Let me begin by saying that I never expected to even talk about my situation let alone discuss it on the Internet but I guess im just feeling so sad that I must hope that someone will understand and give me encouragement...so here it goes.
I was raised in the "truth" and was very active as a child and teenager, doing all that was expected as a proper youth. Ironically by the time I made it to my teen years, I was the only one going to meetings and out in service out of my parents and four siblings. My home life was awful as my stepmother was abusive and my father simply pretended it didn't happen. I turned to meetings thinking that it was just part of being persecuted. Come to think of it, it was all rather funny. My parents convinced me to leave high school and be an auxiliary pioneer because college and higher education had no role in my life as a JW. But the more active I got, the more abusive my stepmother became. Finally she kicked me out of the house at 16 and gave my Dad a bogus story. I left and moved to be closer to my grandmother (yes another JW). And the family stopped talking to me altogether and yet I was still in good standing in the congregation. Unfortunately making a living on my own without family help was difficult at 16 and after working a late shift at a restraunt one night, I was raped. But being the good girl I was, I continued my active religious life, but became more and more depressed to the point where I asked the elders to please help me. I begged for them to visit me. I talked to the circuit overseer on his visit, who assured me that I would be visited. Nothing happened.
I went in to a hospital and got a little better emotionally. But still no visit from anyone. I stopped going to meetings at around 19. I started dating someone and thought it was my out. I asked them to disfellowship me, told them I had slept with the person although I had not. Funny it was not until then that they even noticed me. They actually begged to just have me publicly reproved. But I couldn't deal with the pressures of being a JW and not having any support from anyone. So I said no, I should be DF. So I was.
It was the hardest and bravest thing I ever did. I learned to only depend on myself. I few months later I met a man I would marry. Two years later before i got married I called my dad, who I had not spoken to since I announced my disfellowshipment to tell him. Ironically, he sent my stepmother to the wedding. I hadn't expected them to show since 1- they hadn't spoken to me all this time and 2- they were baptized and it was wrong...wasn't it?!
As the years went on, I lived a good clean life, as always. But my husband was abusive to the point that I feared for my life. I spoke very little to my family over the twelve years of my marriage, maybe once a year if I was lucky. Finally two years ago, I fled for my life and divorced this man. I was frightened to tell my JW family, yet ...I did. Shockingly my dad sided with me. Fatherly love? Maybe, maybe not. Don't really know. I spoke to him maybe three times over the year I was getting divorced. Thought it was an improvement. And I even went back to college and graduated during this time with my B.A. in English.
I made sure we avoided conversation about religion. After all, my understanding was that I was still family but they could not talk to me on spiritual matters. Ironically a few years prior to my divorce, my father and step mother went back to meetings. They were active. Miserable but active. After all out of 6 children, they had one disfellowshipped child and none that would have anything to do with the religion. But I thought, talking to me three times in one year...maybe they still wanted me as a daughter. My mistake, again all communication stopped for the next year. In fact they moved and didn't tell me.
During my divorce proceedings, I met a friend who eventually became the love of my life... a good man, a loving and wonderful man. He asked me to marry him and I said yes. But it meant moving to Canada. ( I was living in Texas at the time). So I felt I should let my family know. I tracked my father down. And he said he was happy for me. In fact he asked to see me before I moved. So on my way driving to Canada, I made arrangements to see them. They met me and spent the day with me. Can't tell you how my heart soared. I thought, "wow they actually care, I am actually worthy in their eyes to be loved as their daughter". I even told them how I went back to college and was currently finishing my Masters Degree. I knew my association with them would be limited, but I had hopes that I can just have a distant relationship with them. So I called once a month for three months. I didn't talk for long, just a hello and to say I was well and how the wedding plans were going.
Finally, yesterday I called him to tell him I graduated with my Masters. Thought maybe it would make him proud to have me as a daughter. Instead, he said I need to tell you something. I knew it was coming, I suppose. He said in the most unemotional voice "I can never speak to you again or have anything to do with you ever again". I felt ostracized years before, but I felt I still existed. But these words made me dead. I had not done anything differently. Lived a clean life. Never drank or did drugs or slept around the way my brothers did. But I am dead to him nevertheless.
Its funny, I haven't seen a JW on the street or a KH in years. What's the official policy? I know they can not socially interact with me cause I may "taint or mislead" them. But I must for all intents and purposes die to them? And when I have a child, (which my hopes are), will they try to talk then? I will tell you this ...they will never ever even know they have a grandchild from me. And my dad chose to tell me this two and a half weeks before my wedding....