Hello again. So ... I don't know if any of this is even of interest any more, I know I'm getting kinda bored with it :) So many other more interesting stories out there. Anyway, limped my way through 17 years being a JW until now. Not a good JW mind you. Oh, I always behaved myself ugh! , but never really got into it, never really believed, oh, I know - lukewarm and Jehovah would vomit me out or something?Nice, hey? Well, now I'm even lukewarm-er, bordering on cold. Oh, I know, I'm among those who have "cooled off", and I like it! And now I'm babbling.
I was slacking off meetings and service more and more until this past year I've been to only a handful of Sunday meetings at the Hall, never comment, no service whatsoever, no mid-week meetings. Just listen in on the phone and if it wasn't for my husband I wouldn't even do that. I can understand now why the pressure to do all that stuff, once you start to take a breather it feels so good you want more, and before long the mind-controlled mind starts to clear and you can start to think for yourself again, and you have the time to think, and you have the time to read other things and you have the time to find a support group such as this! They rob you of your time, they rob you of yourself until you're just an empty shell and they fill you up with their garbage and condemn you if you don't want to be a trash can, spewing your garbage everywhere and on everyone - oh my! - should I delete that last bit? There goes the old guilt trip again - be nice!
So, my husband is much more "in" than I ever realized. Because he constantly picked fault, I didn't think he'd be so hard-nosed about my findings. My mistake. He's digging in ever deeper. It was all about people's flaws, and minor things like him wanting to keep his beard, not anything deep like things to do with the Governing Body, or the teachings, or the bible. He can't even discuss my new thinking and my new feelings with me - he goes right off the deep end. I've written before about him yelling at me that I was an "Apostate Witch" and he couldn't live with an AW and he'd rather be dead so he rode off on his motorcycle to kill himself - he was back in 2 hours - yeah, I know. What can I say? He loses it sometimes!
So he's determined to be a better spiritual head, that he takes responsibility for letting me down. So now the elders have taken to dropping by, and my husband insisted we attend a family study group at someone's home the other night, and I'm getting these phone calls from concerned sisters. Argh!! My husband insists he hasn't said anything to anyone, and he probably hasn't said anything that will get me into trouble i.e. about this forum, but has said enough about me being "oh so discouraged" and depressed and in so much pain from my back, etc. that they've finally clued in that this "weak" sister is in danger of "falling away" and they could be held accountable by Jehovah for never befriending me all these years.
I know I keep writing with so many quotation marks, and that's because I don't want to sound like them anymore but need to when I write about it all.
I feel like I should be getting to the point of why I'm here. I keep writing and now it's like I've written myself into a corner. I want help and I want to contribute, but feel that without my background you won't be able to help. Although you've done remarkably well up to this point, thank you!
In a nutshell - I want out of this cult and my still-in husband doesn't want me out and has a conniption fit whenever the subject comes up. I'd disassociate if it wasn't for him, I'm just so sick of it! If I were to disassociate he'd be miserable and make my life a misery. Wait, no, maybe I wouldn't even jump through their hoops at all. Just stop having anything to do with them. I haven't made any so-called friends, so there'd be no one I'd miss. I have no family in the truth, never have. I don't have the option of separating from my husband or I might take that route too.. I did that several years ago, even divorced, but we remarried.
I know for some there's no hurry to solve this, but in my case I feel there is, because of my age and maybe my mental health. I don't want to spend much more time on fading or whatever, I want to start living and stop pretending I'm just "so depressed", all that brings on is more "encouragement" - encouragement! humbug! it's guilt-tripping and pressure pure and simple.
So how does one live a double life? I know there are many on here who are. I'm not being dramatic when I say I feel like I'm DYING inside, feel like I want to throw up, when I'm at a meeting (or even listening on the phone), or when newly-interested-in-me sisters phone and want to come by, or when newly-interested-in-me elders drop by, or when I join my husband in prayer, or when he wants to read the daily text together, or when we listen to the governing body's monthly blurb.
Right now, this minute, I wish my husband would simply walk out on me. It's harder to have him around than not. That's not possible though, he's too needy! Plus we'd both be in the poor house.
That's my rant for now. I would love to hear from anyone, positive posts only, please. I'm normally pretty strong, but very fragile right now. LifesNotOver