While I was married to my then elder husband I had no idea how the family really felt about me.
I was so concerned about their feelings and taking care of everybody else and how my conduct reflected on Jehovah's name, I was completely oblivious to the lack of true friendship in the family.
It has been now 4 years since I have seen them. I still almost daily go over details of the past, trying to understand what happened.......why I cracked.
Not having a healthy sense of selfesteem it was so easy for me to take the subtle abuses for years and years from mother in law and husband and sisters in law.
My mother in law owned our house. We rented from her for 20 years. We got reduced rent in return for fixing it up...new flooring, fixtures, roof etc. that was great for us.
But she lived right down the street and would walk in without knocking right in the front door. We could not break her of this habit. As landlord and mother she felt a right to enter. After years of reminders she finally developed the habit of knocking and saying yoo hoo just as she opened the door and came in! She was not a witness and so we were very careful not to show anger towards her. Renting from her put us in this very bad situation. My husband refused to move us from there.
My sisters in laws were all snots. All elders wives. The older brother of my husband was not a witness. His wife was the only sweet sister in law but they lived on the other side of the U.S. The ones I saw daily at the hall would not give me the time of day. It was a source of pain to me and torture that I could not figure out a way to gain their friendship. My husband would always say I was making too big a deal out of small things. I had family parties. I gave surprise gifts and wrote loving notes to all of them. I had no children of my own and so loved all their children with all my heart and gave the children tons of support and auntie love at meetings, assemblies and conventions.
Well, I left that family and now have my new non JW family, my husband and his mom and his sister. My new sister in law is 20 years younger than me and a snot as well. So is her husband. By mistake one day I received an email from someone I did not know. Funny thing my name was discussed in the email and it was apparent the conversation was between this stranger and my new sister in law. It was not flattering to me.
Apparently my new sister in law forwarded a loving note I sent to her about how happy I was being married to her brother and how happy I was to be in their family. She forwarded the happy letter to a psychology colleague of hers for review. The stupid colleague made her critique and clumsily sent it to me instead of to my sister in law. My new sister in law feels my husband and myself are white trash or something. We live modestly in our canyon cottage instead of going into debt above our heads like her to live the showy display.
We have made the trip to Santa Barbara for the last 3 years to visit her and her husband for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We always bring her mother with us. Although visiting the Bay Area many times she and hubby have never visited us or called. Duh, wake up time!!!!
Now I am married to a man who loves me. Her name and the name of her husband has been stricken from our list of friends. We will never visit her again until she has a change of heart about her family.
Now that I do not represent Jehovah, my actions reflect how I feel.
