NON WITNESS DATING A WITNESS

Daunbreakable

Makes sense? Well I'm not big on religion...I've studied many and rather just be on my own path. am I wrong? but now that I'm involved with a witness...and SHE IS NOW PREGNANT...she is stressing me about marriage. I'm not thinking about marriage. am I wrong? It's just a title.. a word even TO ME. We can do the same things to raise a child etc etc...but what does one do? She is 25 and her mother tries to run her life... she has been married before...18 year old. and divorced a few years after to a WITNESS. What does that say? Just because you are married to another witness.. doesn't mean it will work right? I'm almost 30 and it seems like my views to her and her mother are clouded because I don't see what they see. She was going against it when she was 18...so why am I caught in the middle? I met her for her personality and inner beauty...not because of her religion. Now that we are together....I'm still getting grief...could someone advise? NO BASHING PLEASE...I'M NOT IN THE MOOD FOR FOOLISH RESPONSES.

Daunbreakable

ANYBODY?

OnTheWayOut

You arrived early for the crowd. They will be here.

What do you want to know? You say, "Now that we are together....I'm still getting grief..."

All we know is that she is a JW, but pregnant. I assume it's your baby. I assume she doesn't
go to the Kingdom Hall, but will be disfellowshipped eventually. Her JW family might start
shunning her, totally.

You need to learn together that Jehovah's Witnesses do not have "the truth." They are false
prophets, a mind-control cult. Until you help her free her mind, she will have grief.

carla

There will be responses. You have to forgive the lack or responses as this board gets questions like that about once a week. Well, maybe not including pregnancy. The jw's are a dangerous and destructive cult. Look in the archives here, use the search button for numerous threads about what to do when non jw dates a jw. You will find the usual answer is RUN. However, you now have a child in the mix you cannot run. You need to think about the safety and well being of this child. With your anatomy you can use the 'head of the house' routine, I think that will only work if you marry the girl. Keep the child out of the jw's at all costs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It destroys childrens lives. Protect this child.

OnTheWayOut

I'M NOT IN THE MOOD FOR FOOLISH RESPONSES.

You are going to get serious responses, but your whole setup is FOOLISH.

Basically, you got a woman pregnant but you are both old enough to know better
how to prevent that. She and her mother are highly religious, but she slept with you.
She has guilt over what she's done and wants you to marry her- probably to appease
the religious guilt and maybe for personal reasons.

Some will say RUN AWAY. Some will say MARRY HER. That's your decision.
But if you want to help, prepare for her mother to possibly never speak to her again.
Help her to learn what's wrong with her religion. Be there to give support.

Gayle

Hello, good you came here,, is she "disfellowshipped?",,she may be because of having sex outside of marriage,,or at least she will be reproved depending on her remorse,,she will have pressure to break off from you if you're not getting married. If you marry her & she remains a JW, you will be given tremendous pressure to become a JW and she will raise your child as a JW, who will be taught that if his/her father doesn't want to be a JW, that you will be soon(?) destroyed by their god at Armageddon. If your child ever needs a blood transfusion and her mother is a JW, the mother will refuse a blood transfusion absolutely. You really have got yourself in a jam. The group here will discuss what you are in for. I suggest not to rush into marriage from what you wrote at where you are at right now. However,,please be there for your child at all cost,,the child will never get a birthday party or Christmas as a JW and you have a big responsibility. I wish you the best but it won't be easy.

jaydoe

I recently have some (bad) experience with this, so I feel that I can offer some relevant info to you.

In the *active* dub world there are goody goody dubs and those who see things are not so black and white, i'll call these ones enlightened dubs, then there are those on the fringes of JW society. The problem is that most families contain a combination of goody goody, enlightened, and fringe dubs (at this point you must realize that your partner is not a goody goody witness).

In the witness world the goody goody's have significant power over all that are in any way active (GG mothers have a lot of pull on daughters). The most important thing you must realize is that the JW's in your partners life have the same amount of influence on her as you do! The other thing you must know is that dubs are VERY concerned about outward appearances.

You can be in love today and tomorrow your partner could be convinced by her goody goody dub associates to have nothing more to do with you! My guess is that the marriage thing is an attempt to control how your relationship will be viewed within the JW congregation. If this is the case it means to me that the JW's still have power over your partner.

Some scenarios for you:

1) Break it off now and save yourself the grief. Watch out or her GG mother will convince her to break it off.

2) Get your partner to see the truth about JW's and maybe she will be better able to deal with the "appearances" problem. Or better yet leave the org altogether. If she can see the truth then maybe your relationship can have time to develop normally.

3) Go with the flow. Study the bible with JW's attend meetings, get married. Become a goody goody JW :).

4) I have a feeling that your pregnant partner will be called before the elders to answer for her sins. Depending on her standing in the congregation (are any relatives elders?), she will be disfellowshipped or reproved. If she is DF'ed then she should loose contact with her family and other JW's. This period of non-contact with JW's may give you some time to get settled into being new parents and your relationship can develop normally (given the circumstance). When things have settled hopefully she will see the conditional nature of the love shown by her JW associates and maybe she will be better able to deal with the JW control mechanisms.

If you are lucky, some combination of #2 and #4 will work for you. Not investment advice blah blah blah....

J

wanderlustguy

Her world is going to be in chaos. Good luck.

drew sagan

There usually a handful of issues that will continue to come up as time passes.

I think the most important thing for you to realize is that if this person never actually decides that the Watchtowers belief system is wrong, they will always have a feeling or desire to go back. This could also translate in a desire for you to be converted (especially by her parents).

The Watchtower makes a basic (and absurd) proposition. They are the only true church on earth and where selected by God in 1919. The early founders of the religion found that all other religions are wrong based on their bible studies and so God blessed them and chose them as his people.

Even if a person leaves the Watchtower religion physically (getting away from dominant partents is common) that person will still carry around the guilt of not being an active member of "the truth" (e.g. the God appointed Watchtower religion).

It can be quite a sad thing. A person is abused and tossed around by this religion but they transfer all the guilt to themselves because "Gods True Religion" could never be bad. Sometimes they go out and marry a non witness only to later want to go back to the religion, trying to take their new partner with them. As I mentioned above sometimes the family of the inactive member will try to put alot of pressure on the new mate to convert as well, hoping that will change the attitude of their child (i have seen a few people covert to the JWs this way).

If you get invovled with this person there are mainly two ways it can go.

1. The person actually realizes that what the Watchtower is saying about itself isn't true. They realize the way they view the world and themselves is a distorted picture and see the need for change. They eventually no longer feel guilt for deciding to leave the Watchtower or participate in it because they see it to be a system of untruths.

2. The person may leave physically but deep down still believes that they have done the wrong thing and that the JWs are "the truth". High levels of guilt are very common. At first the person decides to live outside of the group and believes that if they don't recieve everlasting life for their sin of leaving they don't care. Eventually over time their opinion may change and they may begin to want to return to the faith. They can upset their new marriage mate who wrongly thought the person had put all of their JW beliefs behind them.

Find out what this person believes about the JW religion. Do they feel it is "the truth"? That is going to be a good starting point for you.

NON WITNESS DATING A WITNESS

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