How did your family react to your decision over time?

mavie

I'm still somewhat hopeful my family will one day 'see the light'. In your experience, did any of your family members finally understand your reason for leaving and communicate with you as a family member and not an apostate?

candidlynuts

my family doesnt know. just being inactive is enough to justify shunning.

Mulan

My mother was very hurt for a long time, but one day after maybe 5 years, she told me that she respected my intelligence and she knew I wouldn't have done such a difficult thing if I didn't really believe I was right.

She also said we have freedom of religion in this country which makes me free to decide and allows her the freedom to be a JW, so after that we just never talk about it.

mrsjones5

I never got baptised as a jw. Came close when I was 18-19 only because I was engaged to the "brother". When that fell through I stopped studying after a while. My parents (especially my mother) would pull that "you know it's the truth" crap on me time and again. When I finally decided that I would never become a jw (shortly after the breakup of my first marriage to a nonjw) my mother would pull little stunts to try and embarass me to come back like asking me in a loud voice in front of my jw aunts if I was going to the memorial. For a while I declared myself as an atheist to my parents, they weren't happy about that but as long as they didn't push and we didn't talk about religion we were cool. But when I got baptised as a christian that's when it seems the poop hit the fan.

Josie

jaguarbass

Within 10 years after I left the organizaion in 1983, my wife, my mother, my brother and my sister all left.

esw1966

I've been out for 2 years now. Divorced and df'd.

My father said that I would get a letter from him. He never sent it. It would have been a lecture on why and how I should have turned around and get my butt back to the hall. I send him letters from time to time with no response. His wife is cruel when answering the phone the last time I called saying, "We're not talking to YOU!"

My sister has blocked my emails and refused to respond to my letters.

Those are my family members. They all think that I have gone insane. They feel that I must never have wanted to be a jw and that must be why I am so happy now. (that is no where near the truth!)

I will continue to try to get communication with them. I feel it is my duty to them. I want them in my life, but I do not need them as their minds are corrupted and I don't like their wicked influence on me.

I speak to my kids twice a week and they come to visit me in the summer. I am hopeful to keep them in my life, but I fear that one day they too will succumb to the borg and I will lose them forever.

There is not much you can do for people who do not seek reason and truth, but would rather submit to a borg who says that if they jump through all the right hoops MAYBE they will live.

I hope you have more success than I am! Never give up though. They need you to help them free themselves from enslavement and guilt.

searching4truth

My family don't know my thinking yet. I am still planting seeds with them.

Bumble Bee

When my mother found out she totally freaked and said she never wanted to see me again, told my brother she had taken me out of the will and that I turned apostate (plus lots more nasty suff not fit to put in writing). I told her that was her decision to make, that I would always be here.

I can't tell you how free I felt after all was said and done. I didn't hear from her for a while, then one day she showed up at the door, apologised and asked if I could put it behind me and forget that it ever happened, and forget the things she said, and never speak about it again.

I did, and we have a pretty good relationship, we just don't talk about religion, but she still manages to slip in a few mags here and there.

I only have one uncle on my fathers side, and he lives in another city and we rarely have any contact with him, so as far as I know he doesn't know that I don't go to meetings anymore. The rest of my family are mostly non JW.

BB

garybuss

My exit was topical and almost disconnected. First I quit reporting service, then I quit service, then I cut way back on meetings, then I quit meetings but I still went to some assemblies with my wife, then I quit assemblies. My last assembly on purpose must have been summer 1975. Eventually after run ins with servants (elders) and insults by convention security guards, I became a believing walkaway.

I started a recovery process in 1992 and after I talked to my brother about Witness and family topics the Witness people started shunning me. I continued my education and I didn't take the shunning well. I quickly built stone walls and made pragmatic plans to live the rest of my life as comfortable as possible. Comfortable as possible didn't include being disrespected or snubbed in my own home.

It's all worked out well. This is how it will all end. The ones who snub and shun me and people important to me, are dispensable, unimportant, they have to be. I can't change them, and I'm sure not gonna go back to being a door to door literature solicitor to please them. I have nothing to offer them that they can accept, and they have nothing to offer me that I can accept. That door's closed.

My life is full to the max. I don't have time that I want to donate to troublemakers. I've got all the family I need and I see and enjoy my friends often. I've been shunned for so long that my memory has faded on the shunners.

The only one I care about is my son. He has my permission to shun me because he's sick. The others made the decision for us both. There's no light for them to see. They're jerks.

free2beme

My mom hardly mentions it, well she does not mention it enough to have be irritated. My sister left the religion last year. My inlaws attend from time to time, but not much. That is about all there is left in, and very little talk about Witnesses in my family life. It has been nice.

How did your family react to your decision over time?

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