I, too, have leaned away from the church, and into my faith. I was also raised in a strict faith but my parents did not turn it into a bad experience. My bad experiences have come from other directions.

My catholic MIL and FIL did all they could to sabatoge our marriage in the name of 'the church'. Weren't they surprised when their perfect catholic daughter divorced her catholic husband and went on to support two different live-in drunks! DH and I are still in love and still married, and guess who takes care of them?

On the other side of the coin, a couple of years after our daughter died, one of dh's catholic cousins converted to a very conservative pentecostal church. She lives in another state and I hadn't seen her in years but she had the audacity to write me a letter and tell me that I needed to get back to my own faith because my anger at God was keeping my family from healing. She had not so much as called or spoken to us since Missi died. In her view, my participation in the catholic church (I'm the organist, not a convert) was a sign that I no longer "believed". She said other things, too, but that was the gist of it.

I was so shocked and angry, it took me a few weeks to cool down enough to write a reply that reflected faith and wisdom rather than my anger. I have never heard from her again.

We never got this kind of pressure from my family.

My faith was shaken to the core with Missi's death but it did not die. I participate in dh's catholic church and in a neighboring lutheran church but don't feel a need to be in constant attendance at either.