Just Left the 'Recovery'. What a Relief.

I'm Bradley. I was in the church for ten years, and graduated from the FTT after two years study there (the curriculum is based on FTTA in Anaheim). My whole life was devoted to the church and I basically did nothing except church stuff. I had no friends who were not in the church.

Unfortunately, because brothers and sisters are discouraged from any form of communication at all outside of marital courtship (conversation between brothers and sisters should be kept within about 2-5 minutes, no more), I ended up marrying a sister I hardly knew just because she was also an FTT grad and seemed spiritual. Heaven forbid we actually date for a long period of time and get to know each other first, that would be worldly. When I was a student on campus serving and gospel-preaching with the full-timers, whenever one of our new ones had a girlfriend we would pray for them to either break up or get married quickly because dating was so sinful - so when it came time for me to start a relationship, I quickly got married to appease my conscience about having a girlfriend. She turned out to be highly abusive, violent and hypocritical, but it was too late, I was already married. Her abuse at home but spiritual facade in the meetings was a big suffering for me. I turned me to cigarettes and alcohol, I often got drunk on my own at home (she wouldn't let me go out to pubs) but in the meetings I put on a smile and acted like a spiritual brother for the 'testimony'.

After six years of a miserable, grueling marriage I decided - rather than committing suicide - to leave my wife. The church who I had served for a decade turned on me and treated me terribly. A leading brother told me I could not be a Christian anymore, I could never again partake of the bread and wine for the rest of my life if I did not return to my wife. He even said that abuse is irrelevant, I need to 'take the cross'. If a sister was physically beaten by her husband, she also should remain with him and simply pray for his repentance, because only adultery is grounds for divorce, nothing else. That was the beginning of my doubts about the church, as you can imagine.

I was reading some posts on your website, which type of website I had always avoided because it was 'poison', and found that it actually rang very true for me and was quite accurate. It is not 'poison', it was helpful. But I had always been taught that it was 'poison' because they didn't want me reading it and thinking for myself in a way that would lead to a conclusion of leaving the church.

Anyway, my old friends who are still in the church see me as this 'lost sheep' who needs to repent, but I'm just happy I can finally live a happy and normal life. All I've ever known for the last decade has been this super-spiritual fundie way of life and now I am having to learn how to fit into society again.