewed not as a member of the family but rather as the one who brought their son into the clutches of "Satan". Your situation sounds like it is an extreme case of the oh so typical scenario of Mormon family relationships. I hope that your family is able to find the path away from the heart and soul of Mormonism (Utah) and above all else, get away from your in-laws. They are extremely toxic to your marriage and family! What a sad situation.

Hi, Aussie.
When will it be published?
Oh, wait. You mean that isn't fiction you're writing?
That really happened!?
Holy Cowgaroo! You should write a book anyway. You've got enough material, and enough characters, and I do mean "characters", it would be quite exciting.

I certainly hope your experience isn't typical,
but neither can I swear it is rare.

Keep an eye in the "Recovery Group Meetings" folder forum, for meetings of exmos in your area.
And watch for announcements on the October exmormon conference in SLC.

There is a "meetup" group at http://www.meetup.com/Rising-Above-Religion-Ex-Mormons-and-All-Clear-Thinkers/. Maybe there is some potential for talking with people there, too. You can see members comments at http://www.meetup.com/Rising-Above-Religion-Ex-Mormons-and-All-Clear-Thinkers/members/.

hey there ozzie cuz , i have kids living in brisbane and i,m in nz , feel free to have a rant anytime .
my only suggestion for your situation , lots and lots of herbs

Rainfeather...my hubby isnt a social person... he is comfy with his job which is a 10-15min commute. he feels like his job is guaranteed (since he is the only IT guy they have). hubby isnt paid enough for everything he does (he does 3 diff jobs, he works for a family business and they wont employee others to help, they are scrooges who treat their employees like crap and underpay everyone so they can line their own pockets and yes they are LDS). so hubby is content with not having to move. there is nothing keeping us in Utah except hubbys job and i know he can make better money elsewhere.


indy_jh... i wish my hubby would consider moving. He does everything from servers, programming, networking, systems admin... im sure he would make a hell of a lot more $$ outta State.


I'm Alive: i hear ya.. i went to Vegas last yr and felt so free. i knew no-one was judging and watching my every move. i didnt wanna come back to Utah. i dunno how your non member family member survives.

paladin.... I'm not that good with writing. let me tell u, i gave to a briefed down version of my story. I've left out the real juicy parts to my story. who in the hell come up with the law about miscarriages? sheesh ...a woman should have a right to choose what she wants to do with her body. thanks for the tip about CALM.


Sheesh if i was to sit down with you and tell you the full story about my inlaws i would have to pick your jaw up off the ground!! My MIL apparently was told she has 2-3yrs left at most. one of my hubbys siblings informed us of her condition. currently MIL & FIL arent talking to 4 of their 8 kids.. its been that way for over a 2yrs. MIL hasnt contacted her kids coz she didnt want their pity. MIL has stopped working (they survived on her paycheck so she must be sick). she is on heavy medication. she seems healthy enough to visit her favorite son out of State though. i do not believe she will make a mends with her kids before she passes. I have chatted with my SIL. she says MIL hasnt changed her ways and is still as stubborn as ever, everyone else is at fault but her. we have had a very strained relationship with my inlaws over the yrs. since ive met hubby we have probably been on speaking terms 2-3yrs out of 15yrs. my MIL & FIL wouldnt dare come to our house, they know we wont answer the door to them. i know its a nasty thing to say but we will go to the funeral just to make sure its really her laying there in the casket!!

Dipsnort.. your post makes allot of sense. my hubby and I sure have had our ups and downs in our marriage... his family have caused some issues that we had to work through. i think all of my inlaws are aware that i have set up boundaries. they all know how i feel about MIL and FIL. they all keep their distance from us. over the yrs hubby would do anything for his siblings. now he can see they only call when they want something. he is sick of being used. so we really dont have a relationship with any of his family. its a pity... we moved here for family because i didn't have much of a family in Aust.. instead we came to family that are complete a$$holes. they are nice to your face.. but as soon as you leave their sight.. they bitch behind your back. we call them the use and abuse family from hell. my kids are disappointed... because they cant go hang with their cousins or grandparents like their friends do.. we dont do family outings or celebrate occassions with anyone.. those are the hardest time to deal with.. its very lonely.

Abinadi...ive been told by several people that have heard my story that i should write a book. My story starts from my childhood (i lived in a very abusive home) to living in hiding becuase of my abusive ex, to how i met my hubby and the crap hubby and i dealt with in order to be where we are today. im sure if i wrote a book my inlaws would sue the ass off me.

henry... hey there!!! i also have relatives in QLD. what i would give right now for a roast leg of lamb, leg of lamb here is $50!! lucky bugga to be able to get it cheap as shiz.