Oh boy what a mess. I'm going to quote some stuff and ask you some questions. You don't have to answer me but just think about them although if you do want to answer them I will get back to you
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The tensions finally exploded with her removing her wedding ring and declaring, "I don't want to be under your headship anymore." Practically a statement of separation right there. I could have simply told her to go back to her mom. But I felt it wasn't right to allow something stupid like a disagreement over Avatar to destroy our marriage. I mean, that's insane.
Your marriage is not being destroyed over Avatar. it is being destroyed by her selfishness and the WTS. It is insane and it won't change.
I tried telling her of how hard it was, waiting for her inside the organization while she was DF'd for more than 3 years. I didn't ask for this, to find out all these terrible things the Society was responsible for. If I'd just held on a bit longer, maybe we'd have a halfway decent marriage now. I'd have...taken the blue pill, believed what I wanted to believe.
So you stood by her while she was DFed but now the blame is on you because she won't do the same for you. Right?
She asked if I was sure I wanted to work on the marriage, feeling that she was the one doing all the work. She feels I don't talk to her enough, that she has to have a nervous breakdown just to get attention from me. Gee, what's wrong with a phone call during the day to just say you love me? Wouldn't that be an easier way to get my attention, if I'm really that inattentive? I'm getting little sleep at night and going to the grocery store or doing chores once I get home from work, so there's not a lot to say, other than talking about what stuff I'm supposed to get from the store. I'm just too exhausted to do anything but manage the logistics side of the household. And I'm not even going to meetings!
What does she mean by "work on the marriage"? Go back to meetings and becomne the good JW that she thought she was getting despite her not being one? This emotional roller coaster she has you on is exhausting. Don't minimize it.
I really just want her and her daughter to be happy, and if she's stressed out--and I'm not even sure why, I mean, where is all the loving JW support that's supposed to comfort her in the wake of my DF'ing?--then it's not reasonable for her to stay with me. I don't care about freakin' Avatar. The movie wasn't THAT good; I just felt offended that my moral decency was being called into question over it, that the suggestion was being made that my thinking was corrupt because I happened to like most of the movie. I thought it was an asinine thing to be worked up over, so I hadn't bothered to throw it away. That, and Blu-rays are freaking expensive. Would rather sell it on eBay.
You want her to be happy? Is that why she got pregnant by some one else? Why she married you? Or did you just look like a good meal ticket to a single mom? Being DFed means to JWs that you ARE morraly corrupt. Its a given. Forget that you didn't treat her that way when the shoe was on the other foot.
But if she's expecting me to get rid of everything that's violent, that's like...everything PG-13 that I have, plus my Batman animated cartoons, you name it. Probably 60% of my collection, even Star Trek would have to go. ... And I can't believe I'm even considering this, but the fact is, the movies were there for me while she was out making a child with someone who wasn't even decent enough to take care of it. My relationship with them is frankly, far better. That's because I'm just a little inept socially. And I did just find out I was in a cult my entire life. Tends to screw with your sense of reality.
Reality. She deos want to wear the pants. She thinks since you are DFed she is the spiritual head of the house. She is still supposed to be in subjection and not treat you like crap.
She made it clear that this was all conditional love on her part, she was expecting a JW husband, though she acquired said husband via breaking JW rules and sweeping it under the rug, then selling said husband up the river to save her own skin. I loved her as a person, beyond the religion, beyond anything else. I find it tragic that that love is a one-way street because of this cult.
Isn't this a bit selfish on her part? Real love is not conditional or one-way. You deserve better. think about it. This isn't what you bargained for either. You might want to read http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/43881/1/Til-death-do-us-part-divorce and apply the info to your situation.
We are once more in separate beds at night--it works out, since we weren't exactly getting intimate anytime soon. Only thing is, all my clothes are in the other room, and she locks the door at night, so I have to wake her up to open the door for me. Man, I feel like a total b****. Trying to preserve some sense of honor with this has just...made me the sucka.
There is no honor here is there? JWs don't think you deserve it. Don't buy into it
Well, at least it's warm enough in the other room--and it is my old bed anyway, so it's sort of like homecoming in this home that just isn't my home and probably never was. I feel like I'm asking for it, though. Just by saying all this. Basically, things went south when she turned me in for having doubts. If it was just for us sleeping together, I might've been able to withstand that. She didn't need to bring that up to them. I suppose, I was selfish, in that I chose to get DF'd to spite her for turning me in. I could've bowed down to the slave class. She actually felt that I was right in telling them how I really felt, as she said last night, because otherwise it would've made her look like a liar. So I guess we were all looking out for #1, in this situation.
Can you see that sdhe might be setting you up so she can get the elders agree to let her separate from you - the evil apostate?
After going to bed at 2:00, and waking up at 6:45, I was still in a state of shock. Although we're trying to communicate more, I feel so wounded that I really don't want to try anymore. I also know that I chose this path, and I brought all these problems on her, which made her so angry in the first place. It's my fault. I have to make it right.
You feel wounded because you have been wounded. Trust those feelings. They are telling you something very important. No you didn't choose this path. I highly doubt people marry thinking this is what they are going to get. Go back and think about those marriage vows again. Conditional love is not part of it. Just how is this your fault? She was unreasonable and expects you to obey her or else. Ultimatuums are not part of the marriage vows either.
As the breadwinner, as...the man of the house, it has become clear that I am unfit to lead this family, unfit to be her husband and unfit to be a father to a child who will be raised and will suffer exactly as I did growing up as a JW. I cannot change that. This isn't my child, as much as I love her. I'm still an outsider no matter what I do. Unless I surrender to assimilation, give myself freely to the Borg. But I cannot. "Never compromise--even in the face of Armageddon."
ONLY In her conditional mind are you unfit. and only becasue you are not the goof JW husband she wanted in spite of her own life problems.
I may encourage her to go back to living with her mom, for the sake of her daughter and her own emotional well-being. If she really wants to be free of the marriage altogether, perhaps I can find some means of doing the horrible adultery route and just going through the divorce stuff. But only if she agreed to it, which would make her a party to it, which would be wrong, but given that I'm an evil apostate, she'd have plausible deniability with ease. I would not cheat on her just because things have gone to...Gehenna. It's just a possible escape plan for her I'm floating around in my head. I do not need to escape, even if I have no will to continue. There's nothing left for me now but to wait for death. I've lived fully, done everything I ever wanted to do. I can die now. I accept that.
OK You start this paragraph with a good idea but "cimmit adultery for her sake. Don't do it. I did and regretted it. It damaged me far more than it helped him. I too thoguth to meant giving him his freedom so he could be free to remarry. Well he did remarry and messed that up too along with her 2 kids and she finally commited adultery just to get away from him.
You are worth more than lowering yourself to that level. Don't give up either. You have no idea what the future might have for you. I didn't have a clue. I met someone and found out what real love was. it was worth hanging in there for and waiting. In the end it didn't work for us due to many reasons but it was a miracle for me at a time when I realy needed one.
She deserves better than a life of sorrow with me. I failed her, dishonored her, betrayed her. I don't belong in her life. Maybe she can find someone better who will take better care of her in Jehovah's way. Yes, I just said "in Jehovah's way". No, I don't care if it's cult terminology. It is what it is.
YOU deserve better than a life of sorrow with her. You failed, dishonored and betrayed her because you left the JWS? What about how she treats you?
Nearly losing my wife is...I feel sick inside. Like I felt when she first got DF'd in 2005, like I felt after she got reinstated in 2008 and I was told to keep my distance. A grief that cannot be consoled. I fought the gods, and the gods won. I volunteered for this. It was worth trying. It was beautiful, just for a moment. We were happy again, like at the beginning. Like it was supposed to be. I failed to keep it that way.
Considering the end of a marriage isn't easy. Even if you decide this is what you have to do you will need to mourn the loss of all the hopes and dreams you had for the future with her. All thos plans will be gone. Grieve it.
Let's see you are expected to live in a corrupt organization with a wife that clearly says her love is conditinal and you are blaming yourself. Right? What's wrong with this picture?
What good is it to be out of the cult when the person you love most thinks you're a liar, a monster? It's meaningless. What good is freedom if you can't share it with the ones you love?
The woman you are married to today, the one that calls your headship into question and locks you out of the bedroom, who turned you in to the elders and told them you no longer believe, betrayed you - this is the woman you love? Or are you caught up in the one you married?
What does it matter? Most everyone here has real issues, and...you're made of stronger stuff. Probably just laugh it off and tell me to get over myself.
I'm not laughing. This is serious stuff.
I guess I'd hoped we'd make it through a year, even much longer than that, really. Soon enough, I'll be a 'proverbial saying and a taunt' at the KH, just like other men there who married people that were not well-liked. No matter. If it does finally end, maybe I can find something more around the next turn. Was thinking...have never gone west. Would like to dip my toes in the Pacific before I die. Which hopefully, will be soon, too.
It really doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. Life can bring some really unexpected and wonderful things into your life if you allow yourself to be open to them. This board is absolutely filled with people who have built better lives - and happier post WTS
