Hello!

by mikeypants 35 Replies latest jw friends

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  mikeypants

  Thank you all for your welcome and kind words.

  Captain, good point on the marriage thing. Originally we were going to wait till i was dunked but I just never could get there. I actually ended things with her because of it, wrote her a letter detailing my doubts and disbeliefs, but we got back together and were married a few months later. None of our familes came to the wedding of course, they even tried to stop it. My sister called an elder friend of hers and told him are evil plans. He of course contacted my wife and tried to talk her our of marrying the devil. So yeah, she knew what she was getting into, as did I. The only item of negativity she had about the zone meeting was the 23 and servent marriage thingy. Guess that was a given since she married me. :)

  Magnum, thanks! Ignorance is bliss they say and i defintley see it around me. I dont want to come across that i know it all, because I dont. I dont have the answers. But i want to have an open mind and that is where this religion draws the line.

  One Eyed, one thing i have always been glad about is NOT gettting babtized. I love my family and it would have been horrible to been DF'd and have them disown me. I take it you arent DF'd?
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  Captain Obvious

  Wow that hurts to have your families boycott your wedding.

  How long did you put off baptism? I mean how old are you now? If you're not really young they should have known something was up.
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  skeeter1

  Welcome,

  Boy, your wife must be hurt at her family's actions. Women plan and dream of a wedding, and having family members there to support the marraige. Does she see how abnormal her family & the KH elders were acting?

  I had a similar thing happen. Both of us were raised in the Truth, but not baptised members. My parents decided that we HAD to be married in the KH. I didn't go, and didn't want it. But, it was my overbearing mother's plan. Thankfully, the elders wouldn't do it. So, that got my mom ticked off at me for not being a goody-JW. The next thing she concocted was to have my sibling (who is 18 years older) move in with us newlyweds. I wasn't asked, I was told that this was going to happen. We didn't have an extra bedroom, I put my foot down, she went ballistic, neither my mom nor my sibling came to my wedding, and she didn't speak with me for 3 months. It was a blow, but I thought of it more of her & my sister's mental issues.

  All got normal, and we later had a baby. That's when my family sent local elders, JWs, and even they came to the house to try to convert us back to being JWs. I had to tell them all to go home. When they used to come to visit, they'd try to preach to my kids. I had to teach my kids how to avoid JW conversations. Luckily, I had a non-JW spouse.

  Your situation is different. You need to look at the blood transfusion issues. Pregnant & birthing women & premature infants are more likely to need a blood transfusion. www.ajwrb.org.

  JWs are idealists, and to hold up an ideal . . . they will do all sorts of abnormal, silly, and hurtful behavior.
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  mikeypants

  Captain,

  I'm in my 30's. I stopped going to meetings when i was 17, but went off and on after 25 or so. They didnt attend the wedding because i wasnt babtised and she was, though, i was studying and attending meetings as far as they knew. But they would be supporting her decision to marry if they went. Wonder now if sisters marrying brothers that arent MS or elders will be boycotted. I bet some will take it to that level.
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  mikeypants

  Skeeter,

  I thought you had to baptized in order to use the KH for a wedding? Wait, just reread your post. Elders said hell no! Haha. Sorry to hear that. But, it sounds that you and your wife have made up your minds and are sticking with it. Good to hear. Grats on the baby.

  Yes, my wife was very hurt. She wanted her dad to walk her down the aisle, which of course didnt happen. Yeah, the blood thing is one of the items i started thinking about with the baby on its way. The baby will have any medical procedure he/she needs and that won't be debated. If my wife needs any procedure involving blood, that will be a battle. I dont know how to bring that up, i havent really told her 100% that im done with the religion. I just stopped going to meetings and service a few weeks ago, though i rarely went out preaching anyway - always hated it.

  But, the blood thing will be brought up as we get closer to the birth, just dont know how yet... how do you tell your wife and mother of your future child that you care about and love her so much that you want her to completely go against everything that has been shoved down her thoat since infancy and that she truly belives in her heart. Think that was a run-on sentence. :)

  There was a forum on here that talked about the Awake mag from 1994 with children on the cover who died for listening to the GB freaks. It really made me sick to my stomach thinking that, in '94, i was a witness. I was a young teen and that could have been me or one of my friends. And for them to parade that around for the world to see is insane. I almost don't believe it and need to hold it in my hands to make it real.

  But yeah, its going to be an issue and i am not looking forward to it.
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  OneEyedJoe

  No, I'm not DF'd yet. I've only been "awake" to the full reality of the cult that I was raised in for about 8 months now (doesn't even feel like it's been that long). Until that point, I was essentially an atheist in spirit just going along with the JW thing on the off chance that they where right. I had a lot going on in my life so I didn't take the time to examine things. Right now I'm in the process of trying to slowly drift away (which is very difficult with my wife and her in-laws acting as a boat anchor) and wake my wife up. Still not sure how I'm going to work that out, and progress has been slow.

  Skeeter has a good idea...you might start the process of waking up your wife by investigating the blood policy using your impending fatherhood as an excuse. Part of the excuse could easily be the incomprehensible allowance of some fractions and not others, and you want to make sure that she's educated and prepared on what you guys will accept for her or your child. In addition to the link skeeter gave, there's some good information on jwfacts that you could use, and a terriffic resource would be the thread (link below) that cofty started a while back on the topic.

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/medical/273265/1/My-Explanation-of-Why-They-Got-it-Wrong-About-Blood-Using-Only-the-NWT
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  Simon

  My wife is pregnant and it due is June and thinking of raising a child as a JW sickens me. Tough road ahead.

  That was what made me first really step back and question things too. Did I want my kids to have my upbringing?

  It's great seeing them grow up with all the opportunities that we didn't.

  And don't worry about the WTS propaganda: kids don't immediately start taking drugs if you miss a meeting.
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  Giordano

  My wife and I faded out of the JW world in the mid 1960's. Both of us were dragged into the cult when we were 12 and 13. Both of our fathers were not JW's and that made a BIG difference, we remember our life before our Mom's became JW's.

  Those JW hooks often don't sink in as deep when you have one parent who isn't a believer. Also make sure your child is raised with a complete picture of both worlds, birthdays, after school activities, clubs, books etc. Compromise where you can but be firm about natural childhood things. Be firm about blood. Your kid doesn't need to walk around with a suicide note in their back pocket that says"no whole blood".
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  LisaRose

  Welcome to the forum, glad you found us.

  Lisa
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  SAHS

  To “mikeypants”: Welcome to the Board! First of all, it’s a good thing that you were never baptized. My best friend was never baptized and thus has sort of fallen through the cracks. Stay away from that JW “holy water” at all costs.

  “My sister called an elder friend of hers and told him are evil plans. He of course contacted my wife and tried to talk her our of marrying the devil.”

  “skeeter1”: “The elders wouldn't do it.”

  Guys, if I were you, I would have a free consultation with a lawyer to weigh my legal options in dealing with this blatant attempt at coercion. It should really be considered unacceptable to use marriage as a bargaining tool to further a manmade “religion.”

  “mikeypants”: “. . . the Awake mag from 1994 with children on the cover who died for listening to the GB freaks.”

  That particular issue of Awake! really struck a nerve with me, as well as a huge number of others, as being most distasteful and offensive! That should be an enormous red flag to anyone!