Hello

Tobyjones262

Hello to everyone. New to this forum. I ran across it when watching Lloyd Evans videos and searching out JW links. I left the cult many years ago after a long stint in it.The cult caused me much pain and problems even though I left. Lost family, friends and income. You all know the drill. I will be participating here in the JW discussions.

Half banana

A big welcome to you Tobyjones262. Do tell us your story.

Phoebe

Hello and welcome!

LoveUniHateExams

Hi Tobyjones262, welcome to the forum.

I look forward to reading more of your posts.

Tobyjones262

Well I am a 3rd generation "was" JW. I was raised in it from the time of my birth. So I went though all the JW non participation at school, friends, Bdays, Xmas ect. I never really reached out for a position in the hall. It never really meant to me what it meant to a lot of the others in the hall.

I hung out with the other JWs at the hall except for a run in my senior year of HS. I ran with some worldly kids at this time. This was the years of the new "marking" people not doing a lot in the KH. But when a good JW friend moved back to our area and would not talk to me it made me start going to the KH and service again. I found a nice JW girl married her and we were in for the next 15 years.

I still never really reached out and my wife was not the kind of person who wanted the status symbol of an elder or MS husband. This was OK with me. I had questioned a lot of the teachings and this was before the invention of the web. So it was very hard almost impossible to find much info on the JWs.

I did run across some people who had dug up the JWs history and would ask my Elder family members about it. I was told the usual, don't think so much about things, Jehovah will reveal all in due time. The questions always remained in the back of my mind. Then in the mid 90s the internet came out and I ran across Randy Waters site. It had a lot of information about the history of the JWs I had never heard. Rutherford and his drinking and buying mansions, all the wrong dates and predictions.

I really started to ask questions and was promptly told I was walking a fine line on asking questions and apostasy. Come to find out really any actual questions are apostasy in the JWs eyes. Finally I just quit going. I bought Ray Franz's book Crisis of Conscience and Christian Freedom. It was a big eye opener of peeking behind the curtain and seeing these GB members who were built up in our minds as angelic were just old guys making it up as they went along. Making decisions about how our lives would be, what jobs we could work and what we did with our time and families.

This was it I was done. Fortunately my wife was not a kool-aid drinker and left with me. This was very fortunate because it could have been a real issue. I laid low for many years on the edge of not getting DFed. The elders would stop buy and try to get me to say I did not believe the JWs to be gods sole representative on earth. I had a lot of family still in the JWs. My Mother, GF, inlaws, GM and lots and lots of cousins and two brothers.

Over the years of laying low I worked on my Mother and she although not leaving outright said before she passed that she no longer believed it to be the truth. My brothers all left and my grand parents died. It was time to just leave. I lived in a small town where you would see a relative when you went to the PO or gas station. You would get the look of Ohh there is an apostate even though I was never DFed.

It was time to just move away. We did and at least we don't have to deal with the JW family members looking at us like we robbed a bank or murdered someone every time we went to the store. My wife's family is still in the JW org. But funny as entrenched as they were, there seems to have been a shift. Her father said he was proud of her and her education and work she does. She had an Associates deg. and has worked for years in a legal office. Her siblings are either unemployed or low paying jobs. Not that my wife makes huge bucks or anything.

Her dad even said last time she visited that he would like to see his grand daughter my wife's niece go to collage so she can get a good job. Her dad was very dogmatic on the JW the end is near. He has watched his wife die and waited all this time never pursuing a good job even moving to where the need was great in preparation for 1975.

He is now one of the thousands who have no income other than Social Security because of putting the JWs first. Its sad to see so many people who are affected in later life by this. We can not do anything but watch. I had thought about sending a letter of disassociation to my old KH but this could cause my wife's relationship with her family some difficulty. So I will let sleeping dogs lay for now.

unsure

Welcome!

The Fall Guy

Welcome Toby. Glad to hear your wife joined you.

Don't dignify this evil cult by playing by their rules; write nothing & say nothing. Faders are 'loose ends', and the org hates loose ends.

Still Totally ADD

Welcome Tobyjones. Your story is a very common one. Its so nice to see another one wake up from the borg. In many ways I am like your father-in-law living on SS and working a patt time job. Being a born-in I took what the borg had say hook, line and sinker untol I wokeup at the age of 53. Both our boys shunned my wife and I until this last summer when my youngest son call and told us how sorry he was for shunning us for so many years and has left the borg. We all had christmas together this last December. Never give up hope you never know how things will come out.

Again welcome and looking forward to more post from you. Take care. Still Totally ADD

Tobyjones262

Thanks guys. ADD my FIL is 76 years old. His whole social network is in the JW org. I don't think there is a chance he will come out and i really don't want him to. He would have nothing at 76 and no where or time to really build up a social world again. But his telling my wife how proud he is. This is a real about face from him always asking her to go to meeting or assemblies. For him to go against the JW.org saying collage is bad and saying he wants his GD to go is huge.

Moster

"I really started to ask questions and was promptly told I was walking a fine line on asking questions and apostasy."

The ear mark of a cult!

Welcome Toby. We look forward to your participation here.

Hello

Share this