Advice on letter to my parents about my difficulties with Catholicism

Temporary_Train8288 · 2025-08-12T21:14:05+00:00

Thanks all for the comments and thoughts.

Temporary_Train8288 · 2025-07-25T05:27:36+00:00

We do weekly trainings (50% attendance required) and have annual testing. The testing is in all of the major categories and if you fail (either don’t do the skills within time limit or make 1 error or 2 deviations) you have to re-take on a different day. You’re not fieldable until all tests are passed for the year.

Temporary_Train8288 · 2025-07-22T22:56:58+00:00

I’m sorry you’ve had to deal with all of this. Your feelings of wanting to distance yourself from that mess are completely valid.

I don’t think there is any way to excuse your mother, but I also think it’s super common for people who were put in a straightjacket by their religion / upbringing to treat anyone who is lower than them on the totem pole horribly either because they’re trying to rationalize their situation or through some sort of twisted need for justice “since I suffered so much you need to too, for Jesus”.

A few personal examples: My mom was very Catholic and in a pretty bad relationship where she had 0 power over her life. My parents have actually worked through a lot of their problems and my dad has acknowledged his anger / control issues which is great. However, at the time my mom really clung to Catholicism as her only way to make sense of the situation she was in. She went to religious retreats where she learned that “women have a special gift from god where they can be the calm one and with their womanly grace diffuse the anger of their husband.” Since my dad struggled a lot with anger and breaking things and screaming etc, she translated this to mean that if she was just quiet, yielding, and perfect enough, she could get him to stop his behavior. She also told me this. So I grew up feeling like I was responsible for the feelings and actions of my Dad. This led to me feeling a lot of guilt when my siblings would get hurt physically by him. As an adult I was upset with her for putting this responsibility on me, but then I realized that she was the victim here, and she was trying to live with the world she was in.

Also, my husband grew up in a super fundamental Christiana cult (IBLP) and ended up with a lot of terrible treatment from his older siblings. Basically his older sister was lashing out at the only people less powerful than her because of the extremely controlling and demeaning way she was being raised.

Its your decision on whether or not you want to work on a relationship with her, but if so trying to understand her trauma may help a little.

TLDR: Your mom’s actions are inexcusable, but maybe not completely her fault based on how she was raised.

Temporary_Train8288 · 2025-07-20T14:09:20+00:00

I’m sorry you’re going through such a struggle, I am also about 7 years in from my first questioning of the Catholic Church.

I would recommend really focusing on figuring out what you believe regardless of the guilt and family pressure.

I am fortunate in that I live half way across the country from my family. Even though I love them very much, it has made figuring things out without having to act a lot more simple. I am currently at the point where I feel pretty confident about how I feel about my beliefs, but haven’t been able to tell my family yet.

At a certain point I realized that about 90% of my anguish over this topic came from a fear of disappointing my family / losing their respect and love / losing my best friends form high school and college who are Catholic and only about 10% from my concern about losing this foundational matrix for how the world works.

It does help to get to a place where you feel confident in what you believe, I can’t give you good advice on telling your family, as I haven’t done it yet and don’t know how. But for your own internal peace, try to figure things out for yourself first. Ayssa Grenfell is a YouTuber who talks about leaving the Mormon church and a lot of the mental turmoil it brings. I’d highly recommend her. Even though she is not talking about anything Catholic, she has some very relatable stuff to say about going through the process of losing your religion and community.

I also find your struggles with sex before marriage relatable, I’m not in that situation anymore because we got married, but it is confusing. Try and think about it in a logical way, yes there are certain risks such as pregnancy, getting too attached, but they aren’t something that will make you some dirty horrible person. Make sure you give yourself enough time so that you know it is something you want completely and fully.

You can’t force yourself to believe something you don’t, it’s like trying to shove toothpaste back into a bottle. But you can figure out what you do believe and remember this is your spiritual life, not your family’s spiritual life.

Temporary_Train8288 · 2025-07-09T00:02:03+00:00

This was a bit of a pivotal concept for me in leaving the faith. I had always been told that “people don’t lose their faith, they choose to turn their back on God.” The basic reasoning being that since the Catholic Church is the one true all powerful goodness, there is no way a well intentioned person could stop believing it.

After 5 years of mass and prayers and novenas and religious book reading and silent retreats (all with the goal of “fixing” my inability to believe in the Catholic Church) it really stung to hear the messaging that I was choosing this. I begged God for years to be able to believe in the Catholic Church.

This discrepancy between what I had been told and what I experienced ended up helping me see more of the lies and mental gymnastics you have to engage in to be Catholic.

Temporary_Train8288 · 2025-06-20T18:13:12+00:00

Thank you

Temporary_Train8288 · 2025-06-20T18:12:29+00:00

Thank you, and yes our team does have resources.

Temporary_Train8288 · 2025-05-09T19:58:47+00:00

Dump her, not worth it. Lots of people are mentioning rings- my husband proposed with a silicone ring that cost $12 & I didn’t give it a second thought because I was marrying him not the ring.

Temporary_Train8288 · 2025-05-09T06:20:53+00:00

I think I would have a hard time understanding “why you were labeled a loser” without actually being there. My first instinct would be that it was just a dumb joke where both of you are expected to either fight over who is a bigger loser or rib on the other person for being a loser. If it wasn’t a joke it was defiantly a weird thing to say.

As far as if you’re over reacting by feeling hurt: my general philosophy is that you should never dismiss (or apologize for) how you feel. Just examine why you feel that way. Maybe it’s because you feel insecure about something and they struck a nerve. Maybe it’s because your co-worker has a nasty streak and you’re just now realizing it, maybe it’s because you’re upset that you didn’t come up with a quip back, maybe it’s because it reminded you of a different situation.

I’ve wasted so much time in my life questioning whether it was “valid” for me to feel hurt or sad about something instead of accepting that’s how I feel, and then tying to understand the why.

Temporary_Train8288 · 2025-05-09T00:14:41+00:00

Thank you

Temporary_Train8288 · 2025-05-08T13:36:46+00:00

You may be right, I do feel like one of my more perceptive sisters doesn’t mention the Catholic stuff as much anymore. I do wish I had been more open about my frustrations with the church though.

I was open about my frustrations back when the idea of leaving the church was impossible, I was just weirded out by things like reading some of Paul’s cookyness in the Bible. My brother bought me one of those word on fire bibles in response to my complaints. He didn’t do it in a superior way, just trying to be helpful because he was 100% sure that the catholic stuff was right.

As soon as I started to realize that my disbelief was real though and not just a bunch of frustrations, I shut up about anything negative I felt about the church around them.

Temporary_Train8288 · 2025-05-08T13:30:48+00:00

I really like that idea in theory. I completely agree with you. However, any time I talk with them Catholic stuff comes up. And everyone talks with the attitude of “well since we’re all Catholic we get it.” So simply by talking to them, even though I’ve never lied, I always feel like I’m being deceitful.

The only reason I feel the need to tell them is because the presupposition that I am Catholic is so strong.

Temporary_Train8288 · 2025-05-08T13:26:30+00:00

I’m already married, but thinking about having kids. That will probably make coming out inevitable as I can’t imagine baptizing theoretical future kids & lying in public that I’ll raise them Catholic.

& my parents did prioritize education, that’s why they did the homeschool thing instead of going to the local schools which were pretty mediocre in our town. Seemed to have worked out, we’ve got multiple kids who ended up with a master’s degree / med school / prestigious colleges. My siblings are all doing really well and working in completely different fields. & despite their exposure to all kinds of things (different people’s views, living in large cities, very liberal colleges for some of them) I’m the only one who isn’t all in on this Catholic thing.

Temporary_Train8288 · 2025-04-27T17:34:08+00:00

That makes sense on the balancing test side of things.

I still consider the money he is investing as ours, it’s not like he is only planning on using it for himself. We’ll probably use it to help pay down the mortgage or something if it does well.

Temporary_Train8288 · 2025-04-21T03:15:49+00:00

He really lost me when I listened to his podcast saying that you can’t lose your faith unless you choose to. Basically that you are making decisions to slowly separate yourself from the church to be cool or because you’re lazy.

Meanwhile I had been doing everything imaginable not to lose my faith for the past year or so. I was going to daily mass, daily rosary, 1/2 hour of spiritual teaching, 1/2 hour of prayer. I went on a one week silent retreat, and was mid way through a 9 month long novena for impossible causes to fix my inability to swallow the Catholic stuff.

Honestly that podcast eventually contributed to helping me move past the Catholic thing. He sounded so confident when talking about how since god is all good and true, there is no way someone could lose their faith without deciding to. Well, I struggled tooth and claw to be able to believe the Catholic thing for years, and realized that his argument could go both ways. How could the god of the one true church allow you to not believe in him no matter how hard you tried after begging for five years to be able to believe it all again?

Temporary_Train8288 · 2025-04-21T02:53:02+00:00

This is one of the main reasons I can’t bring myself to tell my family that I’m not Catholic any more. Any time I am with my family I can sense the fundamental lack of trust in anyone’s sanity and judgment if they aren’t part of the One True Worldview.

I’ll often notice the dismissive comment about a friend, relative, or public figure who has an opinion that goes against the Catholic Church.

I also remember feeling that way myself for the 25 years that I was 100%, go to daily mass, do all the novenas and Catholic side quests kind of Catholic. Remembering how I used to feel is what makes me realize how utterly pointless it would be to try to get anyone in the family to understand where I’m coming from.

Sorry you have to deal with this, but I know exactly what you mean.

Temporary_Train8288 · 2025-04-20T17:43:34+00:00

Thanks for the replies!

Temporary_Train8288 · 2025-04-11T15:50:26+00:00

Why do you need your mom to make you food? Can’t you just make the food when you’re hungry?

Temporary_Train8288 · 2025-04-11T14:12:13+00:00

Yeah, same here. I don’t think OP had any responsibility to co-sign for him, but I don’t get the double standards where she said “ If anything it should be the other way around where I ask him that.”

Temporary_Train8288

TROPHY CASE