troubled [in need of answers]

by zev 38 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  jurs

  hi zev,
  my heart goes out to you. I'm not qualified to offer any suggestions but something i picked up on in your posting was that in your humble opinion the marriage is already over. Do you want to stay married? jurs
• 

  Had Enough

  Zev:

  I truly feel for what you are going through. I wondered how you were doing after you mentioned a few things in your posts about your new information and not wanting to go to the meetings and the rift it was causing with your wife.

  I'm in a similar situation only not on a daily basis...it's with my active JW daughter and brother who want to see me return to the meetings and I have a hard time not discussing it with them for fear they will feel the need to get some elders to "help me with my questions" and we all know where that would probably lead. I don't want them to be forced into shunning me.

  HOWEVER .. my thoughts have been turned toward an approach like what larc just posted about "playing dumb" and asking questions about "how would you answer this question at the door?" etc.

  My idea came from the site at:
  http://www.freeminds.org/psych/exithelp.htm
  "How I Helped My Family Leave Jehovah's Witnesses" the account of a man who helped his family reason their way to see the real "truth" through their bible study and informal discussions.

  I found it very enlightening and hope to use it when the opportunities arise.

  Perhaps this site and the connecting site on actual subjects he used to get them thinking, will be of some use to you.

  I certainly hope you can find a solution to your problem. Please let us know.

  Had Enough
• 

  mommy

  Zev,
  I just wanted to pop in and give you some (((HUGS))) too. I know you have been going through a strain lately, it must be very tough for you now. I am so proud of you for going to your employer, that took alot I am sure. I hope you do find a counselor, preferably someone who has dealt with this type of thing before.

  I wish you the best, and please keep us informed.
  wendy
• 

  Latte

  Zev,

  I really feel for you!

  I am blessed with my partner discovering the truth about the trooth, at the same time as myself. I can only tell you what things have helped me immensley.

  1) The great guys on this board.
  2) Finding someone local to talk with you about JW land, and what leaving means.
  3) Time. This has helped me to 'calm down' I was so worried about being DF'd for not believing anymore, that I was very 'strung up' so the speak.....I really felt, like you, that I needed professional help to help me through this.

  If this time is not 'right' for your wife, maybe get help for yourself, privately in the mean time. Then when you feel more in control perhaps you could try the matter-of-fact approach that Larc has suggested. I guess that approach takes times, which certainly some witnesses need, to be de-programmed.

  Having others speak with you and tell you that you ARE thinking correctly regarding the Borg. will help you immensley, also.

  Where are you? Are there no ex's near you?

  Take care, and I wish you peace.

  Latte
• 

  anglise

  Hi Zev
  Like Latte my husband and myself came out together, but my daughter is still married to a JW.
  She is really working at their own relationship together outside of the org.
  Maybe your wife feels that you wont love her anymore. If you can, try to boost her self worth and pride in your marriage. You dont say if you have children, but if you do dont forget that the org teaches that outside of it most children end up on drugs etc and this could also affect how your wife thinks at the moment.
  I really feel for you and I hope that something in this thread is of help to both of you.
  Feel free to mail me if you want.
• 

  Abaddon

  Zev;

  I would say what you do depends on how things are with your wife.

  I had a bad marraige, with a wife who grew increasingly difficult to live with because I didn't turn out to be Bro Superspiritual, and because I didn't agree with her point of view that because she was nine and a half years older than me she knew best, and because she totally interfered with me building a relationship with my daughters or her son by a previous marraige, and undermined my entire sense of self-worth.

  I decided to leave a year before I did - both her and the JW's.

  At that time it was a gut feeling that I couldn't live my life that way any more, more so that than a doctrinal relevation.

  But I had to stay because my wife was pregnant again (accidentally - a condom burst), and I couldn't leave then, and then I couldn't leave because my new daughter had talapies and needed surgery. I withdrew into a little teflon shell, meetings were sheer drudgery and torture, I just let her have her uptight over-protective stultifying way about everything as it was less hassle than having an opinion and getting into a fight in which she would verbally harang me till I broke down.

  And then I left my marraige and the Borg on the same day. She'd known I was unhappy as she'd sensed something and we'd talked about things, but she couldn't take it all back or change who she was and I couldn't risk loving her again and having my heart shat over again. Obviosuly she has her opinion about me, but this is my story...

  All I can say is that my heart goes out to you. If you love her, she's worth fighting for. But your own life and sanity are important, and if she can't let go, and you can't live with her like that, then be kind to yourself.

  That's one thing you will have to learn. How to be kind to yourself.

  Dspite the gloom of the story above, I have a new life, a new love better than anything I could ever have possibly imagined before, and I still see my girls, this very weekend in fact I'm travelling ten hours each way to see them. I am free and happy, and I wish the same for you.

  All the best to you.
• 

  zev

  latte said:

  Where are you? Are there no ex's near you?

  
  Thank you all for what you have said. i cant get into much at this moment, i will when i return home from work tonight. but that is a thought. are there any of you near me that i could converse with? i'm in new england, s.e. massachusetts to be specific, and travel for a cup of joe is not a problem for me at all. i'll wait and see. and i am going to seek help, in group or proffessional form, one way or the other. and abaddon, your words hit very close to home. i'll get back to you on this later tonight.

  thank you so much.

  __
  zev
  Now feeling the pain of sitting on the pickets class.
• 

  LovesDubs

  My husband is still a JW. I am ten years older than he is. When we got married in 1987, he was freshly baptised 12/86 and I was in a year and a half by then. So we were in wedded and "spiritual" preparadasaic bliss at that time. I rapidly began to see things happening around me in the congregation, and in what I was reading, hat didnt add up. I became increasingly upset by things...tried talking to some of my sister friends indirectly about my concerns which turned their faces into total panic that I would ask so I backed off. I kept it allll inside of me to the point of bursting. It all came to a head when my best friend had an affair with a married elder, an elder in my book study his wife died and he married a worldly woman less than month later, an MS was caught taking young boys downtown Chicago to pool halls and introducing them to hookers, and they changed the Generation. I literally had a melt down. I stopped going to the meetings. My husband stopped when I stopped...mostly because he was incapable of getting home on time to get himself and three little ones ready (the SISTERS job of course) and so he used the excuse that it was "too difficult" to do alone.

  I was on the internet defending the JWs even up to December of 1996 even with all that turmoil in my heart. My "Crisis of Conscience" even though I didnt know it had a name at that time. I had ceased going to the meetings...even the one in my own home. We were going through the Revelation Climax book AGAIN...and I just couldnt stand one more paragraph of "us us us, we we we, me me me, AINT WE JUST SO DAMN WONDERFUL and GOD LOVES US BEST" bullshit from that Organization.

  My husband was quiet about my changes...he would cry that he didnt want me to die at armageddon, that he didnt want to be alone in the New System. I suppose at that time he thought he meant it, although he himself was doing NOTHING to further his own cause, no meetings, no service...never even cracked open a magazine. Then I decided I didnt want those people in my house ever again. I told him to tell the BS conductor he would have to move the meeting to the hall (which was only a half mile away). My husband didnt tell him...and so when Thursday night rolled around, Im sitting around in my sweats and 20 people converge on my home...and he naturally and as usual...doesnt appear until 7:25! I was so freakin furious I could have killed him. His excuse was that he didnt want to "hurt the friends, and obviously YOU DONT LOVE THE FRIENDS AND I DO!" I almost throttled him. For three years it had been ME who cleaned that house, set up those chairs, got our three kids bathed, clothed, fed and studied for those meetings, it was ME who made the coffee and bought the snacks for afterwards, and ME who went out in the sub zero weather and cleared the walks, and sprinkled salt and shoveled our driveway and the NEIGHBORS driveways so they would have a place to park in winter!! Its a damn good thing I didnt have something heavy in my hand. I sat in the corner of our bedroom just sobbing with anger at where I was in my life and he just sat there....and this with 21 people in my living room conducting a meeting like there was nothing unusual happening. The meetings MUST go on you know.

  My exit was rapid after that....I went to the library and the only two books there about JWs were Crisis of Conscience and Blood on the Altar. I took both...and ran into the PO's wife on the steps of the library of course...jammed the books into the baby's blankets, made nice with the sisters and boogied home. Never looked back.

  I had been conducting a study with my neighbor across the street for a long time...she knew my concerns as well. One day I was in the living and noticed the PO's wife's car pull up in front of that house and she and another elder's wife went INTO MY STUDY'S HOUSE!! I was FURIOUS! Without even talking to me they decided that I wasnt fit to conduct that study any more and took it OVER. They were there for over an hour. My neighbor who was my friend, raked them over the coals...they were starting to tell her that I was spiritually WEAK and that they were "making sure she got the proper spiritual guidance since Sister Hines needs to work on her own spirituality before she can be a teacher to others." My friend told them where they could shove their NWTs and kicked them out....then immediately called me.

  I know this is long...Im sorry.

  My husband was like "well what did you EXPECT them to do???" I said "I EXPECTED them to have the courtesy to DISCUSS this with me and since they never even said a WORD to me nor even inquired if I was perhaps SICK and needed HELP....then F*UCK THEM! They are a bunch of pompous-assed self righteous hypocrites and IM DONE WITH THEM!" He said..."well...then you know what you have to do. You need to give yourself back your joy." I just stared at him...that was like the last thing I expected him to say. And at that EXACT MOMENT...the pall lifted. I relaxed, I was calm. And I walked over to the computer and wrote my disassociation letter. And never felt closer to God in my entire life.

  And...my husband hand delivered it to the elders for me.

  There have been horrible nasty times since then in Jan 1997 where he has thrown his religion in my face, and Ive been shunned by his family and treated like shit by the "friends" around our new home...but I think I am making headway with him. I think he sees clearly but doesnt want to lose his family and friends as I did. He is on the fence too. As so many are. They threaten him...they tried to make him break up with me...the sisters come on to him...they treat him like a wounded bird, poor poor brother with the apostate wife. And he eats that up. But he hardly goes any more. Spurts of spirituality once in awhile is all.

  But we manage to keep this marriage together by God because I wont give up on it. I didnt marry him becausee he was a JW. I met him because he was becoming one...but if that religion was all we had, then we had nothing.

  If your marriage is going to go there isnt anything you can do about it sweetie. The religion will only be an EXCUSE for doing what was probably going to happen anyway. But she will use that as her excuse for the marriage failing and wont take any blame for it being anything BUT that. "My husband LEFT Jehovah and because He JOINED Satan...the marriage failed. HE cant stand to be around ME because IM WITH JEHOVAH." You know the schtick.

  But you have to do what you have to do....or you will lose yourself...your mind, your heart, your sense of worth. And nobody is going to help you but you. Set aside the whole religion thing...and examine your marriage. If there is nothing else there to keep it together FIRMLY...then move on. I had to do this not only for myself but for my children. They needed mommy to BE HERE and as long as I was having such a horrible internal struggle I was removed from them. Now we have a life together. And I havent lost faith that my husband will come out some day too.

  loveya
• 

  Yerusalyim

  Zev,

  My advice to you comes as one married man to another. I was never a JW though (my wife either was or is not sure yet). Be loving, be honest. Rather than try to overwhelm her with your truth about the truth, just let her know that there are biblical reasons for your doubts. Quote the Society's line about those who just quit the religion (no DA letter, and DON'T attend a judicial committee). Quote her the bit about how even DFing doesn't break family ties. Assert that you are still her head in Christ (lovingly). maybe eventually pay a visit to the Elders individually and let them know if they counsel her to either leave you or shun you in any way they will be sued for alienation of affection. If and when she wants to discuss the issues then discuss them. You leaving the Society is NOT a scriptural grounds for divorce. KEEP LOVING HER. Take her out a lot (as much as you can, even if it's just for walks in the park). Find a way to make her jealous of her time with you. Just some thoughts

  Yeru

  YERUSALYIM
  There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
  Shakespere: Hamlet
• 

  reagan_oconnor

  But we manage to keep this marriage together by God because I wont give up on it.

  Wow, dubs. I'm in awe. And I agree.

  I'm pullin' for ya, Zev... The article on freeminds that Had Enough posted is *excellent.* You're in my prayers.

  With love,
  Reagan

  "I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul."