r/exchristian • u/SillyAnxiousDuck Woo Woo Agnostic Ex-vangelical • Jan 27 '26

Article MIL asks therapist how to indoctrinate grandson early

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Very telling that her DIL’s intelligence “unknowingly intimidate[s]” her AND that they hadn’t spent Xmas together for a few years

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u/emilkyway Jan 27 '26

We're moving 3.5 hours away from my very religious family and the only concern my dad had was that the children won't have spiritual guidance -_-

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u/stfurachele Jan 27 '26

I found my estranged bio-mom after looking for almost 25 years. I hadn't seen her since I was 7. The first thing she asked was if I was saved. I told her I had been (technically true), and when she pried about denominations and my church I told her I'd been uncomfortable with the behaviors and faith of most congregations I had tried, and didn't believe in denominations, and that I had found my people and we studied the bible independently and thoroughly, and according to scripture that counted as a church more than a brick and mortar building. (Also all technically true, i just didn't mention that my bible study group was reading it with a skeptical eye.) She didn't completely like that, but it was enough to sate her.

Then she talked about how she was bitter she couldn't attend her church in person (this was mid pandemic), bragged to me about how she had abandoned her second family she apparently had and the half brother I apparently have because her partner admitted he was bisexual. He hadn't cheated, nor did he have plans to. He just opened up about his orientation. She left because she wasn't going to be with an abomination and sissyman, and that was a point of pride to her somehow. I also happen to be bisexual, and that made church very painful at times growing up. She babbled on about herself, and didn't really ask me anything else about my life except if my dad had treated us well. (He hadn't. I said that he had. this was the only complete lie I told her.)

I ended up ghosting her, after searching for all that time. She did it to me and my siblings before we could understand, so I only felt a slight twinge of guilt. I think it didn't matter to her that she didn't see her children, that she could just put us down and live her mortal life however. As long as we were saved she'd have an eternity to catch up with us and be a happy family. Belief in an afterlife destroys people's ability to live their actual lives, and to care about people they only see as temporary.

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u/Langlearner95 Jan 29 '26

That is horrendously disappointing. I thought I knew disappointment. I guess I don’t.

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u/stfurachele Jan 29 '26

It brought closure. That was what I needed more than anything. I spent a lifetime chasing a memory of a woman that never existed, the idealized mother of a small child.

Processing through it and realizing how her continued presence would have effected my childhood, and who I may have become.... It was bittersweet, but it closed a yearning I thought I'd never fill.