Worldly Husbands

by Frenchy 27 Replies latest jw friends

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  freeborg

  Everyone loves attention, especially women and what better place to get it than the Kingdom Hall because you are from a broken family!
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  BQE

  lol i know its not limited to jws, but I also think my auntie got to get her cake and eat it, if she missed any meetings because of hubbies no one was going to berate her over it, if she had to cook turkey for dinner at christmas she was just being wife in subjection,
  to my mind she had choice of takin jw life home or leaving it behind when she left the kingdom hall.

  OHHHHHH this is soooo trueeeeeee..........
  I remember when my aunt, who was born and raised in the JW, strayed for a few years outside of the org, smoked, drank, etc. and when she finally "repented" she came back to the org but now with a hubby and one child. My mother urged her, pleaded with her that she MUST do everything possible to make her husband and child a JW before 1975 rolled around. One day I "accidentally overheard" (snicker) my aunt talking on the phone to one of her worldly friends and her exact words were "there is no way I'll let my son nor my husband become JWS, I like things as they are now, I can have my cake and eat it too ."
  My uncle there made really good money, and my cousin basically grew up w/o any pressure to be a witness, but for my mom who kept insisting with my aunt that he should. Anyway, time went on and my cousin became a witness, threw dad's money around the hall, and these "sisters" threw themselves at him. He married a JW woman, but around my way he was notorious with the hookers and call-girls. Everytime my mom mentions my "good cousin Ralphy" it makes me want to puke. [8>]
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  ChakkaConned

  I can only go by my own experience as a JW with an unbelieving mate. It was one hell of a lonely road. Sure, for a few years, I somewhat enjoyed leaving the house to attend meetings to go pursue my religious "hobby" by myself. It gave me some personal space and I think he liked his space too for those few hours a week. But, when the children came along, it wasn't great fun hauling them up to the hall and out in service all by my lonesome. Especially knowing and realizing that me nor my children were never really accepted as a family totally "in" might be. I had to scratch and claw for every crumb of association for all of us from day one. Even so, I tried my best to live up to my dedication as a witness, going strictly on my own steam (and oh yes, of course, Jehovah's help). Even though I was a lone sister without a JW husband, I was still held to the same standards as everyone else..no slack extended for my circumstances nor any expected. Without a husband at my side, I had little status and seemed pretty inconsequential,IMO. Eventually, I began to realize that my children were not making it in that cold, unloving environment and that I had taken everything from them(holiday's, family tradition, sports,normal loving friendships, etc.) and was unable to replace these losses with anything within the witness framework. We had NO social life at all. None in the world and none with the witnesses. A very depressing state, let me tell you. Also, I noticed that some of the brother's in the cong. felt that they could speak to me pretty much any way they wanted, since I had no husband to "protect" me there. I always felt that my not having a JW husband was a real liability and one of the biggest hindrance's to our "spiritual progress". I always empathized with the sister's without mates, especially if they had children they were trying to raise alone in the org.
  It was interesting to me that I never saw any brother's with unbelieving mates bring their children to the hall and do all that the sister's with unbeliever's were expected to do. Not to say that it didn't happen, I just never saw it. I recall one big burley brother, whose wife wasn't a JW, who had children at home but who never brought his kid's to the meetings or seemed to make an effort to raise them as JW's. He was very well liked at the hall, a MS, gave great talks but didn't have his kid's to worry about. He said that it would cause distress to his wife to bring his children so he simply, didn't. I guess she would have torn the clothes off of his back had he tried to bring them to the meetings. Yea, right. He once gave a talk about "bad association". I thought to myself..."too bad his own children aren't here to hear their father's wise council to the other JW kid's whose parents are actually doing the WORK of raising their kid's by JW edits.
  I am sorry if I sound bitter. I am, about many things as a JW. I guess my point is that, if you took the "truth" seriously and had an unbelieving mate, there were no excuses to be lax or to have any special outs about matters. At least, that was the way it was for me.

  Chakka
• 

  DB

  Chakka, and eveyone else, good comments. Chakka, welcome to jw.com.

  My experience is similar, but I am the male, and i married outside the "truth". I dated outside the "truth" because the strict dating rules bugged me to say the least.

  I actually enjoyed having a non-jw wife. Nobody pressuring me to attend meetings. But then, lo and behold, she became interested. My jw friends set up a sudy w her, and she got baptized.

  Then, she got real zealous and almost pharisaic in her approach. She was very much into the whole jw thing; she'd insist I conduct a fam study; she'd spend two hours just to prepare her WT study lesson.

  I became and elder, and still, she always pushed harder than me. Now that i am no longer serving (I was removed) she has finally calmed her zeal, and the situation is more tolerable. I used to tell her ocasionally that in many ways, I rue the day she got baptized.
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  waiting

  Hi Chakka,

  Welcome to our forum, and many experiences similar to yours. When I met the sisters who were content with the jw/worldly status quo - I was in my second marriage to a jw.

  My first wasn't like that - one reason being my first husband got df'd (after being reproved at least 6 times). I was pitied, sure. But lost all of my association - because I was alone with 3 kids. I also went the serious route of meetings/service alone with kids. A royal pain in the rear. But I did it for nearly 8 years - because that's what I was *supposed* to do.

  But harder were the conventions. No, I wasn't hot to have sex with some dork brother struttin' around. I had my hands full with 3 kids. And my husband was kind enough to tell me ahead of time he would be out in the bars every night I was gone. And I knew he had girlfriends who he slept with. But I was trying sooooooooo hard to be a good little sister, mild in comment - I did what I thought I was supposed to do.

  It was one of the hardest times in my adult life. I hated a lot of it. I hated him for a long time. At the time, it never occurred to me to hate the system which insisted on this type of behavior from me.

  But it passed. The WTBTS system is hard on some jw's with non-believing mates. Other times - no, it's a pretty good compromise. But I never got the chance to live among the compromisers. Too bad, perhaps I wouldn't have been bitter either.

  But give it time, it does get better, btw.

  waiting
• 

  cellomould

  Thanks for sharing Waiting and Chakka,

  The conversation was handled perhaps a bit trivially before you added your personal stories. (I am to blame too )

  It is really sad that JW women are set up with countless expectations and given so little in real substance.

  cellomould

  

  "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
• 

  Frenchy

  Thank you, especially you ladies for your perspective.

  Chakka, welcome to the board and thank you for posting your story here. I served for many years but I have to be honest and say that I never truly understood nor appreciated what those sisters with unbelieving mates had to go through just to get to a meeting. I still don’t fully know but I feel that I can empathize more now. What you said rings very true, those sisters are not treated like those with believing husbands.

  You also gave a good account of what happens to a lot of JW children. I know that in our local congregation many of the kids ‘went bad’, I mean MANY. Your comments well illustrate the volatile situation those children are forced to bear. Parents that are serious about ‘the truth’ really try hard to indoctrinate their offspring. Many of the kids resist and in the end they go wild and crazy. Some recover, some don’t. I know too many that did not.

  I hope that you are recovering and that things are better now. The real reason for this board is to help those that are hurting and need to do some venting. Remember that when you do, you help yourself as well as others who are feeling just like you. We appreciate the time and effort that you put into your post and look forward to seeing more of you.

  Waiting:
  Thank you too for sharing with us. Again, you have helped me see something that I never appreciated in all my years as a witness. I never realized how difficult it was for sisters dragging three or four kids by the hand to attend a convention without ‘the head of the house.’ I would see them huddled together sometimes and it never dawned on me the monumental task they had of arranging their affairs before, during, and after conventions. They were the ones that had to make the rooming arrangements by themselves, plan the trip, pack the suitcases, check in the motels, arrange those horrible box lunches we were told we must stick under our seats so we could ‘associate’ with the friends during the break. They had to tend to the kids, bring them to the bathroom, take notes, and ALL of them were expected to join in their congregations’ cleaning assignment. I always saw more sisters than brothers with broom! They swept and cleaned up while tending the kids and then afterwards they headed off to McDonalds to feed the clan and then to some cheap motel (usually in a suspicious neighborhood) to spend the night.

  DB: Your comments are appreciated as well. You got to see both sides. It’s easy to see why the Society stresses ‘marrying only in the truth’ because there is always one ‘pushing’ the other. It’s a whole lot stressful when there is no pushing, eh?

  Thank you all.
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  waiting

  Howdy y'all,

  Honestly? There were MANY sisters like me - we really were "Legion." Yeah, we huddled together - and sometimes, we had a good time! We could leave our thoughts of our husbands, families, jobs, behind us, and really enjoy some association. We were alike in those ways. True sisters.

  A gallon of Kool-aid goes a looong way (that was when we could bring our own.)

  It never occurred to me that others don't understand what went on for us, especially when we got back home. We just never talked about that, even to each other. Just put it aside until it happened, and it always did.

  But, as I've said before, we did this to ourselves. As Chakka brought out, we were serious believers. Perhaps that's part of our bitterness, it didn't have to be so hard.

  Perhaps a new thread? It might be better received by some persons if it were started by a woman, however. Look what happened to Amazing!

  I'll try and get it together long enough to post one, in spite of it being the dreaded Monday morning.

  waiting