Initially, the former.
When I accepted Christ and became a Christian, I was convicted that I needed to get a Bible and start reading it and that I needed to start going to church again.
So the first place I went was where I was raised, the Catholic church. Then I visited an Evangelical church and alternated between the two for several months.
The more I read the Bible, the bigger discrepancy I saw between what it said and what the Catholic church taught. That settled it for me. I finally made the break.
Meanwhile, the reaction of the Catholics I worked with to that decision, some of whom were in my parish, confirmed my initial decision.
If the Roman Catholics in your former parish had been nicer would you have stayed?