36: Alan and Leah Take the Red Pill

This was a delightful couple! Thanks for sharing your story.

Alyssa, it’s really hard to compare different people’s experiences. In hindsight, I think the key thing was that I was keenly aware that I was unhappy in the church. But still, I had this twisted view that it was good for me to suffer in this way. If I can stay faithful even when it seems likely that most of this is made up, just think of the rewards in the afterlife!! I remember actually starting to think things like “Hey maybe there’s about a 20% chance the church is true.” Later, “Maybe 5%?”

Leah’s letter was my first empirical evidence that she was more important to me than god. In fact, that she was more important to me than my salvation. The idea of gaining my salvation by leaving my wife, who I loved, and wrecking my family suddenly seemed utterly absurd, which of course it is, since salvation and a personal god do not exist.

I also regret that I haven’t been able to meet and get to know you or other exmo’s due to our location. This is one of those topics on which Leah and I differ. I’m a cultural mormon and my entire identity for my whole life was wrapped up in mormonism and mormon ideas. Because of this, I’ve naturally felt drawn to those who share this background. Leah would prefer to put it behind her, and she understandably sees my online exmo time as evidence that I’m ‘stuck.’

Anyway, to finally answer the question as to how to nudge partners along, I’m sure that the answers are quite individualized. As much as I love my intellectual freedom–no longer having to make up reasons why it’s ok to give women a diminished role, or having to explain why hating gays is really loving them, etc.–giving up that safety net of an afterlife in which god would make everything right, and where I can think of death as a new beginning rather than what it really is, was extremely painful. Realizing how differently I would have lived my life and how much useless shit I spent my time worrying about, and how that time and energy could have been put to better use is still quite haunting. If partners are going to be willing to answer the exmo golden question (lol), i.e. “If the church were not what it claimed to be, would you want to know?” in the affirmative, they have to be willing to let go of these supernatural safety nets. I realize how hard that is, and I truly feel empathy for the position they’re in.

I really enjoyed this interview. You both were very authentic. My daughter is starting college next week at East Carolina. I will be driving out with her from Georgia.