How did you treat your worldly relatives when you were a JW

by TallTexan 13 Replies latest jw friends

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  TallTexan

  I had an interesting conversation the other day with a friend who is also an ex-JW. This person is older than I am, and was a JW for a number of decades. She was talking about worldly relatives that she basically ignored when she was a JW. She has since gotten very close to several of them. She said she feels guilty sometimes because these people have welcomed her with open arms, never once holding against her that she never chose to develop a relationship with them when she was an active JW. Since she has been abandonded by many of her JW friends, some of whom she brought into the 'truth', she has come to value the unconditional love of 'worldly' people who could care less whether she never attended another meeting.

  Did any of you find similar situations with worldly relatives with whom you didn't have a relationship until after you left?
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  Calliope

  we were very close to all of our relatives even though they weren't wits.

  personally, even to the point of smoking and doing drugs with them.

  ah... good times.
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  alamb

  
  I ignored them since they were doomed to die anyway. When I left the JW's I reluctantly contacted them and apologized. They just waited me out, smiling, and then said, "We've been waiting for you."

  (get the tissues) My daughter was turning 3 and my parents (JW) haven't bothered to meet her, or her little brother. I e-mailed my father's brother who was never a JW and who I had only met once. I asked if he would be the voice on the phone she would think was "grandpa". I explained it was OK if that was too strange as I never really knew him, his wife, or my cousins. That evening the phone rang and he said, "Hello, it's Grandpa Bob. Where's the princess?" I still cry when I tell that one.

  That's love...not anything I thought was love before.

  Thank you Grandpa Bob, Grandma Edwina, and all my new family I have yet to meet in person and begin to pay back their love and kindness.
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  freedom96

  I always treated them fine. I just wished I got to see them more, as I was a kid back then.
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  sass_my_frass

  Mother pulled us out of contact with with them when she got the dunk; deliberately cutting them all off. They've waited it out, and see through it. I was too young to know, but went along with the feeling of superiority. My non-witness family have been so great to me since the disfellowshipping, I hope we become close.
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  Amazing1914

  TallTexan,

  We never really shunned our non-JW relatives. They would invite us for dinner on holidays, and then avoid calling our family gatherings Christians so as to not offend us. They gave gifts a ew weeks away from holidays and birthdays to avoid offending us. In return, we attending all family functions, and visited regularly and did things together. (Besides, it was easy to count time, because they didn't mind talking about religion with us.) However, there was always the unspoken wall between us, and I know it hurt them. When we left the Watchtower, they welcomed us with open arms, and in some cases cried tears of relief and joy. We thank God that we did not totally cold-shoulder our relatives.

  Jim W.
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  serendipity

  Hi TallTexan,

  The relatives were not happy when my parents became JWs in the mid 70's. Prior to that there was a rift and strained relationships anyway, due to a business venture gone bad. In preparation for Armageddon in 1975, my parents cut off contact for a while and it was probably 6 years before we saw the relatives again. After I left home, I moved closer to my grandparents and visited them several times a year. I tried for about three years to build a closer relationship, but gave up. They were the ones that were kind of cold at this point. There was definitely a wall up and we just didn't have much in common. I was still a JW at the time. Maybe things would have been different if I wasn't.
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  rowan

  We have a huge extended family from my mother's side. Healthy, good, agreeable people. At least 10 cousins around my age. I was not allowed to play with them. Although my childhood years were happy ones, that's something I will never get back: the joy of companionship and sharing with the kids of my family. Now I look at their family albums, and I am not in there, you know, the summer afternoons spent by the pool, the collective going outs to the city, etc. That's one of the few things I regret from my JW childhood. (my JW teenage years were HELL)

  The good thing is that after I got DF, my mother was so disgruntled that she got closer to her (blood) sisters. Now we do have family occasions all together. Most of my cousins are married or engaged, but we are close, we are sharing moments, enjoying the addition of a second generation of little urchins. It's like my parents have bonded for the first time with the rest of the family. It wasn't too late! They were welcomed back with open arms.

  Rowan
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  Joyal

  This is a very sore spot for me because I was the one who shunned my relatives and tried to browbeat them into believing what I believed when I became a JW. This was especially true of my dear sister, whom I had been very very close to until that time.

  Unfortunately she died, so I will not be able to make that up to her. Having seen the truth about this organization, It's one of the things I now truly regret.
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  greendawn

  I also treated them the same as before and all the more so as I realised that the dubs failed in their promise that you would find more relatives in the org than you had left behind in the world. That certainly didn't happen.