THE DEPARTURE
During my senior year of high school, things began to look hopeful again. My grades were soaring, I would be graduating soon and I had a decent job to pay for my own place. I felt like a marathon runner when the finish line is in site, knowing that I would soon have the power to change my situation. Around this same time, I began dating a nice young brother from the hall I grew up in. To this day, I can still say he's the sweetest, most genuine person I'd ever met. I really liked him as a person, but knew our lives were going in different directions. His goal was to become a Ministerial Servant, settle down, and start raising children right away. As a senior in high school, the last thing I cared to think about was being a mother and living the same small town for the rest of my life. I had dreams of going to school and traveling to different cities.
Because of this, I decided I would break things off. However, things wouldn't end up working out as planned. It was only a few days later (A month and a half after our first day) that he proposed. The worste thing about it was that we were in a fancy restaurant along with his parents when he popped the big question. I was totally blind-sided and didn't know what to do. I didn't want to embaress him in front of his family, so against better judgement, I said yes, feeling nauseous as he slipped the ring on my finger.
When my family found out, they were thrilled to say the least. What a fine brother I was landing! He'd be a wonderful spiritual head! Everybody was elated but me, and I knew I had to get out of this situation ASAP. A few days later, I met up with him and explained that I wasn't ready for marriage and returned the ring. He was a little bit hurt, but took it suprisingly well, saying he didn't mind giving more time if that's what I needed. That's what he told ME at least. He turned right back around and started bad mouthing me to his family & friends, making it sound like I was leading him on. Everybody was outraged and the gossip & slander started flying.
That summer, after I graduated high school, I moved out of my mother's house and rarely attended meetings, maybe going twice a month at best.I also broke my relationship off with this young man, telling him he could shove his engagement ring right up his ass. I was fed up with dealing with everybody's shit and needed to get away for awhile.
About three months later, I ended up taking a job working for the Pathologists of an area hospital. It was here that I met a very very nice getleman named Michael. He had all the qualities in another person; He was intelligent, compassionate & gorgeous to boot. Shorty thereafter, we began dating which sent my mother (and everybody in the congregation) through the roof. They were so angry in fact, that when I asked Michael to attend a meeting with me, they totally ignored him. My entire family walked right by him like he wasn't there, as well as most of the others in the congregation. To make a long story short, he and I ended up breaking up a little while later, since the whole situation was too much for hime to deal with. Looking back, I can't blame him though. I was still very indoctrinated and put alot of pressure on him to be a JW to please my family and it wasn't fair to him.
Anyway, around this same time, I moved in with a young JW couple named "Bob" and "Suzie" who I was really good friends with. They were cool people to live with since they pretty much stayed out of my business and never questioned why I wasn't at the meetings. However, they were having marital problems at the time, and it was blatently obvious that Bob wanted to have an affair with me. He didn't just flirt. Oh no. He would actually walk into my bedroom after work when I was changing and come onto me. I was no angel at the time, but there's was no way I was going to have an affair with a married man.
When things started getting really bad, I talked to my ex-boyfriend, Michael, who let me sleep on his coach a couple of nights so I could avoid going home.
While this whole fiasco is going on, little did I know that I was being followed and watched. I guess when I quit attending mettings, the Kingdom Hall gossip felt it was her duty to follow me and make sure I wasn't involved in immoral conduct. This had been going on for weeks and I didn't know it. The two nights that I stayed at Michael's house, she stayed awake all night watching the house to see when I'd leave. She immediately called the elders to notify them that I was staying at a "worldly" man's house all night. That's when the shit hit the fan.
I was shortly thereafter pulled in front of a judicial committee so they could find out what all the commotion was about. I decided to spill the beans and let them know everything about Bob hitting on me.
When it was all said and done, I was DF'd for staying at Michael's house, simply because of the way it looked, while Bob was privately resproved. I felt it was a bit unfair, because Bob had been disfellowshipped before for fornication and this time they were only giving him a smack wrist since nobody knew.
December 29, 1999 was the night I was offically DF'd. It was a blessing in disguise, because little did I know, many good things lay ahead.
AMarie