When did I discover this? I married at the age of 18, and it was doomed to fail? Why? I was brought up by an alcoholic mother and step father, life was miserable, told never to tell what was going on to other family members. My elder siblings left home as soon as they could to marry. At 16 I thought I was going to be left on the shelf! Mum and stepdad were very strict, and I was physically and mentally abused from a very young age. My 'real' father left when I was 2. When I met my husband, amazingly my stepdad approved of him, this was the start of what I felt was freedom!!! So I married at 18... but soon felt that something was missing. Because of being brought up by very unloving parents, and the fact that I always longed for a 'normal' family, a mum and dad who stayed together even at that young age I unconsciously made the decision that I would never divorce, and that any children we had would have a normal, loving family, something I had never known. So what was missing, it was many years before I found the answer to that. My husband was, to all intents and purposes, a good man. He worked hard. I loved him. Eventually we had two wonderful boys, but I suffered with depression and had done for several years. I looked outside my marriage within a year to find what I thought I was looking for. That didn't work. Then one day, as I was praying to God to help me find the answers there was a knock at the door... You guessed it, it was a JW, I had a study and was convinced this was the way forward, that to keep my marriage together and to give my children a happier life and wonderful future I had to become a JW. I ended the affair I had been having, confessed to my husband, cleaned up my life and entered a new life, clean and convinced this was to be the best way of life. My husband was baptized 6 months after me... we both felt it was a new start. So what went wrong? We both tried so hard to be good JW's, though it was usually me taking the lead. Although he was not a bad man, my husband was very wishy washy toward taking the lead. As time went on my depression didn't get any better, we had two more lovely children... My husband was made a MS, but then opposition struck big time in the way of an brother who my husband worked for. We discovered he was committing fraud, didn't quite go the organisation's way of dealing with it, though that would have been difficult as this brother (an elder) was in business with two other elders, also later on two other elders admitted they had been duped by him. This was the first of many difficulties we came across as witnesses. In the meantime we tried to help so many others that underwent persecution from within. We tried to be hospitable, helping those that were elderley or weak. During this time, my siblings all got divorced (one of them three times!) and this engendered in me the determination to make my marriage work. My husband was made redundant five times, and finances were always very tight, so as for holidays and present days for the children, these were very scarce. I felt continually more guilty because I felt I couldn't give them what I promised them, though I would never let them forget how much I loved them. Sadly, their dad never had the same rapport with them, and they always felt that he was on a different wave length. Instead of listening and reasoning with them, he would lecture them... going on and on and on. I tried to respect him for the good in him that they couldn't see as clearly as me. Before becoming a JW I had tried to leave him, I always felt that although he said he loved me, it was empty words, no real gestures. Once I became a JW I prayed and prayed to Jehovah to make me love this man as a wife should do. My second son was disfellowshipped at age 18 and also left home. I couldn't disown him, had always felt he should never have got baptized in the first place, and did so only as a result of peer pressure. At this time I felt my marriage was over and tried to dissassociate myself. The elders in the congregation wouldn't accept my disassociation letter, told me to take time out. I was arranging to move out of our home, when one day my husband walked out, he was gone a long while and I was worried he had done something stupid! It was after that, because I felt sorry for him that I suggested we try starting over again. We moved north where his family lived. I still wasn't attending meetings, then my eldest son's mother in law (see PaulJ's story) did something so horrendous! that was such a shock I felt that the only way forward was to return to meetings, it was only with Jehovah's help and that of the congregation that I felt we could cope. That wasn't the case. Later my daughter made the decision that she didn't want the truth, that although she had made some friends, that would be the wrong reason for her to stick with it and get baptized. At this time I started a counselling course, I wanted to train to be a counsellor for Alcoholics. We had to write an essay entitled Who am I... I had to look deep into myself to answer that, and that is when I discovered that all those years I had been pretending to be happy, pretending I was happy with my husband. I realised that yes I did love him, like a brother. I realised that he irritated me as much as he did my children. I also realised that I did not want to survive Armageddon to live with him in a paradise earth. What's more I didn't want to disown my children because they had used their right to freewill. Why was I a mother if it was to disown them once they decided to live their own lives independant of JW's and their parents. So I left, the witnesses after 22 years, my husband after 30 years. In all that time I tried so very hard to do the right thing, but always felt so guilty because deep down I didn't feel I could ever be a good wife, mother, JW. How do I feel now, not so guilty with regard to my ex husband. Shortly after I told him I wanted a divorce, he suggested I go out and ensure that he could obtain a scriptural divorce! I did... not proud of it. But he is soon to be married to a JW so am sure he will be happier than he was with me. I am happier, I am now with someone who truly does make me feel loved, cherished, valued. I am still ridden with guilt... but I have contact and a good relationship with three of my children which is so precious to me.
There is much more I could have added to this but have tried to keep it brief, also because it brings up too much emotion that I cannot deal with right now.
I realise now that I became a JW for all the wrong reasons. When push came to shove I could not give Jehovah 'exclusive' devotion, so in that I feel that I failed.
But I now know that I don't have to pretend any more, I can be me for the first time in my life!!! I just have to learn to be happy with who I am... thats the hard part, but at least I am honest.