Dear Yostina:

I understand your concern about your parents’ distress, especially your mother’s, if and when you tell them.

There is another issue: what will your mother do once you tell her? She may chase you every day with her truth, she may (?) cry and go on and on to you, maybe beg you to go to church or see this or that clergy person. That will be a lot of distress to you.

I suppose children leaving religion is something her church leadership is aware of. Maybe they have instructions for parents, what to do in that case. Guidelines, a manual of sorts, a policy perhaps. Your mother may find emotional support and calm in those guidelines, in the church’s instructions and support.

There are support groups, I imagine, for adult children leaving their parents’ religions. People there may have valuable information to you, information from their own experiences.

anita

Dear Yostina:

Fear is the most powerful emotion that is, and an effective motivator. Except fear does not motivate people to heal, to expand emotionally, to consider new ideas. It keeps people contracted, not open to re-evaluate (or to evaluate things they accepted before, for the first time).

There is no easy solution to your problem, unfortunately. The only way I can see going about it, at this point (and I do hope members who have personal experience with this will respond to your thread), is to tell them and to assert yourself at the same time. To tell them what behaviors you will not accept, for example: talking to you about anything to do with religion, with church.

I am sure you will express to them your concern for their well being and how difficult it has been for you to tell them what you had to tell them.

anita