I met my JW wife about 5 years ago. She DA'd shortly after we met and like most people I thought it was terribly strange and wrong that her family shunned her. For the first two years of our marriage my wife would call her parents on a fairly regular basis. Her parents would accept these calls in a polite, but cold manner. They seemed to have a whole set of rules for this limited contact. My wife could contact them, but they would never contact us. They could preach to us, but we couldn't express our own spiritual opinions. Topics discussed had to be non-religious, except when they felt like preaching. We could contact the parents, but not any other JW family members or friends.
After two years of this my wife simply stopped calling her parents. It seemed silly to keep following these rules and hoping that someday her parents might change. Our life went on and we were very happy despite the shunning and lack of contact.
As you know there are exceptions to the shunning rule. For example, you can unshun someone for business reasons. (I used to think it strange that someone would set aside strongly-held religious beliefs for business interests, but now I see that the WT is more of a business than a religion; so it makes perfect sense.) It seems JWs can also unshun someone for a family crisis (or at least my wife's parents believe this). About 5 months ago something very strange happened. My wife's parents called us! We knew this had to be an earth-shattering event and it was. We learned that my wife's worldly sibling had died unexpectedly. My mother-in-law let it be known that she was unshunning us for "the duration of the crisis". The last five months have been a flurry of unshuned events; with many personal meetings, funeral attendence, phone calls, estate questions, etc... For the first time in five years I really got a chance to know my JW in-laws. It didn't take long for me and my wife to decide that we really don't like them very much. Their behavior includes some very unchristian traits. They lie frequently, they're materialistic, manipulative, and downright dishonest in nearly every way. About a month into the 'crisis' I was longing to be shunned again, but it keeps getting drawn out as they seem to find one reason after another to keep in contact.
Now, I'm normally very patient and I tried to just wait it out; thinking they'd be shunning us again any day now. But after five months of this insanity my wife and I have decided to take matters into our own hands and have started actively shunning them.
The JWs I've met in the last few months seem to be products of the WT organization. They share many of the WT's character traits: materialism, deception and manipulation to control others. I used to think everything would be fine if they just stopped shunning us, but what my wife and I realize we really wanted was a "normal" family relationship; and that would require her family to change their ways and their thinking. If you're being shunned you may want to ask yourself if you really want to communicate with your JW family and friends as they are now. You may find that what you actually desire is a normal relationship; and that may not be possible while they remain JWs.
thinker