I feel trapped as a PIMO but feel like I've gotten too far into Mormonism to leave
I could use some advise on my current situation since I'm sure there's a lot of folks here in the same boat as me. Basically I feel like im too much embedded in the church/church culture to leave.
I grew up in Asia in a semi-active family and we moved to the US South when I was a teen. Went on a mission, had a pretty good experience although my shelf started cracking at that point and got more disillusioned after coming home. Met a LDS girl online living in Nevada, fell in love, I became very active in the church again, and ended up relocating there since my company had a satellite office there and we got married shortly after. She's TBM (but not the preachy kind), but her family is very very devout, "pioneer stock". Her parents live 30 minutes from us and they are very close. A couple years and a few kids later, Ive lost my faith in the church. But I feel like I've invested so much into the church and my entire social network is people in the church. If I left it would be all gone, family gatherings would be super uncomfortable, and worst case scenario my wife might leave me (probably would lose the kids too given custody laws in the US). I see 5 options for me.
a) Stay as a PIMO and wait for some kind of black swan event / scandal to happen with the church (like Covid, SEC filing) and use that as an excuse to leave - probably the easiest one to do but who knows what the future holds and if such an opportunity will arise
b)Move - could be easier to break off ties with the church if we were away from the intermountain west and from my in laws
c) Drink the koolaid and become super devout LDS - essentially brainwash myself back into Mormonism
d) Rip the bandaid off - Probably the one I fear the most, especially because of the possibility of losing my wife and kids
e) Stay PIMO forever - that would destroy me mentally eventually and my kids are still young, I don't want them to go through what I had togo thru
Do I even have a gameplan "out" at this point? Feeling trapped.
Posted Apr 8, 2026, 2:43 AM UTC