Religion can be a significant part of marital happiness, as research has shown that couples who share the same faith tend to stay together more often. In the U.S., the most commonly practiced religion is Christianity, as about 62% of adults identify as Christians. But what happens when one spouse decides to leave the religion?
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In some marriages, nothing. In others, family members are quick to act as if it’s their business, with their approval or disapproval. This MIL, however, crossed the line when she secretly offered her son “help” to divorce his wife because she left their conservative Christian faith. The feud escalated into a physical confrontation, after which the wife decided she had had enough.
A woman left her family’s religion and angered her in-laws in the process
While her husband didn’t mind it, her MIL tried to secretly get him to divorce her
Almost half of adults who grew up in the Mormon church decide to leave it, especially women
Everyone’s experience growing up in a conservative religious household is different. Some people go on to practice the faith their entire lives; others leave it before reaching adulthood. Others, like the woman in this story, do so years later, after they’re married and even have families of their own.
Nevertheless, the Mormon church has a relatively high rate of leavers. According to the Pew Research Center’s 2023-2024 study, retention rates among those raised in the Latter-day Saints faith in the U.S. are 54%. That means that about 40% of people who grow up Mormon decide to leave the religious group sooner or later.
There’s also an interesting trend gender-wise. Young women are leaving the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints more often than their older counterparts or the men their age. According to the same Pew study, 49% of adult women aged 18-49 identified as Mormon, whereas 66% of women aged 60 and older said the same. Another 2025 survey found that only 4 in 10 Gen Z women raised in the faith remain in the Church into adulthood.
The reasons for this are many, but most obvious perhaps is that women just aren’t granted the same status in the Church as men are. Jana Riess, author of The Next Mormons: How Millennials Are Changing the LDS Church and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints herself, observes that in a political and social landscape where women are becoming more and more liberal and want gender equality, it’s hard to stay in an organization that has spent decades looking down upon such values.
“There’s a growing disconnect between the power young women experience now in most aspects of their lives compared to the powerlessness many report feeling at church,” Riess writes. “In the church, women cannot hold the priesthood, bless or pass the sacrament, baptize a convert or make policy decisions.”
“For the rising generation — schooled in the girl power movement and promised they could do anything — it feels like a slap,” she adds. “Because in a church that does not permit women to help create the policy decisions that affect them, some feel there’s only one way to be heard: voting with their feet.”
One of the hardest things for ex-Mormon women might be learning to set clear boundaries
Leaving conservative Christian religious communities is not as simple as walking away, especially when other family members stay in them. The Mormon Church is no different in this regard, and this woman’s story illustrates it perfectly. The Church places a strong emphasis on familial ties and on upholding traditional values, so individualism is often viewed as selfishness.
What the OP is going through now is referred to as deconstruction: she’s examining the faith, dogmas, and religion she inherited as a child, questioning their validity and whether her current values align with those of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Sadly, many who remain in the church don’t see their loved ones leaving as a personal choice. They view it as a crisis in faith and mostly worry about their eternal salvation.
Women who leave the Mormon Church often have a very hard time enforcing boundaries. As Arizona-based therapist Chelsey Liaga, LMSW, notes, unlearning that aversion to conflict can be the most difficult part of the ex-Mormon life.
“For a lot of women, boundaries trigger guilt because their nervous system learned, ‘Other people being upset means I’m unsafe,’” she writes. “But learning to set boundaries is often part of rebuilding self-trust after Mormonism. And to be honest, sometimes healing looks like setting a boundary and feeling anxious afterward… then realizing you survived it.”
In the comments, the wife clarified that she was deconstructing from the Mormon faith
Commenters urged the couple to show a unified front and go no contact with the in-laws
