by little1 19 Replies latest jw friends
The jw I dated hung around for 14 years before finally being baptised (I don't know how he got away with that). I've heard that the way they treat you changes after you've signed on the dotted line, that the gloves come off and they start turning the screws. I'd like to know if this was true for any of you and what your experiences in this area are.
Thanks, Little1
Definitely treated differently. The love-bombing waned once we'd been hooked and then the pressures started - more ministry expected, more items to fulfil, more time on the theocratic ministry school, etc. And the more one progressed in the congregation the more one was put upon. Nothing I ever did was good enough - I felt that I had to constantly work harder to please BIG J (when, all the time, it was the elders who were squeezing the life out of me). Yep, they got more than their pound of flesh out of me - and when I felt I could take it no longer they stole my girls. You know the rest.
Dansk
No, they didn't treat me any different. But this may have been different if I had gotten baptized in the hall I grew up in.
I got baptized when I was 19, basically so I could get married in the hall. I didn't know too many people at this new hall.
But, at the same time, I had no real desire to get to know anyone there either. Just went with the flow.
I guess I kind of hope they show their hand, although he might still deny it and explain it away.
Sorry this topic ended up under the "friends" heading, I don't know how that happened. It should be under "experiences". Forgive me, I'm a newbie!
L1
My husband said they dropped him like a hot potato.
Yes, the love bombing wanes; they can no longer count the time they spend talking to you.
Blondie
I was treated the same.
I remember a sister in the congregation called me and tried to pursuade me to not get baptised. I was only 15. She started crying on the phone while talking to me. She begged me not to do it, said that then Satan really goes after you and if you make a mistake you are done for..
I was treated the same after I got baptized. However, I continued to reach out, I was regular in service --- started to auxilliary right after and then began to regular pioneer. I did all my school talks and would fill in for ones who could not do their talks. I was regular at all the meetings and commented regularly and did lots of research.
My point in saying all that is because if you get baptized and then do nothing.......they are disappointed in you. After baptism, they expect that you will do and give more and more. I did what was expected. If you do what they expect they keep encouraging you, if you just try to coast, become irregular in service or meetings, don't become a MS (if you're a brother) within the expected time, they start "marking" you so to speak.
Yes and no! Still got the bs answers to my questions, but got belted in the face for being honest about my dissappointment. Opened my eyes to the hypocracy so began planning my escape the night of my baptism.
carm
I agree with Blondie. They cannot count the time (with a clear conscience) that they spend talking to you, once you have become baptized. Sometimes in a car group we would drive for half an hour just to say hello to brother or sister X?s book study so that they could feel the warmth of the organization. Once, that person was ?in? then we would drop them in favor of someone else?s book study.
I guess that for a while I tried to do the thing that they wanted you to do, go out in field service, help out in the congregation, answer during the studies, but that was just enough to get them off of your back. They would stop coming over to my house to check on the family?s welfare, we had to find our own group to hang out with after the meeting (not included in everyone else?s), not invited with everybody?s car group (my family actually had to make its own car group at times because everybody else already had theirs).
The thing that I hated was that now the elders felt that they had me by my strings. Before I was baptized I could make observations that I did not like, got the answers or condolences that showed they had gone to the trouble to investigate what I had said. After baptism I would get a response that was disheartening, as if Satan had made me make that statement. And all of the elders that had peon jobs or were looked down upon by their family had no problem telling me and my family what to do, how to act and what was expected.
I don't think I was really treated differently. I felt different. For the first time in years, I could finally see the look of approval on my father's face. But then again, the congregations in the state I was baptized in were really great. They had people that truly cared for your welfare. But when I moved to Wichita Kansas, the brothers couldn't care less for me. Bastards. With the exception of a few friends there, I hated that congregation. You could never do enough in their eyes.
