My JW friend de-friended me!

keeshondgirl

I hadn't attended meetings for over a year now and I had a good JW friend from another hall. She was friends with me before me being a witness. We knew each other from school and she had a hand in converting me. Once she found out I stopped going to the hall she got very upset. I wasn't ready to explain to her yet why and she didn't want to talk to me until I did. It has been like 9 months since we last spoke and I recently sent her a letter in the mail about our friendship. She stopped talking to a mutual non-witness friend of ours ( my best friend) almost a year ago as well and I addressed that. I basically said she has no room in her heart for people who stop attending meetings or aren't being converted.

She wrote to the non-witness friend and finally admitted she is no longer friends with me because I am apostate and I left Jehovah. I was never disfellowshipped nor did any elders attempt to talk to me or my husband. She says we abandoned our congregation and people that care about us. No one noticed we were doing poorly for some time. I never told her my apostate beliefs but her dad is an elder and I'm sure she hears it from him not to associate with me. I wish she would make up her own mind. She grew up as a witness and said she wasn't forced to be baptized and made it her choice, just like I did. so I turned my back on God which makes me evil now. I think she feels guilty about the non-witness friend because I told her she will never want anything to do with witnesses now and recently told JWs to not come back to her house.

Anyone else have similar experience or can explain her behavoir of not wanting to talk to me when I'm not disfellowshipped?

Scarred for life

keeshondgirl, I think almost all of us can relate to what you are experiencing. I have a whole branch of my family(my mother's family) that has cut me off because of no longer going to the KH. I have never been baptised although I was raised from birth as a JW. It's painful but a fact of our lives. My best advice is to start anew. Find new friends. Find new activities. Never look back. We are here for you and we understand.

nugget

Witnesses constantly judge other people as either strong or weak and choose to shun those that fail to match the required level of spitituality. They do this as a form of self protection since if someone is not attending meetings they may be a corrupting influence and a bad association. The assumption is often made that if a person is inactive or irregular the fault is with the person concerned and their lack of spirituality. Really unless you are dying and incapacitated there is no good reason to stay away.

Also she may feel let down and betrayed since she was instrumental in introducting you to the organisation then your failure may be her failure and she doesn't want to confront this possibility.

I am sorry you are having to deal with this as on the outside it looks petty and silly but for those deep in the cult this behaviour is perfectly acceptable.

OUTLAW

I basically said she has no room in her heart for people

who stop attending meetings or aren't being converted.

This woman never needs to worry about dying of a Heart Attack..

She does`nt have one..

............................ ...OUTLAW

metatron

It hurts but keep in mind one thing: she was never your friend. Witness "friends" are superficial and transient allies, not real friends. Their love is utterly subject to Watchtower rules and qualifications and this fact is a major reason why Witnesses suffer from an epidemic of depression.

Further, this conditional, limited, legalistic "love" is why Witnesses can practice back stabbing and jealousy and ingratitude amoung each other so easily. This explains how Witnesses can shun and betray each other so readily in persecution. Why do you think the Society has talks about not hating each other 'because what would happen if you shared the same prison cell'? This is said especially because Witnesses in Nazi Germany betrayed each other readily, with little proding, as shown in Gestapo archives.

metatron

OUTLAW

With friends like that..

Who needs Enema`s..

........................ ...OUTLAW

Nathan Natas

NOBODY has a JW "friend," because all real JWs practice conditional love.

"Love me, love my God."

Balsam

JW friendships are strictly conditional. If you don't attend meetings, or go out in door to door they will not count you as a friend. Actually the marriages are along the same lines.

keeshondgirl

I guess I realize our friendship was conditional all along. I didn't grow up a witness so I know what real friendship is, unconditional. That is why, even though I was a witness for 5 years, I still can't completely understand that witnesses can toss people around like they mean nothing as soon as something comes up that doesn't agree with what Watchtower Land tells them.

I was friends, or so I thought, for 11 years with her. If they would teach you during bible study the truth about shunning and disfellowshipping I don't thiink I would have gone any further with them. When studying they make it look like the perfect religion because in their minds it is. Once you are baptized, you really are stuck. Luckily, I have no family that are witnesses and my husband left when I did. I wonder why if she thinks and her elder dad thinks I'm apostate then why am I not disfellowshipped? He could easily call to the hall we went to and tell them his suspicions, but I guess they would need proof of my apostate ideas when there is none. I guess not attending meetings, assemblies, conventions, and memorials is enouch evidence to conclude that we've gone apostate. They are the most judgemental group of people I've met. It's disgusting and I want no part of them. They are the bad associates, really.

dissed

Even among the JW's its conditional.

My wife and me were treated poorly while active as JW's. Maliscious gossip and slander are a way of life for the JW's. It doesn't matter if you are going to the KH or not, anyone can be a candidate for ignoring, if it suits the JW.

Welcome to the ever growing club of conditionally loved and ignored former JW's.

My JW friend de-friended me!

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