Coffee House Girl

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Posts by Coffee House Girl

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  29

  Dating after Divorcing a JW...

  by RagingBull in

  1. social
  2. relationships

  any experiences/advice on dating (moving on) after a separation or divorce from a jw?.

  i know that when (not if) i leave the org, my wife will probably separate then divorce me (and we have 3 small children).

  i only know of horror stories when it comes to that type of scenario.

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  Coffee House Girl

  My JW spouce DA'd and left over 7 years ago now, because of the whole "no scriptural evidence for a divorce" decree from the elders I was forced into singlehood for 5 years- parts of those five years were frustrating because of the JW circumstance but....

  that time gave me room to become independent, live on my own completely and learn about what mistakes I made the first time and what kind of person I would look for as a companion the next time.

  Now after leaving the organization I have found a very nice man who is really my partner and friend (very different from the kind of person I picked when in my 20's). I didn't date a lot either but I knew what a gem I had in Coffee Shop Guy when I found him!

  Best of luck- if your marriage ends my advise is to give it some time and don't jump into a serious relationship too quickly (having casual "fun" is only ok if both parties are emotionally mature to handle it so be careful)

  CHG
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  13

  NEW Young People Ask book - Mad Sweeney's Version

  by Mad Sweeney in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  young people ask - mad sweeney's answers.

  dealing with family.

  1. how can i talk to my parents?.

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  Coffee House Girl

  If only I had the mad sweeney version as a teen I would have avoided many many mistakes and not wasted so much damn time!!!

  thanks

  CHG
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  32

  Take a moment this Memorial Day weekend...

  by Mr. Falcon in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  "remember all the movies, terry, we'd go see .

  trying to learn how to walk like heroes we thought we had to be .

  and after all this time to find we're just like all the rest .

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  Coffee House Girl

  great sentiments Falcon, I raise to you and to my lost friends- josh & clay...here's to you kids

  CHG
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  13

  Questions from the Essay "Self-Identity and Growing Up in the Jehovah's Witnesses

  by Reopened Mind in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the essay "self-identity and growing up in the jehovah's witnesses" by marcela sherwin was an interesting commentary on how being brought up as one of jehovah's witnesses affects one as an adult after they leave the cult.

  only a small sample of ten adult xjws participated in the survey.

  i thought it would be interesting to read the answers all of you would give to the same questions.

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  Coffee House Girl

  sure

  1. I had very limited choices as a teen (one choice)- choice to become a regular pioneer upon graduation from high school, that was the pressured choice & thus I told everyone that pioneering was what I wanted to do. I had no choice to date until age 18 (witnesses only). I had an 11 oclock curfew upon age 18 & I was not allowed to go out with a group of peers (other witness teens of course) before that age

  2. no I was not in the "clique"- I was a nobody because my dad didn't go to meetings so all the kids with both mom and dad in the truth avoided me, didn't invite me over, or talk to me at the hall.

  3. I also did not fit in at school because I was the witness kid who could not go over to anyone's house or date or swear or get involved in sports- I WAS A SOCIAL LEPER

  4.I do feel free to have my own opinion now that I am outside the organization, I enjoy being open minded to many ideas & I enjoy observing how mainstream society works- but I do still feel like an outsider looking in. I get panicky at the thought of going to a party or meeting a group of people socially- going to school and work is fine & I can interact with others normally but I still bring up my JW past often to people who have no idea what is involved in leaving the WT society.

  5.I have one friend, my fiance. I have trouble relating to people enough to have a desire to form a friendship- thus in many ways I still feel very isolated.

  6. Not personally for my issues leaving the WT, fiance and I did receive pre-marriage counseling where my issues were the main focus of many of the sessions.

  7.I do not think of myself as a good person because of my JW upbringing, I dont think I turned out any nicer than anyone else. Many of the things that I do that others percieve as good, upright, and responsible are the result of fear and following a set of rules- not because of a genuine desire to do good. I think that is an important difference between myself and other "good people" who are good and were not raised in a cult- they genuinely like doing good and feel good about being a nice person. I feel in many ways like a fraud (always have been).

  thanks...it did feel good to get that off my chest

  CHG
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  33

  The Watchtower Penitentiary

  by stuckinamovement in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  learning the truth about the watchtower society can be very painful for a number of reasons.

  first, it is so disconcerting to realize that the core of your existence and the foundations of your beliefs are false that it can throw you for a real loop.

  as witnesses we are so confident in all of the answers we have been given, to questions that we never asked, that we mentally put ourselves up on a pedestal above the masses of poor, blind, wicked humanity.

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  Coffee House Girl

  As a fellow born-in I am rooting you on....GO SIAM GO!!!!!

  Thanks for that post, very well said indeed

  CHG
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  65

  I walked out of an Elder's Meeting

  by AlmightyDog in

  1. jw
  2. experiences

  well here goes... i apologize in advance if this turns into a long and disjointed rant, but i just have to begin typing in order to keep from exploding.

  i realize that what im about to say could seriously jeopardize my anonymity, but i think ive reached the point that i just dont care.

  i want this to be over.. let me explain what caused me to rip up a letter and get up and walk out in the middle of an elders meeting two weekends ago.. our boe has been embroiled in a nasty fight for the past 2 years over a certain brothers business dealings.

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  Coffee House Girl

  I also was the wife of a MS who DA'd himself out of the blue...he did not discuss his concerns with me (I knew something was not right with him a couple months before he left, but he wouldn't talk to me)

  So when he "ripped the bandaid" off- I was in shock, I was scared, I was hurt and angry, I couldn't hear his concerns then because I was so angry that he DA'd without discussing it with me

  He left and disappeared...left me with nothing but regret and lonliness

  it took 5 years of wasting away single with no scriptural grounds for remarriage to see the hypocracy of the elders and their "loving" counsel to me to finally have enough and fade away myself.

  Now I am with a very nice man who has never been a JW, but sometimes I wonder how it would have turned out if he had talked to me earlier....

  But you have to walk your own path AD, and for the first time in your life....you get to choose

  I wish you the best of luck

  CHG
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  2

  Did my wife really say this?! Didn't the Harold Camping prophecy failure teach her anything?

  by garyneal in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i was talking to my wife last night about various things.

  she is a woman who wears many hats, the student, the mother, the teacher, the witness.

  a lot of demands on her and she feels like she neglects her family the most.

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  Coffee House Girl

  Gary,

  yes unfortunately I can relate to your wife's stories of "plans for when the big A hits"- I grew up with my mom telling me that the elders were going to tell us where to go when Armageddon hits...like where? I would ask...my mom would tell me things like that we could hide in a cave or fall out shelter or something-

  all this did for me as a young child is have terrible nightmare about dodging things falling from the sky, tornadoes, etc...

  and my parents thought it was weird that I would memorize survival books as a child (how to survive a tornado, hurricane, housefires)....didn't they realize that it was because the big "A" scared the sh*t out of me????

  It is sad that this fear has to continue into adulthood for JWs

  CHG
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  47

  Sunday Drama-"Young Ones-Be Discreet and Wise"

  by CaptainSchmideo in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i briefly touched on the drama in another post, but i felt i needed to share in greater detail this latest masterpiece.. .

  this was the drama on sunday.

  the story alternates between the story of joseph, son of jacob, and a witness kid (forgot his name;billy?

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  Coffee House Girl

  Awesome!!!! Love this thread, & I can picture my whole family going on about how good this drama is and "how it really should make young people think"

  CHG
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  15

  Has anyone tried tactics from"Captives of a Concept"?

  by Coffee House Girl in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  just read don cameron's book...which was very en-light-ening (sorry for the "new light" pun)....and i agree with many of cameron's points about how to reason with a jw but i am curious..... have any of you out there in jwn land ever tried to have a witness come to your door, pretend to have a bible study & get the jw in a "teacher" setting where they have to research for you the history of jw's in the time of 1919????.

  were you successful?

  did it not work out?.

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  Coffee House Girl

  Thanks for everyone's feedback...I was slightly inclined to try Cameron's tactics if given the opportunity but....I think overall this book is best for exiting and exJW's. The whole 1919 issue was an "ah-ha" moment for me and I was glad to read it

  Thanks for recommending it all those on JWN!

  CHG
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  15

  Has anyone tried tactics from"Captives of a Concept"?

  by Coffee House Girl in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  just read don cameron's book...which was very en-light-ening (sorry for the "new light" pun)....and i agree with many of cameron's points about how to reason with a jw but i am curious..... have any of you out there in jwn land ever tried to have a witness come to your door, pretend to have a bible study & get the jw in a "teacher" setting where they have to research for you the history of jw's in the time of 1919????.

  were you successful?

  did it not work out?.

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  Coffee House Girl

  that is what I fear AN.....that unless you talk to a JW that is already "fading", you will get the same results as the author did when the elders in his cong told him that if the society is not gods organization that there is no god....

  thanks for your feedback!

  CHG