by natalienu 93 Replies latest jw friends
RUN! RUN AWAY RIGHT NOW! DON'T GET INVOLVED!
Take it from an ex-dub who broke many "worldly" girls' hearts - you can't save this guy, and you will only destroy yourself. Give him this website, give him www.watchtowerobserver.org tell him to read and save himself, just don't don't don't think that this religion is something you can play at, something you can do part-time without significantly altering your life!
You will ruin your life!
Dump him and run!
CZAR
If you want to stay a normal happy woman, walk away. If you become involved with him you will no longer have the loving relationship with your own family, as you will be trying to convert them into beoming a jw, which will cause, many many problems. Please find a "normal" man to love and continue with your normal life.
love
cj
Hello & welcome to our forum.
I haven't read the complete thread - so winging it here. I'm a jw woman of 30 yrs, started studying because the guy I was dating was a jw "returning to The Truth". Thus, my journey began....and it wasn't all bad - but a LOT of it was.
Would I have been better off not becoming a jw? YES. Why? I could have joined another religion not so oppressive of women & children. We are the ignored, second-class members of the JW's....and anyone who tells you different is lying. Everything is geared to men - and primarily white men. Btw, men are oppressed also....it's just that women & children are oppressed more.
Do you realize that after you marry a jw man - (depending on where you live) - you won't even be able to ask a question to elders without first asking your husband that question....because he has headship over you, and you'd be "overstepping" your boundaries. I know that cutie from personal experience.
Jehovah's Witnesses are deemed by some as a cult, by others - a very high control fundamentalist group. It is both of these.....and it is a money-making, book selling corporation masking as a religion. Local JW's are the non-paid salesmen. Nothing more to the corporation.
Take care, think & read the pros AND cons!
waiting
I have a wonderful life as it is , have my own house at 26, a good job, a normal loving family, no childhood issues, I am just a normal woman really.
You honestly stand to loose all of this. In the wts, relationships between men and women are not normal. You will have to put your family last because they will be "worldly." You own your own house - be prepared that this man will loose your financial security. It is true that if you marry him, he will have the "Biblical authority" to take over your finances. Yes this is all worst case, but it is entirely possible. Please take a few steps back and look at this situation again, for your sake, the sake of your parents and siblings, and your future.
Emma
When I was studying, I asked about going out in service and going to my parents for Turkey Day and Xmas Eve since so many family members would be there at once.
They answered, "Some JWs don't go out in service."
"Some JW's attend family gatherings like that."
Later I learned it was the JW's that are considered "weak" or inactive. It was the JW's that people talked about behind their backs. It was the JW's that got hauled into the elders or had shepherding calls asking either why they didn't go in service or why would a good JW set a bad example and attend a pagan holiday dinner.
Hi and Welcome,
If this man stays in the Cult DO NOT MARRY HIM, if you have children he will see indoctrinating the children it as necessary to there "eternal life". In doing so HE WILL follow a pattern of behaviors, "encouraged" by the Cult, which WILL include LYING to you on a regular basis and cause severe emotional damage to your children. I urge you to research this Organization paying particular attention to the interpersonal relationships between people involved in this dangerous high control cult.
This is the truth I swear it by all that is good
if anyone believes i am being missleading in any way let PLEASE post as much.
Nata,
Perhaps he's not that strong a JW because he's pursuing you as a mate. Perhaps he can understand that you'll be a neutral party. Oh, but then there's the love-bombing thing in the org that confuses so many into submission.
Please bear in mind that there are many demands to meet, specially if your husband gets into the frame of mind of getting more privileges, and he will because they encourage it highly for males, and this will bring great stress in the marriage. Of course, unless you get into the same frame of mind and go along with it.
Ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn, Nata, ruuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DY
Welcome nat
Your first words surprised me considering that it seemed you already have an opinion and want someone to change it, you said:
I have met a wonderful man but unfortunately he is a JW
Maybe you could restate that by saying I've met a wonderful man but unfortunately he lives a lie and likes to mold his life around it.
Would you go and invest your life savings without doing independent research into the History and background of company and its directors?
Did you know that ones in his congregation consider this man to be bad association for having a relationship with you?
Do you consider yourself bad association?
You sound like an intelligent and independent woman from your own description, use these skills to guide you now.
Sincerly Shotgun
Hello and welcome!!
I have been thinking of studying to become one but am also having a hard time finding anything on the net that is positive about it.
There's a reason for this - the people who have positive comments on JWs are JWs themselves. Another reason is JWs are warned against going on the internet because of the vast amount of ex-members who write about their life-damaging and heart-breaking experiences with the JWs. The Watchtower Society wants to keep people, like you, who are interested away from all these personal stories. They don't want you to see both sides of the story - only theirs.
I have met a wonderful man but unfortunately he is a JW.
Let me tell you a personal experience. When I was studying with the JWs (for 13 years without baptism), I tried picturing my life. I would have to go to meetings on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday (5 hours total), plus I would be required to go out in the door-to-door work and sell magazines. I wasn't a salesman, I was a problem-solver. Why should I take on a career that I wasn't interested in? Now, add doing this job with a wife and a couple of kids. Then I would also have to conduct Bible Studies with newly interested ones, and also have family studies, prepare for the meetings, etc etc. The amount of time consumed doing all this is unbearable especially if you're not a salesman. I couldn't picture lying to myself for the rest of my life, and living with a family who also lived this lie. It saddened me to think my future would be like this and often caused me depression.
Now, onto the actual relationship. No matter what, a JW is supposed to put God before his family. In a JWs mind, whatever the Watchtower Society says and does is what God says and does. Watchtower Society is equal to God. Since JWs are taught to love God foremost, even before their families, JWs are taught to love the Watchtower Society more than their own families. If you marry this man, his love for you will depend on how much you live your life according to what the Watchtower Society dictates. If you miss a meeting because you're sick, your husband will get on your case, and love will start going down the tubes.
Also, in case you didn't know, JWs have to marry before having sex. JWs have to marry JWs. If you end up with this man, this is EXACTLY how your life will go: You study the bible, get baptized, get married, have sex. JWs who date are taught that they must date only if they wish to get married. This is why so many JWs who are raised in it get married in their early 20s (or slightly younger). They aren't allowed to masturbate, therefore they have an incredible amount of sexual tension (and guilt if they do masturbate). The only way to fix all this is to get married.
In other words, what I'm trying to say is RUN!!! There are plenty of good men out there who aren't JWs.
Welcome, you've received lots of great advice here. Proceed cautiously but resolutely is the best advice I could give. You, for example, ask about the advisability of ``studying and then getting baptised in one year." Keep in mind that even if you acquiesce to a study for some time, getting baptism is NOT for you an inevitability.
If you feel a compelling need to make a first-hand, personal determination of whether what you've been told here-- overwhelmingly negative-- is indeed true -- and you are just a bit adventurous, you might consider ``living dangerously" by accepting a study and then asking your teacher all the hard questions about the WTBTS' history and practices that you will inevitably uncover as you search here and on other JW-related forums on the internet. Unless I miss my guess, THAT ought to be a real eye-opener!.
Of course, this isn't to say that the consensus offered here, i.e. ``run and don't look back" doesn't have considerable merit, because it does indeed.
