John
Your story's details could easily fit what happened to me. It took me about 2 years of researching into the Luvvin Bruvvahood to realise that it was not the 'troof'.
Both my wife and I were kicked out in July this year because we got spotted going into a Christian Baptist Church when we were doing an Alpha course.
What a story I could tell you. What a story.
Since leaving, we've found more love in just one Church than we ever found in the whole world wide bruvvahood of Jaydubbleyou's.
JW love is conditional. Conditional on performance as you quite rightly said yourself. But we were never good enough. Never. No one is.
My wife spent 34 years in the 'trooooof'. I did 10 years and could've quite easily have stayed if my personal integrity wasn't suffering. As an 'appointed man', I saw, heard, felt and experienced so many acts of unlove that I started telling my wife that I just didn't want to go to the meetings anymore. This was obviously being interpreted by my wife that I was spiritually 'low'.
My response was, how could I be spiritually low if I was still doing talks from the platform that people would come up to me afterwards and tell me that I'd really encouraged them. The fact was however, that I'd also get approached by the P.O enquiring why I'd swayed from the Society's talk outline. I'd reply that I didn't feel that I had. But really, I knew that I had. I stuck to the Bible and Jesus' words, and not the Society's.
My talks had the congregation constantly flicking pages through the Bible because I felt that this was where the truth was.
I now know that the only truth is Jesus. He's the only way and the only life, and not an organisation.
So I'm out, and I thank God for answering my prayers. My wife has also come to Christ, and I thank God for that also.
I have this image in my mind...............
I'm looking at my old congregation building, and I see the words.....
'Kingdumb Hell of Jehovah's Wickednesses'
Like I said John, what I saw this year put the lid on them, once and for all despite the shunning that both my wife and I got even before we 'disassociated ourselves by our actions' as they put it!
God bless you for your desire to be with Jesus.
DLB
*PS-feel free to contact me if you wanna correspond and compare notes! I'm in the UK also.