Wow, you and I have been down some of the same paths.
I converted from Presbyterian to RC about 10 years ago. I fought it tooth and nail, but the pull was too strong for me to push aside. I felt, and still feel, that the Holy Spirit led me to convert to Catholicism. However, even at the time, I felt that I was there for a season. That season could have been the rest of my life - but I felt the door was open as long as I listened to the Holy Spirit.
Sure enough, about four years after converting, I left the RC Church. Not in any sort of tizzy, not in anger, but it was time to move on.
What I gained though in the process was amazing. First of all, the animosity I had been taught toward the RC Church and it's members for my entire life was defused. That alone was worth the experience.
Secondly, studying the history of the Church gave me a better understanding of my own faith and the communion of the saints. That has been invaluable to me.
Even though I left the RC Church, I am a better person, and a better Christian, for the time I spent as a Roman Catholic. To this day, I miss many things about being a practicing Catholic, but I believe I am in the right place spiritually. I now attend a fairly conservative United Methodist Church. By "conservative" I mean that this particular congregation has not embraced some of the more radical movements within Methodism.
I chose the Methodist church because it is liturgical and feels "high church" to me, which was one of the draws of Catholicism. I really appreciate structure and tradition in worship. I also dearly love the sacrament of communion and though we don't practice it every week, we do at least once a month, and we practice intinction, which is nice.
In a nutshell, I left the RCC when I went through a divorce and remarriage. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that my divorce - and remarriage - were valid before God. My exhusband was blatantly and repetitively unfaithful to me (among other abuses of trust). My subsequent remarriage - without an anullment, which in my opinion was totally unnecessary - drove home the point that was a breaking point to me:
The RCC is an all or nothing thing. You can't do it cafeteria style. That tells me that it cannot possibly be the only "true" church - which invalidates the entire position in my opinion.
But I still have great respect for the RCC and feel a lot of affection for it's members.
