Okay, I've chatted with several of you and I thought it was time to tell my story. It all began during the gulf war early in January 1991. I was concerned about the war becoming the end of the world and naturally, because of my lifestyle, I began asking myself what I intended to do with my life. A pioneer sister worked in the office where I worked, I knew she was a witness and studied the bible so I asked her opinion on what was happening. If I had known what consequences would follow and how messed up things would become, I would have taped my own mouth shut! But like most of us, I asked and listened. As a result, I was baptized in Nov of 1991. Oh it was great at first, all of the friendliness and compliments on how well I was doing, it overwhelmed me. I was sure I had really found the "truth". Oh by the way, I married that pioneer sister. She was raised as a JW so she was really messed up emotionally. Like too many, her own father sexually abused her and everybody pretended it never happened. Anyway, I made it so that I could begin pioneering so the day after I was baptized, I applied to auxilliary pioneer. Soon, I was laid off from work. As suggested by some, I took the opportunity to regular pioneer and applied, along with my wife, who by the way had just been reinstated from being disfellowshipped for marrying me. The elders called us to the dreaded "back room" to talk to us about our decision. They said they would not approve it since I didn't have a job. One elder actually said, "what if you can't buy your wife a new pair of shoes and a new dress every week for field service". My reply was, who does that anyway? By the time it was over, I had been thoroughly humiliated and reduced to tears. From that moment on things changed.
I continued to "progress" and was given many priveledges. Eventually, a CO befriended me and made me an offer. If I would move to another congregation, get to know the "flock" and provide him with information, he would approve my pioneer application. I did. Not even the elders knew why I was there other than to help out where there was a need. Over ten years I moved to 8 different congregations and provided subsequent CO's with the same info on publishers, MS, and elders. (I had done some private detective work before becoming a jw). I was withheld being appointed as an elder because they thought the congregation would open up more to a pioneer MS. I was treated very harshly in most cong's as if they suspected something Many times we were without basic needs although I was expected to help others. After some time my wife decided at age 25 that she was of the anointed. She expressed this to some and before long it was as if we were satans's own children.
Eventually we moved to Florida. She partook at the first memorial there and that set off the fireworks. Priveledges were denied, we would not be called on at meetings, nobody wanted to work with us in field service, we were never invited anywhere. Try to explain that to children who were 2, 4, and 5. I decided, deleted 'em! Started missing meetings, no service, no commenting, no family or personal studying, and prayer became just for meals and bedtime.
For some reason, in September 2001, after 10 years and 10 days of marriage, my wife decided to fool around with a "worldly" guy. I found out and asked her to leave. That night, she left in the middle of the night and took my kids to TN while I was sleeping. A week later she called and told me she was filing for divorce because she wanted to be with the other guy. A month and a half later I got to see my kids again. She eventually moved back to FL because the witnesses she was staying with found out what she did and asked her to leave. She got pregnant by the "other guy" and we divorced on August 09, 2002.
At my last meeting (still too painful to tell all) a couple of elders reduced me to tears in the parking lot over what was going on in my life. They didn't care about me, they were just worried about how they would look to other elders and other cong's. I never went back, although several elders called and tried to visit for 3-4 months. I finally told them to leave me alone and they did. So here I am now trying to heal all of the wounds, too many of which can be detailed here and now. I am glad I found this site because it's comforting to know that others have been through the same thing. I will add more to this story later, I just had to get at least this much out.
Edited by - Englishman on 19 January 2003 11:36:28