the high cost of divorcing a JW............

by oompa 89 Replies latest social relationships

• 

  OnTheWayOut

  Oh you talk BIG otwo!...just the first red part........everything you wrote is helpful.........but this weighing it all out is tough....very tough.......if it would not hurt her so much i think i would do it........but losing my few close friends....and my parents may just be to high a price to pay.......so i will prob be like living in this totally fukked up style of marrige.....faking myself to death.......stuck here in cyberworld..........crap...........oompa.....

  Weighing it is tough. Forgive me if I missed this, but what is the freaking hurry now?
  Your happiness is important, but it takes time. If the price is too high to pay right now,
  can't you live in this limbo for another week or another month or a bit longer as you
  weigh things out carefully?

  I will be stating my opinion now. It's just that, and I could be very wrong. You don't
  want to divorce your wife, for the pain it will cause her and you think it's the wrong thing
  to do. You don't want to add pressure to your parents, and you want a social life that
  includes your friends and wife, not just your friends without your wife. That's all normal.
  
  If you can continue to fake it, very well. That's not necessarily permanent. Move closer
  and closer by fractions of a degree toward a totally non-JW life. You will still get there.
  If you weigh things out and cannot do that, then move faster. I recommend doing what
  you feel you need to do to be happy- in my opinion, that's association with ex-JW's. If
  you cannot do that openly without your wife reporting you or without losing your parents,
  then I recommend you continue to do it not-so-openly. If your physical and emotional
  life with the wife is stable enough to continue, then let it be. If not, tell her so. If your
  moving on with your happiness causes people to leave/shun you, you did all that was
  within your powers/expectations. You won't be the cause of their pain, and you will have
  your pain knowing you did what you could.

  Once it all blows up in your face (worst case scenario) and your wife leaves you for
  "spiritual endangerment" or your family and friends shun you, then you can pursue the
  things you were considering doing but hesitated because you didn't want to hurt them.
  
  First, remove the power of the religion. Do nothing wrong because of it. Don't cheat on
  your wife to get freedom. If you must have freedom, then see a lawyer. If you want to
  stay in your marriage, then keep moving toward personal freedoms that are not sins or
  wrongs. If your wife cannot take it, let her decide that. Let her ask the questions or
  try to figure out what to do about it. You just love her and answer the questions to the
  best of your ability.

  Friends in the religion- HA, I knew I was going to lose them. I am not the same social
  person you are, but I imagine you will lose them too. It's just too much of a strain on their
  cognitive dissonance to keep up the pretense. If you know some very "weak" JW's, it
  could work out, but I never banked on it.

  Family in the religion, it's a mixed bag here in cyber world. Some lose family, some don't,
  some lose some of their family. I only had my mother to be concerned about, so my view
  may not apply. If you can fade and let WTS be the 800 lb. gorilla in the room, most relatives
  can still be okay with you. If they shun anyway, you did your best. It ain't right to expect
  you to attend meetings for anyone's sake, but I don't see any harm in remaining silent.
  Even there, readers here know that I am not totally silent to my wife and mother. I know
  I could never do that. But I pace my venting and learning about WTS and try to give them
  what they can handle.

  I think I might be starting to sound like WT articles now, covering both sides of the issue.
  "Seek your own happiness first." "Move slowly to minimize the hurt." "Let them leave you
  rather than you leave them." That's what you have to balance. It is hard. The reason I say
  that is because your happiness includes your wife and parents and (to some degree) your
  friends. Otherwise, damn them and go eat, drink, and be merry. Just your agony over this
  demonstrates that you want to include them in your life. Weigh it out, buddy. Luck to ya.
• 

  sammielee24

  Well...I really feel for you but in the end, only YOU can make the decision on where your life will go.

  In a nutshell, you appear to respect your wife and are fond of her but it appears that her 'type' of love isn't what you feel is what you really want or need? She is a nice, kind and good person apparently and there is absolutely nothing wrong with any of that.

  All through life doors open and every person has to make the decision whether or not to step through a door they can't see beyond. Some people will do that and accept the unknown as a challenge or a doorway to growth, despite all they come up against. Others look at the door and simply walk away as they feel unable or unwilling to accept the unknown with all the joys and sorrows it might offer. It boils down to safety and security in the same or known vs all the emotion, adventure, tragedy and triumph of the unknown. Every person at some point in their life, in some way, makes a decision to shut the door or walk through it. That is life.

  Only you can decide.

  There are many people who stay with what they know because the fear of the unknown is greater. They do that in marriages, jobs, relationships and religion every single day and arrange their lives and their thoughts accordingingly. Many people watch the years go by just waiting and in the end come to a quiet acceptance that life is okay and one can't ask for more. Some hold on until they feel like they are going to explode and then act out in ways that do more harm than good, causing more hurt and upset than even they realize. Still others simply find it unacceptable to believe that life is not for living and that not knowing what could be is worse than being in what is. But everyone is different. You have to be accepting of what you want out of life and what you want out of marriage. You have to be honest. You have to decide. If you make a decision then you have to accept that with all action comes reaction - and you have to be mentally and emotionally prepared to deal with that.

  It's all about settling. sammieswife.
• 

  Awakened at Gilead

  Sammieswife.. great post! I agree, some people can't take the risk of the unknown, yet I think Oompa can, he just wants to minimize the hurt and pain his decision may cause.

  OTWO said much more eloquently what I was trying to say. To add: If you insist on your non-JW activities and it blows up in your face, then you are free to go without causing pain, since she will make the decision to leave and will blame you for leaving the religion. Well, it's still painful, but you may feel less guilt than you will if you decide to leave without giving the relationship a further chance...

  PM, email, or call if you want. I'm here.
• 

  oompa

  Whew!.......big deep breaths..........what an incredible page.......what incredible info and understanding and kindness......thanks for not beating me up and kicking of my arse.......this was such an needed thread for me....so thanks sincerely for helping and careing......

  like this is an apostate site?......bullshit...jwd is sooooooooo not that!........and see...i feel better now.......and otwo you are right "what is the hurry?".......good point.....but maybe you guys dont know that i am a worrier and am obsessive.....so it ALWAY running through my head unless i super distracted with something.......and i have GOT to find some distractions........

  now when i plan this yacht trip......you in lance?.....Bonnzo.....otwo.....olin moyles and your brothers?....flipper?..........anybody want to book a week?.......i may just make it three weeks........i can charter up to 50 feet and you can easily have a ton room on the catamarans theys sleep 4 couples very comfortably........damm i am dreaming again!!!!.......this thread was so needed.......and believe me....i am going to be on jwd a lot.......i need.....it goes in spells.....i will be glad when i miss a month posting........you will then know i am much better........thanks again...................oomps

  haha.....my first apostacruise
• 

  sammielee24

  I don't know if you are ready or not for such a big change...it is difficult.

  I only know that for me it was a matter of life or death. As a JW, self sacrifice is necessary and I lived a life of continual self sacrifice. I married within the society because it was expected and stayed married still sacrificing myself and simply endured a relationship for over 20 years because it was understood that I would sacrifice myself for the marriage regardless of my own mental/emotional/physical state. I was taught that I did not matter.

  One day I looked up and knew without any doubt, that if I continued on the path that I was, death was a certainty in a few short years. Not by an worldly definition of suicide but by a WT form of suicide. The slow, methodical demise of energy that one needs to live. The inability to feel great joy in living or see life in amazing colors. As a JW, I was obligated to endure a lifetime of self sacrifice and in many ways, a lifetime of self hatred as I was taught to loathe all I wanted to be and wanted to do, while adhering to the life inside a stifling organization that had determined I was one of the happiest people on earth.

  For every person it is a personal choice. I choose the open door because I knew that if I let the door close this time, I wouldn't get another chance. I wanted to live. I do not regret my decision for one moment but I was ready and willing to set out for the unknown, if a person is not ready to accept the consequence of the action, the action should not be taken because until you actually go through it, it is difficult to explain the devastation that life may be for a while afterward and once you go forward, you can never go back.
• 

  rebel8

  I think Awakened gave you some good advice. I am not trivializing what you're going through, but to some extent, many marriages go through periods where one parter's life changes dramatically. The other partner then must make a choice as to how to respond to the changes. People change through their entire lives, and all relationships change too.

  Are you sure you're in a loveless marriage? It doesn't sound like it when you talk about it. You have great sex, you enjoy each others' company, you have some common interests, even thinking of separating is painful for both of you??

  Is it possible your love is impaired by the religious differences and obscured by the major transformation you're undergoing right now, or am I wrong?
• 

  John Doe

  After hearing just a few too many melodramatic threads, I question the motivations behind them and the accuracy of the information and then I tend to draw the conclusion that the poster is just fishing for attention.
• 

  rebel8

  I remember that, JD. But everyone isn't a Vulcan. Really.
• 

  oompa

  sammielee: I wanted to live.

  EXACTLY!.....me too.....to grow.......to be free.....

  and i do have another problem/idea........i could tell her that i am so torn by not being able to handle this "arrangement" of a marriage.....that i feel we need a trial seperation......that i need to feel free to be me........and i dont want to harm her spiritually anymore.......

  the funny thing is that i'm worried that IF she decided to wake up......or say she cant live without me.... so she will let me have my new friends over.....dfd....apostates....my gay sister and her partner.........i dont know what would happen if she REALLY wakes up....and then although we have being awake in common......i would still want a divorce!....so now she lost all her friends......and loses me too......that sucks. I may have forgotten to mention this......and it is important.........I CALL HER A TOTAL FUN KILLER!! and oompa is kind of a FUN LOVER.......so we are just damm polar opposites in most ways..............oompa
• 

  oompa

  jd...i like real fishing though.....and this thread was medicine for me......oompa

  and i think i said "good sex" not "great sex".....but sometimes it is great actually.......