Mary i just wanted to commend you on such brilliantand true points. A precedent was set in biblical times for marriage with unbelievers. I love that some people on here on so familiar with their bibles - it is so helpful to me. I am learning so much every day from you bunch!
Crumpet
JoinedPosts by Crumpet
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39
Please Please PLEASE post some words of encouragement to my JW friend......
by PAJA ini will try to make this quick...... .
i have been with this wonderfull woman in a "relationship" for almost one year now (ive known her for 3 years).
she is jw and obviously i'm not, our relationship has gone almost exactly like many of the ones discribed here, hiding from parents, familly, church, etc.
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17
Number of magazines trashed by Publishers
by Nosferatu inthis was in the "dumbed down awake!
" thread:sure enough, the figure represents the number of magazines printed, not circulated.
it makes me wonder if the average magazine placements recorded in the km each month is actually magazines placed or the number of magazines printed, or shipped out of bethel.. .
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Crumpet
As a family we got about about 30 mags between us to place and as a cute 7 year old I remember it was a doddle to place mags and we often got given sweeties and fruit too.
I also remember when I got to about 14 or 15 and I wasnt quite so cute and how jealous I was that my cute little sisters could report far more placements than me, unless the door was answered by a man....
The best afternons were return visit afternoons, I used to be ecstatic when I placed mags at a door 8 or 9 miles away in a remote village because I knew we could count the time going back for the RV.
We rarely had enough watchtowers left for the sunday study and I think my mum was secretly proud touting around the hall on a Thursday asking if anyone had any spares for us to use.
We also had midweek arrangements where old mags were collected up from those who hadnt placed any at the tuesday book study and then taken out and given away to any interested householders, quite successfully as most householders were grateful to take a freebie and escape or so they thought until we turned up two or three weeks later with our rehearsed RV presentation - "Ihopeyouenjoyed the lastmagazinesibroughtyou and since you have a lovely garden/adog/beautifulhome/birdI thoughtyoumaybeinterestedinthearticleinourlatestcopyoftheawakewhichtalksaboutjustthat......anditsforasmallcontributionof25p"
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26
when you were babtized and dedicated did you feel a void?
by swiftbreeze inthis has always troubled me:.
i was studying to be babtized although i was raised around the "truth" i still had to have an official study.
so i was taught that i had to go to jehovah in prayer stating my desire to be dedicated and babtized.
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Crumpet
I'd like to share my baptism and dedication story because I felt exactly that void! It is very personal...
When I was 10 and had been removed from school by my parents because they thought I was too easily influenced by the wroldly kids after they found a rude poem in my lunch box I wanted to try and get back into their favour. So I said to my Dad, bearing in mind my mother had been baptised at theage of 9 (criminally young - how can you know your own mind and what it will be for the rest of your life at that age?), "Daddy I'd like to get baptised." I already felt like I was a year too old given my mother's experience. So my Dad said I should read the bible from cover to cover first and then come back to him. So I did.
It took me three years - the only books I really enjoyed were Song of Solomon, Psalms and Proverbs and action packed Genesis. I went back to him just after I turned 13, and said "I've read the bible Dad and I want to get baptised" one night in the kitchen as we were washing up after dinner. "And you;ve dedicated your life to Jehovah?" he replied. I floundered mentally - how could I have forgotten this bit, and not wanting to show myself up I said gravely "Yes Daddy" whilst mentally saying a very quick prayer in my head at the same time which went "Dear Jehovah I dedicate my life to you,injesuschrisnameamen", hoping that lying and making it into truth simultaneously was okay. SO that was my dedication - I think I had a it of a longer prayer when I went up to bed and I really did mean it, I meant that I wanted to make my parents proud of me and if that meant baptism then that too. I never imagined for one moment that I might get disfellowshiped or the consequences...
In my parents favour they never pushed me to get baptised - in fact the opposite they really tried to hold me back, ut the more they did the keener I became. And of course I did believe it was the truth and I also hoped that baptism would help them trust me more and let me have some more freedom to associate with the other kids in the congregation without them watching my every single move.
So I went through the questions faultlessly - I could answer everything using my own words and so the elders gave the okay. And disappointingly for me the next baptismal opportunity was at the district assembly - but I couldn't very well say actually I'd rather what for the autumn circuit assembly where more people I know are likely to be there. I was a skinny underdeveloped gawky 13 year old though and the idea of fewer people seeing me in a bathing costume encouraged me. So I spent the next few weeks purely concentrating on what bathing costume to wear. No one else from my congregation was getting baptised at that assembly that I can remember - just me. And then a day or two before the convention the worst possible thing happened - I got my period!
I knew about tampons but I'd never used one so When we went shopping I picked a packet up trembling and put it on the conveyor belt - Dad didnt notice but when we got home mum Humped and said you know how to use those do you? Embarrassed and defiant I said yes. I spent a whole night up crying trying to find where the hole was (sorry if this is too much detail - I just have to tell it the way it was). As far as I could tell from he exquisite diagrams on the little instructin leaflet from Tampax I didnt even have the right hole, but I was way too scared to ask or confess! I prayed and prayed for God to stop my period. I had visions of getting in the swimming pool which was not at the football stadium, but some public pool hired for the occassion nearby and bleeding everywhere. I can't tell you how afraid and traumatised I was and my mum didnt offer any help if she could have guessed what i was going through. The morning came and my period had not stopped and I sat through the baptism talk having to be nudged by mother to answer yes while I panicked horribly.
Then it came time to get on the coach to the pool. I borrowed my sisters little cartoon hanky in a fit of desperation. It was a blurr, in the changing rooms it was horrible - I had never undressed in front of anyone having missed out on that part at school and was terribly self conscious. there were no cubicles and I was really slow wishing I could hide or something. All the other women were so wrapped up in themselves they didnt notice little me - the youngest one there nearly crying and still praying that something would happen. A woman, and I hope she wasnt a sister snapped at me to get a move on as nearly everyone had gone through. So I did the only thing I could do and tucked the little hanky in the crotch of my pink shiney bathing suit and hands folded in front of my groin I trooped out like a lamb to the slaughter, slid into the pool and waded towards the nearest white tshirted John the Baptist alike and while I was being dunked all I could think and pray was "please God, dearest Father, do not let me bleed now". My parents were in a balcony area and took some pictures, and even at that great distance you could see the fear in my face in the photos.
It was horrible. It makes me feel sick and scared just reliving it now. I was relieved when I was dressed and it was all over and now looked forward to some presents and cards and congratulaions. But it seemed everone from my congregation had forgotten or didnt care. The only person who gave me a hug other than my parents was a very new bible study called Di who was a lovely woman with three unruly boys and a very opposing husband with hardly any money and she bought me one of the new mini NWt bibles which had recently been released and a card. It was awful, horrendous and an experience that I'd rather forget.
I went homefeeling defalted and awful and never felt any better about it, particularly as I harboured the suspicion that I had done it wrong by not dedicating myself properly first.
When I was trying to be reinstated when I was 17 I asked my Dad whether if you hadnt dedicated yourself your baptism still counted but he said maybe not but I couldn't own up to him what I had dne and the guilt I had carried all those years so I never pursued it further.
So in answer baptism and void and horror - all go hand in hand. I've never seen a horror movie that was as frightening as that paricular experience was to me.
Phew - I need a stiff drink! That was hard!
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Just can't get this out of my head
by jt stumbler inbeing recently self-dissassociated, i cannot get out of my head something that happened to me more than 20 years ago.
having studied much in my youth, and being the submarine witness that i was, i married at 19 and began my "worldly coarse".
i just knew it was the "truth".
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Crumpet
Hi Confession - here is a true story:
6 years ago my boyfriends parents gave us their airmiles and we went to Las Vegas for a couple of weeks. I loved the place so much that when I came back I bored my friends to death with going on and on and on about it for months after the holiday. I bought a pink skin tight tshirt sequinned with the words vegas and barely a day went by without me wishing, without expecting it to happen, that I would get to go again. I knew we couldnt afford to and that it was not going to happen for many years and only if I managed to save up. I've never been a great saver on account of thinking - why keep the money in the bank when it might just get destroyed at Armageddon when I could be eating/drinking/smoking/wearing something it.
One day I was lounging in my boyfriends lounge while he was in the bathroom and saw something in the bin (trash) with Marlboro Lites on it - so I plucked it out and it turned out to be a competition. It included 4 questions and a tie breaker the tie breaker being which American city would you like to go to and why in 15 words.
I wrote down "I would like to go to Las VEgas because they welcome smokers" (For anyone who hasn;t been once you get across the border from California there is a huge sign saying Nevada welcomes California smoking.
Anyway I wished/prayed for something really hard and in less than a year I had beaten all the odds through a tremendous,some would say, series of coincidences.
Now do I think that God did this? Nope and no more reason why you should think that he did with you. I agree its difficult not to see significance in it, but try to resist the temptation. Count up the coincidences that are definitely non God related that happen to you in one week and you'll be surprised. Hubby bringing home exactly what you fancied for dinner without you having said a word, friend ringing exactly at the moment you are wondering why they haven;t called in so long, or (TJKMO) listening to exactly the same track of music as someone else hundreds of miles away when its a barely known artist and you only got the album last week!
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66
How do you know when your spouse is cheating on you?
by Thegoodgirl inokay, i know this is personal, but i kind of like the annoninimity of the board versus asking my friends who are all also friends with my husband.. my husband went out of the country with a group from work this weekend.
i was supposed to go but had to cancel due to other stuff.
it turned out only 4 ended up going, my husband, a guy, and two women.
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Crumpet
I am an extremely possessive and jealous person who is trying to tone it down as my jealousy has spoilt many occassions for us and my boyfriend has says it makes him feel like shit that I think so lowly of him.
I could barely read this and all the posts in response, but you know what i believe your husband. I just don't think they'd hand over the phone so casually and that he wouldn't immediately sound nervous on the phone and start making excuses. So I agree with funkyderek.
However in your position I would be shaking, hysterical and furiously angry. I would like to think my boyfriend would be way to afraid of the consequences of doing anything extracurricular. I dumped my last boyfriend of 3 years just because he had kissed somebody - I knew he had even though he denied it. I think the way you can tell is that a man cannot help grinning a little like a schoolboy when confronted - its a nervous tic and not actually restricted to men as I have found myself at it when I've been foolish enough to lie about my own misdemeanours. Its a horrible grin and probably the most unpleasant look on another human being's face - well to me anyway, which is why I resolved never to lie like that again and better still never to be unfaithful again.
Next weekend my boyfriend has a work do and is staying at a hotel afterwards even though its only 20 minutes home in a taxi - I have been very unhappy about this and made it clear since I found out about it and it was causing terrible arguments. So now I have gone on the charm offensive - I don't think he wants to stay over so he can cheat with the only female who works in his office, but you can't help that niggle.
Like you I am afraid that the whole intense JW thing of no platonic relationships with the opp sex and chaperones for the most innocent things like my Dad taking an 80 year old sister home from a meeting requiring me to babysit them has warped us a little. We were taught jealousy from the very beginning so we can;t help being a bit more than normal. The way I see it is that I would rather be a little jealous than complacent and smug and the last to know if something is going on with my partner. To that end I do take measures discreetly and make it my business to know and get on with all of my boyfriends work mates and friends, never unless I absolutely have no choice throw up going out on a night out with him when I am invited. I also admit to checking all receipts although this isnt through jealousy 100% - I have to do it to make sure he keeps all the ones relating to work expenses which are frequent, and I do check his phone in front of him. I don't do it as if I'm checking I just have a quick look whilst popping it on to charge for him or to delete some old texts of mine to make room for new ones. So do what you can to check on him, and I would say unless the mutual friend you have spoken to has her own personal agenda then the best testament is what other people - your friends say about his general behaviour when you aren't there.
Trust your gut instinct, but gut instinct isn;t the same as irrational fears - so learn to discern between the two and when you can't do a little private detective work of your own. Its not failsafe and I am not for one moment saying your suspicions in this case are irrational. I would be initially ballistic, as I was when I read this but then I read again and I do think whilst he has been very unwise indeed (and I would say you were unwise too, even though properly motivated, to encourage him go if you know there would just be 4 people 2 of each gender) I think he sounds innocent. You'll know when you see him whether he was true to you or not, unless he is well practiced at this.
Don't panic, be loving and it is possible to sleep in the same room with the opposite sex and not do anything because I have done dozens of times - maybe I'm just not that sexy! EEEK
Hugs and let us know how things are when he gets home!
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Making contact with family
by Crumpet insome of you may know that my parents and whole family do not have any contact with me, apart from my dad who has provided his mobile number for "family business/emergencies".
i never try to contact them anymore after a negative experience after being beaten up trying to break up a streetfight last november when i called my dad and he hung up as soon as he realised it was me crying on the other end.. .
anyway - i decided that just because they want to forget about me i don't have to be the same anymore and i wanted them to know how happy i was.
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Crumpet
Dismembered I didn't mean they want out of their own choice to forget about me but I do think that they have written me off - I am as one who is dead to them. They have managed pretty well for nearly 15 years to not have anything to do with me whilst disfellowshipped. Last time I spoke to my mum or sisters was 7 years ago. I don;t think anything will change their mind ever, but I'm not going to let that get in the way of me being warm and friendly to them.
Do you know I agreed - no I offered not to attend my grandmothers funeral so that I wouldnt embarass them? I also texted to warn I would be in my home town 7 months ago so that they would not have to pass me in the street and feel embarrassed. Well no way am I doing that again. Next time I go back home I might just make a point of walking past the hall at chucking out time - one because well I'd like to know what they look like now and two so they can see me and remember that I am not a corpse. I am in fact alive, well and postively blooming! I radiate at the moment - everyone says so!
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Elders, has there been any "official" push to target and eliminate faders?
by AlmostAtheist inhey current and recently stepped-down elders,.
has there been any direction from the co/do/brooklyn areas to go after the people suspected of 'fading'?
it seems that we're seeing more and more folks getting elder's visits scheduled, like an explosion recently.
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Crumpet
i think it was important for the elders to LOOK as though they cared in 98% of the elders. However when I was working towards reinstatement in my early 20's in a new congregation where no one Knew me I experienced nothing but love and concern and help and they really recognised my efforts and diligence and would talk to me at the end of meetings which i found really helpful. However their interest just dropped off when I got DFed again within hours of being reinstated - can;t say I really blame them.
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Making contact with family
by Crumpet insome of you may know that my parents and whole family do not have any contact with me, apart from my dad who has provided his mobile number for "family business/emergencies".
i never try to contact them anymore after a negative experience after being beaten up trying to break up a streetfight last november when i called my dad and he hung up as soon as he realised it was me crying on the other end.. .
anyway - i decided that just because they want to forget about me i don't have to be the same anymore and i wanted them to know how happy i was.
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Crumpet
rebel8 - you are absolutely right, and I shall try to quash that whole superiority thing, but it is good to feel like the moral outcast they have made be out to be!
crumpet of the not looking down her nose class!
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Making contact with family
by Crumpet insome of you may know that my parents and whole family do not have any contact with me, apart from my dad who has provided his mobile number for "family business/emergencies".
i never try to contact them anymore after a negative experience after being beaten up trying to break up a streetfight last november when i called my dad and he hung up as soon as he realised it was me crying on the other end.. .
anyway - i decided that just because they want to forget about me i don't have to be the same anymore and i wanted them to know how happy i was.
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Crumpet
God I am touched as hell (thats two blasphemies - oops!) But honestly I am. Do you know how much it means to hear from people that I am a good person when I have always thought I was evil ... I am tearing up bigtime. I feel more supported and encouraged than I ever did in the whole 23 years on and off as a JW and thats from people who haven't even met me - physically.
How did someone as forgiving and loving as you, come out of those people?!!
What can I say? I feel better about myself than I ever had. Thank you.
I have to say my message to my Dad was actually inspired by the example on this board of the young lady from Australia - the one I think you were referring to MerryMagdalene. It got me to thinking why on earth haven't I tried to contact them with happy messages just showing that I love them instead of calling when I am at the bottom of the pit and unable to scramble out.
This whole board has given me a new mental and emotional health. I thank all of you from the bottom of my now ever expanding heart.
((((((((((((((((((((((((((((JWD Friends)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
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Please Please PLEASE post some words of encouragement to my JW friend......
by PAJA ini will try to make this quick...... .
i have been with this wonderfull woman in a "relationship" for almost one year now (ive known her for 3 years).
she is jw and obviously i'm not, our relationship has gone almost exactly like many of the ones discribed here, hiding from parents, familly, church, etc.
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Crumpet
I do feel for you and your girlfriend! The best thing you can do is show her that well meaning as most in the organisation are they are not founded by God nor are they driven by holy spirit. However after stringing you along and misleading you for a year and agreeing to marry you she owes you something and I would suggest that something is to take some time to investigate and research the organisation with as open a mind as she can manage. I don;t suggest this will be easy - I left when I was 23 and it has taken me 7 years to get to the point where I could examine the JWs in the light of day and fact and realised very emptionally how deceived I had been.
You will have dig this information out for her and all of us can help you with that if you can think of specific things that might help to open her eyes.
On the positive side - I can say it has taken me an awfully long time to get out mentally even though I physically left a long time ago, but it is SOOOO worth it. I am so happy and feel free for the first time in my whole life. I was never truly happy as a witness, I put on the smiles but I never ever felt it. As an ex witness I felt less trapped but still not happy, but having taken the time to study a little I know understand that I have nothing to be ashamed of. I was raised in a cult that thwarted my ability to question anything I was taught and that takes a long time to break through.
And you know she will have been told that the heart is treacherous and so is its desire and that she must not yoke herself with an unbeliever - ie you, but is she really prepared to pass up your lives together on the chance that an organisation she has never properly assessed or questioned might be right. She owes it to herself and you and to the children and grandchildren you could have to do some research. Research about the organisation is not allowed, but the first question she should ask is if there is nothing to hide why can you not look at the history of the organisation.
Be prepared for her to refuse to read anything you might print though my friend as this is forbidden also. I hope she loves you enough to give you a chance.
Hugs, Nina