My husband is still a JW. I am ten years older than he is. When we got married in 1987, he was freshly baptised 12/86 and I was in a year and a half by then. So we were in wedded and "spiritual" preparadasaic bliss at that time. I rapidly began to see things happening around me in the congregation, and in what I was reading, hat didnt add up. I became increasingly upset by things...tried talking to some of my sister friends indirectly about my concerns which turned their faces into total panic that I would ask so I backed off. I kept it allll inside of me to the point of bursting. It all came to a head when my best friend had an affair with a married elder, an elder in my book study his wife died and he married a worldly woman less than month later, an MS was caught taking young boys downtown Chicago to pool halls and introducing them to hookers, and they changed the Generation. I literally had a melt down. I stopped going to the meetings. My husband stopped when I stopped...mostly because he was incapable of getting home on time to get himself and three little ones ready (the SISTERS job of course) and so he used the excuse that it was "too difficult" to do alone.
I was on the internet defending the JWs even up to December of 1996 even with all that turmoil in my heart. My "Crisis of Conscience" even though I didnt know it had a name at that time. I had ceased going to the meetings...even the one in my own home. We were going through the Revelation Climax book AGAIN...and I just couldnt stand one more paragraph of "us us us, we we we, me me me, AINT WE JUST SO DAMN WONDERFUL and GOD LOVES US BEST" bullshit from that Organization.
My husband was quiet about my changes...he would cry that he didnt want me to die at armageddon, that he didnt want to be alone in the New System. I suppose at that time he thought he meant it, although he himself was doing NOTHING to further his own cause, no meetings, no service...never even cracked open a magazine. Then I decided I didnt want those people in my house ever again. I told him to tell the BS conductor he would have to move the meeting to the hall (which was only a half mile away). My husband didnt tell him...and so when Thursday night rolled around, Im sitting around in my sweats and 20 people converge on my home...and he naturally and as usual...doesnt appear until 7:25! I was so freakin furious I could have killed him. His excuse was that he didnt want to "hurt the friends, and obviously YOU DONT LOVE THE FRIENDS AND I DO!" I almost throttled him. For three years it had been ME who cleaned that house, set up those chairs, got our three kids bathed, clothed, fed and studied for those meetings, it was ME who made the coffee and bought the snacks for afterwards, and ME who went out in the sub zero weather and cleared the walks, and sprinkled salt and shoveled our driveway and the NEIGHBORS driveways so they would have a place to park in winter!! Its a damn good thing I didnt have something heavy in my hand. I sat in the corner of our bedroom just sobbing with anger at where I was in my life and he just sat there....and this with 21 people in my living room conducting a meeting like there was nothing unusual happening. The meetings MUST go on you know.
My exit was rapid after that....I went to the library and the only two books there about JWs were Crisis of Conscience and Blood on the Altar. I took both...and ran into the PO's wife on the steps of the library of course...jammed the books into the baby's blankets, made nice with the sisters and boogied home. Never looked back.
I had been conducting a study with my neighbor across the street for a long time...she knew my concerns as well. One day I was in the living and noticed the PO's wife's car pull up in front of that house and she and another elder's wife went INTO MY STUDY'S HOUSE!! I was FURIOUS! Without even talking to me they decided that I wasnt fit to conduct that study any more and took it OVER. They were there for over an hour. My neighbor who was my friend, raked them over the coals...they were starting to tell her that I was spiritually WEAK and that they were "making sure she got the proper spiritual guidance since Sister Hines needs to work on her own spirituality before she can be a teacher to others." My friend told them where they could shove their NWTs and kicked them out....then immediately called me.
I know this is long...Im sorry.
My husband was like "well what did you EXPECT them to do???" I said "I EXPECTED them to have the courtesy to DISCUSS this with me and since they never even said a WORD to me nor even inquired if I was perhaps SICK and needed HELP....then F*UCK THEM! They are a bunch of pompous-assed self righteous hypocrites and IM DONE WITH THEM!" He said..."well...then you know what you have to do. You need to give yourself back your joy." I just stared at him...that was like the last thing I expected him to say. And at that EXACT MOMENT...the pall lifted. I relaxed, I was calm. And I walked over to the computer and wrote my disassociation letter. And never felt closer to God in my entire life.
And...my husband hand delivered it to the elders for me.
There have been horrible nasty times since then in Jan 1997 where he has thrown his religion in my face, and Ive been shunned by his family and treated like shit by the "friends" around our new home...but I think I am making headway with him. I think he sees clearly but doesnt want to lose his family and friends as I did. He is on the fence too. As so many are. They threaten him...they tried to make him break up with me...the sisters come on to him...they treat him like a wounded bird, poor poor brother with the apostate wife. And he eats that up. But he hardly goes any more. Spurts of spirituality once in awhile is all.
But we manage to keep this marriage together by God because I wont give up on it. I didnt marry him becausee he was a JW. I met him because he was becoming one...but if that religion was all we had, then we had nothing.
If your marriage is going to go there isnt anything you can do about it sweetie. The religion will only be an EXCUSE for doing what was probably going to happen anyway. But she will use that as her excuse for the marriage failing and wont take any blame for it being anything BUT that. "My husband LEFT Jehovah and because He JOINED Satan...the marriage failed. HE cant stand to be around ME because IM WITH JEHOVAH." You know the schtick.
But you have to do what you have to do....or you will lose yourself...your mind, your heart, your sense of worth. And nobody is going to help you but you. Set aside the whole religion thing...and examine your marriage. If there is nothing else there to keep it together FIRMLY...then move on. I had to do this not only for myself but for my children. They needed mommy to BE HERE and as long as I was having such a horrible internal struggle I was removed from them. Now we have a life together. And I havent lost faith that my husband will come out some day too.
loveya
