Go to the meetings as you can, be nice, don't rock the boat. Don't share your personal views with the people there. She wants to be there with her husband, not alone. Fill the need. Don't badmouth the Society to her. Over time she will accept what you want to do, and you will be able to go less and less as you like. You can share with her, in an informative way the things that you have realized and feel about the WTS. This should be done in an atmosphere of normal sharing between spouses. Keep negativity out of it. let her know that you are just thinking for yourself.3. Once she is comfortable with things, help her to understand that this isn't for you, and you want to do other things with your free time. Nothing negative. Just that you need your time too, like she needs her time and she wants the Meetings. You don't stop her from the Meetings, and she shouldn't try and stop you from what you want to do. Mutual respect for one another.
Although I think this advice is very good, I think everyones mileage from it will differ. Mine was definitely different.
I tried going to meetings with my wife, being nice, not rocking the boat, just filling the need for me to be there with her. Sitting there listening to the same old veiled threats and tired rhetoric wore on me like a piece of chalk screeeeching across a chalkboard. My attitude progressed from conciliation and appeasing, to me being angry and scowling the morning before and the whole time sitting there at meetings thinking of all the other things I'd rather be doing than sitting their faking fellowship, to actually being sickened by even walking into a KH. At one time, I was literally barfing all the way from the car to the KH door.
Didn't matter to her....I made it to the meeting!
This had the oposite affect her coming to understand that I wanted something different. It didn't garner acceptance from her of what I wanted to do, rather, it reinforced the idea in her mind that I was going because I "knew that was where I was supposed to be" and that anything that produced in me a negative feeling about the meetings was Satan attacking me trying to drag me away from the truth.
Time and time again I had to tell her I have no desire to live a debauched life, wasn't "coming out of the closet", didn't plan on leaving her, was not abandoning a belief in God.........I just wanted to be Me!!!!
Normal sharing of feelings between us as spouses was fine......until any issue that dealt with the WT came up. I tired quickly of her heaping so much unfounded praise on the WT organization all the while ignoring the gaping holes in their worldview, how they were making me feel, and how they were beginning to make me increasingly uncomfortable. To her, my feelings didn't matter; all she wanted was conformity to the images she wanted to project and what was expected as a male JW in good standing reaching out for privileges.
It got to the point where I had to tell her that I could no longer define where her worship of the organization ended and where it began with worshipping God.
I remember one night in particular. She'd been going on and on grilling me for 3 or 4 hours straight about why I didn't want to go to meetings anymore and me repeating my same reasons to her over and over again, she telling me how I could do what I want to do and still make time for the meetings, me telling her as politely and PC as I could that I had no desire to go to meetings anymore, didn't care much for the rigid structure of WT dictated scheduling, eventually getting so sick to my stomache by the whole ordeal that I was driven to driviing the porcelain bus.
Coming out of the bathroom, wiping my mouth, unperturbed she began again...........and I snapped !!!!!!!
My tactful display had run it's course. My patience was at an end.
These events actually happened roughly 12 years ago. The exact details, though I'm sure I didn't get physically violent, are sketchy at best. I remember the anger inside of me boiling over and seeing red. I remember my muscles tensing, my lips moving, a few words to the effect of "this is MY LIFE........" being spoken, the initial terror and final resignation on her face messaging "you are hearing his final words on this issue".
Only then did she get the message that although I wouldn't stop her from going to the meetings, guilt trips, veiled armageddic threats, or force on her part wouldn't compel me to go any further. Only then, did I get the mutual respect I'd so craved the two years prior.
There were some tense moments in our home after that, usually occuring around meeting time when I knew she was doing everything she could to not ask or insist that I go with her. Those moments have turned into non-events now as she gets ready for meetings and comes and goes in her WT activities as she pleases.
I've come full circle from the barfing raving lunatic I know she thought I'd become, to the person I'm comfortable and satisfied with being. The personal growth I've realized has enriched and surprised both of us........I'm doing things I'd never thought possible or thought I'd have a chance to do when I was a dub. One hobby I've developed, flying single engine aircraft, had a couple of JW door knockers who knew me so green with envy that the next week they had a couple of elders over asking me questions about it.
Me and my wife share what I like to describe as a "comfortable truce" now. I've demonstrated that I had no intention of leaving her, if she wanted to continue in her WT activities I'd respect that and support her, but that I expect the same and will not tolerate the devalueing of things I like and hold dear to do just because they may be "frowned upon" by the congregation or the WTS.