I can only speak from my personal experience, but my dad stopped going to Church after the Latin mass was discontinued, and my mom went once in awhile but mostly nagged me and my siblings to go when we were old enough to do so without her.  My Catholic faith came from my once-a-week classes, mass, confession, good homilies,  and some darn good Jesus movies.  My continuing faith comes from exercising that which I learned.  

I'll tell you what's hard:  trying to teach one's kids about Catholic faith when the Church doesn't seem to have any faith in itself anymore.