From Same Faith to Mixed Faith: Kim and Tucker Garrett's Story of Love, Belief, and Staying Together

Kim and Tucker Garrett sat down with me to talk about something that does not get discussed nearly enough. What happens to a marriage when one spouse walks away from the faith they built their life around and the other stays? Their story is honest and hard and full of the kind of wisdom that only comes from actually living through something. I am so grateful they were willing to share it.

Tucker was deeply devout before his faith transition in 2019. Scripture study every night without fail, never missed church, genuinely afraid to not be wearing his garments.

The church was the center of his entire universe.

Kim, raised in the same faith, experienced it very differently. Her family's emphasis was on kindness and Christlike behavior over rule-following, and her relationship with the church always felt lighter and more fluid. As she put it, Tucker was raised in a McConkey religion and she was raised in a Hinckley religion. Same faith on paper, vastly different lived experiences.

✨Listen to the full episode or read for the breakdown.

What Started Tucker's Transition

The turning point for Tucker came in 2019 when a quietly announced change removed a teaching about dark skin being a curse from official church materials. The change itself was not what troubled him most.

It was the fact that it changed at all.

If a teaching held for over a hundred years could simply be revised because it was no longer culturally acceptable, what else might be wrong? He started looking more closely at other historical patterns, polygamy, the priesthood ban, the church's relationship with the LGBTQ community, and kept noticing that major shifts seemed to follow social pressure rather than lead it. The shelf broke and the questions came flooding in.

The Hardest Part of a Mixed Faith Marriage

Kim was honest about how difficult those early conversations were. Tucker was angry and hurting, and because the church is not a person he could confront, she became the face of his frustration. There came a point where she had to tell him directly.

This is still sacred to me. The way you're talking about it doesn't honor that.

That boundary became the foundation of how they communicate now. They still have honest and sometimes pointed conversations about belief. But they have learned to have them without trying to convince each other, without one person needing to win, and without either of them feeling unseen. Two days before we recorded, they had a conversation in the bathroom while brushing their teeth about a religious belief Tucker thought was completely false.

And it felt like talking about what to have for dinner.

"You cannot fully love someone you are trying to change. So I just chose to love him."

Therapy Changed Everything

"Judgment is a sign of ignorance. If you're judging someone, it probably means you haven't experienced what they're dealing with."

Both Kim and Tucker pointed to therapy as the single biggest factor in keeping their marriage intact. Tucker started therapy when his mental health deteriorated significantly during his transition. Every Sunday ended with him depressed and spiraling, and eventually it was Kim, coached by her own therapist, who suggested he stop coming to church entirely.

Church was going to kill her husband. She was the one who told him to stop going.

They both still see therapists individually. Kim talked about the way her therapist helped her work through difficult conversations before she ever brought them to Tucker, so that by the time they talked, she had already processed enough to show up with less reactivity. Tucker's therapist once told him he was the most obsessed person she had ever seen in her search for truth, which Tucker immediately took as a compliment.

The point is not that therapy is a magic fix. It is that doing the inner work individually made the work together possible.

What Kim Holds Onto

One of the most moving moments in this conversation was when Kim shared what happened when she finally got on her knees and prayed through the weight of everything, about four months into Tucker's transition. She was overwhelmed, grieving the future she had imagined, and asking God what she was supposed to do.

She said the answer came clearly.

Do you trust that I am God?

That question brought her immediate peace. Not because everything was resolved, but because she felt a deep assurance that God knew Tucker, knew everything he had been through, and that her family was going to be okay. She quoted something profound:

You cannot fully love someone you are trying to change.

So she chose to just love him.

"We're allowed to have dueling emotions. I'm allowed to be sad that Tucker doesn't come to church with me anymore. And he doesn't have to change that so I won't be sad."

What Tucker Has Learned

Tucker said that if you find yourself judging someone, it probably means you have not experienced what they are going through.

Judgment is a sign of ignorance.

Not cruelty, just a gap in understanding. He used to judge people who left the church harshly because he was so certain in his own beliefs. Now he recognizes that most people who leave did not want to leave. They really wanted it to be true, and they were devastated when it stopped feeling that way.

His advice for closing that gap was simple. Ask. Get curious. Find the underlying value you both share and start there. Because most of the time, the people on opposite sides of a hard conversation actually want the same thing. They just disagree on how to get there.

That is the middle ground. And it is always worth looking for.

Cheering you on.

📣 Brynne

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Hi, I’m Brynne. I share my journey of becoming through stories and reflection - guided by a higher power as I explore identity, faith, and everyday life, inviting you to grow alongside me.

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