Starting again at 50 with no friends?

eyeslice

No sympathy please. Generally, I never get depressed and am fairly resilient when having to cope with change.

However, after being ?in? all my life, I suddenly stopped everything last December. As a good Witness, I never used to associate with ?worldly? people, and now find I have no friends. Starting over again at 50 is challenging to say the least.I have had a number of ?concerned? friends pop in to see me over the past few months but certainly no invites to socialize.

On the positive side though, I have a very supportive wife and family, even though they are still in. I think they understand where I am coming from. Also, I socialize more with my business partner nowadays and even my wife is happy to go out with him and his wife socially.

Share your experiences ? good and bad

eyeslice

onacruse

((eye)) Man, in many ways that's just where I was at! When I joined this db I was 50, and I was lonely, angry, and bewildered. No friends (well, maybe a couple or three apostate throw-backs ), no social life, no idea (or desire) to ever be married again...just a bitter little bachelor in his one-bedroom apartment, surrounded by his closest friends: my books and my computer.

And here I am now...the love of my life and friends galore.

That's what I cherish most about JWD...it has been, and every week continues to be, an incredible journey of meeting new friends, and learning new things.

got my forty homey?

Since your already married I was going to tell you to get a roomate, but throw that plan out the window!

Just hang out here, you'll meet a lot of great people, and an occassional like me!

Sirona

Eyeslice

Its one of those things about leaving the Watchtower - they make it hard for you deliberately so that you might be tempted to go back. I'm considerably younger than you, but I can still relate. When I first left, I felt terribly alone. I ended up making a few bad choices about friends because I simply didn't want to be sitting in the house alone all the time. I made friends with a woman who ended up being no good for me, but then at the time it was a coping mechanism.

What I found worked was joining groups. Sounds corny, but if you can find the right thing, its a great way to form new friendships. I went out to events (even just seminars or talks locally), I joined one or two groups. It didn't take that long to find people who were willing to socialise and form friendships with me. Think of what you are interested in, and join.

I found that the JW experience helped me in this, strangely enough. I was used to socialising with all age groups, I was used to talking to strangers.

Chin up and good luck

Sirona

LittleToe

The fact that you have family will slightly hinder the number of additional activities you can take on, which are a great opportunity to meet people.
However I was greatly encouraged to hear that your wife will socialise with your business partner. My own wife was always against any such activity, so you have something positive there.

If you can continue to make friends, whilst involving your wife / family, that could help improve the situation, whilst reducing potential marital disharmony.

Personally I had to begin to lead my own life, to a degree, just to keep sane. I'm a gregarious person, by nature, so the idea of not being able to spread my wings and make new friends was anathema to me.

I started that process about six weeks before I DA'ed. The loss of my previous peer-group, upon DA'ing was a shock to the system, and far worse than I'd imagined. I lived to tell the tale, though, as evidenced here

Joyzabel

(((eyeslice))) & (((wife)))

go do some things together and meet people who enjoy the same thing. Whether dancing, boating, playing cards, etc, get out and circulate.

Unfortunately it takes time, but hey, you have the rest of you life. Many people retire or move at your age and start building new friends. Its just that as JWs we were not encouraged to do so but I know you can do it.

You two can always do some volunteer work that is dear to your heart. Or you can come here and yak with us, we understand.

If you ever get a chance to go to a fest with the good people here, do so. It soothes the soul.

Now go on out there and enjoy!

Joy

fader

I don't consider conditional friendships, friendships. They were never my friends, so I don't miss them.

And eyeslice, you know my situation and upbringing. I had nothing to fall back on socially. We bounced around from country to country so much when I was growing up that my so-called friends in the congregation were all I had. Yet at 18 I still managed to say enough! and move on. What helped me is that I went to college and met people whom I had intellectual interests, and developed some hobbies and met more people through that. I'm not the social butterfly type. I have few people I consider friends, but the people that I do consider friends are those people for whom I would give my life.

My mom tried to give me the whole, "where will you go, what do you have now speech", a clever way to try and make me feel powerless and alone, but realizing that the bros and sis' in the congregation were never my true friends made it easier for me. I turned to other interests. Perhaps you can do that too? Do you have hobbies? Do you like to collect stamps? Do you like vintage automobiles? Find something that gives you pleasure, is legal, and then find others that like those things. Then you form friendships based on common interests, and with time those people worthy of your friendship will come to the forefront and you'll have true friends.

Don't feel like you lost anything by quitting at age 50. You gained the rest of your life.

Nosferatu

I can somewhat relate.

I've only ever had one really close friend. He screwed me around a couple of years ago (I had a very recent post about him). I just ran into him a couple of days ago and he wanted to re-connect. I decided that having no friends is better than having friends who screw you around (in your case, only love you because you're a JW). It's not leaving people behind that have been around you all your life, but it can be done. I've made some other friends over the years. I don't have any real close ones, but I'm marrying a woman who is a great friend (and is good in bed to boot!).

Sentinel

It has been true with me, that being "alone" --without so much constant input and directive from others, gives one opportunities that other's don't have. It gave me time to truly review my entire life, and re-set some early cognitive responses from early childhood. It helped me re-shape my inner "world", so that I could live better in this outer world of reality, right here, right now. We are shaped so much by everything that surrounds us, and by the time most of us have worked hard enough to retire, raised children, etc., done all the things that we have been told "should" bring us peace and happiness, we still find a real "lack" of understanding as to who we are.

I left JW's finally when I was about 36. It took me until age 53 or so to be finally free of so much inner turmoil and emotional crap. I cannot entirely blame JW's for all these things; but their belief system certainly compounded it for me and my dysfunctional family. Things are so much better now.

A person really doesn't need lots of friends, just a couple true-blue good ones is fine. We all have many acquaintances. The person we really should get to know is ourselves.

/<

minimus

Get out and make "worldly" (normal) friends. Just do it! That's what I made sure my wife did before we left. She got back together with her family and their friends and we started accepting any of their invitations. I have, for years, associated with non-JWs and that's why I'm so well adjusted.

Starting again at 50 with no friends?

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