Pieces Lost

by SeekingSanity 23 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  lurk3r

  Hello Pieces Lost,

  I'd love to start out by telling you my first name...just so i could get you to look me in the eye, so i can let you know your not alone. I cant tell you my name, but i can tell ya, Im 38 (or so), Im divorced for over 10 years. I married at the young age of 22, and with my emotional baggage as being raised a JW I was wayyy younger. I was married to a Witness, and i have experienced first hand many of the things your referring to annd I really; really,want you to know that i can hear where your coming from. Welcome to the board, and I can see your a newb, just like me. Your gonna love it here. Your gonna love it here....cause for the first time in your life, your gonna get to know who you actually ARE. I can tell by the length of your post's that you are sincere and really want to sort your smack out. Im going to presume that since you put so much of yourself into the Organization growing up, your still a hurting unit...you were raised to think, "There is no TIME. Were running out of time! PL; we got time. We were both raised very similar, and thats the great thing about this board.Everyone here knows how much your hurting, cause we all hurt and in turn it would be great if you could feel better....and you WILL. You have time. Take it; it's yours.

  DId you grow up like me? Like a lot of other JW's? Did you look forward to the District convention, cause there were going to be a WHOLE lot of new sisters there?Did you sit with your friends and take in the views? Were you one of the guys who was lucky enough to have parents that let you use binoculars during the sessions?lol I was a horndog and i didnt even know it...my thinking was really unbalanced with some things...and i didnt even know it. Not just mine, but pretty much me and all of my JW friends too.How bout you? You recall?

  I don't know how long you have been divorced for; but you need to take advice from the majority here and give yourself the time.Take it, cause you can now. How are ya with the Truth? How far are you into the whole process of seperating how you think, vs how you feel? One of the things I have struggled with is where to go AFTER? How you doing with that?

  Back to the girls. As A JW we grew up being told HOW to think, and for me, I believe that was the very heart of the problem. We were told how we should think about women, and in turn did are best with what we had to get ourselves one. Were in a new world now. The rules have changed, WE have to change. It's not like it used to be.No more going to the hall with the EXPECTATION of being able to hit it off with someone you already have so much in common with. For maybe the first time in your life, YOU are going to have to work to find yourself a woman. After i split up with my wife of 5 years....the ONLY thing I wanted was a new woman...love; to be able to replace all the empty feelings I had at the time with new ones. How bout you? Being raised as Witnesses we were very trusting folk, and its most likely you still are...If you wanna go through and figure it out all yourself, be my guest.If you wanna sort your head and feel better and fall in LOVE again one day...stick around here.

  Worldly chicks vs Witness chicks -(no disrespect intended ladies,its boys chatting here)- Its detailed and you have t take the TIME to learn. WE have time. YOU, have TIME. I at my very core know where you coming from cause I have been there. You made mention in your first post about ASSURED percentage. Just because a girl is a Witness,does not mean she will not cheat on you. It does not mean that there is an assured percentage of girls in the truth that will be LOYAL to you. Worldly girls look at you different. None of them care about your personal record for magazines placed in one month. I KNOW what your talking about when a girl is off again on again,hot one minute cold the next. Like so many here, including myself we have lived a life using 100% of our hearts, and not using our brains at all. I KNOW where you coming from, really I do. I have given my heart up wayyy to much to a worldy chick...cause I WANTED that old feeling i had with my ex. Don't do it. The whole waiting to call a girl for 3 days or vice versa isn;t JUST a game, its almost a right of passage. She is TESTING you. She is worldly. She ALREADY knows how to do things, your just learning. TIME pal. Give yourself time. What are you looking for in a woman? OR do you just WANT a woman to feel better about yourself?I\m not being mean or trying to embarrass you here. You have your anonimity,SPEAK FROM YOUR HEART about the way you FEEL. Speaking from your mind, isnt so easy...at least it wasnt for me, and i still struggle with it. MOST of those girls (not all) are just trying to see what kind of guy you are. SOME of those girls, if you give them too much of you, will make you wish you never went near a girl at all (those girls that are testing you KNOW THIS ALREADY...guys have worked them over b4). Being in the truth from such an early age and NOT thinking about things we SHOULD HAVE has made us vulnerable...and i want you to be careful bud, cause i think from the vibe i,m getting, you might just be. THere is NOTHING wrong with this...just have to take the time to sort it out. And your in a good place to spend some time.

  Just out of curiousity, let me ask you a few questions and see how you answer them. Your anonymous so you have no reason not to be honest with yourself. More importantly bud, right here, right now, you get to open up and no one is going to judge ya. Everyone wants you to sort yourself out and move on...WHEREVER it is that ya wanna go.

  oh yeah...the bar thing.I wish i could observe ya...lol. I always told myself ," I'm a nice guy and I am in a bar. There HAS to be a nice girl in here somewhere" - First things first, if you are EVER going to want to find someone to LOVE your gonna have to make a concoius effort to improve your odds...lol

  How are you doing with letting go of the truth? I let go the worst possible way. It was like a bandaid, and i ripped it off very slowly, one arm hair at a time. Do you work? What at? Do you think you know yourself? Wordly girls WANT a guy who knows themselves. What kind of exposure do you have to people in general on a given week? Hobbies? Do you consider yourself to be well hung? (lol..kidding,I dont wanna know) How long ago did you get divorced and how was your marriage. You HAVE to look at your past to recognize your mistakes. Did you make any? Did she? Do you like life? sports?Do you watch LOST? Damn good show of you don't. What makes you happy Pieces?

  Im late for work..lol...I have to go and I hope you can respond to me. Pm me a link to this thread and ill make sure i get back later. Thanks man.

  lurk3r
• 

  lurk3r

  oh man...Im so sorry i got your name COMPLETELY wrong....its STILL a note to YOU....give me something to remember you by....damn sorry about that.

  lurk3r
• 

  SeekingSanity

  Carla: Gosh, from your reading your post I can't imagine why you have a problem finding a woman! Think your own attitude might have something to do with it?

  First and foremost, I would like to apologize to you and anyone else and say that I think because of my fatigue and lack of interest to explain the entire story (that I have explained to my different friends over and over again) with the girl made the story sound harsh or harsher from my end. My attitude is one of the guys that gets used a lot. I'm there when anyone needs me. I've woken up in the middle of the night to talk to friends. Loose my sleep...sacraficed my own time and energy to help another. Guy or girl. If you want in detail of what actually occured between her and I, I would be more than happy to email it to you. I have NO problem being 'friends' with a women, even on a strictly platonic level. Infact, I get along with them alot better then MOST guys. With the exception of two or three guy friends. But if a girl is aware that you like her, andshe begins to play with your feelings, ...giving you looks from across the room, making a 'certain' comment here and there. Saying how she wants to take you out to dinner repeatedly and get really excited over the idea and brag about it to everyone in the room and then say 'oh i see you as a brother,' the next day, it's OBVIOUS she's playing with your feelings. This isn't someone i Just met, i've known her for 5 years. Even people from my own family would say "She likes you" ..and that "It's obvious." And it is, but the issue comes back to the fact that she's involved with another individual and she's doing this? I was involved with my ex at the time wayyy back then and always maintained my distance from her, intentionally, I never in anyway made any comment or reference towards an interest towards her. Even after my ex left, I STILL didn't make any move on her for many years. I enjoyed her company but i never really said anything. She was the FIRST girl, in a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time that when I realized she was actually playing a game, trying to get my feelings in check, i HAD to ignore her. Because I was the guy back in the day that would get STRUNG along. I was the guy that people would refer to as the 'go-to' guy. that whenever they NEEDED something women would 'go-to' me to get it. Money...help with homework...a ride etc.. I STOPPED that with her. I wont be strung along anymore, I POLITELY made that clear to her when i said 'You enjoy the attention I give you, but I can't give that to you anymore, because it's reserved for someone that actually wants to be with me. I'm sorry.' THAT is me stepping UP from where I was. When she came over to my house, I POLITELY said hello, shook her hand, out of respect and pretty much went about my business...sat at the computer doing emails, or the piano practicing, or eating. Ididn't say ANYTHING because I needed it to be clear that I am no longer this 'to-go' guy. I'm sorry. If that makes me into a horrible person, then so be it! I've struggled long enough with that.

  You also mentioned this: As for the girl you were ignoring, YOU were one playing games. She apparently told you she wanted to be friends, maybe your definition of friends includes 'friends with benefits'?

  No to both parts of your question. No, I was not playing games (I stepped up, where I wont let people take advantage of me anymore, it's not right to walk over people and only use them for something you need selfishly) and No I did not want 'friends with benefits' with her (I believe that means something sexual). Actually, I would've married her (depending on the dating of course) because I HAVE known her for so long. Our families ARE close. When she realized that I was actually looking at her like that, she didn't run away. She kept calling ME. She didn't 'shrink' and say 'wow he's crazy' or whatever. She kept calling again and again.

  You also said: YOU wrote her off because YOU didn't get what YOU wanted, an exclusive relationship.

  No I wrote her off cause if she was in a relationship with a guy for three and half years, even if it was internet dating, and want go out on a date with me where SHE said it was a date... She did try to say 'it means only as friends' but whats with all the 'comments'? That it shows a sign of disloaylity towards her current 'boyfriend' or whatever they are and I saw that as a sign that grew a red flag saying 'DANGER! DANGER WILL ROBINSON!' (my ex cheated on me) [i'm not will robinson if you don't get the reference lol] It's the same gimick of 'hey! lets remain friends and i'll take whatever I can out of you. the attention I can't get from my current boyfriend from you! that way, I get the best of both worlds!' THATS what it felt like. And I should know, i've had that experience before.

  Infact, for a time being, I DID do the 'friends' thing. (see this is part of the whole story that i left out cause I was exhausted last night from the concert and so forth) I said 'okay, lets go hang out as friends and do this..or that.' We decided on Rock climbing cause she knows i'm into that thing and she wanted to try it (i didn't suggest it, she did). Again 'the nice guy' ...okay.. But twenty minutes later she's telling me she's been with this guy for three and half years. I was like 'woooahhhh... no...sorry this isn't going to go down like this' I thought it was just some GUY she liked. No this guy is part of the equation and i wont hurt him, even though I don't know him. It's funny, there's was the 'we'll go out on a date' then it turned into 'brother and sister hanging out' then 'friends hanging out' (where she implicated that I don't see you as a brother anymore but...perhaps...*hint hint* )

  bottom line is: She was playing a game, which is thewhole mess load of crap i'm talking about.

  If you still think i'm bluffing. She's a twin. Her sister does not give any indicating towards me that there's anything between her sister and I. Even my family says that. But she does. This wasn't in my head, others agree.

  You also stated: Take some time to just be, concentrate on school and allow friendships and relationships to develop naturally.

  I totally agree and am trying to do this, however, the game is what women in my experience want to play. And I do not. i'm more than happy to be friends with them and if it becomes something it becomes something, but my original idea for the post was being STUCK where you can't go back to the jw cause of their beliefs and the 'worldly' people play too many games.

  I do not deny that there's parts of me are 'immature' ...like my voice gets really high pitched when I get excited. And I jump around like a little kid when i'm really excited! (concert, when I meet someone I havn' tseen for a long time that im really close to) but that's my 'childlike' qualities that i cherish because that's ME. I wont ever let go of that, I hope. I want to be like 80 years old jumping around with my walking chair screaming 'yeaaahhh!!!! we get pudding today!!!!!' In a convalescent home or something. That ONLY comes out with people that I keep close by me. Hopefully if i'm alive at 80 I wont care if they're close friends or not and i'll be like that all the time. And I do believe that no one can enter the kingdom unless they first are as children and take off all their clothes and jump on them like little kids do. I'm close to 30 actually. I wont say what age but but close to 30. I present myself VERY professionally where people would say back in the organization when i was 14 that I had the personality of a 40 year old.I just don't show my inner qualities to everyone.

  Perhaps We both can agree there is immaturity in the sense your speaking of, but not in me, but the girls. I do not deny that i need some maturing, but I think i'm past that part of it that your referring to, at least, with this whole 'go-to' guy thing.

  Lukr I will PM you.
• 

  AK - Jeff

  This whole thread has depressed me in about the first half page.

  First of all - Welcome to the forum.

  Second - relationships, in or out of Jwdom, are not always easy. There is no single formula for finding the 'right' person. Your long term training as a Jw is in the way of seeing reality - that is not unique to you. It takes a while to shed the Jwisms for fact in dealing with life outside the organization. It took me time to do so - in fact, though I have been out for 5 years, I still find myself trying to shed myself of Jw definitions of life.

  Women - like men - are multi-faceted beings. They are also as different from one another as they are similar. Whilst you clearly believe that Jw's had a stronger sense of morality, and higher level of loyalty within marriage, that is likely not accurate. If you seek loyalty, driven by religiosity, then perhaps you need to find a quiet church, and see if you meet a good person there. Many other venues are out there, but you seem uncomfortable with them. Go make friends. Heal from the Jw experience. Become readjusted in your viewpoint. Become what you are, instead of what you were molded to become as a Jw.

  In time, that person will appear. Probably as a friend. You will likely find that you are deeply attracted long before you ever date her. Your trust will be mutual, not exclusive. You will move at a pace that fits your new character and hers.

  In the meantime. Relax.

  Glad to have you here.

  Jeff