Congratulations! Welcome to freedom and welcome to this forum.
I can relate to what you say about your "worldly" friends' having better qualities than your JW associates. When I was close to leaving (1979), I realized that I had been a better person before becoming a JW. I am also a better person after leaving. I can also relate to how peaceful it feels to be free. I was harassed into a judicial committee. I saw no reason to be brought before a committee, but my JW elder husband insisted so that he could try to establish adultery so he could marry his horror of a girlfriend. Yes, he had the girlfriend, but wanted me to be the one to confess to adultery. Actually, I think this woman would have been perfect for him. She would have been a total shrew and then taken all of his material possessions. He deserved her, but he had my daughter; and my child did not deserve to have to live under the same roof with this woman. The poor guy could not imagine I would leave for any other reason. Anyway, ever since that kangaroo court, I have been so glad I went despite my objections. They treated me so shabbily that I totally, for the first time, realized what a bunch of hypocritical pathetic losers they really were. I left that meeting feeling like a huge weight had been lifted from me. I was smiling, practically dancing. I went and found a friend to celebrate!
In later years, my ex stepped down from being an elder and gradually quit attending meetings. My daughter tells me that she found condoms in the living room of his home. He dated a girl with paranoid schizophrenia, and may have fathered a child by her. I'm sorry; I know he is mentally ill, but facts are facts. A couple of years ago, he reconnected with the organization and married a JW woman. Through the grapevine, I hear that he (now close to 70 years old) lives with her in her parents' basement, a better place than that ramshackle trailer he lived in before. At any rate, he is a good example of the self-righteousness and hypocrisy of which we speak. Needless to say, better was about all things could get for me arfter I left.
I now have a college degree, am retired with more than Social Security. My daughter also has a college degree. She loves her father but has little or no contact with him. She understands his illness but cannot cope with it very well.
Oh, yes, life outside of "paradise" is the only life worth living.
Regards,
SandraC
