Struggling

by Kelley959 8 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

  • Kelley959
    Kelley959

    I hope this is the right place to post this. If not, please remove. This is a long post, sorry for the rant, but I have been debating posting this for a while. Personal experiences have led me to quit the JW's. I'm angry. The last straw involved my aunt and a “friend”. I'm a third generation witness, started with my Grandma and then her kids, my mom and her sister and brother. I'm the only child among the three. I've been struggling with issues of the organization for a while but was trying to come back in a couple of years ago. My wife and I were living with her parents at the time (another story). Her three brothers are not in the organization due to personal family bullcrap. One did get baptized and my wife did too, but the brother who was in the organization wants absolutely nothing to do with the JW's. His wife also has relatives who are over the top JW's and never did get involved with religion due to bullcrap she saw in the organization. So there are issues with the JW's that surround me. The issue that pushed me out involved my aunt. When we were living with my wife's parents, things got bad and I wanted to move out to California where my aunt lived and she denied us (life long Jehovah lover). So I hung up and never talked to her again. About nine months later, I was notified of her death. I was to have everything left to me. House and money. It would have made my wife and I millionaires (my aunt's words). It wasn't an ostentatious house, but it is in southern California where housing is very inflated. So when I was notified of her death, I started calling around. I was left a small annuity and that was it. Found out through a lifelong “friend”, who also is a Jehovah's Fucking Witness, she left the house and everything else to her, that the will had been changed about a month after I had the last phone with my aunt. My aunt told me several times how much she hated this “friend”. (That's another story that involves fucking elders you would not believe.) The “friend” wouldn't even talk to me but let her sister tell me all the details. I contacted an elder out there I personally knew for 40 plus years to find out what happened to my aunt, and he was extremely tight lipped and would not tell me shit. He had an attitude about that whole thing. And I haven't talked to my uncle in Oregon for over 20 years. Big shot elder, piece of shit family member. So what was to be my inheritance is gone. I believe my aunt was duped into changing the will because she just tolerated this “friend” who ended up with everything, did some things to my aunt several years ago. I also believe the elder I talked to and my uncle are involved. Long story short, the three most involved persons all have one thing in common, they are Jehovah's Fucking Witnesses. My aunt and I never openly discussed her will or anything to do with the finances. All she ever told me about this 'friend' is she was in major financial trouble. So I lost my future to this god dammed religion. I am 55 years old and trying to figure out where to go next. We did move to Florida which is great. I will never walk into a Kingdom Hall again. My wife and I missed our first ever Memorial last year and do not intend to go this year either. We want friends (don't have any here and we've been in Florida over a year now). All we do is work and be at home. I'm an Uber driver so don't have a network of co workers to get friends from and my wife is a call center agent from home so she's not around other co workers either. I have thought of going to a church to meet people, but trying to get over the mental worry of that (yes I know the JW's put a lot of shit in your head about dying and losing God's favor if you do that and going apostate). There are a couple I would like to go to after watching a couple of services on youtube, facebook, etc. I hate to admit it but I would probably use a church as more of a social network. We both caught ourselves wishing people happy holidays this past year and my wife and I did a little something for our birthdays this past couple of months. So I guess we are well underway in walking away. I also posted on my Facebook that if I had any witnesses, to please delete themselves from my friends list if I missed any. I'm sorry for the rant and I guess if I were to make a video about this, it would be 60 minutes long just to get the bare minimum facts out. I also have some theological issues with the JW's as well, but that is for another post. I'm just trying to figure out where to start. Thanks for your time.

  • no-zombie
    no-zombie

    to Kelley959

    Its ok to rant and complain here ... as most of us had done so over the years. And while you will end up seeing that we've have come to this forum for different reasons, the one thing that you will find (something that will not be able to have in any Kingdom Hall) is the freedom to speak your mind, without being negatively judged. So just do it and unburden your soul.

    Welcome aboard.

  • DesirousOfChange
    DesirousOfChange

    Not only is it OK to rant here, it is one of the few places that you'll find anyone that understands what you are going through and dealing with. Non-JWs have no comprehension of how retaliatory JWs are to anyone who just chooses to leave their little high-control group.

    "Don't go away mad. Just go away" is NOT the JW exit line. If you decide to "go away" they want you to go away crushed, beaten down, and miserable.

    Hanging up on the millionaire aunt and basically "shunning" her might not have been the greatest financial decision to make as a potential heir. Doubtful you could successfully challenge the new will as you will have two "Christian" witnesses (in the legal sense) that will testify that it was her wish and intent to change it to exclude you. Hope that there is enough "righteous indignation" you have from taking your stand that compensates for the loss of $1 million.

    Finally, the issue of new (real) friends. That's probably the toughest thing about walking away. As a JW you have almost unlimited, instant friends. Of course, as you have discovered they are "conditional" friends. And making new (real) friends really doesn't happen that easily. It will prove to be more difficult even in other church groups but that might be a place to start, although that opens you to being officially "removed" as a JW for "apostacy. If you wish to remain "inactive" vs "removed" (the new term for DF), you may have to consider that issue.

    Good luck!

    The greatest revenge is living a happy & successful life!

    (BTW - you might want to consider paragraphs in your next lengthy post.)

  • Sea Breeze
    Sea Breeze

    Sorry to hear about your loss Kelley959. Sometimes, you just have to chop the whole family tree down and start over.

    Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”

  • Ugot2bekiddingme1
    Ugot2bekiddingme1

    Welcome to this site- all of us here have experienced the shannigans of WT and JW's it could fill volumes.. Sorry for your loss. You will find a way, better friends out in the "world " then what Watchtower said things will be. As I say " F Watchtower!"

  • cyberjesus
    cyberjesus

    Welcome. Paragraphs are great.

  • Anony Mous
    Anony Mous

    Hey. Great to hear I’m not the only one with messy deaths. I should have been in line as well, my grandmother has already donated it all before she even died.

    What I have found however is that those things are not at all important in the long run. Sure it may have made life a bit more comfortable, but what makes me comfortable is knowing that it won’t make them happy.

    As I stated somewhere else, recently found out an extended family member died. Only know because I was tracing them down for information on some true inheritance, my children. It made me feel happy that they died and soon others will die without ANY children, grandchildren or true friends present at their funeral, if they even know of their deaths. One of them found out 24h before the service out of some sense of duty and called in from work only to find the whole thing (JW funeral) very odd.

    Your true inheritance is the happiness of your children. Not some number on a bank account you cannot take with you. Your children and grandchildren should remember you and have fond memories of you, a story told for at least a few generations - that is how you will be remembered. You never hear people talk about their rich great-grandmother, often the wealth is already squandered by then.

    My children don’t know their great-grandmother at all, their grandfather or the person that raised me either. They know a bit about their grandmother. Not all of them are JW anymore but they made mistakes that are hard to forgive and forget, relationships broken. But they will know about their great uncle that inspired their dad and that ethos lives on, they will know about their great-great grandfather that engineered the railroads for my home country, even though he died by the time I was 8. They will know about their great-grandfather that was instrumental at developing Teflon at DuPont. I don’t have their inheritances, which were sizable enough, my grandmother squandered it at the JW, others through drinking and drugs (partially also because they were raised JW). But I do have their stories, their ethos, their legacy on which I am building some wealth, not for me, not for the JW but for my children and theirs.

  • DesirousOfChange
    DesirousOfChange
    I am building some wealth, not for me, not for the JW but for my children and theirs.

    That's been our goal. Helping our children & grandchildren have a better "start" and more successful future (college if desired). Happily they have their own social networks outside of the JW system.

  • Beth Sarim
    Beth Sarim

    Kelly sorry about all of this.

    Feel free to express yourself on here,,,,anytime.

    My regret is I didn't respond earlier.

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