Did you Fade Gradually or Stop Attending Meetings Quickly ? Reasons ? (page 2)

mamalove

I had been able to miss many meetings by planning necessary business trips, but I would leave on the days that I would be missing a meeting. I eventually told my H at the time and my mom that I did not want to be a witness. I went a little during the summer and spring of 2009, and went to the DA in Aug 2009 and never went back. Well, I went once with my mom. I didnt go to the memorial and didnt feel bad about it at all.

wasblind

" It felt like a ton of bricks had been lifted off of my shouldres when I stopped attending."

that's exactly how I felt Flipp

flipper

BLONDIE- I'm glad you & your husband got out of the cult. I hear what you are saying about " offensive " meetings or assemblies. When I got near the end , right before exiting in 2003, I too was offended at times with meetings or attitudes I saw in elders or authroity figures.

COGNIZANT DISSIDENT- Very true. My wife & I have several friends on the board who have 1 mate still attending and being a JW. It is hard for our friends because they don't share the same goals as their JW partner still has. So it's definitely a challenge. That's why it's good that boards like this exist so we can support these ones and receive support back as well ! Peace out, Mr. Flipper

blondie

cog, remember though that my family goes back to 1920 and I have no contact with any of them. My husband and I only have each other. His non-jw family still hold it against that we were jws for awhile.

JW GoneBad

I'm a JW GoinBad (in the fading process) for sure! Why???? For myriads of reasons.

eric356

Called a meeting with some elders to ask them questions. They had no good answers. They probably thought (due to the nature of my questions) that it would be best not to bother me too much, lest I start "stumbling" others. They probably figured that I wouldn't have the guts to leave and risk my family, and that I would probably become a marginal JW and not give them much trouble if they didn't hassle me. Truthfully, they probably made my life a lot easier (even if they didn't know it.)

I continued to attend meetings and go out in service, but I was acting. Funny thing is, I probably gave my best talks during that time. Everything being a sham just made it easier, no pressure. They likely thought I was "turning it around", I was even asked to fill in for no shows a few times! Luckily, I had an out of town job that would give me a good excuse to not be around for a few months. I never told them I would be leaving, and one great Sunday was my last public talk. I went, it was really surreal, and then I drove home smiling like a stupid fool. I've never been back, and never had a discussion with them again. Got a few phone messages a year later about going to the memorial, which I ignored. Cold turkey worked for me, but I had relatively "cooperative" elders, a family who, while JWs aren't soulless robots, and a good excuse that got me out of the situation.

Broken Promises

I did the gradual fade, partly through circumstance because I was in charge of a department that was going through major computer changes and I regularly worked 10 hr days. So it was hard to get to the meetings at the best of times.

I still believed in the JWs, although I felt there was something wrong with the preaching work, but didn't know why. So I was inactive for a year, even though I still believed it was "the trooth".

Then I timidly typed "jehovahs witnesses" into a search engine and all the information I found confirmed all the doubts I had about the JWs.

I was gone completely within 6 months.

I faded slowly because I wanted to be able to maintain contact with my JW family. I'm now the black sheep but at least they can still talk to me.

Aussie Oz

hi mr flipper

i think i was pretty rapid

i had started to drop public talks and meeting parts as i progressed in my self loathing until it reached the point of confessing 'sins' to the elders and wife.

That led to rapid me dropping the whole bundle as i just couldn't handle it all. In the space of a month i had moved out

and never went back

oz

JeffT

For a time post 1975 I went along with things, but grew less and less zealous about it. In 1982 I went back to school for a year. After another move we'd left behind family and friends (although we were closer to my nonjw family). I didn't think of it as fading, we were just not so interested in it. In the spring of 1988 the CA had a big program about the evils of education, I wanted something better than window washing for my kids, the older two were entering their teens at this point. So I started doing some research, didn't attend meetings at all. My wife wasn't going to meetings, but I thought it was health issues. We didn't talk about it much.

So one morning in May 1988 she comes out of the bedroom with two copies of Crisis of Conscience - the one I had hidden under my side of the bed and the one she had hidden under her side of the bed. We went to the DC that summer, with a view to pretend we knew nothing about JW's and to see what we thought. It was the last JW function we attended.

WTWizard

Once they told me to just meet men at the a$$emblies, there was no longer any reason to continue going. They had their chance to kill that rule, and they persistently blew it--by taking nearly 10 years to go from near perfect attendance to zero, they had more than plenty of time to fix that issue as they promised when I first joined the cancer.

In addition to giving them that chance to fix the problem, it became more of a way to waste their resources. If they couldn't figure out that no opposite sex means no boasting session or a$$embly attendance and no field circus, let them worry about what else they can do without fixing that issue and still get me back to the boasting sessions all the time. I also started playing games with attending two different congregations in an irregular pattern and putting in missed boasting sessions in the mix. (Of course, increasing the missed ones.) I also started turning in my time late by a whole month, often putting in 2 separate slips to make it look like they missed my time slip (even putting dates on the slips that make it look like it sat all month uncounted). And, after it became clear that they didn't want me with the opposite sex at all, I stopped going altogether.

And, the very next year, instead of going to the REJECT Jesus Party, I bought a Ouija board.

Did you Fade Gradually or Stop Attending Meetings Quickly ? Reasons ?

Share this