Couples that leave the JWs together.

by MegaDude 33 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Princess

  I remember I went skiing with my brother one day. He works with my dad and told me dad had been reading some literature and talking with some other elder friends about the bible and some of the teachings they didn't agree with. He said dad could be disfellowshipped for what he was reading and discussing. I was horrified and talked to my dad about it. I also talked to my husband about it and he was coming to the same conclusions in his research. The literature dad had been reading (essays written by an elder, now out along with some other published works) got passed around. We started fading out then. After our first child was born we left for good.

  Rachel
• 

  MegaDude

  Tink asked what my situation was.

  I am divorced. We didn't make it. We stayed in touch for a long time anyway, but the relationship finally burned itself out about two and a half years ago. I had time to reflect on how I handled my leaving and how I affected people close to me who are JWs.

  I work with lawyers on a daily basis. Lawyers are trained to argue logic and they are trained to win. After being around those pit bulls for so many years, and combined with my JW elitism, I was ill-equiped to reach out to a loved one in a balanced manner.

  When my study began sharing with me the older Watchtower material, and I began reading books by former JWs, I became outraged. I had based some important life decisions on the then current Generation of 1914 doctrine. I saw the clear pattern of setting false dates to be replaced with another. The blood issue was obviously wrong. Talking with one of the current leaders at Bethel only led to the advice of "Put your doubts on a shelf and leave them there." I became irrate. Well, irrate is not the word. Probably angry son of a bitch would be more appropriate.

  I began hammering every JW around me, including my wife, with a barrage of facts exposing the Society for the liars they were. But what I later learned is it's hard to reach people when you are obviously seething with anger. You drive people away. It's fine to be assertive. It's good to stand your ground when you know you are right. However, if you don't equally assure those people around you of their importance to you, how much you love them, how much you need them, then like Paul said, you're just making a loud noise.

  Up until that time my wife and I had been happy. Now she was very upset, as were my in-laws, that I was becoming an opposer. At that time, I was completely indifferent to *their* pain. This was a big flaw in my thinking. I had completely forgotten what it was like to be a JW with their hypnotized mindset. Since my wife came from a prominent JW family, it was a National Enquirer-like gossipfest among the JW community we were in. My in-laws and wife were embarrassed to have "an apostate" in the family. I saw my wife and in-laws slipping away from me. This made me angrier.

  We moved a few hundred miles away to get away from all of that, but I kept up my argumentation skills. I redoubled my efforts and was even more forceful in my approach. I was relentless. I may have been right, but there was nothing kind or subtle or reassuring in how I was in my relationships with my JW family. And in the end, it became a war in my marriage. We split up. We continued to see each other, but the relationship was on a downward spiral that finally culminated in divorce. We continued to see each other. Over time my ex had become extremely resentful of how harsh I had been. I was equally resentful of her staying a JW. By then it was beginning to dawn on me that coming on like a powerhouse of force scared the hell out of JWs and was not conducive to opening the closed JW mind. But the damage was done, and there was no making it better, and it was finally over.

  Someone said, "Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want."

  Today I talk to the JWs who come to my door and they actually enjoy talking to me. I treat them with friendliness and respect. I am usually never direct in my conversations with them. I simply begin asking them a series of questions to lead them where I want to go. It is so much more effective than breathing pure fire at them. The best thing that happened in my experience is that I was changed to a large degree, and that change has flowed into all of my relationships and for the good.

  The last set of elders who visited me said, "We can tell you have a good heart." We had a nice conversation lasting almost an hour and a half. I made some effective points with them that I could see caused them to pause and think. They said they would come back. They just don't know that THEY are my return visit. LOL!

  Thanks for all the responses. Very insightful.
• 

  TheStar

  Megadude,

  Thanks for starting this thread for the sake of all whom are currently under this situation. I hope more will respond and share their experiences.

  My own? I've stopped bombarding my spouse with all the facts, this keeps the peace but I'm not making any progress in getting him out and I don't know what else to do. It's a very frustrating place to be, it feels so helpless.
• 

  beckyboop

  Megadude (and everyone else)

  This is a great topic, and I hope that a lot of people see it because it affects a large number of people. I enjoyed reading your example, even though that had to be very difficult for you at the time. Hopefully your honesty will enable some to better deal with the situation.

  Here's my story:

  My now ex-husband Charlie was the type to read all of the literature--anything and everything he could get his hands on. In fact, there were some (including a sister of his) who said he read the old stuff to "look for discrepancies". In actuality, he had a strong interest in the background of the jw's, with the end result of finding things that didn't add up. It wasn't his goal, but it definitely led to the same outcome. This led to a breaking point one night not long after he had given a talk which had upset him greatly. He started expressing his doubts with the organization, and I of course threatened him with divorce for "talking against Jehovah" (being the good little pioneer dub that I was). I refused to discuss any of it.

  The irony of things up to this point was that I had started making up any excuse possible to not go to meetings or service, even though it was Charlie with the expressed doubts! Although I was still a pioneer, I started making up the hours I reported so I didn't have to deal with the decision to quit yet. Not long after that though I finally came off the list, and breathed a huge sigh of relief. Needless to say, it wasn't much time before I hardly ever went to meetings. At one point a missed an entire month because of being sick (due to stress), and nobody called or visited during that time. I was devastated.

  In the meantime, Charlie snuck and READ books he found at the library, poked around on the INTERNET (gasp!), and continued expanding his mind. At some point he contacted Randy Watters, and Randy gave him the best advice anybody could have given him--BE PATIENT! So he was, and continued trying suggestions found in books like Steve Hassan's. During this time I steadfastly refused to discuss ANYTHING that sounded like it was in opposition to the "loving" organization. But, I also started seeing more and more instances of people being treated with no compassion or love--including a circumstance with my younger sister. The injustice in those situations started eating me alive inside.

  About 4 years ago we went to a Holiday Inn with an inside fun center called a Holidome with our best friends, family, and a huge group of witnesses over the Christmas holidays. (I'm convinced now it was our way of celebrating, although we never called it that) My best friend and I were in the swimming pool and somehow ended up in a discussion about doubting some wt teachings. At the EXACT same moment, Charlie was in the hotel room talking with the husband of my best friend, and they were having a similar conversation. It was a huge relief to listen to her say she had doubts too, because in my mind she'd been one of the most spiritual people I had ever known.

  That ended up being the final straw for me--after that point I was finally able to START talking, and little by little we drifted away. We were never da'd or df'd, and there are witnesses who will talk to us, although there are many who I've known far longer who RUN when they see us. We did end up divorcing, but that's another story because he is gay (see the FRIENDS thread "Preventing Homosexuality" by ISP--I posted my story there). We are still the best of friends, and always will be. I am forever grateful to him for his ability to remain patient and stick it out--because believe me, I am not easily to live with--especially under that kind of mental, emotional, and spiritual stress we were under.

  My basic advice--do your best to try the suggestions given in books and by others who have gone through it. If something doesn't seem to be working, try something else. Remember, it will be a time of HONESTY, and that doesn't always mean that you'll end up together--hopefully you'll both be happier though. And for those of you who had to make the decision (or may want to) to leave a jw mate, only you can decide what's best for you. I personally think a lot of jw marriages are not healthy from the start because of the wt premise they are built on, and the fact that under their guidelines you never truly know the person you are marrying. The hardest part of the whole experience was figuring out what made me happy--because I had never known the real ME!

  I hope this helps; I heal a little more each time that I have to put the experience into words (sorry if it's too long;)). I'm looking forward to reading more experiences, because each little tidbit I gather may be the one thing that finally helps me break through to other family members and friends still in.

  Love,

  Becky
• 

  Mulan

  My husband, Princess' dad, discovered the truth of things several years before I saw what he saw. It made for some terrible years for us, but he was patient, and would vow not to talk to me about things. All the time, he was serving as an elder, the WT study conductor, and book study conductor. We were very well known in our area, and I liked it that way. The idea that he might resign as an elder terrified me. Nothing I threatened would make him stop his research or his long visits with another elder who was also researching. I wouldn't tell on him, because that would risk losing our status. (Isn't that shallow?)

  After about five years, I agreed to read one of the essays Princess alluded to in her post, and it did make me think. All the points in the essay were taken from WT's. How could I argue with that? My husband challenged me to prove him wrong about when Jerusalem was destroyed, so I set out for the library. To my absolute horror, there was absolutely NOTHING to support the 607 date. We had a new computer so I looked on the internet too, and had the same conclusion. It just made me angry. I demanded he stop all of his research. Still, he refused, and said he had to be true to what he knew was the real truth, and he couldn't go back in his beliefs.

  I went to a convention (for my work) and while there met people from all over the world, of different religions, Buddhist, Hindus and Muslims. They were wonderful people and loved God in their own way.............it was hard for me to find fault with that. I didn't sleep at all the night before I had to fly home (across the country) and maybe it was the lack of sleep, and my mental defenses were down, but I couldn't stop thinking about everything he had told me for all those years. When I got home, I told him I knew he was right. I think he was in shock.

  The next year, he resigned as an elder, and we faded away. (that is the greatly condensed version)
• 

  RR

  I was first, then convinced my wife, we left together!
• 

  lv4fer

  I was first, I was looking stuff up about 1914 and 607 BCE on the internet for a talk, and what I found out blew my mind, it gave me the courage to go to a few Christian web sites that had info on the witnesses and then after much pondering I bought Ray's Crisis book and that was the beginning of the end. I started sharing some of my finding with my husband and he told me that I was looking at apostate stuff etc. so I kept up my research for a couple of months not saying anything and then I started showing him a scripture or two and ask him to read it and then ask him what did it mean to him. NOt what did the society tell him it meant. I started with resurrection to heaven and asked him to show me where it says there will be a resurrection to earth. There are no scriptures that say this only scriptures that show we are going to heaven, it go him thinking and he started just reading the bible, just the bible alone w/o any witchtower stuff. I then ordered In search of christian freedom and started reading stuff to him. He took it to work and started reading it when he had a chance. It was so funny, he would come home and say Hey did you know......? It didn't take but a few months and we were out,

  OH yeah, I forgot the most important thing. I prayed a lot !!!!!!!!!

  Prayer works
• 

  Scully

  The thing that finally got my husband to start looking at the Org with a critical eye was simply pointing out that he had nothing to be afraid of by looking at the criticisms of the JWs and the Org.

  I said "If it's really The Truth(tm), it will stand up to those criticisms. If it doesn't, then we have to decide if we're going to waste any more of our lives believing a lie." Of course, I'd already seen for myself how damaging those criticisms were and knew he'd (a) take the challenge and (b) wake up!

  Love, Scully
• 

  JT

  . I personally think a lot of jw marriages are not healthy from the start because of the wt premise they are built on, and the fact that under their guidelines you never truly know the person you are marrying

  ######

  THE above comments are so true, esp when i look at female jw, so many of them would like to marry, but thier selection is so limited, i know this 33yr black sister who wanted to get married so bad, but couldn't seem to find a mate, while looks may not make a person better or worst in the world we live in esp in the org a male jw can pick his choice pretty much even some of the goofiest males get to choose fine women,

  an older white bro 68 yrs old lost his wife of over 46yrs and when she died he went into a funk- he would heard her voice downstairs calling him, he would cry all the time - so I along with another elder knew that we were not suppose to recommend seeking help, but instead of giving him the old field service, meeting and read your mag routine - we suggested that he seek outside help-

  well after his wife and been dead for almost 2 yrs he started walking around the hall asking sister out in service if they would marry him, well most knew that he was just going thru a serious phase and kindly thanked him and said no, , but this one sister said yes and they went off one weekend and got married , they came to the school and service meeting and introduced themselves as mr and mrs-- the congo almost fell out, but many were trying to put a happy face on by lying

  at least they are both serving jehovah, etc is what they would say

  anyway- we had the bookstudy at his house and almost a yr after they had gotten married he still had all the pictures in his house of his wife, all her clothes , etc

  in fact after awhile many of the friends in the bookstudy started feeling weird being in this house- even the car he had for his first wife STILL BEARS HER NAME ON THE LICENSE TAG

  SO wt forces so many couples who are not made for each other to marry due to the lack of being able to find a mate within their ranks

  and for many of us who have been around for a while we have seen so many jw marry simply because they work for the same Company --Watchtower, Inc
• 

  anglise

  Good point Scully. It was this premise that bought us into the org over 20 years ago.

  Off course back then there wasnt the information so easily available to be able to double check what the JW's were telling us.

  I did plough through a couple of their more obscure books "Legally establishing and defending the good news" and the first book on their history, cant remember the name but is was written as a question and answer dialogue (An A4 dark green book I seem to remember), but off course there wasnt anything in them to ring warning bells.

  Fortunately that same attitude stayed with us and although we remained for about 18 years-other half was an elder-we still remained open minded (thank goodness).

  We as a family used to openly discuss the unchristian attitudes we saw displayed. This was in the later years once the children became teenagers.

  We also used to discuss the contents of the meeting on the way home in the car and more times than not the fact that a specific point had gone counter to an item given recently. ie Make quality time for your children, Do more in the field service, Is your home and garden as neat and well run as the Bethel-It should be, and many less thoughtful elders would use such items to bully the cong especially sisters in divided homes.

  We made sure our children saw these things as they happened but my husband never betrayed a confidence as regards any elders meetings etc.

  Over the last 4 years we have gradually withdrawn totally from the org and no one has come to see us to ask why

  During this time we have researched the society on the internet and bought both of Ray Franz's books.

  I suppose for us the thing was always being honest with each other and loving each other with complete trust.

  We came in as a family.

  We left as a family.