I have been out for 4 years now, and find it hard to meet someone who i find is compatible. One of the reasons being is that they haven`t experienced what it is like to come out of a cult, and i find there is a void there. Does anyone else feel like this?
Do you think it`s hard to have a relationship after you leave?
by dido 26 Replies latest jw friends
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Highlander
Absolutely, 100 % yes!
I'm a fader so for me I'm living the horrible, dreaded, satanic DOUBLE LIFE!!! gasp!!!
But since I'm caught in the middle it's always been hard to find someone compatible.
I would imagine that even if you walked away and cut all ties from this sick, f'd up cult, you may still have a long transition period trying to adapt to a normal life.
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dido
Even if you cut ties, you have a void/limbo state of `what now`? Where do you meet like minded people? The only place is on these sites, which helps, but is not always enough, we need human contact.
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Kero-kero
Well...I am married...but even that can be hard. My wife is still a JW and sometimes we come to logger-heads over the fact I do not want to go to the meetings. She has even said to me that if I do not worship Jehovah she cannot stay with me...But that attitude seems to have died down now. I think that as something do with her being fed up with the Congregation she is in...Which is the Congregation I really have no love or affection for.
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cyberdyne systems 101
In my experience, you need to find someone that can be patient with you as you learn to adapt to real life again, your descision making process will be impared and emotional development will be lower having had your life mapped out by someone else for so long.
What helped me was a few things: 1. Time - the further away I got from the JW mentallity, the anger I had of it and so on the easier its been. 2. Research - I spent a good while looking at the Bible, the witness doctrines and my life. That enabled me to see where they (and therefore I) had gone wrong and why I felt the way I did. 3 Make today count - Take chances, make mistakes but above all learn from any experience thats happened to you. Try not to live in the past but dont regret what got you to this point either, its makes you who you are.
I am currently in a relationship and sometimes I can't believe it, some of my old low self esteem creeps in and makes me think its too good to be true, but I know that everyone can offer a person something they want and need. If you can be kind, caring, loving, then there is simply no reason why you cant make another person happy is there. I guess you have to put yourself in places where people can meet and interact with you, and the old saying of dont be looking and it will find you might work.
Wishing you a happy life
CS 101
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Lapuce
It is very hard, I couldent function anymore, became paranoid and tried to commit suicide as none of my relationships worked after I left my wife, I cam back to her after 4 years as she was always hoping for me to come back. She is still a dub but sofened alot. Its hell!
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fullofdoubtnow
I have been pretty lucky in that the former jw who helped me to leave is now the man I am living with. We always liked each other as jws but didn't do anything about it. I think it would be difficult, though, for an ex jw, particularly someone who has just left, to form a relationship with someone who has never been a jw. The issues most of us face, like the guilt feelings when we do things we would not have dreamed of doing as jws, would be beyond their understanding, and I think that would put a strain on any relationship.
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ballistic
I don't think it's hard because I'm an ex-jw as that is behind me now. I just find it hard in general and am disillusioned with the dating scene in general in England.
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Dr Jekyll
One of the reasons being is that they haven`t experienced what it is like to come out of a cult, and i find there is a void there. Does anyone else feel like this?
My partner doesn't understand this. She laughs at my involvement here, although she did once mockingly say were were like a bunch of abuse victims all huddling together for support so I guess there must be some sort of understanding here.
I regularly read her the horror stories you get here just to try to educate her on just how messed up peoples lives are by the org and slowly she is beginning to understand.
When I left the org I just left, I went from 5 meetings every week 15 hours on av a month to nothing within the course of a week. There was no finality to it in the same way that someone who is DF'd has it and I left not because I didn't believe anymore but because I knew I could be happier outside. Leaving like that leaves a massive hole inside you. It's like losing someone really close and you go through a process of grief. It took me a year to get over the guilt of not going to meetings and getting used to living a worldly life but in order to get over that grief, that void inside I had to come to terms that I wasn't going back and that the only way left was forward. I don't know if you are familiar with Dickens, A Christmas Carrol, it features a character call Marley who haunts the main character Scrooge. The ghost of Marly is weighed down by heavy chains and these chains represent his past. Marley cant move on because of his past and this sounds like the predicament i was in and that you are in. Your past has become an anker to you and is stopping you from moving on. Its time to up anker !
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luna2
At least you make the attempt, ballistic. I admire people who try because I don't. lol