I am looking for some advice to hopefully prevent me going mad.
My husband (an elder) was disf?d by the JWs 8 years ago for having an affair with me and consequently leaving his wife. He has 4 grown-up children and 9 grandchildren. One of his sons saw him about 4 times in 8 years and let him see his 3 grandchildren about twice. The rest of them have had no contact with him whatsoever.
I am not a JW (lapsed Catholic actually), but 3 years ago we started to go to meetings (at a different KH), together, albeit sitting at the back, no-one allowed to talk to us. 2 years ago we got married and Dan applied for re-instatement, he was refused and told to re-apply in 12 months, which he did and was refused again and told to re-apply in 6 months, which he did. This time the elders granted him ?an audience?. After dragging him through all his past "misdemeanours" once again for good measure, they told him to go away and re-apply in 6 months, which was up last month.
In all this time he has been compassionate and understanding of the action his family have chosen to take, even though it has caused him (and indirectly me) untold suffering and heartache, particularly with regard to the grandchildren. Neither has he ever put any pressure on me to ?join?. Dan always made a point of keeping in regular contact with disf?d people himself (another one of his past misdemeanours!), and he helped many of them, never putting any pressure on them to go back to the organisation.
But 4 weeks ago Dan, a fit and healthy specimen, collapsed and died 2 minutes after getting home from his usual 4-mile run. The messy business of dealing with his estranged JW family, and the funeral was bad enough (I won?t even regale you with that) although I maintained my dignity despite being furious.
As you can probably imagine, I am beside myself with grief and barely know what day it is, but I found a letter he'd written to the elders in his briefcase, re-applying for re-instatement. In my confusion at the time I gave it to an elder from our local KH who visited me, and asked him if he could see whether they would re-instate him anyway, because I know that is what Dan would have wanted.
The thing is, I know I am not in a great state of mind at the moment but I keep thinking if I don?t carry on going to the KH, what will happen to me when I die? Because all I want is to go wherever Dan has gone. And if they do re-instate him that means I have to be a JW too, doesn?t it? Except I don?t want to go there, I only went in the first place to help Dan get re-instated.
If these ramblings make any sense to anyone, please help, because I am terrified and there is no-one else I can ask.